The Best and Worst of the Art World This Week in One Minute

Featuring Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei, and the Knoedler forgery trial.

Damien Hirst poses in front of his artwork entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living in the Tate Modern, 2012
Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty Images.
Geoff Moore, Kurt's Converse. Photo: KM Fine Arts.

Geoff Moore, Kurt’s Converse.
Photo: KM Fine Arts.

BEST
Check out these intimate photographs of Kurt Cobain‘s personal possessions, including beat-up guitars, scribbled-on sneakers, and even a heart-shaped box.

This botched David Bowie mural is an abomination to be sure, but it certainly has spawned some hilarious tweets from his fans.

Turkish police recovered a stolen, badly damaged Picasso canvas this week as part of an undercover sting operation. But wait—it may be fake, experts say.

The Armory Show is but a few weeks away, and here are some things to look forward to: sweet treats, a naked artist in a cage, a slowly-crashing car, and a giant, rusty nail.

Ben Davis on Anri Sala‘s grand, mesmerizing, complex New Museum solo show.

A courtroom sketch of the fake Rothko painting Domenico De Sole bought from Knoedler gallery.Photo: Elizabeth Williams, courtesy ILLUSTRATED COURTROOM.

A courtroom sketch of the fake Rothko painting Domenico De Sole bought from Knoedler gallery.
Photo: Elizabeth Williams, courtesy ILLUSTRATED COURTROOM.

WORST
The spectacle that is the Knoedler art forgery trial soldiered on this week, with testimony from scientist James Martin, art historian Jack Flam, Mark Rothko’s son, and Abstract Expressionist scholar Stephen Polcari, who admitted on the stand that he struggles to tell two Rothko paintings apart.

Speaking of fraud, art dealer Eric Spoutz has been accused of peddling fake De Koonings via a Connecticut auction house on eBay.

Ai Weiwei came under fire for recreating a famous photograph of a drowned Syrian child, whose lifeless body was found on a beach in Turkey in 2013.

Sotheby’s London Imp Mod sale fell short of its pre-sale estimate, selling Picasso‘s Tete de Femme for $27 million at a loss to the seller.

Damien Hirst doesn’t mess around when it comes to home improvement—he’s constructing an 82-square-foot subterranean pool below his London mansion, in addition to a yoga studio and a private art gallery.


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