Miami painter thought $1m Ai Weiwei vase was Home Depot-style pot

A Miami painter who destroyed a priceless Han dynasty vase in a “spontaneous protest” at the city’s new art museum claims he thought he was smashing a cheap garden pot. Maximo Caminero said he picked up the ancient urn from an exhibition curated by the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei at the Pérez Art Museum […]

Ai Weiwei Vase Is Destroyed by Protester at Miami Museum

MIAMI — Officials at the recently inaugurated Pérez Art Museum Miami confirmed on Monday that a valuable vase by the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei had been deliberately destroyed by a visitor in what appeared to be an act of protest.

Who’s the vandal: Ai Weiwei or the man who smashed his Han urn?

An attack on the Chinese artist’s installation in Miami has been condemned as an act of vandalism. Why is smashing art only acceptable if an acclaimed global artist does it? A “protest” at a Miami art museum raises some questions about what exactly art is, now.

Public Art, Beneath a Bridge

The underside of the Granville Street Bridge in Vancouver will be turned into a surface for artworks in lightboxes as part of the Vancouver House project. The forgotten urban area under the bridge is being reclaimed as part of the development. Westbank Projects is planning to bracket the main section of the bridge with low-rise buildings and […]

Petr Pavlensky: why I nailed my scrotum to Red Square

On a snowless but chilly afternoon early in the Moscow winter, a 29-year-old man with a gaunt, emaciated face stepped on to the vast expanse of Red Square. He made his way to a spot on the cobblestones not far from the marble mausoleum housing the waxy corpse of Vladimir Lenin, and began to undress. In […]

First major Actionist show comes to Britain

Violent and sexual precursor to performance art is dramatically laid bare in new exhibition. Brus and his fellow Actionists, Otto Muhl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, have been explained away as the upshot of Austria’s failure to come to terms with Nazism, as an extreme manifestation of the sexual revolution, a logical extension of action […]

The “Painting Is Dead” Versus “Painting Is Back” List

We’ve been debating painting’s death for centuries now, and it seems we can’t quit. In 1839 the late French painter Paul Delaroche first dared to say those fateful words “painting is dead.” But even now nobody can agree if it’s dead; painting’s been reborn more times than we can count, thanks to critics who declare […]

Parents of the Judd-Climbing Kid Speak

Remember the kid who climbed on the Donald Judd sculpture at the Tate Modern? Well, her parents have taken to the London Evening Standard to set the record straight. They want the world to know that their daughter, Sissi Belle, was only on the sculpture for a matter of seconds and meant no harm — and that the nine-year-old […]

Our nine-year-old was just being ‘anti-establishment’, say parents of girl who climbed on $10m Tate Modern sculpture

The fashion-designer parents of a young girl who shocked art-lovers by climbing on a multi-million pound sculpture at Tate Modern today said their nine-year-old daughter was simply being “anti-establishment.”  “It’s not right, but they were just interested. Their only crime was to be seduced by a ladder of jewel-coloured shelving. Sissi has always been anti-establishment […]

What NOT to Do with Kids in a Museum

Bushwick gallerist Stephanie Theodore is at the Tate Modern today and spotted this hilarious/sad/incredible/unbelievable (so many mixed emotions) scene of parents allowing their child to use a Donald Judd sculpture as a … er … a bunk bed.  In response to my question of whether she actually took this almost-hard-to-believe scene she responded: yes.  I told […]

Martin Creed: What’s the point of it? Hayward Gallery

Silly, serious and a sensory delight. Work from the artist who won the Turner Prize turning the lights off and on. If you’re suffering from the January blues, hurry to the Southbank Centre where Martin Creed’s exhibition is bound to make you smile. The man best known for winning the Turner Prize in 2001 by […]

Walter Robinson’s New Year’s Resolution to Forget 2013

We begin 2014 with a resolution, and that is to leave all the unfinished business of 2013 behind—to be done with it, to turn our back on it and give it not another thought. After all, we don’t want to start the new year by getting distracted by all the unexplored themes and missed opportunities […]

The Art World’s Most WTF Moments in 2013 – Slideshow

From Lady Gaga’s infiltration of the art world to George W. Bush’s foray into self portraiture and cat paintings, there have been quite a few moments this year to which the ARTINFO staff could only respond with a resounding “WTF?!” Click on the slideshow to see 10 of the most baffling, despicable, and ridiculous art […]

He’s back … honestly! Chinese camouflage artist returns …

They may look like plain old photographs of road sides and supermarkets, but these meticulous images take hours to construct.  It is the latest series of camouflage trickery unveiled by artist Liu Bolin, or ‘the invisible man’, who made his name blending into the background of everyday scenes.

Kanye West’s “Bound 2″: Blame It on the Collector Class

Watching Kanye West’s “Bound 2” is about as joyous as romping through a stock photography website. The generic sprawling sunsets, mountain vistas, and gradient backgrounds are airless. Our two protagonists are large as gods, with Kim Kardashian reclining in the buff—though her nipples are airbrushed—playing a human hood ornament atop Kanye West’s motorcycle. These two celebrities, and a […]

Oops. I left my millions …

A View Inside the Art World:  Author Henry Alford attended the record-breaking auctions of modern art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, but to watch, not buy.  Henry’s hilarious commentary in the NYT on his experiences at the Christie’s including at the preview auction brunch: “Are you having fun?” he asked me.  “I am,” I said. “But […]

Grayson Perry: a master of rabble-rousing and little else

The critic of today’s art is ironically its biggest benefactor: Perry has taken a fifth-rate talent and made himself an old master. In the great game of contemporary art, Grayson Perry is a master. He has perfected the move that trumps all others: denouncing the art world from within. His Reith lectures, to be broadcast on Radio 4 […]