“After 17 years of running the businesses — 17 annual general meetings and so on — I looked at my schedule and saw that everything was repeating itself,” [collector Herbert] Looser, 75, says in an interview at the Kunsthaus Zurich, where his art collection is currently on show. “I wanted a different life. I didn’t want money for money’s sake, I wanted to give money a meaning.” [Bloomberg]

Gavin Turk designs embroideries for prisoners. [The Art Newspaper] Read More

Bernard-Henri Lévy: “Why contemporary art matters now.” [The Daily Beast]

Here’s a review of the unicorn–themed show at the Cloisters [The Economist]

Has Nigella Lawson left Mr. Saatchi, after photos were published in a U.K. paper that appeared to show him choking her? [The Royalist]

Is Charles Saatchi worried about his legacy? [Artforum]  Read More

UbuWeb founder and MoMA poet laureate Kenneth Goldsmith discusses his life, career. [Dazed Digital]

Apple used to have a sporty clothing line. [Good]

Holland Cotter on Zilia Sánchez at Artists Space: “one of the year’s high points, a revelation and a refreshment.” [NYT] Read More

Kanye hosted a surprise listening party in Basel and gave a lengthy speech. [The Daily Beast] 

Dasha Zhukova, Daphne Guinness and Tina Brown hosted a dinner in Basel in honor of Theaster Gates. [Page 6] 

Houston’s Menil Collection hired Michael Van Valkenburgh “to enhance and exand” its 30-acre campus. [ArtsBeat] 

Single-artist booths at art fairs tend to look great, “but is the risk paying off?” [The Art Newspaper]

Art Basel opens in a “Time of Turbulence for Dealers.” Said Pace Gallery’s president, Marc Glimcher: “The benefit of 20 small galleries that have stayed authentic is death by a thousand cuts to the big megagalleries.” [NYT]

Damien Hirst is still at work on that spot painting with one million spots, and his spot-painting catalogue raisonné is almost done. [NYT] Read More

Kanye West reportedly wanted James Franco to star in an upcoming music video that includes an adaptation of that scene in American Psycho where Christian Bale listens to Huey Lewis and the News and murders someone. Instead a friend of Kim Kardashian is taking on the role. (Mr. Franco, of course, figures in a show called “Psycho Nacirema,” organized by Douglas Gordon at Pace London.) [Page Six]

“Blum & Poe begins hunt for Manhattan space.” [The Art Newspaper] Read More

A tour of New York with Pussy Riot. [NYMag]

More Pussy Riot. [NYT]

Artist Chris Larson builds a house by Marcel Breuer, then burns it down. [NYT]

The Whitney just relaunched a piece of Net art by Douglas Davis from 1995. Here is how they decided to make it run on the Internet of 2013. [NYT] Read More

Glenstone, Mitchell Rales’s private museum in Potomac, Md., has snapped up the collection of Toronto–based former dealer Ydessa Hendeles. No one is naming a price, but Hauser & Wirth brokered the deal. [NYT] 

Rita McBride has been named director of the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie. [Artforum]

A project in Britain will plaster huge posters of Read More

Carmelo Anthony talks about his art collection, and Swizz Beatz discusses working with Damien Hirst: “He’s a brilliant man, and he’s got a lot of brilliant stuff coming. I am happy to be his student. To say that I am a student of Damien Hirst is like, I can retire.” [Page Six]

Tony Read More

The Minneapolis Institute of Art acquired a major collection of Japanese art as a gift and purchase from Willard “Bill” Clark and his wife Elizabeth. [ArtsBeat]

Here’s Tino Sehgal’s juicy acceptance speech for the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. [YouTube via Blouin Artinfo]

“2011: Art and Transmission,” by Michael Sanchez. [Artforum] Read More