Abramovic fans..don’t miss this great video, courtesy of my pal Howard Silver. Click here to watch.

The video includes artist interviews, as well as footage of Abramovic in her Hudson warehouse, sorting through her archive in preparation for the MoMA show.

She also discusses plans for transforming the warehouse into the Marina Abramovic Institute for Long Duration Performance Art. Art must be longer than six hours to qualify.

Lawrence Weiner, via Canandian Art

Prints by pioneering Conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner will be sold beginning Wednesday, April 28, at 20×200,  the online purveyor of limited edition artworks.

Weiner’s prints will be available in four sizes, priced from $50 to $5,000. (The $50 version will be 8 x 10 inches, in an edition of 500). As is 20×200′s usual policy, those on the mailing list get early notification, so if you want a first stab at a Weiner, go here. To see Weiner roll a cigarette and diss Helvetica, go to video here.

The Bronx-born Weiner, 68, is among the most established names to collaborate with three-year-old company. 20×200 has previously offered work by emerging newbies, as well as a sprinkling of marquee names, including photographer William Wegman, (see my previous blog posting here) and Mike and Doug Starn, the brothers whose Big Bambu project was recently erected on the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s roof.

Weiner’s evocative text-based installation art was featured in a recent retrospective organized by LA MOCA and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Times Roberta Smith’s…

Schwan on left; Oka Doner in her palm inspired necklace on right

Cruising down Madison Avenue after visiting the new Upper East Side Marianne Boesky Gallery, I noticed the chic duo, PR maven Andrea Schwan and artist Michele Oka Doner, standing inside the Christofle store.

Oka Doner has applied her organic aesthetic to several silver and jewelry items she designed for Christofle. These include a rather stunning silver collar, cast from palm fronds and named the Palmaceae. Oka Doner was wearing one. It retails for $2165.

Ghada Amer "For a Friend" 2008, via Cheim and Read

Egyptian artist Ghada Amer joined Cheim and Read, the Chelsea outpost representing artists Louise Bourgeois and Jenny Holzer, among others, last year. Her first solo show with the gallery opens May 6.

Cheim and Read have one of the strongest rosters of women artists, including ten out of 26 listed on the gallery’s website.

Amer, the subject of a survey show at the Brooklyn Museum in 2008, was previously represented by Gagosian Gallery.  She is best known for her use of embroidery thread on canvas.

The notoriously private Basquiat estate, headed by the late artist’s father Gerard Basquiat, is selling several artworks this spring at Sotheby’s. While the works are said to be mostly minor examples, the sale itself is unusual. The estate rarely sells artworks, according to sources. Income is mainly derived from royalties from merchandise and products.

One possible explanation for the sale is a move to raise cash to pay estate taxes in connection with the death of the artist’s mother, Matilde Basquiat, who died in November 2008. When Jean-Michel died in 1988, he left no will, according to sources. A lawyer explained to me that it is likely that the artist’s assets were split between the his parents who never divorced, but were estranged.

Sources didn’t how much art the estate contains, but one informed person said there are a large quantity of paintings.  Jeffrey Deitch, Tony Shafrazi and John Cheim are among a few dealers who have regularly sold Basquiat over the years.

There is also an authentication committee which includes Cheim, collector Larry Warsh and Gerard Basquiat.

Peter Brant’s Jeff Koons’ sculpture, Balloon Dog (Orange) has departed pastoral Greenwich, Connecticut for Park Avenue. The reflective coppery-hued stainless steel pup is parked in the lobby of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building at 375 Park Avenue, owned by real estate developer, collector and Brant pal Aby Rosen.

The Koons has been installed on Park Avenue for about a month. It is surrounded by a black velvet rope. The sleek Philip Johnson designed lobby is open to the public.

The Balloon Dog is among the most desirable pieces from the artist’s 1994-2000 Celebration series. Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen owns a yellow version, which was installed on the MET’s rooftop in 2008.  Eli Broad owns a blue one and Francois Pinault has the magenta version. It is worth upwards of $20 million.

Brant hasn’t commented on whether the Koons is on loan, or has changed hands, or is for sale. Brant’s recent financial woes have been chronicled here and here. Calls to 375 Park Avenue weren’t immediately returned.

Read my May 2009 Bloomberg News story on Brant and his museum here.

Harvey Shipley Miller lived in a Park Avenue townhouse, received up to $200,000 a year in salary and $100,000 in travel expenses as the sole trustee of the Judith Rothschild Foundation, according to an article in today’s New York Times, found here.

The list of perks goes on. Miller donated $130,000 in foundation funds to the University of California where he created a fellowship named after himself. At MoMA, a curator’s position was named after Miller, not Rothschild, in connection with a monster drawing collection donated in 2005.

One wonders why was Miller the foundation’s sole trustee, with no apparent oversight? Whomever advised wealthy painter Judith Rothschild to structure her foundation in that fashion obviously gave her bad advice.

The Times story does a great job laying out the tale, revealing how Miller’s control over the Rothschild foundation — which included millions plus 10 Mondrians and Brancusi’s Muse — landed  him board slots and committee seats at the MET, Whitney and MoMA. (The article doesn’t explain what happened to the artworks. Do they still belong to the foundation or has Miller been selling them off to fund…

Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei took part in a talk last night in New York about the web and social activism, hosted by the Paley Center for the Media. I attended courtesy of Larry Warsh, whose AW Asia helped fund and organize the event.

Weiwei spoke with Jack Dorsey (beamed in via satellite from SF),  the youthful Twitter inventor and co-founder, and Richard MacManus, founder of tech blog ReadWriteWeb.  Emily Parker moderated.

Weiwei — who has vocally opposed Chinese oppression in the past –  criticized the Chinese government for widespread censorship and lack of freedom of speech. He said he felt a responsibility to speak out since so few others do. “Nothing can censor me as long as I am alive,” he said. The artist said he uses Twitter for up to 8 hours a day, as a news source and barometer of world views.

He expressed frustration to Dorsey that there is no Chinese version of Twitter and that only around 50,000 Chinese have access to the English version. “Twitter is the tool of the people,” said Weiwei.…

Art fairs aren’t the only way to move quantities of art.

Dealer and technology impresario Jen Bekman, whose 20 x 200 website markets affordable prints, sold over $100,000 worth of work by William Wegman on Feb. 3. Today she sold 220 prints by artist William Powhida–in two hours.

Bekman has recently begun collaborating with more established artists on her virtual gallery. The website, founded in 2007, is best known for marketing images by young and mid-career names. (Bekman also runs a bricks and mortar gallery on Spring Street, founded in 2003.)

The Wegman project was a clearcut hit. The artist offered a pair of photos: About Four Thirty, a portrait of a graceful Weimaraner balancing on a chair, and The Architects, inspired by Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel.

The set was available in four sizes. The 8 x 10′ for $100 sold out as did the 16 x 20′ versions at $200. Prints for $150 and $2000 remain available.

Bekman also produced a successful project with Mike and Doug Starn. A series of a black and white images of a majestic tree, priced $20…

Giacometti’s slinky ‘Walking Man I’ dominated the Wall Street Journal‘s front page after selling for 65 million pounds or $104.3 million at Sotheby’s in London on Feb. 3,  becoming the priciest artwork sold at auction.