COURTESY TIME
TIME managing editor Nancy Gibbs explains why the magazine asked Irish artist Colin Davidson to paint Angela Merkel’s portrait for its “Person of the Year” cover. [TIME]
Barbara Rose interviews Claes Oldenburg. “My rule was not to paint things as they were,” he tells her. “I wasn’t copying; I was remaking them as my own.” [Interview]
Mary Boone discusses putting together Peter Saul’s latest show in Chelsea and the Pop artist’s late-career comeback. [The Observer]
Christopher Knight reviews the California African American Museum’s show “Hard Edged: Geometrical Abstraction and Beyond,” calling it “more a sketch than a finished show,” but “provocative” no less. [Los Angeles Times]
In October, performance artist Lech Szorper put himself in a cage to protest mass incarceration, and now he’s not the only artist making art about the subject—Titus Kaphar is also tackling America’s prison system in his new work. [The New Yorker]
Christopher Forbes, the vice chairman of Forbes, is selling his collection of French Second Empire art. The total value of his collection is between $3.3 million and $4.4 million. [The New York Times]
Chicagoan philanthropist Stefan Edlis talks about his wife and his major donation of 44 works of contemporary art to the Art Institute of Chicago. [Chicago Tribune]
Deborah Kass discusses her new show at Paul Kasmin Gallery, which includes paintings of lyrics from Katy Perry and Rolling Stones songs. [The New York Times]
In artist Molly Crabapple’s illustrated memoir, “art is a tool for action.” [NPR]