figure sum to early Banksy agent Steve Lazarides Rain Embuscado It's every gallerist's dream to discover the world's next big artist. Thanks to a seven-figure endowment conferred by a prominent Qatari investor Wissam al-Mana, gallerist Steve Lazarides has been given reason to dream a little bigger, according to the Financial Times. Lazarides is known for his early associations with English artist Banksy, although their professional relationship ended in 2009. "We haven't really spoken to each other in a long time; to be honest, I have no idea where he is," the gallerist explained about parting with the artist in a 2010 Vanity Fair interview. "And it gave me much more capacity to work with everyone else. It was an amazing ride and I wouldn't be here without it, but I don't necessarily miss it."Lazarides plans on relocating Lazarides Rathbone Gallery out of Fitzrovia and into London's posh Mayfair district. "I have spent every single penny we have made in this gallery to reinvest and to try to grow it," he told the Financial Times. His curatorial direction will likely find a welcome home in the affluent neighborhood, having already caught the attention of al-Mana. Art seems to be al-Mana's next market frontier, as he already runs the family's retail empire. According to their website, the Al Mana operation has hands in a bevy of industries including real estate, automotives, engineering, entertainment, media, fashion, technology, and now art. The Wall Street Journal reports that Lazarides, although he no longer represents Banksy, recently organized an unauthorized retrospective for the street artist in collaboration with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. According to Lazarides, this move was spurred by the work's political appeal amidst a climate that finds Turkey home to two million refugees. Pace Art and Technology Officially Opens as First Major Gallery in Silicon Valley Cait Munro Silicon Valley finally has its first art gallery, and it comes by a name you probably recognize, at least in part: Pace Art and Technology. The 20,000-square-foot space by the internationally renowned Pace Galleryis dedicated solely to showcasing contemporary digital artworks, a fitting mission for America's most tech-savvy town. The gallery comes thanks to local collector Laura Arrillaga Andreessen, who purchased so much art from Pace she actually inspired director Marc Glimcher to start making house calls. "In the beginning, Laura Arrillaga wouldn't travel, so I would bring art to her house, and then her friends started wanting me to bring them art too. And she said, you know, it's a little tacky to be doing this in my house, why don't you use my dad's old run down Tesla shop?," Glimcher told the Guardian. It appears Glimcher has figured out what it takes to get the tech crowd interested in art: telling them they can't have it. The inaugural exhibition at Pace Art and Technology features an immersive installation by teamLab in which nothing is for sale. In fact, viewers actually have to pay $20 admission to view the multi-room light installation. "I didn't come and say I'm going to make Silicon Valley like art. It just happened," Glimcher said, noting that "there's a certain standoffishness to art here." The exhibition, "Living Digital Space and Future Parks," had a formidable crowd on opening night which included Arrillaga Andreessen and her husband, as well as Silicon Valley royalty like Laurene Powell Jobs. teamLab, a Japanese art collective formed in 2001, identifies as "an interdisciplinary group of ultra-technologists" who navigate the fine line between art, tech, design, and the natural world, drawing inspiration from sources such as ancient Japanese art and anime. Many of the digital light environments in the Pace show are being exhibited for the first time in North America. The Wall Street Journal reports that less than a week after the high-profile opening, at least three of the supposedly not-for-sale works have in fact sold, and several others by the art collective that were not on display have been purchased for prices as high as $450,000. Pace Art and Technology and teamLab present "Living Digital Space and Future Parks" will be on display until July 1, 2016. Kunstmuseum Basel Reopens in April with New $100 Million Building Hili Perlson After a year of touring the world, Basel's world class collections can finally return home. The Kunstmuseum Basel, one of the largest and oldest public art collections in Europe, will reopen in April ahead of the major European fair Art Basel, following 12 months of closure. The museum's main building is a staple of every visit to the Art Basel fair. Built in 1936, it has undergone extensive renovation in the past year. Meanwhile, a whole new building—designed by Basel architects Christ & Gantenbein, who presented their project at a press conference in Berlinon Tuesday—has been completed just a stone's throw away. The new wing, which cost CHF 100 million ($103 million), is connected to the main building with an underground tunnel, and echoes its neo-classical architectural elements and stone façade. This adds a third exhibition space to the institution's existing main building and its second house, the Kunstmuseum Basel Gegenwart—previously the Museum für Gegenwartskunst (Museum of Contemporary Art)—which was renamed this past Friday. The first exhibition in the newly-erected building is titled "Sculpture on the Move 1946-2016,"and will open to the public on April 17. The show is a survey spanning seven decades of works in the medium of sculpture, and includes artworks by Alberto Giacometti, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, Katharina Fritsch, Félix González-Torres, and Oscar Tuazon, among other artists. It is also the last show curated by outgoing director Bernhard Mendes Bürgi. The final change in this eventful year for the museum will take place in the summer, when Bürgi retires and is succeeded in September by Josef Helfenstein, who stepped down from his position as director of the Menil collection in Houston last summer after 12 years. During its one-year closure, the Kunstmuseum Basel loaned parts of its holdings to be exhibited in other museums around the city, but also in international institutions. At the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, the museum's loans proved to be a crowd magnet, drawing some 550,000 visitors in six months.
