AO Art Observed™

Paul McCarthy, Cultural Gothic (1992). All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

Art Observed was on site for the private Tuesday evening preview of the Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation show American Exuberance. Throughout 28 gallery spaces in a 45,000 sq ft museum, 190 works by 64 artists explore the American condition today through art, dissecting the paradoxical arenas of culture, economics, and politics. A 244-page catalog includes written commentaries by 13 of the artists from the notable roster, as follows: Thomas Houseago, Richard Jackson, Rashid Johnson, Nate Lowman, Richard Prince, Sterling Ruby, Haim Steinbach, Ryan Trecartin, and to name a few. About a quarter of the works were made in 2011 specifically for the show.  Also, Art Observed returned the next morning on Wednesday for Jennifer Rubell’s 11th annual breakfast, which is presented every morning throughout the week, treats visitors to a small jar of fresh yogurt, to be ‘anointed’ with honey dripping from the ceiling.

Collecting dripping honey at Jennifer Rubell’s Incubation yogurt and honey breakfast.

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André Saraiva and Benjamin Moreau man the DJ Booth at Le Baron. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

Beyond the red velvet rope, André Saraiva’s Le Baron party went well in to the A.M. on the first night of Art Basel Miami Beach, tucked beneath the Delano hotel in the Florida room. The first of several nights out, Le Baron kicked off the exclusive endurance test of the South Beach party week, many of the parties invite only. Hence, though the party certainly filled up with a diverse crowd of dancers, the fair’s gallerist and gallery goers were not in yet in full force, likely saving themselves for the rest of the long week. Mingling and dancing throughout, behind the DJ booth at times, Saraiva is notorious for his international pop-up clubs. Le Baron Miami originally took place in the basement of the Shelborne, where this year Savaiva’s other party, Paris Paris will also be happening this week.

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

An extensive collection of Ferraris, spanning decades of makes, models, and colors, filled the seven floors of 11 11 Lincoln Road on the first preview night of Art Basel Miami Beach. Officially a party in honor of Ferrari chairmen Luca di Montezemolo, hosted by Interview magazine, Peter Brant, and Tobias Meyer of Sotheby’s, the latest Ferrari 458 Spider was unveiled in shades of both red and yellow. The Herzog & de Meuron designed open-air parking garage could be seen glowing from blocks around.  RPM, a Ferrari-inspired 3D film by Marco Brambilla came to life with Wayfarer-esque glasses on hand.  While no doubt many enthusiasts would consider Ferraris to be works of art the event certainly leaned to the commerce side of the art and commerce equation and could be seen as a harbinger of some of the big ticket selling within the walls of the art fairs to occur over this week.

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‪‬Sheikha Al-Mayassa, daughter of the Emir of Qatar. named most influential person in the art world, among Gagosian, Zwirner, and Ai Weiwei, by Art + Auction; magazine early release today at Shore Club in Miami [AO Newslink]

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Will Ryman’s Roses being installed on Miami Beach. Image via The Art Newspaper.

Art Observed is on site for this year’s 10th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach which officially runs December 1–4, with previews and parties throughout the entire week beginning on Tuesday, November 29th. More than 260 galleries from around the world will be representing over 2,000 artists, not including the several satellite shows taking place simultaneously across Miami, including NADA, SCOPE, Pulse, and the original Art Miami—twelve years Basel’s senior. Attracting 46,000 visitors in 2010, the fair is expanding every year, with various collaborations and special additions celebrating its 10th. The Swiss-based Basel art fair installment in Miami has evolved into something that may have lost some of its innocence from its earlier days but in the end has become the definitive closing party for the art market’s year. There have been many previews and summaries of the fair, the following is our view of the week to come.

Hennessy Youngman, still from ART THOUGHTZ: Relational Aesthetics. Via Youtube.
Youngman will be speaking at NADA Deauville Beach Resort on Thursday at 5 pm.

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Tracey Emin, Postcard 386, via RCA

On Saturday, contemporary artists sold their work in the 18th annual“Secret Sale” at the Kensington-based Royal College of Art (RCA) in West London.  This was the largest “Secret Sale” in its history, with 2,900 postcard-sized artworks by 1000 invited artists, who included RCA postgraduate students alongside fashion designer Manolo Blanhik, Icelandic artist Olafur Elaisson, and artists Tracey Emin, Anish Kapoor, Yoko Ono, and Grayson Perry. The sale aims to conclusively raise £130,000, thus providing the budget for the RCA’s Art Student Award.

Setting up the RCA Secret Sale in October, via the Guardian

The namesake of the Secret Sale stems from its gamble: both longtime collectors and new buyers buy £45 postcard-sized works of art, without knowing if the displayed work is by a famously valuable artist until the signature on the back is revealed post-purchase. After the Secret Sale, works may go onto auction at prices as high as £16,000. The artists’ identities and works themselves are now on view at the RCA website, in the numerical order that they were displayed.

More text and images after the jump…

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Ellsworth Kelly, Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris (1949). All Images Via Haus der Kunst

Color field painter Ellsworth Kelly is known for his large-format paintings, as inspired by readymade and still forms in everyday life. The Black and White exhibition at Haus de Kunst in Munich showcases Kelly’s first complete exhibition of nearly 50 of his exclusively black and white works, which comprise approximately 20 percent of his entire retrospective collection. Black and White runs concurrently to Plant Drawings at the Pinakothek der Moderne through January 8th, also in Munich. Both exhibitions feature the newly developed Kelly in Munich app for iPad and iPhone products, which includes images, sounds, and notes on displayed works. The free app is available online in both German and English.

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Zachary Concepcion.

Maurizio Cattelan: All at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is the artist’s first and last retrospective—and should not be missed—according to Cattelan. Long thought of as both prankster and genius, Cattelan is known for his subversion of authority, and fittingly his retrospective challenges the traditional museum exhibition. His hyperrealistic statues and taxidermied animals question the norm with heavy and often humorous irony, while also carrying darker, more serious undertones, hanging like a gallows from the ceiling of the Guggenheim.

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‪‬Mideastern IkonoTV to expand to Europe, broadcasting its ‘Vision On’ channel showing only images of art, enabling viewers to fully “read” and enjoy important works albeit neither political nor profane [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Richard Prince shares his “unrivaled” contemporary American book collection; stating, “I like the gnarlier stuff” [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Gordon Matta-Clark 1976 film ‘City Slivers’ to screen on 22nd street building via High Line Channel [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Guggenheim Foundation announces six finalists for $100,000 2012 Hugo Boss Prize [AO Newslink]

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Hiroshi Sugimoto, Mathematical Model 009 Surface of revolution with constant negative curvature (2006). All images courtesy of The Pace Gallery unless otherwise noted.

The Pace Gallery‘s current exhibition, Surface of the Third Order presents a collection of cerebral sculptures and objects by Hiroshi Sugimoto. The exhibition features two groups of work: small crystal pagodas and larger aluminum sculptures. Surface of the Third Order is on view through December 23, 2011, displayed concurrently with an exhibition of twenty-four of the crystal pagodas at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.

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‪‬120 early Sol Lewitt photos displayed permanently on exterior walls of Mondrian SoHo hotel [AO Newslink]

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‪‬David Brooks creates ‘Desert Rooftops’ installation in Times Square in collaboration with Art Production Fund as part of ‘The Last Lot’ project [AO Newslink]

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Painter David Hockney named Most Influential British Artist of all time by other British artists, trumping the Young British Artists along with listed Francis Bacon and others [AO Newslink]

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Raymond Pettibon, Desire in Pursuyt of the Whole, 2011. Image via Re-Title.

In his current solo exhibition at Regen Projects, Desire in Pursuyt of the Whole, Los Angeles-based artist Raymond Pettibon shows a range of his works, from the more recent densely-woven collages to his well-known heroic surfers. Pettibon is one of the few artists whose work moves fluidly between the pages of Juxtapoz magazine and the walls of the Whitney Biennial, sustaining both the criticality of a conceptually-oriented practice and the cool ease of a graphic novelist.

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‪‬MoMA PS1 announces ‘Young Architects 2012′ shortlist for courtyard installation, one NYC finalist [AO Newslink]

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Franco, Ryan McNamara, and Nakadate, Three Performances in Search of Tennessee (2011)

In a one-time only, Performa 11 new commission, James Franco and Laurel Nakadate presented Three Performances in Search of Tennessee at the Abrons Arts Center on November 13, 2011. A loose interpretation of Williams’ famed work, The Glass Menagerie, Franco and Nakadate acted as directors and judges for the series of performers that participated in the work. Both an experiment in performance and a tribute to the renowned playwright, the work was divided into three distinct sections.

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Damien Hirst’s £50m skull ‘For the Love of God’ to be shown in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern during his first UK retrospective opening April 4th [AO Newslink]

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Ai Weiwei’s assistant investigated for pornography following previous tax evasion fines. Supporters show solidarity by posting their nude photos online [AO Newslink]

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An interview with stalwart gallerist Marian Goodman: “I promised myself I would not be swayed by an artist’s popularity or their money-making abilities” [AO Newslink]

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Installation view. All photos via Pace Gallery Site and the New York Times.

1941 marked both a beginning and ending for Alexander Calder. The artist was forced to give up aluminum as one of his key materials in support of the war effort—but not before having one of the most productive years of his life. That year, Calder dug into a number of approaches and techniques he had explored over the past ten years to create some of his best work. Now, the Pace Gallery in Manhattan is hosting a large-scale retrospective on Calder’s work from 1941, featuring some of his most well-known pieces as well as some rarely shown.

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All images via Performa 11.

London-based artists Ed Atkins, Haroon Mirza, and James Richards mounted their sizable art installation, An Echo Button, in the thick of Times Square. Claiming the massive Toshiba screens as their canvas, the artists showcased a series of video pieces that actively responded to the setting in which they were in, projecting a nonstop, multisensory experience. The commercialism and history that constantly infuse Times Square are the main subject matter in the video clips. Simultaneously, the signboards outside function as an “echo chamber,” highlighting each artist’s zeal to display sound in varying contexts while taking advantage of the multiplying powers of the Toshiba screens. The site-specific work explores the crossroads of multimedia installation on a titanic scale.

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