AO Art Observed™

Bjarne Melgaard, The Casual Pleasure of Disappointment (Installation View), all images courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

On view at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac’s location in the Parisian neighborhood of Marais is the first solo exhibition from the controversial, yet highly respected Norwegian painter Bjarne Melgaard. Entitled The Casual Pleasure of Disappointment, The exhibition is a collaborative effort confronting themes inspired by French film director Catherine Breillat.  Known for confronting taboos and shocking audiences into self-reflection, Melgaard takes his cues for his new exhibition exhibition from Breillat, whom he has elevated to the role of a mythical figure. The works in this exhibition center around the 2014 film Abuse of Weakness, and take a shared interest in the beauty industry’s manipulation and domination of perceptions and judgments of others as a generator of profit and cultural currency.

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La Coiffeuse, a 1911 Pablo Picasso painting stolen from a Centre Pompidou storage room in 2001, has been recovered, after customs officials at the Port of Newark found it in a package marked with the words Merry Christmas.  “A lost treasure has been found,” said US Attorney Loretta Lynch.  “Because of the blatant smuggling in this case the painting is subject to forfeiture to the United States. Forfeiture of the painting will extract it from the grasp of the black market in stolen art so it can be returned to its rightful owner.” (more…)

A Swiss Businessman was arrested in Monaco this week, on charges of reportedly manipulating art prices and money laundering.  Yves Bouvier, the owner of several “freeports,” where art is often sold without duties, was detained this week, after authorities uncovered an alleged plot to defraud several clients, including Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. (more…)

A banner placed in an Oscar Murillo installation was forcibly removed by a museum security guard at the Centro Cultural Daoiz y Velarde in Madrid this week.  The sign, which Murillo had taken from protestors against the museum’s high price tag and public funding, was installed in a work playing on the intersection of aesthetics and protest, and was eventually placed back on view after the artist complained.  “This is a work in motion,” the artist said. “What I do depends on the things happening around me.” (more…)

The New York City Ballet has noted a marked uptick in young attendees in recent years, an indication that their efforts and commissions, like Dustin Yellin’s current project with the institution, are seeing successful returns.  “We had a hypothesis that there might be a crossover interest between the visual arts and dance, particularly the kind of repertoire that we have — which have an abstract and contemporary feeling,” Katherine E. Brown, the company’s executive director said. (more…)

The annual figures by Artprice have placed 2014 as another record year in the art market, with $15.2 billion in works sold at auction in the past year, including a record 1,679 sales worth $1 million or more.  “More museums were created between 2000 and 2005 than during the entire 19th and 20th centuries,” says Wang Jie, president of Artprice.com and Artron group.  “A museum needs a minimum of 3,000 to 4,000 quality works to be credible… (and) is not meant to get rid of its acquisitions.” (more…)

Luc Tuymans, The Shore (2014), All images courtesy David Zwirner Gallery London.

The Shore, a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Luc Tuymans is on view at the David Zwirner Gallery in London through April 2, a new body of work from the artist credited with helping the revival of painting in the early 1990s.  Since his early work, Tuymans has continued to produce compositions that interrogate and intervenes in the definition of this medium. He was one of the first artists to be represented by David Zwirner, joining the gallery in 1994, and The Shore marks his second solo exhibition in the space since Allo! marked the opening of the gallery’s first European location. (more…)

Virginia Overton, Untitled (2015 ), all images courtesy White Cube

On view in London at White Cube in Mason’s Yard is an exhibition of new large-scale minimalist sculptures by American artist Virginia Overton. The exhibition is Overton’s first in the UK.

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The Museo Jumex in Mexico City is facing criticism after canceling an exhibition on the work of Hermann Nitsch, the Vienna Actionist painter whose frequent use of blood and animal viscera led to the institution calling off the show.  “This is a different kind of shocking,” Nitsch said.  “They wasted a lot of money. They wasted my time.  I was very, very sad.” (more…)

A pair of brothers have been arrested in Spain following the sale of a fake Goya painting.  The brothers’ attempts at selling the fraudulent painting was rewarded with more trickery by their customer, reportedly a sheikh who  paid them 1.7 million in fake, photocopied Swiss Francs (€1.5 million).  The brothers were arrested after the smuggled counterfeits were discovered in Avignon. (more…)

The Art Market Monitor has published the letter from investor Mike McGuire of Marcato Capital to Sotheby’s, in which he lays out a plan for a stock dividend and increased returns.  “Despite our dialogue with you and other members of the board, a substantial portion of Sotheby’s invested capital continues to earn a poor return or worse yet, earns noreturn at all,” he writes. (more…)

The Telegraph profiles the immense demands that the month of March place on art dealers and gallerists each year, with three major fairs (TEFAF, The Armory Show and Art Basel Hong Kong) sending them on a tour to cater to buyers around the globe.  “Fairs are a necessary evil,” says dealer Ben Brown. “I prefer the quieter contemplation of the gallery, but I sell more at fairs, and I make more contacts.” (more…)

Allora & Calzadilla, Raptor’s Rapture (2012) all images courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art

On view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is an exhibition of recent work by Puerto Rico-based artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. Entitled Intervals, the projects on display allude to the notion of the interval: “the time between events, the measure between two points in space, or the range between musical notes.”

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The Guardian has published an article examining the comic sensibilities of René Magritte, and his deliberately succinct style of painting that some liken to its own brand of a visual punchline.  “Magritte always claimed he was against interpretation,” says Professor Elsa Adamowicz. “His images suggest narratives or meaning, but that meaning is suspended, as in our dreams.” (more…)

A group of heirs to a Jewish art dealer have sued the German government over a collection of Renaissance-era artworks valued at $226 million.  The works were reportedly sold under duress during the Nazi rise to power, although hard details about the sale are somewhat murky.   “Any transaction in 1935, where the sellers on the one side were Jews and the buyer on the other side was the Nazi state itself is by definition a void transaction,” says Nicholas O’Donnell, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the case. (more…)

The Guardian traces the controversy surrounding Constantin Brancusi’s The Wisdom of the Earth, a sculpture that has long sat at the forefront of the Romanian consciousness as a national treasure, but which is currently being put up for sale by its owners.  “The truth is that it is an iconic sculpture for Romanians; it’s an iconic image that is present in all the books about our national identity. The state used it a lot in its cultural propaganda and transformed it into an icon of the Romanian soul,” says Alexandru Baldea, managing partner of auction house Artmark, which is selling the piece.   (more…)

Despite improved relations between the United States and Cuba, the Art Newspaper notes that the island’s government still refuses to return art seized by the government from exiles during the 1960’s.  “In most of the articles you read about missing art in Cuba, the question is—where is the piece? That’s not my issue. I know where it is, I just can’t get to it. There’s no method of my claimed ownership being adjudicated,” says Javier Garcia-Bengochea, who claims Francesco Guardi’s View of the Lagoon between the Fondamenta Nuove and Murano was seized from a family member’s home.  The painting now sits in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, with no success in getting the Cuban government to return it. (more…)

Allora & Calzadilla, The Bell, The Digger, and the Tropical Pharmacy (2013), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery

Cross Section of a Revolution, on view at Lisson Gallery in London, brings together seven artists and pairs of artists whose work explores questions of trade, contested territory and trauma in a global context. These substantial themes are approached through a variety of mediums that speak to both individual and collective experiences in Central Asia, Pakistan, Kenya, Europe and the United States,opening lines of inquiry into aspects of cultural and political fragmentation, and reveals strategies for art and aesthetics in relation to cultural, geographic and religious division. This group exhibition does not shy away from inspiring or explicitly asking large questions about the nature of globalization and aesthetics. For instance: how is a modern understanding of culture, politics, and religion shaped or impacted by a continual flow of visual information?  (more…)

Rothschild heiress Bettina Burr and her family, holders of a sizable collection of artworks once looted by the Nazi’s during WWII,  have donated a sizable portion of her works to the MFA Boston.  “I always felt in the back of mind that the thing I would love the most would be if these pieces came here,” says Burr, currently vice president of the museum board of trustees. “I think my mother felt that it would be a homecoming for these pieces.” (more…)

Hedge Fund CEO Ken Griffin has gifted $10 million to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, a donation that will help construct the museum’s new gallery wing which will now bear his name.  “Ken has been a consistent and generous supporter of the arts in our community,” says Director Madeleine Grynsztejn.  “We are extremely grateful for this important gift, as it will support our Vision Campaign and bring exciting, innovative exhibitions to diverse audiences in Chicago and beyond.” (more…)

Subodh Gupta, This is not a fountain (2011), via Ross Maddux for Art Observed

Subodh Gupta’s most recent show at Hauser and Wirth is an exercise in the personal.  Long known for works combining the intensely personal with broader social constructs and ritualistic approaches to the art object, his current exhibition places an even more central focus on the intensely personal, communal relations life in India, and his emphasis on the unifying, material structures over which daily life proceeds. (more…)

Call and Response (Installation View)

Since its establishment at its Broome street location in 1994, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise has stood as one of the stables in the New York gallery scene, maintaining a distinct profile partially due to its non-Chelsea location and partially by its founder’s ubiquitous presence in the art world. Brown himself emerged in the 90’s as one of the young dealers in the then-booming market, and built himself into one of the world’s leading dealers, proven by his inclusion into The Guardian’s 2014 list of ‘the most powerful people in the art world’. (more…)

On Kawara, July 16th, 1969 (1969), via Art Observed

Taking On Kawara’s work at face value, one could imagine that the artist had been preparing for years for a career retrospective.  His near-endless stream of date paintings, accounting records for every book he read or person he met, and his series of postcards and maps are a record of the artist’s daily experience as he lived it, leaving behind a steady stream of locations, times and movements from each day of his life. (more…)

Jésus Rafael Soto, Ambivalencia en el espacio color no. 12 (1981) all photos via Galerie Perrotin

On view at Galerie Perrotin, both in Paris and in New York is a double exhibition dedicated to Venezuelen artist Jesús Rafael Soto, who lived from 1923-2005. Curated by Matthieu Poirer, the exhibition is comprised of around sixty works created between 1957 and 2003, drawn from the estate and from various institutions.  The title of the exhibition, Chronochrome, is meant to describe “the kinetic exploration of the monochrome,” a reference to the filmic production process that underscores the artist’s interest in multiple layers of carefully executed optics, creating a subtly shifting and alternating space within works for the viewer to discover. The eye’s movement back and forth, often between the two layers, the artist hoped, would produce a sense of visual vibration and a new perception of color.

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