AO Art Observed™

Grayson Perry, The Frivolous Now (2011). Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Copyright Grayson Perry. Photo: Stephen White

In the The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman, Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry curates a show combining treasures from the British Museum‘s permanent collection and a selection of his own works. The show focuses on honoring the craftsman, the many men and women who have anonymously created craft objects throughout the ages, displaying contemporary objects alongside creations from the past two million years, according to the press release.

Green glazed composition staff-terminal in the form of the god Bes sitting on a lotus flower with a monkey between his feet. Egypt, 664-332 BC. Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum

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‪‬Graffiti artist David Choe was paid in Facebook stock options for painting the walls of the first Facebook Headquarters, now estimated to be worth more than $200 million when Facebook goes public. Although the shares were less than .25 percent of the company, the payout may be more than Damien Hirst’s record-breaking $200.7 million Sotheby’s auction in 2008. [AO Newslink]

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Paul Cézanne, Card Players, Qatar, via Vanity Fair

The royal family of Qatar has just publicized its $250-$300 million purchase of Card Players by Paul Cézanne. The work is one in a series of five, but until now was the only one remaining in private collection. Previous owner, Greek shipping mogul George Embiricos, became receptive to the sale just prior to his death in 2011. Vanity Fair reports that William Acquavella and Larry Gagosian were outbid for Card Players, at comparable amounts rumored up to $220 million.  Even the low estimate of $250 million, factoring in exchange rate and tax fees, marks the highest sum in history ever paid for a single work of art in either auction or private sale by double.

Paul Cézanne, Card Players, Metropolitan Museum of Art, via New York Times

As the title indicates, the series depicts two low-brow card players in Aix-en-Provence. The peasants idealize an old world culture, nostalgic even to the middle-aged artist when he painted from his family’s country estate in the 1890s. At the time, Cézanne was working alone, and his isolation reflects in the sparing surfaces and minimal compositions of the varying card scenes. Only the subtlest of changes differentiate one painting from the next: most notably, the cards themselves change as the games progress, while the faces and suggestively sluggish interactions do not.

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‪‬Tino Sehgal commissioned for 2012 Unilever Series at Tate Modern in conjunction with London 2012 Cultural Olympiad [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning, widow of Max Ernst, has died at 101 in her Manhattan home [AO Newslink]

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‪‬VIP Art Fair set to open today for second year, including galleries Marian Goodman, Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner [AO Newslink]

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‪‬The Tate, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem jointly, through a time share structure, acquire Christian Marclay’s ‘Clock’ video work, agreeing to show in only one location at a time [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Prado removes black overpaint from what is possibly the earliest Mona Lisa replica, which may have been painted alongside DaVinci by a pupil, and will be unveiled mid-February [AO Newslink]

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Mike Kelley, via Interview

Los Angeles-based artist Mike Kelley (born Detroit 1954) passed away from apparent suicide in a state of depression, according to Helene Winer of Metro Pictures Gallery in New York. Kelley was represented by Metro Pictures for twenty years before showing with Gagosian since the early 2000s. His work often dealt with found objects and abjection, from sculptures and collages to performance and video, coined “clusterfuck aesthetics” by Jerry Saltz after his 2005 show, Day is Done. Kelley was also a proponent of punk, having been in bands throughout college, ‘Destroy All Monsters’ at the University of Michigan, and ‘Poetics’ at the California Institute of the Arts. Having held major solo exhibitions at the Whitney, LACMA, Tate, and Louvre, Kelley’s work is slated to be shown at the Whitney Biennial for the eighth time this year.

Mike Kelley, Arena #7 (Bears). Via the Skarstedt Gallery.

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‪‬MOCA announces 2011 acquisitions, including works by Cindy Sherman and John Baldessari [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Christie’s International sales rise 9% in 2011 as market-weary investors turn to classic contemporary art, with biggest sellers Lichtenstein, Warhol, Rothko [AO Newslink]

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‪‬New Museum Associate Director Massimiliano Gioni appointed Director of Visual Arts for the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, the youngest director in 110 years at age 39 [AO Newslink]

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Banks Violette. All images via Blum & Poe.

In his first Los Angeles solo exhibition, Brooklyn-based artist Banks Violette presents a body of work that blends the signifiers of diverse subcultural communities with the formal aesthetics of Minimalist and Post-minimalist sculpture. With their slick black surfaces, elegant physicality, and decidedly graphic sensibility, Violette’s works harken back to the machismo of 1960s sculpture, but with the added twist of nostalgia for the nihilism and aggression of a punk rock past.

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‪‬MoMA PS1 and Volkswagen unveil ‘Performance Dome’ for ‘Sunday Sessions’ this spring [AO Newslink]

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‪‬James Rosenquist interviewed by Vanity Fair about new full-room installment in MoMA, originally shown at Leo Castelli’s 77th Street gallery, “All you need to see my work is to bring your own intuition and sunlight.” [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Takashi Murakami to release “Jellfish Eyes” movie addressing recent earthquake/tsunami victims with CGI monster companions [AO Newslink]

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‪‬New Museum announces spring exhibition schedule (May through August) featuring focused solo presentations by Phyllida Barlow, Tacita Dean, Nathalie Djurberg, Klara Lidé [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Kunstmuseum Basel settles dispute with Malevich heirs, returning one gouache, “Landscape with Red Houses,” while retaining another and 60 drawings [AO Newslink]

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Robert Rauschenberg, Canto XIV [from XXXIV Drawings for Dante's Inferno (including KAR)] (1959–1960)

HIDE/SEEK, the controversial exhibition that was first featured at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, is now on view at The Brooklyn Museum. Exploring issues of gender, sexual identity, concealment, and transgression in modern America, it simultaneously presents both a eulogy for the irreversible past and a radiant hope for the present and future. The works subtly meditate on universal themes of love, companionship, interaction, conversation, transience, transformation, dissolution, loss, and death.

Installation view

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‪‬ Kunsthalle Zürich to reopen June 2012 post renovations which include an intermediate floor within the Löwenbräu art complex, and an additional white cube floor atop the building.

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‪‬’Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry’ awarded U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance at Sundance Film Festival [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Frieze New York announces 8 Frieze Projects from John Ahearn, Uri Aran, Latifa Echakhch, Joel Kyack, Rick Moody, Virginia Overton, Tim Rollins and K.O.S. and Ulla von Brandenburg, to be showcased at Randall’s Island Park in May [AO Newslink]

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‪‬ Madison Avenue Gallerist Robert Scott Cook of Cook Fine Art faces up to 20 years imprisonment for secretly selling one client’s 16 works worth $4.2 million by Picasso, Manet, Matisse and Renoir to auction houses [AO Newslink]

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