Currently on view at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a very significant retrospective of the work of Luc Tuymans,  a renowned artist from Antwerp, Belgium.  This comprehensive retrospective is the first American show of such scale for the artist. The traveling exhibition opened in September 2009 at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, then on January 3, 2010 it traveled to SF MoMA. The show will then travel to Dallas Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. The exhibition features seventy five paintings produced since 1975 to the present. The retrospective is co-curated by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (and former SFMOMA Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture), and Helen Molesworth, Maisie K. and James R. Houghton Curator of Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museum (and former chief curator of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts).

CCTV, 2009

More text, images and related links after the jump….

Luc Tuymans Orchid ,1998

Luc Tuymans Gas Chamber, 1986. The artist gained international recognition for his Holocaust-related work. The work is based on the sketch the artist personally made at Auschwitz.

Luc Tuymans Bend Over, 2001 caused a sensation at “The Rumor”, Tuyman’s show in London in 2001

Considered by many as one of the most important and influential artists working today, Tuymans draws on the traditions of classic Northern European painting as well as television, cinema and photography. Calling his work ” authentic forgeries,” Tuymans appropriates images from a variety of sources and makes use of cropping, close-ups, framing, and sequencing to offer fresh perspectives on the medium of painting as well as larger cultural issues.  Best known for his works that explore the Holocaust, most recently Tuymans turned his attention to more recent historic events such as the aftermath of 9/11 ( Proper series) or the uneasy relations between his native Belgium and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Mwana Kitoko: A Beautiful Young Man).

Luc Tuymans Ballroom dancing , 2005.

According to artist’s observations, dancing shows on television became increasingly popular among Americans after 9/11  the shows provided viewers with the opportunity to relax.  Tuymans believes that it is the predictability of ballroom dancing that gave the audience feelings of comfort.  He stumbled upon this image while browsing the Internet for the photograph of the Texas’ governor’s ball, as the seal on the floor suggests.

Chalk, 2000

Chalk, 2000  forms part of Tuyman’s series A Beautiful White Man, dedicated to the violent stand-off between Belgium and the Republic of Congo. This particular painting is based on the tragic assassination of the first black Congo president, Patrice Lumumba, whose body was mercilessly mutilated to prevent the creation of martyrdom status.

CCTV, seen at the top of the page, is one of the artist’s most recent works, where Tuymans examines the notions of paranoia and pop-culture. The present image is the interpretation of the popular European television show The Big Brother.

The Diagonostic View, 1992, a series based on the images found in a German physician’s handbook documenting various physical abnormalities.

Luc Tuymans was born in 1958 in in Mortsel, Belgium. He began his studies in the fine arts at the Sint-Lukasinstituut in Brussels in 1976. Subsequently he studied fine arts at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de la Cambre in Brussels, Belgium (1979-1980) and at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, Belgium (1980-1982). He also studied art history at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, Belgium (1982-1986). He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp in Antwerp, Belgium and was honored by the Belgian government when they bestowed upon him the title of Commander, Order of Leopold in 2007.
The works of Luc Tuymans are represented in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp, Belgium; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium; Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, The Netherlands; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany; Museum fuer Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; and the Tate Gallery, London, England.

Relevant Links:
The exhibition’s web-page [SF MoMa]
Works by Luc Tuymans from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art[MoMa]
The artist’s page at David Zwirner Gallery[David Zwirner Gallery]
Can my Colleagues be serious? [Wall Street Journal]
Why Paintings succeed where words fail? [The Art Newspaper]
Putting the Wrongs of History in Paint[The New York Times]
Flemish Master [The New Yorker]

Currently on show at Mitchell-Innes & Nash is a two person show featuring Joe Bradley and Chris Martin. The austere, often bare canvases by Bradley offer a dramatic contrast to the characteristically large, boisterous works exhibited by Chris Martin and so presented side-by-side, like a lecture in Art History, contrasting these sensibilities offers the viewer an opportunity explore the wide spectrum of today’s approach to the painting practice and, in turn, raises the question of movements in Contemporary art. The exhibition marks a continuation of an ongoing dialogue between the two artists from an interview published in ‘The Journal’ in Fall 2009 in which the two discuss an artists freedom to create without really knowing what it is they’re doing.

Untitled, Joe Bradley (2010)

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Untitled, Chris Martin (2010)

Chris Martin and Joe Bradley, Mitchell-Innes & Nash Installation View

Untitled, Joe Bradley (2010)

Chris Martin, who was first active in the mid-1980s and was known for his strong, graphic, highly textured abstraction. In this show he presents a number of enormous canvases that have been absent from recent exhibitions. Known for “turning up the volume” of painting, many of Martin’s works reference musicians including Miles Davis and John Coltrane. In this instance, he  makes direct reference to the ‘Godfather of Soul,‘  James Brown, in the work “Ain’t it funky” – an enormous, 135×114 collage consisting of seven of the musician’s records. Another of Martin’s  works on show consists of six stuffed bed pillows attached to a canvas in two rows of three vertical rectangles.

Hemlock, Chris Martin (2010)

Chris Martin and Joe Bradley, Mitchell-Innes & Nash Installation View

Untitled, Joe Bradley (2010)

The bold graphics, textures and colour so inherent in Martin’s work is entirely absent in Bradley’s bare-boned offerings – many of which are simply raw canvses with painted frames. Gone are the artists’s brightly coloured quadrilaterals that brought him fame at the beginning of the last decade. It is unclear whether these works, all made this year, are the product of a conscious effort to distinguish himself from Martin for the purpose of this show.

Big Glitter Painting, Chris Martin (2009-10)

Untitled, Joe Bradley (2010)

Last Optical Illusion of 2009, Chris Martin (2006-09)

Pillow Painting, Chris Martin (2007-09)

Untitled, Joe Bradley (2010)

Ain’t it Funky, Chris Martin (2003-10)

Chris Martin and Joe Bradley, Mitchell-Innes & Nash Installation View

Related Links:
Mitchell-Innes & Nash Homepage
Joe Bradley and Chris Martin by Roberta Smith [NY Times]
Studio Visit: Joe Bradley and Chris Martin [Beautiful Decay]

Yesterday, the beleaguered New York art dealer, Lawrence Salander, pleaded guilty to engineering a $120 million art investment scam that duped wealthy clients including tennis star John McEnroe and actor Robert De Niro and financial institutions like Bank of America.  The one-time co-owner and manager of Salander-O’Reilly Galleries LLC, admitted to an array of schemes, from selling shares of the same work of art to multiple owners to selling artwork and pocketing the proceeds.  Salander, who filed for bankruptcy in 2008, is expected to be sentenced to six to 18 years in prison and must pay $120 million in restitution to victims under a plea agreement. in which he pleaded guilty to 28 counts of grand larceny in state Supreme Court in New York.

more story and relevant news links after the jump…

“It’s a sad day for Mr. Salander,” attorney Charles Ross told Bloomberg. “It is, however, a good result for him and for those whom he is deeply remorseful about hurting. We are sincerely hopeful he will raise meaningful restitution payments.”

Related Links:
Ex-Gallery Owner Pleads Guilty In $120 Million Art Fraud [WSJ]
Lawrence Salander, art dealer to Robert De Niro’s dad, John McEnroe, to plead guilty to $100M fraud [NY Daily News]
Bankrupt Art Dealer Will Plead Guilty to Fraud, Lawyer Says [Bloomberg]
New York art dealer pleads guilty to swindle [Reuters]
Manhattan gallery owner pleads guilty in massive $120M fraud scheme [NY Post]
The Art of the Steal – full profile of the case [Portfolio Magazine]

The Philadelphia Museum of Art, home to one of Bruce Nauman’s earliest pieces, “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths” (1967), is showing two new audio series by this much beloved contemporary artist. With this new exhibition, he tampers with time: in both “Days” and “Giorni,” multiple voices recorded separately recite the days of the week. “Days” is in English; “Giorni” is in Italian, and was recorded in a single day. Both fill the echoing gallery spaces of PMA until the show’s close on April 4.

Story and related links after the jump…

An image of the artist, via ArtWeLove.

Curated by Carlos Basualdo and Erica Battle, “Notations” plays each track — each time narrative — through a pair of speakers. The speakers are identical in make. Time is told and retold, notated and annotated, to be experienced through the community of voice and/or through the isolated speakings. Or, the hearer chooses which narrative(s) to hear, as presented by the artist.

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1941, Bruce Nauman gained his MFA from UC-Davis. He is the recipient of an NEA grant and a Wexner Prize, and has been a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His piece “Topological Gardens,” the United States’s official contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale, won a Golden Lion. Solo shows include exhibitions at Tate Modern, London; Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; ICA New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and MoMA.

- R. Fogel

Related links:
Philadelphia Museum of Art [Museum page]
Bruce Nauman [Artnet]

Christie’s, London have announced that they will offer an important and highly celebrated masterpiece by Pablo Picasso in their evening auction of Impressionist and Modern Art in London on 23 June 2010. Painted in 1903, Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, gained notoriety as the subject of a lengthy legal battle over how it came to be sold during the Nazis rise to power in Germany.  The painting had been consigned for sale at Christie’s in New York in November 2006 but was withdrawn from the auction at the request of the vendor, The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, after an 11th hour ownership challenge from German Professor, Julius Schoeps, based on the sale of the painting in the 1930s. In January this year, representatives of Mr. Schoeps announced they had reached a settlement agreement with the trustees of The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation, relinquishing all claims of title to the painting. The painting was acquired at auction in New York in May 1995 for $29.2 million by The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation - a charity founded by the celebrated composer in 1992 to promote arts, culture and heritage in Britain. On this occasion, Christie’s have valued the painting at £30 million to £40 million – potentially, a record-breaking price for the artist – and all proceeds will benefit The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation.

Related Links:
Record estimate for disputed Picasso painting [BBC News]
Christie’s to Offer a Famed Blue-Period Picasso [Art Info]
Lloyd Webber to Sell $60.9 Million Picasso Portrait for Charity [Bloomberg]
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Picasso set to raise £30m for charity [Telegraph.co.uk]
Lloyd Webber’s Picasso to be sold after Nazi row settled [AFP]
Picasso’s Absinthe Drinker set for auction [Times Online]
Andrew Lloyd Webber to auction £40m ‘Nazi’ Picasso [Daily Mail]
Lloyd Webber’s Picasso Finally Set for Auction [NY Times]
Picasso owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber sets record pre-sale estimate [Guardian.co.uk]

Currently on show at Casey Kaplan Gallery is an exhibition of new works by Liam Gillick. This is an exhibition of three parts; however, each eloquently converse and all display Gillick’s familiar brand of socially motivated neo-Minimalism and neo-Conceptualism. The Discussion Bench Platforms in particular demonstrates Gillick’s concern for public/audience participation and integration into the work. Furthermore, it is another manifestation of Gillick’s attempts to level the balance of functionality and aesthetic quality. Powder-coated aluminum benches are set up in the gallery space to compliment new discussion platforms converting the gallery into a designated space for thought.

Liam Gillick, Discussion Bench Platform, 2010. Exhibition View

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Discussion Bench Platform Black, 2010.

The second part of the exhibition consists of sixteen prints based on the first scene of Gillick’s own play A Volvo Bar, which comprised the ‘short scenario’ section of his retrospective, “Three Perspectives and a short Scenario”, originally at the Kunstverein München. The performance took place within a gallery space adapted by the artist and involved a group of young local actors. The play was meant as a dramatic exploration of one of Gillick’s chief themes: the negotiation of models of communality. In this instance, Gillick has juxtaposed lines from the play with imagery evocative of Early Modern, pre-industrial European printmaking.

Discussion Bench Platform Grey, 2010. Detail

The final component of the exhibition, Everything Good Goes, is a video that was initially presented at the exhibition of the Vincent Awards at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, 2008.  During that year Gillick built a 3D computer model of the set – a factory – from the film Tout va Bien (Everything Goes Good), 1972, directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin. The film acts as a kind of portrait of the artist in the process of creating. Over the top Gillick plays a recording of a telephone conversation where the film producers outline their strategy for documenting the process of building the 3D computer model of the factory. Despite meaning to be a reflection of Gillick’s major artistic concerns of the last few years this part of the exhibition seems somewhat disconnected and is possibly the least successful element.

Discussion Bench Platform Grey, 2010.

A Volvo Bar I, 2010

A Volvo Bar II, 2010

A Volvo Bar III, 2010

Everything Good Goes, 2010

Everything Good Goes, 2010

Discussion Bench Platform Red, 2010

Discussion Bench Platform White, 2010

Related links:
Liam Gillick: Discussion Bench Platforms, A ‘Volvo’ Bar + Everything Good Goes [Casey Kaplan Gallery]
Liam Gillick “Discussion Bench Platforms, A ‘Volvo’ Bar + Everything Good Goes” [Time Out New York]
In New York: Opening this Weekend [Art Info]
Liam Gillick at the Museum of Contemporary Art, through January 10, 2010 [ArtObserved]

Don’t miss James Rosenquist’s exhibition of new works at Acquavella Gallery, New York. The exhibition is an extension of Rosenquist’s perennial fascination with the Universe and the Unknown, as well as Time and Space. The artist said of his obsession: “There’s so much we know nothing about.  Here we are in our natural environment and the mysteries of the universe are all around us. I want to paint these mysteries.” [Gallery Press Release]

More text and images after the jump…

James Rosenquist, Time Stops the Face Continues, 2008. (Spinning)

These concerns have developed within the exhibition into two separate yet intertwined themes. Firstly, The Hole in the Middle of Time, which comprises seven works all of which feature clock faces that appear to melt and smash into one another. Moreover, the largest of the three have had mechanized spinning mirrors assimilated into their structure. Secondly, The Hole in the Wallpaper constitutes a series of fourteen motorized canvases, each a small-scale rendition of an earlier work. In this instance the mirrored element of each work is static whilst the canvas turns around it, thus the viewer is reflected as a constant component of the piece.

Installation view of works from “The Hole in the Wallpaper” series (works stationary) and “Speed of Light Illustrated” (2008)

Installation view of works from “The Hole in the Wallpaper” series (works spinning) and “Speed of Light Illustrated” (2008)

Be sure to review the exhibition catalog where Rosenquist expands on all of his influences and inspiration in ‘The Hole in the Wallpaper: Conversations with James Rosenquist,’ an essay by Sarah Celeste Bancroft.

Related links:
James Rosenquist [Official Website]
James Rosenquist: The Hole in the Middle of Time and The Hole in the Wallpaper [Acquavella Gallery]
Painter Rosenquist Savors Zeta-Jones Wet Kisses, Survives Fire [Bloomberg]
James Rosenquist by Jeffery Kastner [ArtInfo]

Last night, over 600 members of the New York art community rallied together at Sotheby’s for a silent auction in support of the ongoing effort by ‘Tools for Thought’ to help rebuild Haiti. Prominent figures in the art world were encouraged to sign and donate an object to be auctioned: inventory ranged from works of art to tools of the trade, also included were personally significant objects such as a skateboard that was donated by the artist Marilyn Minter. Among the most coveted items of the evening were works by Dan Colen, Roxy Paine and Aurel Schmidt. Guest were not only entertained by the bidding wars the ensued in the room and on the telephones, but were entranced by a beautiful set from the ‘Godmother of Punk,’ Patti Smith who also donated ‘My Horse in Namibia’ – a print featuring unique poetry by the singer (below).  Smith was not the only participating artist in attendance – amongst others Nate Lowman, Andrew Cramer, Aurel Schmidt, Andrew Levitas, Michael Clyde Johnson, Joe Bradley, Marco Perego, Kenny Scharf and Gordon Hull dotted the crowd.

Tools for Thought was formed in January 2010 by Diana Campbell and Julie Rgolia in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti that left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.  Still growing, the foundation hopes to continue in uniting the art community in this same manner, one project or region at a time.

Purple Tree by Dustin Yellin

More images and related links after the jump….

Alexandra Richards at the DJ Booth

Patti Smith

An Alex Katz work

A work by Aurel Schmidt

Tim Goossens of PS1

A work by Patti Smith

Related Links:
Tools for Thought Homepage
Artists Donate Works For Haiti Relief Auction [Tonic]
If I had a hammer [Style.com]
Top Artists’ “Tools For Thought” Auction To Raise Cash For Haiti [Huffington Post]

Don’t miss Candice Breitz’s third exhibition at the White Cube in Hoxton Square, London. The exhibition, entitled “Factum” after Robert Rauschenberg’s almost identical canvases, Factum I and II, is an investigation into four twins and one triplet. Breitz has created beautifully intimate video portraits of each twin, which when coupled together in a kind of diptych, reveal the subtleties and nuances that make one individual. It is an extension of her perpetual fascination with repetition, identity and portraiture. By examining a phenomenon we wrongly presume as naturally and biologically identical we are encouraged to accept how very different twins really are.

More text, images and related links after the jump….

Factum Tremblay, From the series ‘Factum,’ 2009

Breitz really stresses the subtleties of the individuation by dressing the siblings in matching outfits and placing them in the same setting; in fact this only causes the other internal and minute physical differences to shine through. The genesis of the videos was a seven-hour interview the artist conducted with each person alone. However, after transcribing and scrutinizing each pair of interviews Breitz proceeded to dissect and manipulate the material into a conversation between the twins. Breitz aptly gets to grips with the pleasure and conflicts of a life lived largely in conjunction and in reference to another.

Factum McNamara, From the series ‘Factum,’ 2009

Throughout the series Breitz draws attention to the complex and intertwined nature of their relationships by allowing each to speak as an individual, uninhibited by the presence of their siblings, only to pair them up again as she wishes. The process evokes the reality of people’s lives especially for twins – as one is constantly negotiating various relationships, situations and impulses.

Factum Misericordia, From the series ‘Factum,’ 2009

Factum Tang, From the series ‘Factum,’ 2009

Related Links:
Candice Breitz: Artist’s Profile [White Cube Website]
Candice Breitz: “Factum” [White Cube Website]

Currently on view at PaceWildenstein Gallery is “Robert Ryman: Large-small, thick-thin, light reflecting, light absorbing” – the exhibition of thirty new paintings of the renowned minimalist American artists. Executed in Ryman’s signature monochromatic palette the paintings on display measure ten to thirty square inches and represent a wide gamut of experimentation in materials, including wood, MDF board, aluminum, and stretched cotton. The works appear strong and indestructible, although painted on the paper-thin material Tyvek. In addition to traditional graphite and ink, Ryman employs such painterly materials as acrylic varnish, enamel and epoxy. To hang the paintings to the walls, the artist will use regular staples, which are a traditional integral part of his aesthetics.

Robert Ryman at Pace Wildenstein. Installation View

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Robert Ryman putting together his exhibition via Richmond Center for Visual Arts

Dedicating the present exhibition to the magical properties of lights and its perception by the viewer, in his statement Ryman writes:  “In my studio I see the paintings with daylight from above, on cloudy and sunny days, and in incandescent light, in various strengths, without daylight. It is not just the intensity of the light, but the direction of the source that is important, and in each light situation the paintings looked different. At one point, I thought I would not be able to show the paintings because I could not know how they would look. How is someone going to know how the paintings work with light? However, I quickly got over that. Paintings don’t have much meaning unless they go out into the world”.

Robert Ryman Vector 1997. In this classic work, the viewer can see the artist’s signature metal brackets.

Born in 1930, Robert Ryman is one of the major exponents of American minimalism and conceptual art. In 1953, Ryman moved from his native Nashville, Tennessee to New York to pursue a career of the jazz saxophonist. Ryman obtained a position of a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art, where he soon met Sol Lewitt and Dan Flavin, who also worked at the museum. Having begun to experiment with painting in the late 50’s, Ryman had his first solo show at Paul Bianchinni in 1967. His first museum exhibition was held in 1971 in Guggenheim Museum. Since then, works by Robert Ryman were acquired by a large number of venerated art institutions worldwide, including Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Hallen fuer Neue Kunst, a contemporary art museum in Shauffhausen, Switzerland houses the largest public collection of Ryman’s work, permanently exhibiting 29 pieces created from 1959 to 2007.

Installation at Pace Wildenstein

Most recently, Robert Ryman in collaboration with Yasmil Raymond, Curator, Dia: Art Foundation reinstalled the galleries displaying his work at this renowned museum of contemporary art. The artist reinvented the space at Dia, allowing the viewer to see his classic work in the fresh spacial arrangement. Ryman is also planning a major re-installation in Hallen fuer Neue Kunst, recreating the exhibition into Gesamtkunstwerk – a synthesis of his three decade long creative output.

Robert Ryman Varese Wall on view at Dia: Beacon via Dia Art Foundation

Classified by art historians as “minimalist” and “conceptual artist”, Ryman prefers the title “realist” , claiming that in his work he attempts to represent materials at their face value. His most prominent quote is: “There is never any question of what to paint only how to paint.” The exhibition at PaceWildenstein is on view until March 27, 2010.

Related Links:
Exhibition web-page: [Pace Wildenstein Gallery]
The artist’s page at Dia:Beacon [ Dia Art Foundation]
The artist’s page at Hallen fuer Neue Kunst [ Hallen fuer Neue Kunst]
The artist’s page at MoMa [Museum of Modern Art]

Mark Rothko’s beautiful work The Seagram Murals returns to Tate Liverpool after more than twenty years since it opened the museum in 1988. The entire ground floor gallery has been altered for the show – the walls being painted grey according to Rothko’s specification and mood lighting installed in order amplify the dramatic qualities of the piece, creating a complete emotive viewing experience.

Mark Rothko, “The Seagram Murals.” Installation view via Liverpool Daily Post

The series was a commission given to Rothko in 1958 by The Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building, New York.  Rothko’s methods of production were extremely fastidious; he transformed his studio to match the exact dimensions of the restaurant and did three versions of the series developing, refining and reworking each time. However, despite such elaborate lengths and after exclusively dedicating months of his time to the project he came to the conclusion that a fashionable restaurant was an inappropriate context for the display of his works and hence the series was never installed.

Mark Rothko, Red on Maroon, Mural Section 4 1959. Tate © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko ARS, NY and DACS, London

Taken from the second and third versions of the series, the paintings at Tate Liverpool patently illustrate the genesis of a new phase in Rothko’s artistic practice; namely, his divergence to more geometric and structural forms, as opposed to his columns of linear layering.  Equally as the series progressed he departed from his original use of light and vivid colors to moody, dark reds and blacks. In this instance Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library in Florence, and other somber murals discovered in Pompeii, largely inspired him. Rothko explained Michelangelo “achieved just the kind of feeling I’m after – he makes the viewers feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up.”

Rothko gave the paintings to the Tate in 1968 – 69, apparently out of the greatest respect and appreciation of British artists, most particularly JWM Turner.

Alexander Liberman, Rothko in his Studio, New York, 1964. Alexander Liberman Photographic Collection & Archive Research Library

Related Links:
Mark Rothko: The Seagram Murals [Tate Liverpool]
Rothko Murals Return to Tate Liverpool [Art Info]
After More than 20 Years Rothko’s Seagram Murals Return to Tate Liverpool [Art Daily]
Abstract expressionism: when art became larger than life [The Guardian]
Mark Rothko’s famous Seagram Murals return to Tate Liverpool [Liverpool Daily Post]

Reclining Figure

Currently on view at Tate Britain is an exhibition celebrating the work of renowned sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986).  With a display of over 150 stone sculptures, wood carvings, sculptures, bronzes, and drawings, the show revisits the legendary works of one of the masters of twentieth century art.  The show attempts to emphasize the revolutionary in Moore. It highlights his fight to preserve the figurative tradition for three decades by challenging and yet incorporating  elements of abstraction.

Seated Nude with Mirror (1924) by Henry Moore, via Tate Britain

More images, text and related links after the jump…

Reclining Figure (1929), by Henry Moore, via The Telegraph

Moore rebelled against his superiors’ traditional viewpoints of sculpture by deciding to carve directly into materials and taking influence from non-Western works he saw in museums. Tate Britain’s exhibition recapitulates the defining subjects of his work such as the reclining figure, mother and child, abstract compositions and drawings made during the second World War in London.

Standing Figure (1921) by Henry Moore, via Tate Britain

The works are presented according to the turbulent events which make up twentieth century history. They reveal an often overlooked dark and erotically charged side of Moore’s artwork. The advent of psychoanalysis, new ideas about sexuality, primitivism, and the traumatic events of war ultimately had a lasting effect on the sculpture’s work.

Standing Woman (1922) by Henry Moore, via Tate Britain

The exhibit reveals an unexpected turn to Moore’s career: Even when his best work was behind him he continued to make original sculptural works differing from his previous oeuvre. After great success an artist will often maintain the same creative intensity for a period of time developing new works after his fortuitous creations, yet this momentum cannot be sustained forever. Moore’s genius lies in his ability to continue to produce along different themes, materials, and genres even after he achieved success.

Man and Woman in a Landscape (1984) by Henry Moore, via Tate Britain

In the first gallery the visitor encounters the hand-carved stone figures of the 1920s and 1930s intriguingly formed with a violent undercurrent for works such as the Mask (1930) and Mother and Child (1924). These works show an influence from Pre-Columbian art with their strongly carved facial features, monumental body, and finely polished surface.

Mother and Child (1924) by Henry Moore, via The Henry Moore Foundation

Subsequent galleries present the artist’s work of the 1930s which is at once dreamlike and surreal telling of his  influence under Picasso and Giacometti. Moore’s Shelter drawings are also highlighting and reveal his memories of life in the trenches during World War I. The later work which is exhibited profess an increasingly depth to Moore’s oeuvre. His monumental figure carved in Elm between 1959 and 1964 resembles Michelangelo’s figures of Night and Day in the Medici Chapel in Florence.

Woman with Upraised Arms (1924) by Henry Moore, via The Henry Moore Foundation

Henry Moore died in 1986. In the years which followed, tremendous developments took place in British sculpture with the arrival of artists such as  Tony Cragg, Anish Kapoor, and Richard Deacon. Even so, Moore’s oeuvre maintained its reputation even with the arrival of the newer crowd. His is a work that continues to mesmerize- tempting us to pause, reflect, and dream.

Exhibition Page [Tate Britain]
Henry Moore at Tate Britain [The Guardian]
Henry Moore at Tate Britain Review[The Telegraph]
Henry Moore Tate Britain London [The Independent]
Tate Britain unveils Henry Moore Exhibition [LA Times]
Henry Moore at Tate Britain [Financial Times]
Tate Britain Goes in Search of a Darker Henry Moore [Culture 24]

-R.A.P

Currently on view at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne is Auto-Theatre – the first major European retrospective of Franz West. For this exhibition, West himself grouped over 40 works in themed constellations allowing the visitor to experience the sheer complexity and singularity of his oeuvre. The title Autotheater (Auto-Theatre) points to the performative, interactive dimension of his work and included are the West’s earliest Adaptives (Passstücke) and collages from the 1970s, papier-mâché sculptures, furniture and site-specific installations, his picture walls from the Eighties and his latest sculptures for public spaces.

More text, images, links and video after the jump….


Passstücke, Franz West (2007)

In 1974 West began to develop his famous portable sculptures called Adaptives (Passstücke). In Biology, adaption is a structure or form modified to fit a changing environment and in the 1970s, West attempted to bring this to his art works. The outcome of these experiments were small, portable sculptures called Adaptives (Passstücke) that were only completed as artworks when the viewer picked them up and carried them around, or performed some other action with them. This new, interactive approach left a lasting mark on the younger generations and new tendencies in the nineties, such as “Design Art” and “Relational Aesthetics”.

Endlich zwei gute Skulpturen, Franz West (2002) Museum Ludwig Colone

Ordinary Language, Franz West (1993)

West has also extended this dialogue with the viewer to include his furniture sculptures, which he has produced since the mid-eighties. His colorful and comfortable furniture has transformed exhibition spaces in its invitation to visitors to use it and render the space habitable and sociable. In Ordinary Language, for example, visitors are invited to relax in the comfortable armchairs.

Auto Sex (mit Heimo Zobernig), Franz West (1999)

Since the nineties he has worked increasingly with others artists, such as for instance Michelangelo Pistoletto (Spiegel in Kabine mit Passstücken = Mirror in Cubicle with Adaptives) and Heimo Zobernig (Auto Sex).

Allzweckkasten, Franz West (1998)

Spiegel in Kabine mit Passtücken (Spiegel von Michelangelo Pistoletto), Franz West (1996)

Franz West: Autotheater – via Vernissage TV

The exhibition will move on in May 2010 to Madre in Naples and in September 2010 to Kunsthaus Graz.

Related Links:
Museum Ludwig Homepage
Franz West: Autotheater / Retrospective at Museum Ludwig, Cologne [Vernissage TV]

Olafur Eliasson is currently on show for the sixth time at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, through March 20, in a spectacular exhibition that extends the artist’s study of modes of perception, specifically concerning one’s experience of space and time. In this instance Eliasson’s particular fascination is the phenomena of light, movement and color and the relationship between them.

Multiple shadow house, 2010. Installation view

More images and text after the jump…
Multiple shadow house, 2010

It is, however, the viewers themselves that become the key initiator of the experiment – their body becomes the central figure of the work. The work Multiple shadow house (2010) is a simple structure, purpose-built in the main gallery, consisting of multicolored lamps in rows shining onto several large projection screens. When a body enters the space and begins to interact with this light installation beautiful and subtle overlaid visions of their shadow fan across the screens – as they move around forward and backward the image is thus altered and can be manipulated. In this way the project is a creative collaboration between the artist, viewer, space and technology. Essentially the artwork is redundant without the presence of the figure – no only to enjoy it – but to articulate it’s potential effects.

Multiple shadow house, 2010

Multiple shadow house, 2010

This is very common of Eliasson oeuvre, which has consistently challenged the motionlessness, inflexible and non-malleable nature of much tradition fine art works. In many ways Eliasson allows autonomous authorship to dissolve, instead both meaning and aesthetic quality are in fact generated by the viewer. Today it is generally agreed that judging artwork is a very subjective process, albeit informed by outside factors; Eliasson has created the ultimate subjective art experience, the individual actually activates the work. This encourages a hyper-awareness of how we all shape our own experience and perception of the world around us.

Multiple shadow house, 2010

Multiple shadow house, 2010

Other pieces in the exhibition include Intangible afterimage star (2008) another projection this time of multicolored geometric shapes that constantly shift over and cut across each other. In this instance the viewer’s participation is only notable internally as the after-image briefly lingers on the retina combining with the actual image to magical affect. In the galleries upstairs several watercolors and an oil painting, Colour experiment no. 3 (2009), illustrate Eliasson’s consideration and experimentation with space, light and color.

Test, 2009

Intangible afterimage star, 2008

Color Experiment No. 3, 2009

Multiple shadow house, 2010

Multiple shadow house, 2010

Top: Grey to Yellow Movie, 2009. Bottom: Yellow to Grey Movie, 2009.

Folded Grey Movies, 2009

ArtObserved video of the installation, Multiple shadow house, 2010 [ArtObserved Twit Vid]

Related Links
Olafur Eliasson: Multiple Shadow House [Tanya Bonkadar Gallery]
Olafur Eliasson: “Kepler Was Wrong” at Galeria Elvira Gonzalez, Madrid through March 6, 2010 [ArtObserved]
Olafur Eliasson: “Your Chance Encounter” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, through March 22, 2010 [ArtObserved]
Eye Candy: Olafur Eliasson’s Amazing New Art Installation [Fast Company]
Olafur Eliasson: Multiple Shadow House [Daily Serving]

On show at the Galleria Patricia Armocida, Milan, is the much anticipated “Nos Braços de um Anjo” (In the Arms of an Angel), the second exhibition of works by Brazlian twins Os Gemeos (Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo). This exhibition presents a series of entirely new, and previously unseen, works that include large canvases, musical sculpture-objects, mechanical and interactive site-specific installations actually created inside the gallery walls.

O Devoto, 2010
More images and text after the jump…

Born out of the Brazilian graffiti scene they have, more recently, gained equal notoriety in the contemporary museum and gallery worlds. After meeting and befriending Barry McGee in Sao Paulo the twins were encouraged to transport their pieces from urban sites onto canvas, as well as producing sculptural, graphic and photographic works. The twins have enjoyed a number of major successes in New York over the past few years, including an exhibition at Deitch Projects, entitled “Too Far Too Close”, in 2008 and most recently the monumental mural on East Houston and Bowery, the wall made famous by Keith Haring’s 1982 mural.

Os Gemeos at work on their mural in at E. Houston and Bowery

Os Gemeos & Alex Fakso|Amor e tudo, 2010

Their gallery works retain the much-loved urban zest that one might recognize of Basquiat or Chris Ofili; yet their visual vernacular is specifically of Sao Paulo. Since the 1980s the twins have been intimately involved in the Brazil hip-hop, street scene – embracing break dancers and the like – their love affair with this element of their culture is very apparent in their paintings. Yet, simultaneously the imagery is infused with cultural and musical folklore from the Northeast of the country, which imbues the works with their emotive and magical element.

Their naively constructed characters are ostensibly of the children’s storybook ilk, and have once been described as jaundiced Edward Gorey illustrations [Constance Wyndham, Art in America, 2005]. Their yellowed skin, flat-faces and wide set eyes have become a visual autograph for the twins; it is these figures that are the epicenter of the Os Gemeos universe. This is most evident in this particular exhibition where the figures appear largely to hover in strange landscapes of vivid color and pattern, evoking textile design.

O vaso de porcelana, 2010

In one corner of the gallery a purpose built bedroom-like interior space that could be the home of the young boy depicted on the wall. Here their very purposefully graphic, two-dimensional figures appear to occupy three-dimensional, real space. Throughout the exhibition the characters alternate between canvas, wall and sculptural form.

Overall the outcome is a lyrical and lively exhibition that is oddly surreal yet also hyper-real. In the artists’ words: “we only report scenes from a magic, love, hate, and real place that live inside us, a real dream, the scene of our own universe, a place called “Tritrez.”

Os Gemeos, “Nos Braços de um Anjo” (In the Arms of an Angel) installation view

O Joao de Barro equilibrista, 2010

Os Gemeos, “Nos Braços de um Anjo” (In the Arms of an Angel) installation view

Related Links
Os Gemeos, “Nos Braços de um Anjo” (In the Arms of an Angel) [Galleria Patricia Armocida]
Os Gemeos [Deitch Projects]
Os Gemeos: Too Far Too Close [Deitch Projects]
Os Gemeos: Houston Street and Bowery Mural [Deitch Projects]
Os Gemeos at Deitch Projects, New York, through Aug 9 [ArtObserved]
Street Art to Adorn the Tate Modern in London [ArtObserved]
A World Springs to Life on an Urban Wall [New York Times]

AO was at the press preview for “Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim” as the museum celebrates the 50th anniversary of its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home on the East Side. For this new exhibition, organizer Nancy Spector commissioned two hundred proposals from artists, designers, and architects to fill the void.  Through April 28, proposals are on the walls of the Guggenheim, a set of dreams and interventions.

Detail from “Remember Beuys” (2009), by Bolles+Wilson, at the Guggenheim. Photo by Art Observed.

More images, story, and relevant links after the jump…

View of the press preview. Photo taken by Art Observed.

Obstructing the void calls for its subversion. In drawing the void, the architect duo Weiss/Manfredi trespass it. group8 works against the institution that it proposes to fill, so that patrons would actually be able to taste the void — interacting with it physically — and so that the artists would leave the Guggenheim with a structure of chocolate at its core, implying an idea of whimsy that battles the hierarchical nature of “serious” art. The void is reflected, and turned to banners: in Thomas Hirschhorn’s proposal, the void becomes a place to examine the artist’s function, and the institution’s, in structuring an art that supposes to liberate.

Weiss/Manfredi, “Trespassing the Void” (2009), at the Guggenheim. The lettering reads, “DRAW THE VOID – TRESPASS THE VOID.” Photo by Art Observed.

group8, “Tasting the Void” (2009), at the Guggenhim. Photo by Art Observed.

24H Architecture, “Untouching The Void” (2009), at the Guggenheim. Photo by Art Observed.

Above, “Reflecting the Void” (2009), by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), at Guggenheim. Photo by Art Observed. Below, detail.

These and other works examine the idea of intervention in a museum. They intervene in each other, contemplating different models from Pipilotti Rist’s “Grabs,” which fills the void with an oversized vagina, to Cerith Wyn Evans’s “Chimera Ritual for FLW,” the proposal for which is a piece of paper describing her idea that has as its postscript, “No image is to be used to illustrate the proposal.” The exhibition’s organizer, Nancy Spector, tells me that no proposal is to be picked above another; this is not a contest. It is a leveling.

Jonathan Meese, “Babymetabolism De River Deep Mountain High” (2009), at the Guggenheim. Photo by Art Observed.

Thomas Hirschhorn, “<<Banners>>” (2009), at Guggenheim. Photo by Art Observed.

- R. Fogel

Related links:
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum [Museum Homepage]
Now Showing: ‘Contemplating the Void’ at the Guggenheim [T Magazine]
Artists’ visions celebrate Guggenheim’s 50th anniversary [Reuters UK]
Critic’s Notebook: The void as muse [LA Times]

Currently showing at Hauser & Wirth London, 15 Old Bond Street is “School,” a selection of most recent works by Subodh Gupta.  The show features forty five brass stools paired with stainless steel thali trays (traditional Indian trays with multiple compartments used for meals containing several dishes).

More images and text after the jump….

Fragment of the installation

A signature domestic life–related piece for Gupta, School also contains a note of highly personal significance for the artist – the stools are cast from the seat used by Gupta’s father and the brass version carries his initials. Removing this traditional object from its original environment and multiplying it, Gupta creates a powerful metaphor for the private realm as an indispensable component to the cultural, social and economic development in every society. ‘School” is a Gupta’s second show at Hauser and Wirth.  It follows the success of the exhibition of October 2009 “Common Man”, which debuted his humorous sculptural tribute to the artist’s empirical mentor Marcel Duchamp.  The exhibition is on view until March 27, 2010.

School Installation View

Et tu, Duchamp?, 2009, the centerpiece of Gupta’s first solo exhibition at Hauser and Wirth

Subodh Gupta (b. 1964) is a contemporary Indian artist, best known for incorporating the objects of everyday use, such as lunch boxes, bicycle spare parts, utensils to create sculptures reflective of India’s economic and social development as well as the artist’s own past. Gupta received his BFA from College of Arts & Crafts, Patna, India.  He lives and works in New Dehli.  “The Damien Hirst of Dehli” as The Guardian called Gupta, speaks about his works: “All these things were part of the way I grew up. They are used in the rituals and ceremonies that were party of my childhood. Indians either remember them from their youth, or they want to remember them.” And: “I am the idol thief. I steal from the drama of Hindu life. And from the kitchen – these pots, they are like stolen gods, smuggled out of the country. Hindu kitchens are as important as prayer rooms”.

Everyday, Subodh Gupta, 2009

The works by Subodh Gupta were included into numerous exhibitions internationally, including Tate Britain, ‘Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009’, London, England, The Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture ,Moscow, ‘Un Certain Etat du Monde? Works from the Pinault Collection’, Moscow, Russia and CHANEL Mobile Art, an international traveling exhibition.

Spooning, Subodh Gupta, 2008

Relevant Links:
The artist’s page at Hauser and Wirth Gallery  [Hauser and Wirth]
The Damien Hirst of Dehli [Guardian]
The Art of Subodh Gupta [WhiteWall Magazine]

Through March 10, Sterling Ruby has two new pieces at PaceWildenstein’s downtown gallery.  On view are “Pig Pen” and “Bus,” two industrialized traps that confine, says a gallerist, humanity’s basic primitivism. This is an artist’s apocalyptic endgame.

Sterling Ruby, “Bus” (2010) at PaceWildenstein.

More images and story after the jump…

Installation view, Sterling Ruby’s “2Traps” at PaceWildenstein.

Where “Pig Pen” is a stationary cage, “Bus” is a vehicle of transportation converted into a sculptural object, emphasizing 2Traps’s feel of ultimate stasis. They are the same size — about 10′ x 9′ x 40′ — but “Pig Pen” is almost cubist nature, comprised of smaller blocks themselves composed of the security doors found on many urban homes, where “Bus” is just that automobile fitted with speakers, sub-woofers, chrome, and confinement cages. That is, the artist in both cases confines an animalistic interior, but “Bus” comments most explicitly on societal stagnancy.  Argues Ruby, today’s transportation holds its patrons still, defines them as animals in a procedurally ordered, dehumanized/dehumanizing society.

Detail from Sterling Ruby’s “Pig Pen” (2009-2010), at PaceWildenstein.

Back view, Sterling Ruby’s “Bus” (2010) at PaceWildenstein.

Detail, Sterling Ruby’s “Bus” (2010), at PaceWildenstein.

Born in Bitburg, Germany, Sterling Ruby studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Center College of Design. He has had solo exhibitions at Galleria d’arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo, Italy; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and more. Ruby is recently represented by PaceWildenstein, which hosts this show. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

- R. Fogel

Related links:
PaceWildenstein [Gallery Page]
Sterling Ruby’s Caged Heat [T Magazine, NYT]
Sterling Ruby, PaceWildenstein [Art Hag]

When Tino Sehgal’s work took over the Guggenheim Museum in New York on January 29th it was a quiet experience. There were no opening parties, no fuss and none of that Art World glitter to make one jump from exuberant excitement.  The walls of Frank Lloyd Wright’s majestic rotunda were stripped bare and seem to have newly acquired a long lost naïveté.  The lobby still brimmed with crowds of people clustered around the impenetrable center. The Kiss unfolded, rolled and scattered itself in a graceful poise of a feline. The subtly choreographed sequence of animated poses referenced erotic works from Rodin, to Courbet, to Jeff Koons. Occasionally, a couple or a small group of visitors would creep closer for a brief encounter or settle in contemplative thought on the floor of the proposed stage.

More images and text after the jump…
Tino Sehgal at The Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY via NY Times

Beyond the softly lit and sensually charged area awaited a vastly different sort of work. It was also alive and moved according to the carefully mediated framework that Tino Sehgal had previously transmitted, but the experience of contemplation, apprehension, and interaction with it was broken into two polarities. This Progress is imbued with the possibilities of being utterly ignored or unexpectedly discovered via experiential and transformative gesture of sequenced conversation and perambulatory ritual.

The “constructed situation” as Tino Sehgal tends to describe this genre of his work, is a series of encounters. You step on the ramp and a child, of about 10 years old, greets you with a frank expression: “This is a piece by Tino Sehgal.” And so the situation begins to propel itself into existence. When beckoned to follow, your curiosity pushes you on. When asked “What is progress?” you are caught unaware and respond in a manner of conversation, expounding and formulating ideas as they come to mind. Further up the ramp, you stumble upon a teenager, whose mission is to continue the existing paraphrased conversation. The child casually departs. Now the situation morphs itself into another framework of transferring ideas, of shifting generational approach, of expounding, questioning oneself, questioning the other – after all talking about progress in itself is a highly speculative task. And thus arrives a middle-aged and, later, older gentleman.  The topics slightly change, so does one’s matter of speaking and before long the constructed journey through time and mind is over. This end is punctuated with a brief and poignant title, which marks the revolution of a thought: “This Progress.” The end is a beginning.

Tino Sehgal’s exhibition introduces a new wave of aesthetic dematerialization of an object, a movement which began in the 1960’s and has reverberated through Performance and Conceptual art, and recently challenged sculptural forms. The artist, who is 34 years young, has become the darling of the art circles and is intent on reevaluating the relationship artists developed with various cultural institutions and the exhibitionality of the work within the public space. Sehgal initially studied political economy at Humboldt University in Berlin before discovering dance practice as a transformative force in his practice. And dance he did, with some of the most experimental French choreographers – Jérôme Bel and Xavier Le Roy. Having worked for some time as a choreographer himself, Sehgal decided to make a transition into art where “the political ideas behind his work would be considered with more gravitas.” Thus the “constructed situations,” whether interactively challenging or kinetically perplexing, provide a fresh and dynamic experience of cultural environment.

While Tino Sehgal may resist the object and the material permanence of consumerist society, he does not by any means protest or avoid the existence of market society. In fact, he is very much a part of it: selling the rights to re-enact his situations under his (or apprentice’s) strict supervision. “The Kiss” on view at the Guggenheim is, in fact, owned by the Museum of Modern Art and is on loan for the duration of no less than 6 weeks (a period specified by Sehgal in the contract). All sale transactions of Sehgal’s work are conducted verbally, in presence of a notary. According to MoMA’s director, Glenn Lowry, the purchase of “The Kiss” “was one of the most elaborate and difficult acquisitions” the museum has ever attempted. No documentation, written or recorded, remains or is otherwise avoided to the best of Sehgal’s ability. Photographs or video recording of the Guggenheim show are also prohibited.

However, Sehgal’s show is one of those that will not need any visual remnants to carry out its impact. It is an experience that will rouse one out of his complacency and re-introduce the space of a museum as an arena for questioning, learning, admiring and discovering. A feeling or a thought no photograph will capture, Sehgal’s interpreters will draw out and release into the world. An afterthought will be yours to situate.

Tino Sehgal (top left corner) in Central Park. Image by Philip-Lorca diCorcia via W Magazine

Related links
Tino Sehgal at the Guggenheim Homepage
“How I made an artwork cry” by Jerry Saltz [NY Magazine]
You Can’t Hold It, but You Can Own it [NY Times]
In the Named Museum: Talking, Thinking, Encountering [NY Times]
Making Art Out of an Encounter [T Magazine]
Tino Sehgal [W Magazine]

~ J. Solovyeva

Every March for the past 12 years, artists, galleries, collectors, critics and curators from all over the world have made New York their destination during Armory week. Launching the week of cultural activities, Mayor Bloomberg predicted that 60,000 visitors are expected bring in around $44 million. The week’s main event, The Armory Show, opened its doors to a record number of VIP ticket holders yesterday morning reflecting a renewed optimism in the art market. This year, the show has expanded to include 285 dealers, up from 239 in 2009. Pier 94, at 12th Avenue and 55th Street, showcases 211 cutting-edge contemporary galleries, institutions and non-profit art organizations, a further 78 dealers specializing in Modern and Secondary market works at the adjacent Pier 92.

Jay Jopling shows a client around the White Cube booth, all photographs by Oskar Proctor for Art Observed

The True Artist Makes Useless Shit for Rich People to Buy, Bert Rodriguez at the Fredric Snitzer Gallery booth – priced at $25,000

This year sees the introduction of ‘Armory Focus,’ a new of section of the fair that will feature an important art community every year and premieres with Berlin. 22 of the German capital’s leading and emerging galleries will cluster at one end of Pier 94. The fair’s Executive Director Katelijne De Backer sees a kinship between Berlin’s art world and that of New York due it the communities history for experimentation and willingness to take risks. Many of the galleries we spoke to had exhibitied at the fair in previous years but admitted to being greatly encouraged to participate this year due to substantial backing by The Armory who contributed at least $3,000 to shipping costs per gallery.

John Baldessari at Barry Friedman

Following on from 2009, a notable trend at this year’s fair is the large number of booths at this devoted to single-artist exhibitions. David Zwirner’s booth, dedicated to a series of photographs by Philip-Lorca diCorcia, was packed throughout the day. By mid-afternoon the booth had shifted 25 of 100 polaroids, selling for $4,000 apiece. Many of the participants in the new Armory Focus:Berlin section also featured solo exhibitions. Galerie Barbara Thumm presented a large canvas from the Berlin-based artist, Valérie Favre, that sold within hours of the opening.

Spitpot, Erwin Wurm at Lehmann Maupin

This year, The Armory Show coincides with the opening of the Whitney Museum’s Biennial, as a result, a significant number of recognizable works by artists in the museum show took pride-of-place at yesterday’s fair. Our first sighting was at the booth of Ratio 3, San Francisco who were offering stills from Ari Marcopoulos’ video featuring two kids making electronic music in their tiny bedroom, Detroit. While the stills had not yet sold, we were informed that the video is on hold for a museum and another for a private collector. In addition, Dashwood Books have published 500 copies of a zine featuring stills from the video.

The Walthamstow Tapestry, Grayson Perry at Victoria Miro Gallery

Chuck Close in attendance at The Armory Show

We also spotted works by Dawn Clements at Pierogi, Sharon Hayes at Tanya Leighton Gallery, Maureen Gallace at 303 Gallery and we negotiated the crowds at Sean Kelly’s booth to glimpse photographs by James Casebere. Buyers stormed the Sean Kelly booth throughout the day in search of photographs by Marina Abramovic, ahead of her performance retrospective that is set to begin at MoMA on March 14. Buyers were also enticed by the two sculptures, priced at $300,000 and $225,000, by Antony Gormley whose Event Horizon installation will open at New York’s Madison Square Park on March 23rd.

Executive Director of The Armory Show Katelijne De Backer

In celebration of the city’s artistic communities, Armory Week will highlight the art scene of a different each night of the week with public events including receptions, open studios, art tours, museum discounts, performances, panels, artist discussions and parties. One of the predicted highs of the week will take place in the Lower East Side Sunday on March 7th. The New Museum will act as a hub for the day’s activities, including self-guided walking tours and gallery crawls conducted by art professionals Aaron Thompson, Pearl Albino, Rita de Alencar Pinto and Heather Hubbs.

Other highlights of this year’s Armory Arts Week will include talks by the MTA’s Arts for Transit staff discussing art at different stations; SoHo Night, an evening of extended exhibition viewing and special programs by the nonprofit art institutions in the neighborhood; a walking tour of the High Line led by curator Lauren Ross; children’s tours of Chelsea galleries; several opening receptions and open studios in Long Island City; and galleries open after hours in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Related Links:
The Armory Show Homepage
Armory Week Homepage
Fowler’s $7,000 Geometrics Pump Collectors at N.Y. Armory Show [Bloomberg]
Fair Mania: Armory Arts Week in New York [Flavorwire]
Survival of the fittest? NYC fairs multiply despite recession [The ArtNewspaper]
Bustling Armory Opening Heralds Contemporary Art Market Resurgence [ArtInfo]
The Armory Show’s Commissioned Artist Susan Collis on ‘Fiddling While Rome Burns’ [NY Magazine]
Buckle Your Seatbelt! It’s the Armory Show [MediaBistro]
The Armory Show: Vernissage [Whitewall Magazine]