AO Art Observed™

Tulips, Jeff Koons, 1995-2004 on loan to the embassy for the next decade, via artinthepicture

The second largest U.S. Embassy building has opened in Beijing at 600,000 square feet, with a reported $550M in building expenses by the San Francisco firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. On its grounds are works by notable American and Chinese contemporary artists including Jeff Koons, Cai Guo-Qiang, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Rauschenberg, Betty Woodman, Martin Puryear, Maya Lin, Yun-Fei Ji, and Hai Bo.

New Embassy Is a Firm U.S. Flag in China [NYSun]
Beijing US Embassy Opened August 7th [CNReviews]
U.S. Embassy in Beijing [Art 21]
U.S. Shortchanges Artists [Portfolio]
‘The Pyrotechnic Imagination’, watch Cai-Guo-Qiang create the gunpowder work inside the U.S. Embassy [NYTimes]
The US Embassy in Beijing Highlights Jeff Koons’s Art [Art Market Monitor]

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Museum of Islamic Art, via slickrockfilms

The 337,000 sq ft Museum of Islamic Art is designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei and is reportedly his last project at the age of 91. The “MIA” will open November 22 in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Surrounding the tiny country is Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, UAE commerce hub Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, where branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim will open in 2013. The Museum of Islamic Art is to preserve, study, and exhibit masterpieces spanning three continents and 13 centuries.

I.M. Pei designed Islamic Museum of Art opens; run by 25 year old Qatar royalty [Wmagazine]
In separate events, Qatar’s ruling family buys 72.8M Rothko, $52.7M Bacon, $19M Hirst [ArtObserved]
Art and Architecture in the Middle East [TimesUK]
Middle East museum a tasteful alternative to flashy development [SmartBrief]
Museum of Islamic Art: an international centre for dialogue [MuslimNews]

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Chanel’s Mobile Art pavilion via NYTimes

Karl Lagerfeld, Artistic Director of CHANEL, Maureen Chiquet, Global CEO of CHANEL, and Bruno Pavlovsky, CHANEL Fashion President, along with Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of the Department of Parks & Recreation for the City of New York, and Douglas Blonsky, President of the Central Park Conservancy and Central Park Administrator, have announced that the Mobile Art Pavilion will touch ground in Central Park on October 20th and will stay through November 9th. The spacecraft-looking pavilion will sit in the Rumsey Playfield, around the center of the park at 5th Ave and 69th Street. Mobile Art is a 7,500-square-foot traveling art gallery that exhibits changing installations created by some of the leading international contemporary artists, such as Nobuyoshi Araki, the Blue Noses, Daniel Buren, Sophie Calle, Wim Delvoye, Sylvie Fleury, Yang Fudong, Subodh Gupta, Y.Z. Kami, Yoko Ono and Pierre & Gilles.

Central Park to Host Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid [Dexigner]
Chanel Rents Central Park for Tacky Art Pavilion [Artnet]
Central Park To Host a Chanel Commission [NYSun]
Central Park to Host Exhibition Pavilion by Zaha Hadid [Contract Magazine]
A 7,500-Square-Foot Ad for Chanel, With an Artistic Mission [NYTimes]
Central Park to Host Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container By Zaha Hadid [Artdaily]
Chanel Brings Giant Ad/Art to Central Park [Gothamist]
More on Mobile Art covered by Art Observed here

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Burst *008, a prefab by Douglas Gauthier and Jeremy Edmiston via MoMA

More on the prefabricated housing design exhibit at MoMA [Artinfo] and still more here [NYMag]
Sotheby’s accused of losing Italian Renaissance painting in $32M lawsuit [NYPost]
An editorial view on the merits of artists explaining their work [GuardianUK]
Following the controversy, the former Salander-O’Reilly gallery is now on sale for $75M [NYTimes]
Christie’s NY holding first contemporary design auction [Artinfo]
New laws restrict art-donation tax breaks [Wall Street Journal]
Art Collectors auction themselves off at SCOPE [Artinfo] also here [NYSun}

P.F.1 in the P.S.1 courtyard via NYSun

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art, has its summer courtyard installation up and running. This year, the ninth annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program selected WORK Architecture Company, from New York, to transform the outdoor courtyard into a fully functional urban farm, called Public Farm One, or P.F.1. The farm will stay at P.S.1 through the month of September.

Farming at the Museum [NYSun]
Works Like a Farm and Celebrating P.F.1 [Men's Vogue]
Summer Farming at P.S.1 [Artnet]
Amale Andraos on the MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program [Artinfo]
In Farm’s Way: PS1’s Hipster Farm [NYPress]
Going Farming at P.S.1’s Warm-Up Parties [VillageVoice]
P.F.1 (Public Farm One) by Work Architecture Company in P.S.1’s courtyard [PS1]

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Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 via Serpentine Gallery

Gehry’s Serpentine Pavilion, reflective of his early style, up through October 19 [Serpentine Gallery]
Sao Paolo police find $630,000 of stolen works, including a Picasso [BBC]
Banksy posts a comment on his identity [Banksy.co.uk via The World's Best Ever]
Royal Academy announces upcoming Anish Kapoor retrospective [Artinfo]
Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate Modern director, is ‘learning Russian fast’ to court philanthropic support of new extension [Russia Today ]

New extension to Tate Modern, designed by Herzog & de Meuron via Tate

The Tate Modern has announced a new development in the plan for it’s new wing. World-renowned Swiss Architectural firm, Herzog & de Meuron, has designed the new plan for the extension, called Tate Modern 2 (TM2). The extension was originally designed as a cubic glass-cast pyramid shaped structure, but has been redesigned to better complement the structure of the existing Tate Modern and be more sustainable. The project has a $429 million budget, and has so far received $100 million from the government, $14 million from the London Development Agency, and $26 million from private donors for the project. Work on the site will ensue in 2009, and is projected to be finished by 2012, but if the budget is not met, this could cause a delay in its completion.

New twist to the rise of Tate Modern [Financial Times]
Tate Goes Green with New Plans [Artforum]
Transforming Tate Modern: Green Scheme for Tate Modern’s New Building [Artdaily]
Tate revises £215m extension plan [BBC]
Tate Modern Redesigns New Wing; May Not Open in 2012 [Bloomberg]
£100m new wing plan for Tate Modern [Telegraph]
New Tate Modern design [Wallpaper]

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Marlene Dumas fromThe New York Times

Marlene Dumas, most expensive living woman artist at auction (until recently exceeded by Bourgeois) coming to MOMA in December [NYTimes Mag]
How the proliferation of private museums affects the buyer/dealer system [The Independent]
A reduced-size Antony Gormley ‘Angel of the North’ a Bacon, a Basquiat, a Richter coming on the block at Sotheby’s [Artinfo]
Profile of Lauren Cornell, director of New Museum website: Rhizome [TimeoutNY]
Herzog & de Meuron to design new museum of modern art in Calcutta [The Arts Newspaper]
The art works Jeff Koons collects [NYTimes]
Update: New York Mag covers the Shafrazi show,[NYMag] covered by AO here [AO]
FT’s Jackie Wullschlager reviews Royal Academy Exhibition in London [Financial Times]

Guggenheim Vilnius Museum via ejpress

The government of Lithuania has approved the construction of a new contemporary art museum for its capital, Vilnius.  If the project reaches it’s fund raising goals, the museum would be a joint project between the Guggenheim and the Russian State Hermitage Museum. The renowned Iraqi architect, Zaha Hadid has been selected to design the building, which is projected to open in 2013.

The Guggenheim Goes East Again [TIME]
Coming Soon: Guggenheim Vilnius [NYSun]
New Hermitage-Guggenheim museum in Vilnius to house centre on ‘Litvaks’ [EJPress]
Lithuania Approves Guggenheim Project [NYTimes]
Zaha Hadid to Design Planned Museum in Lithuania [Bloomberg]

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Kauffman Desert House in Palm Springs via greatbuildings

Christie’s auction of Neutra house didn’t actually close [NYTimes]
Recent auction results belie underlying market weakness [Economist]
Herzog & de Meuron to design Kolkata Museum of Modern Art [ArtForum]
Ukranians as a new force in art buying [Financial Times]
A financial take on the state of the art market [TheStreet.com]
Guggenheim and Met hunt for museum heads [New York Sun]

Playing the Building via Creative Time

From May 31- August 10, the artist and musician David Byrne will transform the landmark Battery Maritime Building in lower Manhattan into a massive ’sound sculpture.’ The project is being executed with the help of Creative Time, the innovative arts organization known for its experimental public art. Visitors will be invited to ‘play’ the building, making music by controlling an organ that is attached to devices installed throughout the structure.

Playing the Building [Creative Time]
David Bryne [David Byrne]
David Plays the Building [Gothamist]
David Byrne Explains [Fargfabiken]
Teaching An Old Building New Vibes [NY Times] (more…)

image via NYT

Christie’s NY will be auctioning off Nuetra’s Kauffman House (located in Palm Springs, California) as part of its Postwar and Contemporary Art sale. The house is expected to go for anywhere between $15 to $25 million. The auction is considered notable in its treatment of architecture as an art object, which relates to Andre Balazs presenting Prouve’s Maison Tropicale at the Tate earlier this year. The sale will begin at 7 pm tonight.

Why does the art world consider the Neutra Kaufmann House just a home? [Guardian Unlimited]
The Kaufmann House [Christie's]
“Bringing the great divide” [Financial Times]
Jean Prouve’s Maison Tropicale goe to Tate [AO]
Jean Prouve’s Flat-Pack Home at Tate Modern in London [AO]

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Wallpaper Video Screenshot via Archinect

Earlier we told you about hotelier Andre Balazs’ loan of his Jean Prouve Flat-Pack Home, La Maison Tropicale, to the Tate Modern in London. Today, Wallpaper Magazine has a time-lapse video detailing the assembly of the famous design, originally intentioned for Niger and the Congo in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Video of Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale assembly [Archinect]
La Maison Tropicale, Jeane Prouve [Wallpaper]

Maison Tropicale via Trend Hunter

Jean Prouvé’s flat-pack home, Maison Tropicale, owned by hotelier Andre Balazs is going on display at Tate Modern in London. It was originally designed to house those from the Congo and Niger in the 40’s and 50’s.

Maison Tropicale [Trend Hunter]
Tropical House at Tate [Guardian]
Maison Tropicale Exhibition [Tate Modern]