AO Art Observed™

From “Projects: Done,” the Candida Höfer show at Museum Morsbroich.

The Museum Morsbroich is currently showing 14 projects by the photographer Candida Höfer.  ”Projects: Done” will draw from both famous series by the artist, including “Twelve” (2001), and relatively unknown work, like the 1973 photographic collection “Flipper.” The show runs through August 2.

Related links:
Museum Morsbroich
Candida Höfer: Biography [courtesy Rena Bransten Gallery]

More images and story after the jump…

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Os Gemeos at work on their mural in at Houston and Elizabeth via The Art Collectors

Brazilian street art duo Os Gemeos are completing a mural on the corner of Houston and Bowery in New York on the site of the Keith Haring tribute memorial [The Art Collectors]
A rare interview with Bruce Nauman after he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale [The Art Newspaper]
The British Museum has raised 2/3 of the $200 million for its new Herzog & de Meuron-designed wing [Bloomberg]

Hirst’s recurring butterfly imagery adorns Lance Armstrong’s bike frame via Designweek

With perhaps one of the more thought provoking of the Livestrong bike creations, Damien Hirst has designed the bike Lance Armstrong will use during the final stage of the Tour de France with his recurring mortality metaphor of butterflies [Galerie Perrotin]
A breakdown of ArtNews’s Top 200 Collectors: 81% collect contemporary, 34% collect modern, 9% collect Impressionist, and 9% collect Old Masters [ArtNews]

Digital rendering of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s menagerie on New York’s Park Avenue via NY Times

From Sept. 13 through Nov. 20, Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s animal menagerie will adorn the medians between 52nd and 57th Streets in Midtown Manhattan [NY Times]

Franz West’s The Ego and the Id via the The Public Art Fund

In related, Franz West’s 20 foot ‘The Ego and the Id’ will be installed Central Park at 5th Ave & 60th tomorrow, on loan from Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann through March [PublicArtFund]
BBC1 announces a four-part documentary focusing on Picasso, Dali, Matisse and Warhol, airing next year [BBC]
The Castlestone art fund is buying Post War art from deceased and non-producing artists such as Picasso and Warhol as it posits that pricing has dropped 20-40% from last year [International Advisor via ArtMarketMonitor] and a related email gaffe from Castlestone [ArtNewspaper]

Performance view of Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Am Anfang’ via Opera de Paris

German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer directed and designed, ‘Am Anfang,’ or ‘At the Beginning,’ for the Opera de Bastille in Paris, is currently running [TheGuardian]
In related, contemporary artist Zhang Huan will design and direct a 250 year anniversary production of Handel’s Semele in Brussels for the 2009/10 season [ArtDaily]

A new Banksy mural in Africa via SlamxHype

A number of Banksy murals in Africa have popped up, possibly in Mali [World's Best Ever] and related, 120,000 have visited the artist’s exhibition in his hometown of Bristol [BBC Bristol via FAD]
Charles Saatchi has replaced his Abstract America show his Kings Road gallery for an installation promoting the Jaguar XJ [Vogue]

John Morton at the site of his sound installation in Central Park via NY Times

A pedestrian tunnel in Central Park is the site of an immersive sound installation by John Morton [NY Times]
A brush fire near Getty Center caused Getty museum officials to evacuate 1,600 visitors and 800 employees [LA Times]

Michael Jackson series by Andy Warhol via ArtDaily

A portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol is dropped from a NY auction after overwhelming inquiries [ArtDaily]
Phillips de Pury & Company is launching a series of new theme auctions, including 21st century art and “New York, New York” [Artdaily]
Abu Dhabi Art, a new art fair, will debut in November [Artinfo]

A “plinther” participant in Antony Gormley’s One & Other via The Guardian

Antony Gormley’s ‘One&Other’ continues its 100-day run on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square in London [One & Other (livefeed)]
In related participatory British art, 23 museum visitors sufferred minor injuries during Robert Morris’s recent Bodyspacemotionthings reprisal at the Tate Modern [ArtInfo]
The Tate announces the judges of the 2010 Turner Prize [The Art Newspaper]

Huang Yongping's Sixty-Year Cycle Chariot sold for double the high estimate of $194,00, setting a new auction record for the artist, via Artdaily

Contemporary Asian Art Sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong brings in $8.5 million USD, well wthin expectations with over half of the lots above estimate [Artdaily] more here [Bloomberg] and here [AuctionPublicity] and here [Economist] and here [Artinfo]
and finally more here [China Daily via ArtPatrol]
And in related: The Getty acquires 9 contemporary Chinese photographs for $100,000, boosting its Asian collection despite a tighter budget [Bloomberg]

Takashi Murakami will soon debut a new collaborative collection with Louis Vuitton [HypeBeast]
New York financier/art collector Ezra Merkin charged with $2.4 bilion fraud, the proceeds of which were used to fill his apartment with $91 million worth of art including Mark Rothko works from his collection, one of the largest in the world for the artist [Guardian UK]

Terence Koh via Glob

Kate Moss by Damien Hirst on the cover of Tar Art Magazine, Via New York Times

Kate Moss by Damien Hirst is the new cover of Tar Magazine (anagram for “art”) [NY Times]
Art funds launched in 2008, such as the London-based Art Trading Fund, are shelved due to failure to raise required funds [ArtNewspaper]
Art:21, Art in Twenty-First Century is now available for free on Hulu [Hulu]

"G8" by Andrei Molodkin via Financial Times

Russian Artist Andrea Molodkin, previously cited by AO here, prepares for Venice Biennale [Financial Times]
Jeff Koons is speaking at Strand Books tonight at 7:00-8:30 in New York [Via FAD]
New York Old Masters dealer Lawrence Salander is indicted and pleads guilty in $88 million charge [Bloomberg]

A look inside Rome’s MAXXI designed by Zaha Hadid via c-monster

A preview of the MAXXI in Rome, $108 million art museum designed by Zaha Hadid [c-monster]
Adam Lindemann, financier, collector and author of Collecting Contemporary launches a new book from Taschen: Collecting Design [ArtInfo]

Flash Art’s current cover featuring a portrait of Barack Obama by Marlene Dumas via Art Fag City

Marlene Dumas’s portrait of Barack Obama is the cover of Flash Art [Art Fag City]
Madonna’s art collection is estimated at £80 million pounds [TimesUK]

A selection from the site via The World’s Best Ever

A timeline of modern & contemporary art artists by movement, school, style, period, theme & art prize [The-artists.org via The World's Best Ever]
Richard Serra to receive honorary degree from Pratt Institute at its 120th Commencement on May 18th [MediaBistro]

Interview with photographer Nan Goldin on why she is auctioning some of the curiosities she has collected [TelegraphUK]
SFMOMA announces plans for a future expansion, doubling gallery space [SF Chronicle]

A preview of SANAA’s design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavillion via Architect’s Journal

SANAA, the Japanese architectual duo behind the New Museum, release first glimpse of design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavilion [Architect's Journal]
Jim Dine donates 40 drawings influenced by Greek and Roman sculpture to the Morgan Library [Artinfo]

Picasso Portrait seen here at the home of Julian Schnabel highlights Christie's Impressionist Sale [via artinfo

Alanna Heiss via ArtNet

Alanna Heiss has retired after 37 years of curating MoMA’s PS1; an article on her final show [NYTimes]
$250,000 worth of prints including those by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse stolen in Berlin [AssociatedPress]
A chronicle of the rise of auction prices before the fall, and a rumor that 2/3 of the bidders for Hirst’s monumental September auction may not actually pay for the works, and part 2 here [Bloomberg]
A video of  Eric Fischl at Mary Boone [Newarttv]

Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally via the ArtNewspaper

US lawsuit filed to confiscate Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally from the Leopold Museum in Vienna is suspended [ArtNewspaper]
Art dealers as paparazzi fodder?  White Cube owner Jay Jopling garners attention with singer Lily Allen in St. Barths [TheMirror]
also on the island, dealer Larry Gagosian and the band Kings of Leon fete collectors Roman Abramovich, Dasha Zhukova and Aby Rosen, designer Marc Jacobs, hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, musician Jon Bon Jovi and actor Daniel Craig among others [IndependentUK]
In other art world vacation news, Damien Hirst hires 4 guards formerly in the British Special Forces to protect him during his Mexico holidays [MercoPress]

The Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion via architecturelist

The Zaha Hadid-designed Chanel Mobile Art tour is stopped; London, Moscow, and Paris canceled [ArtInfo]
Emmanuel Perrotin on three current Parisian exhibitions [The Moment - NYTimes]
MoMA to launch two-year series of live performance works [NYMag]
Collector Ronald Lauder interviewed at his Klimt-rich Neue Galerie in New York [Financial Times]
Damien Hirst bans a documentary film of his Statuephilia work [TelegraphUK]
The Velvet Underground’s John Cale will represent Wales at Venice Biennale of Art next year [BBC]
The controversial act of State museums deaccessioning works [NYTimes]
The Getty endowment has declined 25% [LATimes]
Art Info’s Top 5 art world figures of 2008 [ArtInfo]

A beach towel by Ed Ruscha via the Art Production Fund

Just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach, new beach towels by Ed Ruscha, Karen Kilimnik, Raymond Pettibon and Julian Schnabel are ready, catch them at the Raleigh Hotel [Art Production Fund]
A Page Six roundup of some of the Art Basel Miami Beach parties, as usual, the Raleigh hotel is front and center [NYPost]

“Paysage, le mur rose” (Landscape, the Pink Wall) by Henri Matisse via Artsjournal

France gives back Henri Matisse painting, once seized by Nazi SS officer, proceeds from sale to go to British charity for medical rescue in Israel [Artsjournal] more here [AP]

Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar via The New York Times

Qatar opens the 41,000 square foot, IM Pei designed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha; Robert de Niro, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and London dealer Jay Jopling attend festivities [NewYork Times]

Portrait of a lady as Flora , by Italian master Giambattista Tiepolo

A lost painting by Giambattista Tiepolo, discovered in a chateau attic, may sell for £1m at Christie’s sale in London next week [FinancialTimes]
City of San Francisco not accepting $1 billion gift to build space to show Gap Inc. founder Don Fisher’s 1,000 work strong collection due to aesthetics of architecture [Bloomberg]
A review of Calvin Tomkins’s ‘Lives of the Artists’ which profiles headliners such as Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Schnabel, Serra, Koons, Currin and others [NYObserver)

Portrait Ria Munk III - by Gustav Klimt via Linz Presse

Lentos Museum in Austria may have to give a $10 million Gustav Klimt painting to heirs of Holocaust victim [Bloomberg]

The artist Steve McQueen via GuardianUK

Turner prize winning video artist Steve McQueen interviewed, and more, on his new film, ‘Hunger’ [GuardianUK]

Kaws does cover art for Kanye West via theartcolectors

Kanye West uses Kaws for his cover art (Takashi Murakami has also had the privilege) [theartcollectors]
Art collector Aby Rosen’s Core Club, featuring works by such artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat and De Kooning, owes its founding members funds [NYPost]
A closer look into the ramifications of the art “crash” [WallStreetJournal]

Frank Gehry's Art Museum of Ontario via the NYTImes

Proposed design for Sperone Westwater gallery building on Bowery, designed by Norman Foster, via Curbed

The Sperone Westwater gallery recently announced its $8.5 million acquisition of a building on the Bowery, just a block away from the New Museum, solidifying the area’s reputation as a burgeoning art hub. The five story, twelve thousand square foot pre-war building will be re-designed by Lord Foster, whose work includes landmarks such as the Reichstag, the Heart Tower, and the 30 St Mary Axe in London (better known as The Gherkin). The proposed new building’s facade will boast glass tubes, and a bold red cube-shaped moving room as a highlight, setting the building apart as a unique, modern piece of architecture in an older neighborhood.

Sperone Westwater
Foster and Partners
BLOCKBUSTER: Norman Foster plans Bowery Gallery Building [Curbed]
SoHo apartment building sells for $8.5 million [CoStar]

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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]