Peter Doig’s Country-Rock (Wing-Mirror) will hit the auction block for the first time next week at Sotheby’s in London, and is estimated to bring in $15 million. The work, part of Doig’s Country-Rock series, depicts a view of the mysterious, rainbow clad tunnel in Canada from the passenger seat of a car. (more…)
A rare Andy Warhol portrait of Hall of Fame Hockey great Wayne Gretzky will be up for sale at Sotheby’s this Friday in London. The portrait, made in 1983, is part of a series of works Warhol did exploring the world of professional sports, and is expected to command a price of $200,000. “This project was very dear to me,” said dealer Frans Wynans, who introduced Warhol to Gretzky, and who has his eye on the piece “So I’m very keen on the one that has come up for sale.” (more…)
Filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen has taken top awards at the Toronto International Film Festival for his newest work, 12 Years a Slave. Announced this week as the People’s Choice Award-winner, his film documents the life of Solomon Northrup, a black American kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. (more…)
Richard Serra’s Shift, a series of zigzagging wall structures built along the changing elevations of the field it moves through, has been designated as a cultural heritage site in North Toronto. Voted through by the township council of King City, Ontario, the work was the subject of fierce and ongoing debate, finally pushed through by a group of concerned citizens called “Friends of Shift.” “It is especially gratifying that it was the result of the initiative of a group of private citizens who care about art.” Mr. Serra commented. (more…)
Claes Oldenburg’s iconic Floor Burger (1962) is currently undergoing a restoration project at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in preparation for its upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Purchased by the AGO in 1967, the work, which is stuffed with empty ice cream cartoons, has shifted in appearance over the years, and now requires restoration work to help regain its original form and coloration. “I was more concerned with the effect of the piece as I was making it rather than its future conservation,” says Oldenburg, “I started with the foam, but found it was weighing the sculpture down,” he says, “so we used the empty boxes to make it lighter.” (more…)
Citing poor profit margins, Sotheby’s Canada branch has announced that it will be exiting the live auction market, and focusing on private sales through their Toronto office. This leaves the Canadian art auction market dominated by only two companies: Joyner Waddington’s and Heffel Fine Art. “Private sales is the growth area of this business; it’s not the auction part that’s profitable,” said Sotheby’s Canada president David Silcox. (more…)
New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) Art Fair 2012, all photos by E. Simone for ArtObserved
The NADA fair is home to the some of the youngest, and most surprising artists and gallerists during Art Basel week, and is often described as a respite from the big-named, shiny, high-altitude atmosphere of the main fair. Dealers and collectors come to NADA searching out the new artists they think have the most potential, reveling in the discovery.
Keith Farquhar, Leslie Fritz Gallery (formerly Renwick Gallery) (more…)
All images on site at NADA Hudson 2011. Courtesy of Ian Hassett for Art Observed.
Art Observed was on site for the first NADA Hudson, described by its organizers, the New Art Dealers Alliance as “not an art fair, but rather a site-specific project”. The surrounding area has been known as a site to which New York art expatriates flock, with their numbers especially heavy this weekend around the 8,000-square-foot Basilica Hudson, a former foundry and railway wheel factory built in 1884. Hudson itself is a former whaling town, with its access to the Hudson River providing a berth during wartime that was less exposed to raids than coastal towns such as Nantucket and Boston. As a result, the town has a rich architecture base that is reflective of irregular boosts in industry over its history. As it has become a destination for food, antiques and second homes, Hudson is an understandable venue for NADA, which has been known to pioneer in its chosen locations (the NADA Miami art fair located in the Deauville Beach Resort, is about 40 blocks north of the main epicenter of activity yet is consistently a must-visit part of the general offering during the week of Art Basel Miami Beach).
more story and images after the jump…
