Cy Twombly, (Installation View), via Art Observed

The Centre Pompidou’s unique architectural layout gives itself over to the work of Cy Twombly this spring, spreading the artist’s work on a line of sight that parallels his pieces with the expansive cityscape of the French capital in Gallery 1.  The expansive retrospective, which has already earned major plaudits, unfolds gradually against this backdrop, offering a bold exploration of the artist’s impressive and influential canon.  The comprehensive collection of paintings, sculptures and photographs spans Twombly’s full career, highlighting his wide breadth of artistic styles, media and subject matter, while exploring the evolution and elaboration of his craft over the course of his career.

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Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, Exotourisme (néon) (2002-2013), all photos via Daphné Mookherjee for Art Observed

The work of Dominique Gonzales-Foerster often combines media, spatial arrangements and video within the prism of time to explore links and lines of intersection between literature, film, architecture and music.  For her retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, she takes over the Galerie Sud as a spatial timeline, superimposing temporal strata to create an installation that serves as both a retrospective and forward-looking journey into the body of her work, questioning the viewer on fragmented identities and fictions, notions of inside and outside or absence and presence, and even the idea of time travel. (more…)

A number of Parisian cultural institutions are reporting sizable drops in attendance following the attacks in the French capital this month.  The Louvre has reported a 30% decrease in attendance, and the Centre Pompidou has seen a 50% drop.  “1000 visitors per day versus the 2000 per day that had been coming to see the current Wifredo Lam exhibition,” says Benoît Parayre, director of communication. (more…)

France has awarded Adam D. Weinberg, the Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art, with the insignia of Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.  Weinberg’s work has involved a number of collaborations with French institutions including the Centre Pompidou, Grand Palais, and Le Consortium in Dijon. (more…)

Curator Florence Derieux, who previously worked with the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne in Reims, and with Art Basel, has been appointed Curator of American Art, in New York, and curator at large for the Centre Pompidou Foundation and Museum. (more…)

Both the Whitney Museum and Centre Pompidou will open exhibitions devoted to transformative gifts from collectors and art advisors Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner.   “Thea and Ethan are among the most astute collectors of late twentieth century and early twenty-first-century art and their gift adds enormous strength to the Whitney’s collection. We are deeply grateful to them and are pleased to be collaborating with our friends at the Pompidou,” says Whitney President Adam Weinberg. (more…)

Serge Lasvignes, the President of Centre Pompidou, has announced a string of new plans for the institution, including a series of pop-up exhibitions in Korea and China, and exhibitions focusing on Arte Povera and Beirut. “My aim is to start a dialogue with foreign [art] centers which will enable us to build our collections for the future,” he says. (more…)

Mona Hatoum, Light Sentence (1992), Courtesy of Centre Pompidou

In her major retrospective exhibition, showcasing thirty-five years of ambitious and uncomfortable works, Beirut-based artist Mona Hatoum traces the scope her creative career, addressing her own political and aesthetic concerns in relation to nationality, identity, and spatial politics.  Drawing inspiration from her Middle Eastern roots and the thematic interests of Surrealism, Minimalism and conceptual art, her exhibition shows over 100 works created from the mid-1970’s to the present day, including performances, installation, video, photography and sculpture. (more…)

Gagosian Gallery has just announced the death of Richard Artschwager, mere days after the closing of his retrospective exhibition at The Whitney Museum in New York City.  He was 89.  Artschwager’s unique path helped to define the perceptual and spatial explorations of conceptual and minimalist art while retaining the artist’s personal aesthetic.  Often utilizing objects from the everyday, he continually sought to explore the interaction between object and space, notably in his reworkings of chairs, pianos, and tables.   The artist’s work had been the subject of several major exhibitions worldwide, including shows at the Centre Pompidou, Deutsche Guggenheim, and the aforementioned Whitney Museum.  (more…)

Having just opened its doors in October, the Power Station of Art in Shanghai is already making big moves as China’s first state-run contemporary art museum.  The 19th century industrial site was converted by the state into a premier public art center, and is currently hosting a massive exhibition in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris to show 119 of the Centre’s works.  “It is a prestige object for the city, to have a museum that, at least in scale, can compete with Tate Modern in London or MoMA in New York,” says Jens Hoffmann, co-curator of the Shanghai Biennale. (more…)

Adel Abdessemed, Coup de tête [based on Zinédine Zidane] 2012, courtesy Centre Pompidou

Adel Abdessemed’s exhibition, Je Suis Innocent,  at the Centre Pompidou in Paris showcases work from 1990-2012, which spans the majority of Abdessemed’s artistic career. Born in born 1971 in Constantine, Algeria, Abdessemed often makes reference to violent histories and the taboos of modern culture with shocking and jarring imagery that he creates through a variety of media.

Adel Abdessemed, Je Suis Innocent, courtesy Centre Pompidou

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Grand Palais, courtesy FIAC

FIAC, or the 39th International Contemporary Art Fair, will open tomorrow (Thursday) in Paris, with a VIP preview today, with 184 galleries exhibiting at the Grand Palais, and this year utilizing the restored Salon d’Honneur as well, which lies at the center of the structure. As in past years, galleries will exhibit sculpture at the Tuilieries Garden nearby. Approximately 65,000 visitors are expected to attend.

Tuilieries Garden courtesy FIAC (more…)

Image: Jean-Michel Othoniel, My Bed, 2003, via Brooklyn Museum

In a collaboration with the Centre Pompidou, The Brooklyn Museum is currently showing a large-scale retrospective of the work of French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel, whose colorful glassworks and sculptures stand between tangible reality and a reconstituted dream world.  Entitled “My Way,” the show provides an in-depth look at Othoniel’s 25 year career. (more…)

Christine Macel will curate the Anri Sala exhibition at the 2013 Venice Biennale French pavillion. Macel has been chief curator at the Musee National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou for the last 12 years. The artist and the curator have been discussing a collaboration between France and Germany and a decision will be reached in the next couple of weeks. (more…)

‪‬Centre Pompidou plans new international approach, especially targeting Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRIC countries) “with temporary projects in existing venues like museums [and] universities, but why not historical monuments, former industrial facilities or shopping malls?” says museum president Alain Seban

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‪‬The Whitney Museum and Centre Pompidou announce promised gift of over 800 American and international artists’ works from collectors Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, with 500 American works entering the collection of the Whitney, to be exhibited first in 2015, and 300 European and international works going to the Pompidou for a later exhibition [AO Newslink]

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

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FIAC 2011 at the Grand Palais in Paris. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

FIAC 2011 (The Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) opens this weekend in Paris for its 38th year. The international art fair, which boasts an impressive array of 168 galleries from 21 countries, will show the work of some 2,800+ artists. Running October 20–23rd, the exposition comes at the tail end of Frieze Art Fair, drawing artists, collectors, gallerists, and enthusiasts eastward from London. While the focus of Frieze leans toward contemporary, FIAC includes both contemporary and modern, including works from Picasso, Calder, and Matisse. The fair has been building momentum since 2006; Jennifer Flay, appointed general director in 2010, credits this boost to the fair’s move to the Grand Palais, one of the city’s most cherished architectural gems. The fair also expands this year to the Jardin des Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, the Museum of Natural History, and other venues around the city. Another innovation, a mobile application (in French) is available through Windows Phone which enables visitors to book tickets directly from their phone, as well as receive realtime news updates from the fair, find exhibitors and artists, and access videos and photos of the show.

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Jay Jopling of White Cube, which is exhibiting Damien Hirst’s Where Will It End.

More on site coverage and images after the jump… (more…)

Subodh Gupta, Ali Baba (2011)

The major exhibition Paris-Delhi-Bombay, currently on view at Centre Pompidou through September 19th, displays work by nearly 50 artists mainly based or born in India. Many emerging and high-profile Indian artists have been showing recently in Paris—both the work at Indian Summer, organized at Ecole des Beaux Arts, and Anish Kapoor‘s monumental intervention at the Grand Palais, have included work by Indian artists both already established in Europe as well as those still up-and-coming.

More images after the jump (more…)

Sophie Calle, Photograph from the “North Pole” series, courtesy of Arndt.

Currently on view at Arndt in Berlin is a solo exhibition by Sophie Calle entitled “North Pole,” in which the artist combines objects created in a variety of media to illustrate a narrative of personal significance. Born in France in 1953, Calle is known for her work as a writer, photographer, and conceptual artist. In “North Pole,” she examines the perception and creation of human identity through an abstracted portrait of the life of her mother.

More text and images after the break…

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Sophie Calle, Photograph by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, courtesy the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Currently on view, through October 24th, at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark is a new exhibition from Sophie Calle. One of France’s most well known contemporary artists, Calle has most recently made her imprint on New York with her 2009 exhibition at the Paula Cooper Gallery with “Take Care of Yourself,” a body of work created for the French Pavilion of the 2007 Venice Biennale.

Organized by Whitechapel Gallery, London in collaboration with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg, Holland, Louisiana Contemporary: Sophie Calle presents a number of playful works from 1979-2009, which blur the line between art and reality. Dabbling in adult affairs with the demeanor of an innocent, playing child, Calle often takes on the role of an undercover detective. Her conceptual works entice viewers with undertones of voyeurism, humour and subtlety.

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Installation shot, courtesy The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

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Reflection with Two Children (Self-Portait) (1965) by Lucian Freud, via FT

“I want to paint to work as flesh. As far as I am concerned the paint is the person.” -Lucian Freud

Currently on view at the Centre Pompidou in Paris is a major retrospective of work by Lucian Freud. Now 88 years old, Freud is among one of the world’s greatest living artists. His work was last shown at the Pompidou Centre in 1987 during his last retrospective at the museum. The exhibition presents a great selection of Freud’s work including around fifty large format paintings mostly from private collections together with various prints and drawings as well as photographs from the artist’s studio. The theme of the exhibit is the artist’s studio, the place which is most important to Freud and the creation of his art.

More text and related links after the jump….
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Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Trophy Wife,’ depicting Stephanie Seymour, currently going through a messy divorce from Peter Brant, who owns the piece

-Recent court filings in the divorce of Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour reveal disputes over nearly 50 works by Andy Warhol, as well as works by Richard Prince, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel, and a bust of Seymour made by Maurizio Cattelan [Vanity Fair]

-And in related, Udo Fritz-Hermann Brandhorst, an heir to Germany’s Henkel AG & Co. fortune, settled out of court a dispute with his former mistress over two works by Damien Hirst [Bloomberg]

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Allison Schulnik’s music video for Grizzly Bear’s ‘Ready, Able’

– Painter Allison Schulnik’s claymation music video for Grizzly Bear’s ‘Ready, Able’ via The Flog

-Tracey Emin reading her new book of poems “Those Who Suffer Love” and “Strangeland” at University Settlement as part of Performa 09 [Supreme Being]

-Also related, a round-up of Performa 09 includes a “Pasta Sauna” based on the Futurist Manifesto, Tacita Dean, William Kentridge, Merce Cunningham and more [Financial Times]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week…

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From “May,” a Philippe Parreno show at Kunsthalle Zürich.

On view at Kunsthalle Zürich are works by video artist Philippe Parreno.  This is the first of a series of retrospectives of the artist, to be hosted successively at Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and the CCS, Bard College, New York.  The exhibition at Kunsthalle Zürich runs through August 16.

Related links:
Kunsthalle Zürich
Philippe Parreno [bio courtesy Air de Paris]
Solo Exhibition for Philippe Parreno at Kunsthalle Zürich [Artdaily]
Vernissage has video of Philippe Parreno’s “May.”

More images and story after the jump.

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