The New York Times writes on the recent life and work of Chuck Close, who has suddenly filed for divorce from his wife, moved out to Long Beach, New York, and dealt with health issues that have made working increasingly difficult.  “I’ve been in a struggle with my children to see which of us was going to be a grown-up first, and they won,” Close says. “I still live entirely in the moment. I don’t think about the past. It drives the people around me crazy.” (more…)

The New York Times takes a look at the work of Chuck Close this week, as the artist prepares to open a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum, examining his use of exacting photographic techniques and his approach to painting.  “I approach all subjects the same,” Close says. “Of course I can’t collaborate with a flower the same way I can with a human, but there is an inherent sensuality in a flower that relates to the nudes, and the close-up details of the flowers are equally revelatory.” (more…)

August 4th will see New York City’s billboards, subways, newsstands, and more inundated with major works of art, including pieces by Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, and Chuck Close, as part of Art Everywhere U.S.. This new campaign is the product of a collaboration between the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and five American museums which will result in 58 works of American art being displayed on over 50,000 sites across the country. The campaign hopes to recreate the success of Art Everywhere U.K., a similar movement that launched last year, and spread the importance of American art and artists to a greater number of viewers.

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Chuck Close, Untitled Torso Diptych (2001), all images courtesy Pace Gallery

Taking an inside look at the meticulous creative process of artist Chuck Close, Pace Gallery in New York presents an exhibition featuring Polaroids, daguerreotypes and an acrylic painting exploring the artist’s continually shifting approach to the human figure.  The exhibition focuses on “the body,” a subject long-investigated by the artist.  Born in 1940 in Monroe, Washington, Chuck Close is best known for his many renditions of the human face. Mostly large in scale and based on photographs, his works are in the permanent collections of major museums and galleries around the globe, and have been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions in more than 20 countries.

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Chuck Close is in the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing his recently renovated apartment in the East Village.  Close bought the apartment in 2011, and has installed a number of works from his collection, as well as painting the walls a bright red, inspired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  “All artworks that interest me are constructed,” he says.  “They don’t have to be massive works. They just have to engage me.” (more…)

Vogue Magazine’s Genevieve Bahrenburg writes on a chance encounter with artist Chuck Close, and the artist’s process of capturing her on film for a painting, and the artist’s impressive perceptual capacities.  “I know from years of experience how the incremental units of the grid will fall on an image.”  Close tells her. (more…)

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait/ maquette, 1975  © 2013 Chuck Close courtesy of Pace Gallery

Eykyn Maclean is currently presenting the first exhibition to focus solely on Chuck Close’s photo maquettes, examining their relation to the artist’s large-scale painted portraits. Not only do the works in the Photo Maquettes series offer the viewer a better understanding of the technical aspects of Close’s paintings, but also offer an interesting probe into the delineations between the practices of painting and photography. (more…)

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Chuck Close, Prints: Process and Collaboration (Installation View), via White Cube

As part of a global tour featuring Chuck Close’s graphic works, curated by the Parrish Art Museum, USA, are currently on view at the White Cube Bermondsey South Galleries in London. Featuring a particular focus on Close’s prints, the exhibition brings a series of meticulously time-consuming works by the artist to light that stand strongly alongside his better-known, large-scale paintings.

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“Everything about my work is driven by my learning disabilities”, said Chuck Close as he gave a private tour of his current exhibition at Pace Gallery to a group of schoolchildren from a poverty-stricken community in Bridgeport, CT. It is part of Turnaround Arts, a federally-funded public-private partnership with a focus on arts using a mentorship program. The artist has faced numerous challenges in his life, from neurological and learning disabilities at a young age, to prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces), to his paralysis from a spinal artery collapse. (more…)

Chuck Close, Installation View, Courtesy of Pace Gallery

Pace Gallery in New York is home to Chuck Close’s first gallery show in the city since 2009. The gallery has represented Close since 1977. This latest exhibition features some of the artist’s newest pieces such as Cindy (2012) (a portrait of photographer Cindy Sherman) along with some of Close’s older works. (more…)

Performance artist Joey Arias with 60th gala cake

Tuesday night marked Aperture Foundation’s Sixtieth Anniversary Gala Dinner & Photography Auction. The live auction featured an incredible selection of 60+ works up for grabs by such notables as: Diane Arbus, Chuck Close, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Vik Muniz, Hank Willis Thomas and William Wegman. (more…)

Image: Warhol’s Cow Wallpaper and Silver Pillows, The New York Times

“Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” is a group show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that juxtaposes fifty Warhol works with one hundred of those by his peers and successors. The show attempts to capture the scope and breadth of Warhol’s impact on contemporary art history. Presented 25 years after his death at the age of 58 in 1987, the exhibition showcases the works of both artists who have risen to fame after Warhol’s death as well that of his contemporaries. Some of the artists included are Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, Ed Ruscha, Alex Katz, Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter.

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John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Frank Gehry and other notable artists have collaborated with LA-based Gemini G.E.L. gallery to support President Barack Obama in his bid for a second term. The gallery has organized 150 portfolios of limited edition prints and artworks that will be on show to the public starting Sept 13.  In further related, artist Chuck Close,who crafted the large-scale tapestry of Obama that was visible during the Democratic National Convention, may also be lending financial support through sales of more tapestries, ranging in price from $5,000 to $100,000, at a private event at Lever House in New York on Oct 3.

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‪‬As Chuck Close and others’ sought royalties from secondary sales of artwork, the California Resale Royalties Act has been ruled unconstitutional by Judge Jacqueline Nguyen, “the court finds that the (law) has the ‘practical effect’ of controlling commerce ‘occurring wholly outside the boundaries’ of California even though it may have some ‘effects within the state.”

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‪‬Chuck Close commissioned to create $1 million installation at 86th Street stop for future Second Avenue subway line, the work to include as many as 12 separate mosaics of artists Close has photographed

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Gearing up for a performance piece on the fourth floor.  All images for Art Observed by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand.

The festive albeit politically charged atmosphere at the 2012 76th annual Whitney Biennial‘s pre-show event was practically interdependent, with the political climate not only informing the sentiments of viewers, but arguably the art itself. While protesters outside encouraged entering guests to “Occupy the Whitney,” antagonizing Sotheby’s and Deutsche Bank for withholding benefits from workers and developing financial strategies to benefit the ‘one percent,’ art indoors at the biennial also challenged artistic convention against the same political scale, with over 50 artists showing work.

Chuck Close touring the second floor

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‪‬Chuck Close, Sam Francis Foundation, the estate of Robert Graham, and Laddie John Dill sue Sotheby’s and Christie’s over adherence to California Resale Royalties Act [AO Newslink]

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Doug Aitken, Now (2011) at 303 Gallery NY. All photos for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

AO is on site in London for this week’s Frieze Art Fair. With 173 galleries selling an estimated $350 million worth of art, a level of anxiety pervades as the week’s results will be indicative of the overall international contemporary art market. Works like Christian Jankowski’s droll The Finest Art on Water and Michael Landy’s Credit Card Destroying Machine directly comment on the world economic state, while the overall demeanor remains upbeat, with art world moguls and A-list celebrities enjoying the festivities.

Michael Landy’s Credit Card Destroying Machine (2011), Thomas Dane Gallery

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Berlin will host its ersatz spring art fair, Gallery Weekend Berlin (GWB), this weekend, Apr. 29 – May 1, with over 44 galleries participating. Now in its seventh installment, GWB has an air of excitement about it – perhaps due to the number of buyers, dealers, and other visitors flying in, which also coincides with the yoke of the winter season being thrown off.  In any event, GWB promises some interesting viewing experiences, and brings a concentrated selection of strong art and events to a city is a prime destination for the creatives of the world.

Albert Oehlen, Stars (2005), via Galerie Max Hetzler

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Chuck Close, mustache close-up of Lucas (1987-88), via ShowMedia

Throughout January, artwork by Chuck Close and Kehinde Wiley will travel New York City atop 500 taxi cabs, thanks to art enthusiast and ShowMedia president John Amato. With an estimated value of $100,000, Amato said, “I can do this as my annual holiday gift not just to myself, but to everyone who enjoys seeing the art as it travels around New York City’s streets.” ‘Art Adds’ is the second annual collaboration between ShowMedia and the Art Production Fund, a campaign bringing art to the streets for all to enjoy. The inaugural year featured Alex Katz, Shirin Neshat, and Yoko Ono.

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Kehinde Wiley, The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia (2008), via ShowMedia

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All images courtesy of Patrick McMullan

On Wednesday night, AOL inc. kicked-off their 25th Anniversary celebrations in New York with an intimate ceremony at the New Museum to launch Project on Creativity – a new initiative spearheaded by a series of portraits of the innovators and creatives photographed by American artist Chuck Close – a select few, including images Dalai Lama, segway inventor Dean Kamen, artist Kara Walker, director Gus Van Sant and the actress Claire Danes, were displayed in the Seventh-Floor Sky Room at the Museum which was packed with the members of the New York society world including Andy and Kate Spade, Lisa Anastos, Genevieve Jones, Jennifer Missoni, Will Cotton, Waris Ahlualia, Glenn O’Brien, Bill Powers and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. The ground floor of the museum was dedicated to a high-tech display of original artwork by four artists from around the world who are part of a larger group of 41 young artists who are to be featured on AOL’s homepage as well as AOLArtists.com – a new destination where users can learn more about how AOL is using creative expression across their sites and the artists who created involved. In addition to these initiatives, AOL representatives used the evening as an opportunity to announce plans for 25 for 25 – a scholarship program, which will grant 25 $25,000 scholarships to tomorrow’s journalists, artists, illustrators, chefs, producers, videographers, and editors. The evening continued for guests who headed a few blocks north to the Bowery hotel for the official after party which was headlined by an intimate performance John Legend.

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Jonathan Meese, “mutter mit roter Brille und roetlicher Perlenkette,” part of “The Figure and Dr. Freud,” a group exhibition on at Haunch of Venison New York.

Haunch of Venison’s New York branch is showing “The Figure and Dr. Freud,” a group exhibition by 31 artists from the last century.  These include past and currently producing artists, from the sculptor Alberto Giacometti to the painter Daniel Richter.  The show, which closes on August 22, focuses on the human figure as the artists have rendered it, through the lenses of the late Dr. Freud’s psychoanalytic theories.

Related links:
Haunch of Venison
Sigmund Freud [freudfile]

David Salle, “With All Due Respect Sir, We Need Modesty Blaise,” at Haunch of Venison.

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Chuck Close, Cindy (2006), jacquard tapestry, at PaceWildenstein

PaceWildenstein Gallery in Chelsea presents the latest Chuck Close exhibition, showing seven oil on canvas paintings in addition to tapestry portraits of Brad Pitt, Ellen Gallagher, Philip Glass, Lyle Ashton, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Zhang Huan, and two self-portraits.  An exhibition catalog with an introductory essay by curator Lilly Wei accompanies the show.

PaceWildenstein
Chuck Clise: Selected Paintings and Tapestries, 2005-2009
534 West 25th Street, New York
May 1 – June 20, 2009

RELATED LINKS
Exhibition Page [PaceWildenstein]
Chuck Close: Tapestries [Magnolia Editions]
Chuck Close Opening Thursday 4/30 [Magnolia Editions Blog]
Video: Chuck Close Tapestries at PaceWildenstein [Magnolia Editions Blog]
Chuck Close Artist Page [Art Observed]

Chuck Close, Self Portrait/Color (2007) Tapestry at PaceWildenstein

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David Zwirner booth at the Armory, showing Yan Pei-Ming, John McCracken, and Rachel Khedoori.

New York Armory Week 2009 is in full swing, with attendance higher than expected moving into the weekend.  Despite the absence of several blue chip galleries – including Matthew Marks and Lehmann Maupin – the gallerists’ collective mood seems hesitant but optimistic.  177 contemporary galleries are exhibiting in the Armory’s 11th year, along with the addition of a Modern wing at Pier 92 selling more established, less edgy work.

The Armory Show 2009 and the Armory Modern
Piers 92 and 94
12th Avenue at 54th Street
March 4-8, 2009

Armory Opening Party at MoMA.

RELATED LINKS
Sales still down, but spirits are buoyant [Art Newspaper]
On the Piers, Testing the Waters in a Down Art Market [New York Times]
Has the Recession Sparked a New Renaissance? [Guardian UK]
On the Scene at the Armory Preview Party [Style File Blog]
MoMA’s Armory Show Opening Benefit Party [Patrick McMullan]
Armory MoMA After Party [Guest of a Guest]
Now Dealing | The Armory Show [TheMoment]
Window-shoppers Descend on Armory Art Show [NYMag]
What’s Selling (or Not) at the New York Armory Show [NYMag]
‘Creepy’ Bernie Madoff Watercolor Fails to Sell at Armory Show [NYMag]
Dealers Sold on Armory Modern, Collectors Less So [ArtInfo]
The Herd Is Out, but Holding Back [ArtInfo]

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