AO Art Observed™

L: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (He entered shop after shop…), 2008 R: Eric Fischl, Rebirth I: (The Last View of Camiliano Cien Fuegos), 1986. All images courtesy of Haunch of Venison, New York.

On view at Haunch of Venison New York, until May 1, 2010, is “Your History Is Not Our History.” Organized by artists David Salle and Richard Phillips, this group show presents works produced in 1980s New York City.

Including works by Donald Baechler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ross Bleckner, Francesco Clemente, Carroll Dunham, Eric Fischl, Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger,Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Malcolm Morley, Richard Prince, David Salle, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Jenny Holzer, Phillip Taaffe, Terry Winters and Christopher Wool, this exhibition seeks to convey “a more accurate portrayal of the energy and experimentation that was permeating the city during that time,” says Phillips.

L: Christopher Wool, Untitled, 1988   C: Jeff Koons, Buster Keaton, 1988 R: Eric Fischl, The Old Man’s Boat & The Old Man’s Dog, 1981.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Installation View  All photographs are via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, 6-24 Britannia street, London is the exhibition titled “Crash, Homage to J.G. Ballard” , a group show dedicated, as the name suggests, to the oeuvre of J.D. Ballard, a prominent British novelist and short-story writer, a representative of the New Wave movement in science fiction.  The exhibition was put together to pay tribute to the enormous cultural influence of J.D. Ballard’s fiction on many visual artists. The impressive selection of works by  such prominent artists as Ed Ruscha, Richard Hamilton, AndyWarhol and Helmut Newton illustrates profound engagement of the writer with the works of visual artists of his generation and their mutual influence.

More images and related links after the jump….
(more…)

Terence Koh captured mid-lecture during his performance “Art History: 1642-2009″ at the National Arts Club, New York via Zimbio

Last night ArtObserved was on site at New York City’s National Arts Club to witness a performance,”Art History: 1642 – 2009,” from Terence Koh.  The performance was curated by Stacey Engman, the National Arts Club‘s Contemporary Art Chair and Chief Curator and was in conjunction with Performa 09. Indeed, the theme of the night – a tour through the great canon of Art History – was set from the beginning of the night as guests, who included Aurel Schmidt, Vito Schnabel, Klaus Biesenbach, Marina Abramovic and Mary Boone, mingled in a salon-style reception in the beautiful front parlours of the club house. The performance was to take the form of an Art History lecture, accompanied by images of artworks – this was about all guests knew before the show started and so guessing and anticipating became the game of choice for all in attendance.

More text, images and related links after the jump……
(more…)

The First Annual Art Awards via Guggenheim.org

Last night, October 29, marked the inauguration of a new annual art event: Rob Pruitt presented The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New Yorkin association with the city’s oldest alternative art space, White Columns.

The awards were conceived by artist, Rob Pruitt, as a performance-based artwork; for the occasion he recruited the characters of Index Magazine’s wry satirical web series, Delusional Downtown Divas. The New York Times have reported that “…the Divas schemed to infiltrate the art establishment by any means possible. In one segment they pitched a tent in the Guggenheim, doing their laundry in the lobby fountain.”

Jeffrey Deitch and Kembra Pfahler at The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum via style.com

More images, text and related links after the jump….

(more…)

Untitled #153, Cindy Sherman (1985). Via Skarstedt Gallery

The current group show at Skarstedt Gallery on E79th Street in New York exhibits the efforts of nine artists to tackle a genre that is of great importance in the canon of Art History: the Self-Portrait.  Once a tool for self-promotion and notoriety, the staff at the Skarstedt Gallery recognize the self-portrait as “a conceptual apparatus of history and are at the disposal of anyone who employs it.” In this instance, the Gallery presents the viewer with the self-fashioned images of Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Rudolf Stingel, John Coplands, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Robert Mapplethorpe, Yasumasa Morimura, and Albert Oehlen within the framework of four iconographical themes: Glory, Desire, The Masquerade and Fading.

Untitled (Self-Portrait), Martin Kippenberger (1988). Via Skarstedt Gallery

Related Links:
Skarstedt Gallery Homepage [Skarstedt Gallery]
Self-Portraits at the Skarstedt Gallery event page [Skarstedt Gallery]
Self-Portraits, by Ken Johnson [New York Times]

More text and pictures after the jump…..

(more…)

Exhibition view, “The Female Gaze: Woman Look at Women,” at Cheim & Read. Pictured works include Victoria Civera’s Searcher (far left) and Vanessa Beecroft’s Blonde Figure Lying (floor).

Through September 19, 2009, Cheim & Read will show “The Female Gaze: Women Look At Women.”  Featured are works by women of women, with aim to reorient the typically-male framing of women in art.  Works range in medium from the paintings of Alice Neel and Lisa Yuskavage to the sculptures of Kara Walker, the text poems of Jenny Holzer and the photographs by Diane Arbus, the installations by Louise Bourgeois and even collage work by Ellen Gallagher.

Related links:
Cheim & Read – Exhibition – The Female Gaze [Cheim and Read]
Now Hanging: Girlie Show [The Moment Blog, New York Times]
The Female Gaze, The Cheim and Read Gallery, New York [Financial Times]
The Female Gaze: Women look at Women [Artforum]
“The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women” at Cheim & Reid [Contemporary Art Daily]

Cindy Sherman, Untitled, at Cheim & Read.

(more…)

A Jeff Koons sculpture causing consternation to the owner’s neighbors, via Curbed

A hedge-fund king adorns his Upper East Side penthouse terrace with a huge sculpture of a diamond by Jeff Koons [NY Post]
In related: Two interviews where Jeff Koons speaks about his work, financial troubles due to custody battle after divorce and art market [Art Market Monitor]

At the Ace Hotel via New York Magazine

The new ACE Hotel in New York has commissioned a mural of 4,000 graffiti stickers collected in New York by the Bronx-born artist, Michael Anderson [New York Magazine]
Lehman Brothers selling its corporate art collection to contribute to the bankrupt company coffers [Bloomberg]

Terence Koh in in a wedding dress via Supreme Management

Terence Koh gets married to Garrick Gott in a wedding dress like his mother once wore [Supreme Management]

T-shirt, Terence Koh’s design via Pipeline

In related, “Hand-finished” limited edition T-shirts with a bullet scar by Terence Koh are now in sale at the Opening Ceremony [Pipeline]
Robert Stevens’ film depicting animal cruelty starts a lawsuit resulting in a debate around free speech in art community [Artinfo]

Nate Lowman at the Hydra Workshop via C-Monster

The artsy jet-set on the Greek Isle at the Hydra Workshop presenting works by New York “bad boy,” Nate Lowman [Hydra Workshop via C-Monster]
Auction Houses face a dilemma as the previously bullish market reduced the supply of quality works to a growing market [NY Times]
The Tate Britain is looking for a director [e-flux]

A rendering of Pier 57 via Hudson River Park River Trust

Youngwoo’s proposal will bring in the Phillips auction house to turn part of Pier 57  into contemporary art galleries, the Tribeca Film Festival will program a movie theater and a two-acre park will be built on the pier’s roof [The New York Observer]
Reduced rents, spurred by a difficult economic climate, cause such galleries in L.A. as Gagosian, Blum & Poe, Susanna Vielmetter, and Cherry and Martin Roberts & Tilton to expand in Culver City [Art Review]

Zhang Huan to design Semele via Art Knowledge News

KT Wong Foundation commissions Chinese artist Zhang Huan to design and direct Semele opera in Belgium’s leading Opera House [Art Knowledge News]
French street artist, known as Zevs, arrested for painting a dripping Chanel logo above Armani boutique in Hong Kong; prosecutors ask for $861,000 to replace the affected facade [South China Morning Post]
Buyers battered by a credit crisis look for bargains in contemporary art, works by artists born post-1945 may be a smart investment [The Wall Street Journal]

The Fifer, Manet via Artinfo

While Musée D’Orsay is partially closed, de Young Museum in San Francisco will host two landmark exhibitions of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art from the vast collection of the French museum [Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco]
The Palm Springs Art Museum’s contemporary art collection grows with a gift of 116 works by 66 artists including Donald Judd, Louise Bourgeois and Gary Hume [Los Angeles Times]

Cindy Sherman on cover of Men’s Vogue via Art is Alive

Cindy Sherman, on the cover of L’Uomo Vogue [Art is Alive]
An interesting editorial on the issue of London’s National Portrait Gallery battling Wikipedia for uploading the copyrighted reproductions of their collection [The Wall Street Journal]
Sam Taylor-Wood’s debut film, a John Lennon biopic, to close the London film festival [TimesUK]

Louvre, FIAC hosted at Louvre, Cour Carree and Grand Palais via Erco

In Paris the 36th edition of FIAC brings together 196 modern art and contemporary galleries from 21 countries [Art Daily]
In related, the Musée du Louvre launches the English version of its online collections database [NY Times]
Rocco Landesman awaits confirmation for his position as a chairman-designate to National Endowment for the Arts and is likely to start the job on firmer ground than any of his recent predecessors [The New York Times]

The Wassaic Project via The New York Times

The Wassaic Project, an elevator grain converted into an art gallery, attracts art and young curators to the small town Northeast of New York [The New York Times]
The Downtown branch of the Whitney museum designed by Renzo Piano should be ready in 2012 [The Villager]

Exhibition View, Chapman Brothers faux show Good News! at Orel Art. Via Times Online

British Art Brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman’s fake identities, art movement, and exhibition as Russian artists is on view after a quiet opening [TimesUK]
Gallery owners reveal the difficulties of running their business in times of the economic crisis [Forbes], yet some of L.A.’s resilient galleries find opportunities in the crisis: such as reduced rent [Los Angeles Times]

Wassily Kandinsky’s ‘Dramatic and Mild,’ estimated to sell between $6-8 million at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Fall Auction via ArtDaily

Part of the Arthur Sackler Collection is to be auctioned this fall by Sotheby’s, including a rare Kandinsky painting [ArtDaily]
Christie’s sales fell 35% in the first half of the year, though the auction house accounts for 61% of all global auction sales [Bloomberg] and a breakdown of Christie’s first half results [Art Market Monitor]

Cindy Sherman’s self-portait for Vogue

Cindy Sherman takes a self-portrait for Vogue in couture, parodying the magazine’s many domestic fashion spreads [Vogue via Economist]

Basquiat Reeboks via Solediction

Reebok releases a line of high tops featuring the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat [Solediction]
A charity auction in September to raise funds for orphans in Africa will featureworks by prominent YBAs such as Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley, as well as David Bowie, while also including work by South African artists like Marlene Dumas as well as emerging artists [Independent]

The bike Damien Hirst designed for Lance Armstrong to ride in the last stage of the Tour de France via Daily Mail

PETA outraged over Damien Hirst’s use of dead butterfly wings on Lance Armstrong’s bike [Daily Mail]
Richard Prince buys a townhouse on the Upper East Side for $11.5 million [NY Observer]
The pop-up Lola Gallery opens in Southampton [Vanity Fair]

Bill Viola’s ‘Ocean Without a Shore,’ which premiered at the church of San Gallo at the 2007 Venice Biennale via FAD

Bill Viola has been commissioned to create two altarpieces for permanent display in St Paul’s Cathedralin London [FAD]
A new program offers a master’s degree in international art crime [NY Times]
Chelsea art dealers predict that the presence of the High Line will kill the art scene there [Artnet]

Billionaire art collector Eli Broad via Forbes

Forbes names the top ten billionaire art collectors, including François Pinault, Eli Broad, and David Geffen [Forbes]
In related, Vice Chairman of Forbes, Christopher “Kip” Forbes, selling 36 works through private transactions [Bloomberg]
In further related, a growing number of collectors prefer private transactions, the publicity can come after the deal is made [Bloomberg]

Carsten Höller at the Double Club, Via Guardian

Carsten Höller’s Double Club  “modern day Studio 54″ moving to Paris from London [Guardian]
As visitors wait in line for up to 3 hours, the Banksy show in Bristol extends its visiting hours into the evening [Evening Standard]

Will Cotton’s studio via Whitewall

A look inside Will Cotton’s studio [Whitewall]
Tracey Emin tells in her interview the difficulties she had to face: from tapeworm to family troubles [Times Online]
An interview with Eric Fischl on 9/11 and bull fighting in his Soho studio [Artnet]
An almost conclusively thorough article on Dash Snow [NY Times]

Untitled (Four Single Men with Interchangeable Backgrounds Looking to the Right) (1977) by Richard Prince, via The Met

Currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is “The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984.” It is the first major museum exhibition devoted entirely to the “Pictures Generation,” a close-knit group of artists concentrating on the self-reflexive and critical principles of Minimal and Conceptual Art.  The exhibition explores how images shape perceptions of ourselves and the world and features 160 works made in all media by thirty artists including Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, Louise Lawler, Laurie Simmons and David Salle.

The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984 [Exhibition Page]
The Original Artistic Recyclers [Wall Street Journal]
The Pictures Generation [The New Yorker]
At the Met, Baby Boomers Leap Onstage [NewYorkTimes]
Framing the Message of a Generation [NewYorkTimes]
The Pictures Generation: A Conversation with Douglas Eckund [Art in America]
Preview the Met’s Fab New Show, “The Pictures Generation” [The Washington Post ]

(more…)

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

(more…)

Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil, Untitled (Sue), 1950, Via Frankfurter Allgemeine

Currently on view at Sotheby’s New York for the first time and for a short time only is a selection of works from the collection of Steven and Alexandra Cohen.  The exhibition consists of twenty pieces by masters of the modern period, such as Picasso, de Kooning and Warhol, and leading contemporary artists, dealing with women as subject matter.   Other artists represented in Women are: Edvard Munch, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani. Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil, Yves Klein, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Lucian Freud, Richard Prince, Marlene Dumas and Lisa Yuskavage.

Sotheby’s New York
Women: A Loan Exhibition from the Collection of Steven and Alexandra Cohen
1334 York Ave, New York,
10th floor
April 2 – April 14, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Exhibition Page and Press Release [Sotheby's]
NY Times Carol Vogel Previews the Exhibition [New York Times]
Steven Cohen’s Rise as a Collector [The Independent]
MAO Critiquing Cohen’s Motives [MAO]
NY Mag Examines Cohen’s Motives [New York Magazine]
The Exhibition in the Light of the Art Market [Wealth Bulletin]
Speculations on the Exhibition [ArtForum]
Speculations on the Exhibition II [ArtInfo]
Speculations on Cohen’s Motives [Bloomberg]
Exploring Cohen’s Motives [Luxist]
Preview of the Exhibition [Bloomberg]

(more…)

Maurizio Cattelan, Ostrich, 1997, Via the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture

On March 19, The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture (GCCC) in Moscow celebrated the opening of A Certain State of the World? Highlights from the François Pinault Foundation Collection, an exhibition of international contemporary art from the collection of François Pinault curated by Caroline Bourgeois.  The show includes works -curated along themes of war, the society of spectacle and the globalized world- by thirty three top-ranking artists from North-America, Europe, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia, working with a variety of media.  Amid many noteworthy pieces, visitors can admire Jeff Koons’ famed Hanging Heart (1994-2006). Hanging Heart sold for $23.6 million on auction at Sotheby’s in November 2007 and was first publicly displayed at the inaugural exhibition of François Pinault’s Collection at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.  Other artists included in the exhibition are: Chen Zen, Bill Viola, Francesco Vezzoli, Joana Vasconcelos, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Marion Tampon Lajarriette, Cindy Sherman, Paul Pfeiffer, Philipe Parreno, Takashi Murakami, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Kimsooja, Y.Z. Kami, Pierre Huyghe, Subodh Gupta, Johan Grimonprez, Loris Gréaud, Dan Flavin, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Liu Dahong, Maurizio Cattelan, Cao Fei, Carlos Amorales, Francis Alÿs, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla and Adel Abdessemed.

The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture
A Certain State of the World?
Highlights from the François Pinault Foundation Collection
Obraztsova street 19 A, Moscow
March 20 – June 14, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Gallery Website (in Russian) [The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture]
Interview with Daria Zhukova on the Eve of the Opening Night [Financial Times]
A Review of the Opening Night [Saatchi Gallery]
A Review by The Guardian [The Guardian]
Article on Russian Art World and the GCCC [The Economist]
Article on Daria Zhukova and the Exhibition [The First Post]
Article on Daria Zhukova and the Exhibition [The Times UK]
Exhibition Review [The Moscow Times]

(more…)

Installation view of Rothko’s ‘Seagram Murals’ via MSNBC

Tate Liverpool exhibits Rothko’s Seagram Murals after a 20-year absence [Artdaily]
Rochelle Steiner, under whose tenure Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls” was sponsored, leaves the Public Art Fund [NY Times] and in related, Sotheby’s CEO takes big paycuts in the wake of the market downturn [Bloomberg]

Alex James, bassist of Blur via The Mirror

Blur’s Alex James to judge Charles Saatchi’s art-star reality TV show [The Mirror]
Jonathan Jones on how consumerism spawned Warhol and Pop art and thus the shallowness of contemporary art [Guardian]
Vanity Fair’s imagined conversations overheard at a MoMA party [VanityFair]
A new show at Paris’s Musee d’Art Moderne acknowledges how Italian Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico sold backdated copies of his own work [Bloomberg]

Patti Smith via The Art Newspaper

Patti Smith, whose Polaroids are showing at Robert Miller gallery, on her early career as an artist and why she feels Jeff Koons’s work is “just litter upon the earth” [The Art Newspaper]

Andy Warhol’s BMW Art Car via W Magazine

The BMW Art Car series by artists such as Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg to appear at New York’s Grand Central Terminal starting March 24 [W Magazine]
Chinese art dealer who sabotaged Christie’s sale of bronzes during the Yves Saint Laurent sale weeps at his shattered credibility [Bloomberg]

Steve McQueen modeling for T Magazine

A brief profile of Turner prize winning film artist Steve McQueen’s fashion aesthetic [The Moment]
The Las Vegas Sun does a post-mortem on the Las Vegas Art Museum, which closed last month [Las Vegas sun via ArtsJournal]

Trailer for ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ via Entertainment Weekly

Soon to open in New York, an art world outsider chronicles his relationship with an art world insider in the film ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ [Entertainment Weekly]
Susan Moore looks at the recent emergence of a homegrown art scene in the United Arab Emirates [Financial Times]

Collectors Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant via Artnet

Art in America and Interview Magazine owner Peter Brant opens his private collection to the public, by appointment only, at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center [NY Times]
How the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland was unable to secure an immense 16,000 piece art collection obtained during a takeover of ABN Amro as that bank’s CEO deftly transferred ownership to a foundation before the merger [TimesUK]
Turner Prize winning sculptor Antony Gormley announces first public art installation for Scotland [TheScotsman]

Laura Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni and Lauren Cornell, curators at the New Museum of Contemporary Art via NY Times

A preview of the New Museum’s inaugural triennial, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” [NY Times]
Hans Ulrich Obrist’s book “The Conversation Series” includes interviews with artist such as Wolfgang Tillmans and Gilbert and George [ArtInfo]

A peek at Pierogi Gallery’s new annex, the Boiler via NY Times

Williamsburg’s Pierogi Gallery opens new annex, The Boiler [NY Times]
Chelsea galleries, including Andrea Rosen, Barbara Gladstone, Mary Boone and Matthew Marks, to show work at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba [The Art Newspaper]

Anish Kapoor’s ‘Temenos’ via AnishKapoor

Construction begins on first of five of Anish Kapoor outdoor sculptures in the UK: the ‘world’s biggest art project’ [DesignWeek]

Portrait of Pope Benedict XIV by Pierre Subleyras via NY Mag

Old masters prove to be a bellwether in the market downturn [Financial Times] as such, The Metropolitan Museum acquires a Renaissance portrait of Pope Benedict XIV for nearly $1 million amidst financial woes [NY Mag] and this painting also is featured here in a separate video discussion on the resilience of old master paintings [Sotheby's]

Christian Marclay, Untitled, 1987 via Art Daily.

Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix is on display now at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. The exhibition explores the collaborative works of the historic experimental band Sonic Youth and the artists, filmmakers, designers, and musicians they have worked with since their formation in 1981. The exhibition illustrates the history of the New York City band through records, posters, T-shirts, instruments, and photographs which serve to encourage the audience to consider the division between “high” and “popular” art. The works themselves, much like the music of Sonic Youth, document an alternative coming of age including teenage rebellion, restlessness of youth, the search for fame, identity, gender roles, sexuality, and religion. The show features the work of notables Jenny Holzer, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Wall, among others., and will conclude with a sold-out Sonic Youth performance on April 24, 2009. Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix has previously been displayed at LiFe in Saint-Nazaire, France and the Museion Bozen in Italy, and will move to Malmö Konsthall in Sweden, and the Centro Huarte de Arte Contemporaneo in Spain following its current stay in Düsseldorf.

Press Release [Kunsthalle Düsseldorf]
Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix [Sonic Youth Media]
Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix [Art News]
Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf [Art Daily]
Fountain of Sonic Youth [Hint Mag] (more…)

Race Riot by Andy Warhol, top left, Forget It! Forget Me! by Roy Lichtenstein, right, and Life is a Killer by John Giorno, bottom left. Undated picture taken at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Image via Bloomberg.

Several major Brandeis University donors and trustees suffered substantial losses when Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was exposed, leaving the university in a very precarious financial position.  Facing a potential $79 million deficit, according to an official interviewed at the Daily Beast, the university is facing some rather stark choices: closing the Rose Museum and selling the entire collection at a fire sale price, or potentially firing up to half of its faculty.

Museum page: Rose Art Museum
Statement from Michael Rush, Director of the Rose Art Art Museum, regarding the impending closing of the museum [Rose Museum]
Brandeis Forced To Close Museum [WSJ]
Outcry Over a Plan to Sell Museum’s Holdings [NYT]
Brandeis Art Sale Illustrates Pressures on Colleges [WSJ]
Brandeis President Says School May Keep Its Art, but Rose Will Close [ARTINFO]
Brandeis may keep art, says president [Boston Globe]
Critics Blast Brandeis Plan to Close Rose Museum, Sell Artworks [Bloomberg]
Protests, Rumors swirl in Rose Musem closing [Artnet]
Q&A with Rose Art Museum director Michael Rush [ArtJournal]
A Madoff Sell Off? [TIME]
Brandeis on the Brink [The Daily Beast]
Save the Rose Art Museum [Facebook]

More detail on the story after the jump…

(more…)

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]

Cindy Sherman Untitled 2008 photograph via Metro Pictures.

Currently on display at Metro Pictures is Cindy Sherman’s first exhibition since 2004.  Like practically all of Sherman’s work, the photos have the artist acting as her own model.  The pieces are not traditional self-portraits however, as Sherman dons makeup, hairstyles, and wardrobe all conceived and executed by the artist herself.  The exhibition which, is untitled, has Sherman dressing as affluent women in elaborate gowns and jewelry, set against backgrounds of lavish homes and gardens.  To create the work the artist first photographed herself against a green screen and then then digitally merges the image with background photos shot separately.

Photographer Cindy Sherman Sports Latest Disguise [NY Magazine]
Cindy Sherman: Transformer, playing dress-up is actually a profession [Village Voice]
Cindy Sherman Channels the End of an Era [The Huffington Post]
Cindy Sherman: Press Release [Metro Pictures]
(more…)

Banksy’s controversial One Nation Under CCTV via hutley.net

Banksy issues a statement on London City removal of his CCTV work [Time via TWBE] and a video of Banksy’s pet store/charcoal grill in NYC [Wooster Collective]
At the Whitney: Leonard Lauder, Cindy Sherman, Mary Boone, Donatella Versace, Christina Ricci, Sting and assorted socialites show up for the Gala and Studio Party [ArtInfo]
Art and Commerce: Julian Schnabel, sponsored by Mastercard, completes portrait of sweepstakes winner [Tradingmarkets]
A quiet but strong video of Jenny Holzer at the Guggenheim, New York [Vernissage.tv]
Takashi Murakami, a bit hurt perhaps from the his Phillips Frieze auction, comments on the art market: “Everyone is very nervous. Everything is negative” [NYMag]
And in the latest in Damien Hirst: the Guardian quotes his art market comments from four years ago: “they would sell your granny to Nigerian sex slave traders for 50 pence and a packet of woodbines” [GuardianUK] his cover art for British band The Hours [Brand Republic] and Sarah Thornton has a thorough summary of Hirst and some of his series: “he faces all the problems of an aging rock star” [TheArtNewspaper]

Duane Hanson’s “Flea Market Lady” staffs Emmanuel Perrotin’s booth at Frieze via New York Magazine

In the midst of perhaps the most spectacular global financial and credit market cave-ins ever experienced, The Frieze Art Fair in London, one of the three largest contemporary art fairs, felt a slowdown in some attendance indicators, sales volume and pricing; a harbinger of similar buyer sentiment reflected in anemic sales totals from all of the three major contemporary art auctions that followed in London over the weekend from Sotheby’s, Phillips and Christie’s respectively. In light of the true magnitude of the global wealth disrupted in recent weeks, overall, the output of the Frieze art fair and the concurrent contemporary art auctions likely could have been worse. The following is a roundup of the news and images looking back from the close of the Frieze fair as well as detailed summaries of each auction.

Takashi Murakami’s “Tongari-Kun” 2004. Though it was headliner of the Phillips Auction on Saturday, it failed to sell. Image via Phillips

Newslinks, images and more on the Frieze Art Fair and on the Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips auctions after the jump…

(more…)

Rob Pruitt, Viagra Falls (2008) via Tony Shafrazi Gallery

“Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?” runs from May 9 – July 12 at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York. Gavin Brown and Swiss artist Urs Fischer organized this show, which has been garnering a strong amount of publicity. Be sure to click on Art Observed’s exclusive covering of the opening. The exhibition celebrates juxtapositions throughout art and pays homage to Shafrazi’s legendary defacing of Picasso in the seventies by irreverent displays of art work out of context with traditional presentation. Different mediums, spaces, and uses of objects are shown. There are works from a wide range of artists, including,  Jeff Koons, Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman, to Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Tony Shafrazi Gallery
When Artworks Collide [NY Times]
Tony Shafrazi Defaces ‘Guernica’ Again [NY Magazine]
Picks: Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?” [ArtForum]
Tony Shafrazi Defaces ‘Guernica’ Again [NYMag]
AO on site: Fischer & Brown at Tony Shafrazi Gallery [ArtObserved]

(more…)

Barnaby Furnas, Poe (2008) via White Cube

White Cube Hoxton Square, London, presents “You Dig the Tunnel, I ll Hide the Soil” an exhibition celebrating the legacy, influence, and iconic status of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Some artists featured are Jake & Dinos Chapman, Douglas Gorden, Marcus Harvey, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Anselm Kiefer, Mike Nelson, Cindy Sherman and many more.

White Cube
“Preview: Animal Magic, Eleven Fine Art, London” [The Independent]

(more…)

Cindy Sherman via sunwalked

Sherman’s well known self-portraits address, among other themes, gendered roles and their relation to the ways in which society views them. The artist’s mercurial persona in her work and her often noted reclusive manner keep her enigmantic. A new documentary however, Guest of Cindy Sherman portrays the ever-elusive artist in a more intimate light.

Art Films at Tribeca Film Festival [Artnet News]
Guest of Cindy Sherman produced by FilmLike NYC [FilmLike]
Guest of Cindy Sherman at Tribeca Film Festival [Tribeca Film Festival]
Cindy Sherman’s interview regarding the late 70′s period [New York mag]

(more…)

“Women in the City” via The New York Times

Starting February 9, Emi Fontana’s lastest show takes art out of the galleries and into the city, displaying the breakthrough work of female artists including Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman in more than fifty public locations throughout Los Angeles.

(more…)

Photo by Genevieve Hanson via FLAG Art Foundation

This weekend The Flag Art Foundation, a new private exhibition space located in New York’s Chelsea Art Tower opened its inaugural show Attention to Detail curated by Chuck Close. The exhibition features work from 50 contemporary artists, including very established (more…)