DIVINE DIALOGUES: Cy Twombly and Greek Antiquity, exhibition view. All images courtesy of the Museum of Cycladic Art.

On the occasion of Documenta 14 in Athens, the Museum of Cycladic Art presents “Divine Dialogues: Cy Twombly and Greek Antiquity,” an exhibition that juxtaposes twenty-seven works by the American artist Cy Twombly with twelve ancient Greek artworks and objects from the Archaic and Classical periods. As the press release concedes, the impact of Greece’s geography and mythos on Twombly’s artistic production is widely known; “Divine Dialogues” seeks not just to reaffirm the scope and depth of this influence, but to make a firm case for Greek antiquity’s continuing relevance to modern and contemporary art at large. (more…)

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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The Cy Twombly Foundation has given a set of five bronze sculptures from its holdings to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, fulfilling a desire expressed by the artist shortly before he died to show these works in the museum’s Iliam galleries.  “I am happy that the Foundation was able to make this gift as I know how happy Cy himself would have been,” says Nicola Del Roscio, president of the Cy Twombly Foundation. (more…)

Cy Twombly, Untitled (New York City) (1968), via Sotheby’s

Tonight Sotheby’s has logged its response to Christie’s moderate outing last evening, as the auction house’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale saw steady, albeit occasionally slow proceedings, bringing a final sales tally of $294,850,000 with 13 of the 57 lots offered going unsold. (more…)

Louise Bourgeois, Spider (1997), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Christie’s continued its impressive run of record-setting sales last night, with a steady, competitive sale tonight that ultimately brought a final tally of $331,809,000, with 13 of the 70 lots offered passing (barring several withdrawn, high-priced lots).  (more…)

Collector Audrey Irmas is selling an iconic Cy Twombly blackboard painting this fall at Sotheby’s, with $30 million from the sale proceeds going to fund a new Rem Koolhaas designed building for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles.  “I hope this building will provide a gathering place for cultural life and social events in a very diverse neighborhood,” says Ms. Irmas. (more…)

After years of financial troubles, the Corcoran Gallery of Art has been seeking legal permission to dissolve and merge with the National Gallery of Art only to meet with pushback from opponents of the plan, including employees and students of the museum’s art college. In a testimony on Wednesday, the opposition cited “broken fund-raising” as the cause of the museum’s downward spiral and argued that the proposed integration goes against the Corcoran’s deed, drafted in 1869. If the plan goes forward, the National Gallery of Art will take over the Corcoran’s collection, which includes work by Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly, and Andy Warhol, while George Washington University will manage the art college.   (more…)

A recent Bloomberg article features an examination of the direct correlation between value appreciation and the price of pieces at auction. By studying the auction sales of the top ten artists over the past ten and twenty years, the article suggests that, in the ever-shifting art market, the safest way to ensure a profit is to buy big names like Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, and Damien Hirst at big prices.

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The ongoing dispute between two members of the Cy Twombly Foundation appears to have reached a settlement, the New York Times reports.  Twombly Foundation President Nicola Del Roscio and Vice President Julie Sylvester had filed suit accusing fellow director Thomas Saliba and lawyer Ralph Lerner of valuing several Twombly works (held in their own trust) at a highly inflated $1 billion.  The settlement terms, while not all stated, involved Salbia and Lerner resigning their positions in the Foundation. (more…)

More conflicts have come to light in the recent dispute between the board members of the Cy Twombly Foundation.  A lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Delaware state court, accuses director Thomas Saliba and lawyer Ralph Lerner of taking an unauthorized $300,000 in investment fees from the organization.  “Lerner and Saliba have refused to provide a copy of the trust or disclose their trustee commissions, which makes it impossible to confirm the extent of their wrongdoing, but the facts currently known raise very serious questions about Lerner’s and Saliba’s conduct,” the lawsuit said. (more…)

Billionaire hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen has donated a selection of works to the Museum of Modern Art, including paintings by Cy Twombly, Ed Ruscha and Martin Kippenberger.  The gifts come while Cohen is currently under investigation by the U.S. Government for allegations of insider trading. (more…)

A Delaware judge has been asked to step in on a dispute between the board members of a foundation established by late American painter Cy Twombly.  The complaint, filed by Twombly’s lawyer Ralph Lerner, seeks to reinstate Twombly’s son Alessandro to the board in order to break a deadlock between the current members over the forced removal of treasurer Thomas Saliba.  Lerner claims that the dispute has left the foundation unable to manage its $1.5 billion in assets. (more…)

Larry Gagosian responded yesterday to a lawsuit by client Ronald O Perelman over money lost in the exchange of 11 works valued at over $45 million, including an unfinished Jeff Koons sculpture, a Cy Twombly painting, and a sculpture by Richard Serra. In a series of papers filed this week in New York State Supreme Court, Gagosian claims that he had lost money in the transactions, and that Perelman’s claims were “frivolous.” (more…)

Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Carpinteros, Kosmaj Toy (2012).

All images by A.M. Ekstrand for ArtObserved, on location at Art Basel Miami Beach Fair.

Art Basel returned once again in Miami Beach this past week for the 11th annual Art Basel Miami Beach Fair. Featuring over 300 galleries representing 36 countries around the world, the show has exhibited marked growth from last year’s event, with well over 2,000 artists flocking to exhibit at what has become the internationally-renowned closing party for the world art market each year.  It is of course always an irony that tens of thousands will fly down for the events and parties, with many of them never visiting the vast aggregation of what it said to be roughly $1.5 billion worth of art in one (large) room, a collection that few museums in the world could compete with.   Below is a selection of some of the works we thought to be notable from the fair.

Helly Nahmad Gallery, Mark Rothko No. 1 (1957) and Alexander Calder, installation view

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Art Basel Miami Beach 2011 photo by ArtObserved

Despite the large number of exhibitors from New York who are in recovery from Hurricane Sandy, almost  every Chelsea gallery scheduled to exhibit will be at this year’s 11th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach week. Events begin as early as today, Monday, December 3rd and run through Sunday, December 9th. Exhibitors and artists are preparing for a flurry of activity, with a multitude of fairs, some old, some new; public installations, exhibitions, collaborations and of course, parties centering around the Delano, The W, Soho Beach House, The Deauville, The Raleigh, The Standard and others. Check out the detailed schedule of events below.

Visionaire Magazine party at Delano Hotel 2011 photo by ArtObserved

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Christie’s saleroom photo by ArtObserved

Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale broke the record for the highest ever grossing Contemporary Art auction in history, totaling over $412 million in sales. The auction came on the heels of Sotheby’s Postwar & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, which broke its own record for highest-grossing auction in Sotheby’s long history ($375 million). Christie’s achieved an astounding 92% sell by lot and 93% sell by value – of the 73 lots offered only 6 failed to sell.

Records at auction were broken for Richard Diebenkorn, Jeff Koons, Richard Serra, Franz Kline, George Condo, Jean- Michel Basquiat, and Mark Grotjahn. Additionally, Jean Dubuffet, Cy Twombly and Jean-Michel Basquiat set new records for their artworks on paper. A record was set for an Alexander Calder wire sculpture at auction with Policeman, which sold for $4.2 million.

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Cy Twombly – The Last Paintings (Exhibition View), Gagosian Gallery

In 2010, one year before his death, iconic American painter Cy Twombly completed a number of new works — primarily in green, red, orange and yellow — that would end up being the last pieces that he would complete in his lifetime.  These vivid works are now being exhibited at Gagosian Gallery in London, having made their way from Los Angeles to Hong Kong to their current location.

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Turner Monet Twombly – Gallery View

The lives of Joseph Mallord Turner (1775-1851), Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Cy Twombly (1928-2011) almost perfectly overlap each other, pulling a thread through 200 years of art history.  Drawing on the lineage of these three artists, the Tate Gallery of Liverpool and the Moderna Museet of Stockholm have partnered to exhibit Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings, an exhibition that explores the stylistic conversation between the three great artists, removed from the linear timeline in which their work has traditionally been viewed.

Cy Twombly, Untitled I (1967)

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Art Basel via The Telegraph

In it’s 43rd conception, Art Basel is continuing its legacy as the leader among the contemporary art world’s fairs.  Last year, 65,000 people flocked to the cultural capital, situated at the border of Switzerland, France, and Germany.  For this year, Basel will no doubt draw a similar, if not greater audience throughout its four-day duration.  Art Observed will be on site to cover and photograph throughout this fair.

Founded in 1970, Art Basel quickly surpassed Germany’s Art Cologne and similar fairs in scale and remains today as the world’s largest.  Almost 300 galleries from around the globe participate, spanning five continents.  This international representation results in a large and diverse assortment of exhibitions, video works, performances, and public installations.  This year specifically there will be more than 2,500 artists exhibiting $2 billion worth of art, nearly 300 gallery booths, and many more single stands present.

Perhaps the star feature of this year’s Basel will be Marlborough Fine Art’s Mark Rothko canvas, dated 1954.  The painting, for which there is already buyer interest, is priced from $78 to $84 million.

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‬The Cy Twombly foundation has paid $27.75  million for a 25-foot-wide Beaux Arts mansion near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with plans to convert it into a museum dedicated to his work. Twombly was “a towering figure in American art. It is only fitting that there should be a permanent space in New York dedicated to his achievements,” says Nicola Del Roscio, foundation president.

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Jean-Michel Basquiat’s, Untitled (1981). Image courtesy of Phillips de Pury.

The Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Phillips de Pury marked the last auction of the May season in New York. At the start, the salesroom was filled with lively energy among the crowd, with collectors mingling, including a Mugrabi brother. This show came after a record breaking fortnight of auctions and fairs within the art world. Coming down to the final sale, it was apparent that the buying was beginning to slow. Still, Phillips de Pury achieved a solid total sale of $86.8 million, which fell within their anticipated estimate of $75–110 million.

Before the Contemporary Evening Sale begins. Photo By Aubrey Roemer for Art Observed.

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Sotheby’s staff preparing for the sale. Photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer unless otherwise noted.

After Tuesday night’s multi-record breaking sale at Christie’s, last night’s Contemporary Evening Sale at Sotheby’s seemed to hold a somewhat lower energy, possibly a result of the second consecutive week of auctions and fairs wearing on the collectors. Yet the sale totaled $266 million—within Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate of $215–300 million—a number considerably higher than last May’s Contemporary Evening Sale total of $128 million. Seven of the artworks sold at more than $10 million, and there was an overall sell-through rate of 80.7%. In a post-sale press conference, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art, Alex Rotter, commented “the market is very healthy with active bidding.”

Tobias Meyer giving a press talk about the sale. (more…)

Andy Warhol,  Double Elvis [Feris Type] (1963)

On the heels of a tireless and groundbreaking week in the New York art world, the fervor continues with the major auction houses hosting their Contemporary Art Sales—beginning tonight at Christie’s. Last week’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sales saw unforeseen prices and several world records set, namely the near $120 million paid for Edvard Munch‘s The Scream. In tandem with both the Frieze Art Fair and NADA Art Fairs’ inaugural New York editions—both held this past weekend—the Contemporary Sales possess an auspicious platform this season. The strength of last week’s sales proves the collectors’ attention to the trophy market, with many big ticket and highly recognizable works on the block this week.

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Cy Twombly, The Last Paintings installation view. All photos on site for Art Observed by Megan Hoetger.

The Last Paintings and Photographs of legendary 20^th century artist Cy Twombly, currently on view now at Gagosian Gallery, include some of the final paintings by the artist, as well as a large collection of photographs amassed over nearly 60 years.

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