Dan Colen, The Pastoral Symphony (2012), all images © Dan Colen, Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, Photography by Christopher Burke

On view currently at Gagosian New York is an exhibition of new paintings by American artist Dan Colen, which aims to question the nature of painterly practice, particularly focusing on the intersections of materials, chance and the interactions of these elements with the actual intent of the artist.  The Miracle paintings are based on Disney stills, particularly from Fantasia, famous for its pairing of musical compositions with animated sequences.  In similar form, the pieces on view walk a fine line between abstraction and representation, drawing on the audience’s collective memory of the film.

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The hotly contested painting Red, Black, and Silver has been authenticated as the final painting from artist Jackson Pollock, given to his mistress shortly before his death in 1956.  The painting had long believed to have been a Pollock, but was blocked from authentication by Pollock’s wife, Lee Krasner, who held a personal vendetta against his mistress, Ruth Kligman.  That changes today, now that authorities have found strands of Pollock’s hair in the canvas, as well as sand unique to the beaches around his East Hamptons home.  “The world was flat. Now it is round. It’s Galileo. Science can now be used to authenticate the art.  We are [tracing] the painting back to where it was executed. It’s very CSI.”  Says artist and Kligman estate trustee Jonathan Cramer.      (more…)

Roy Lichtenstein, Woman Drying Her Hair (1980), Courtesy Gagosian Paris

On view at Gagosian Paris is an exhibition exploring the work of Roy Lichtenstein, who remained the motifs and stylistic tropes of Expressionism motifs using his signature primary colors and flat geometry, a style he had slowly developed and refined during the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

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Monet Sells at Sotheby’s, via Sotheby’s

With the closing of this week’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, evidence of a strong art market is not hard to find.  Sotheby’s held a slight edge over its recently successful rival, managing an auction total of $165.9 million, with only 13 of the 71 pieces going unsold.  Two pieces passed the ten million dollar mark, and 29 were sold for more than one-million dollars. The auction also set auction records for Camille Claudel and FrantiÅ¡k Kupka. In contrast, Christie’s achieved a result of $100.4 million over the course of its 44 lot sale. The result lies in between the total pre-sale estimate for the auction house of $82.8 to $118.8 million. Only seven works remained unsold, and two lots were sold for over ten million dollars.

Wassily Kandinsky, Studie zu Improvisation 3 (1909), via Christie’s (more…)

Vasily Kandinsky, Murnau: Street with Women (1908), Courtesy The Neue Galerie New York

Currently on view at The Neue Galerie in New York is a survey of German Expressionist works, taken from the gallery’s permanent collection, that explores the opposing but connected themes of primitivism and modernity throughout the work of the era, including work by Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Paul Klee, among others.

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Plans to replace 3,000 old masters with modern art in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie have left many local fans of classical art, and art historians, incensed. The galleries will be filled with an extensive collection of surrealist and expressionist art donated by a billionaire industrialist named Heiner Pietzsch, who gave his collection under the condition that it be displayed in its entirety. The old masters collection–including works by Brueghel, Raphael, and Caravaggio–will be temporarily housed in the Bode Museum, with no plans announced for a permanent home.

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