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.

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Quilt by Alexandre da Cunha, and Six Billboards by Angus Fairhust, Art Basel.  Image via Art Daily, AP Photo/Keystone/Georgios Kefalas.

Yesterday marked the end of the most highly-attended Art Basel to date. The 41st annual contemporary art fair boasted 306 galleries from 36 countries, and AO was on site to peruse the work of some 2,5000 artists.  62,500 dealers, collectors, curators, high-profile shoppers, artists, and art appreciators navigated installations, browsed gallery booths, mingled, and enjoyed the city of Basel.  Artists, established and newcomers both, showcased works ranging from Polaroids to performance pieces, paintings to videos, sculptures to large-scale installations.  A social and teeming affair with an obvious commercial edge, Basel’s sales were optimistic.  Picasso, Warhol, Prince, Hirst, de Kooning, Pollock, and other similarly established artists reigned supreme as the focus of this year’s event.  Franck Giraud, a New York dealer, spoke to the New York Times about the lack of prominently featured up-and-comers: “Is it because that’s what the market wants, or is it because dealers didn’t want to take risks? I think it was a bit of both.” Nonetheless, certain galleries used Basel as a platform to introduce new artists and show off their latest signings.

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Half Gallery, opening reception. Image by ArtObserved.

AO was on site June 8th for the opening of “A Ways A Way,” the new exhibition at Half Gallery.  Curated by Meredith Darrow and Devendra Banhart, A Ways A Way offers synoptic views of work by artists Scott Campbell, William Eadon, Kevin Long, Megan Marrin, Keegan McHargue, Fabrizio Moretti, Angeline Rivas, Adam Tullie, and Banhart himself.  Coming from various corners of the artistic field, these men and women form a motley roster of familiar names: in addition to be being creators of fine art, Campbell is a renowned tattoo artist, Eadon is a deisgner, Long skateboards and plays guitar, Moretti is the drummer for The Strokes and Little Joy, Rivas and Tullie co-own Cavern Collection, Banhart is a singer-songwriter, Marrin works in mixed-media, and McHargue choreographs.  In attendance last night were Cynthia Rowley, Kathy Grayson, and a repletion of artists, gallerists, friends, and passerby.  Viewers spilled jocundly onto the surrounding sidewalk, chatting and enjoying a lovely night outside of the diminutive, buzzing gallery.

Anonymous Portrait, Fabrizio Moretti, 2010. Image by Oskar Proctor for ArtObserved.

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Portrait of Geoff Dyer Talking, Francis Bacon (1966) at FIAC, Paris

If Frieze opened willing to court the unavoidable media speculation about sales or the lack of them: FIAC, and the exhibitors it houses this year, have in the early stages proved characteristically reticent. Not to mention laconic. At least on the surface. This morning there was little sign that much of Paris and beyond would descend on the Grand Palais and the Cour Carrée du Louvre at noon.

Murakami aluminum bears via Billionaire Boys Club

Galerie Emannuel Perrotin is showing, until October 17, an important collection of new works by Takashi Murakami.  The exhibit brings together seventeen paintings, including three monumental ones, as well as five sculptures and two movies.  Coming shortly after the end of Murakami’s retrospective exhibition, which traveled from the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art to New York, Frankfurt and Bilbao, at a time when Murakami’s work is very much in the public eye, this exhibit is entitled “Takashi Murakami Paints Self-Portraits” and is dedicated to the portrayal of the artist himself, through the means of the various characters who populate his work.

Kaikai Kiki and Me, Takashi Murakami (2008) via Galerie Perrotin

Related Links:
Takashi Murakami Artist Page [Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin]
Kaikai Kiki Co. [Official Website]
Murakami Paints Himself Warhol [Interview Magazine]
Takashi Murakami: in the court of the king of cute [Times]
Openings: Takashi Murakami “Self-Portraits” @ Emmanuel Perrotin [Arrested Motion]
Artist Takashi Murakami talks on how he paints [Guardian]

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Ed Ruscha’s ‘Vital to the Core’ via STAGES

On view now at Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris is ‘STAGES,’ a fundraising exhibition organized by Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong, featuring artists such as Ed Ruscha, Shepard Fairey, Richard Prince, and a number of others. The exhibition runs concurrently with the Tour de France, which ends on Sunday, July 26th. In addition to the gallery exhibition, which is planned to tour the world after its run at Emmanuel Perrotin, Livestrong has teamed up with Nike and Supertouch to curate a line of artist-designed bikes for Lance to ride during the Tour. Those artists include KAWS, Yoshitomo Nara, and Damien Hirst, who designed the bike for the final stage of the Tour de France. ‘STAGES’ runs July 15-August 8, 2009 at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, after which it will open at the Armory Center in New York on October 2, according to the LA Times.

The Bike Shepard Fairey designed for Lance Armstrong via Supertouch

STAGES09
Hirst to Help Lance Armstrong’s Health Charity Raise $4 Million [Bloomberg]
Damien Hirst Has Designs on Lance Armstrong’s Bike [NY Times]
Nike Livestrong STAGES Exhibition [High Snobiety]
Preview: Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG x Nike Stages Exhibition @ Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin [Arrested Motion]
Lance Armstrong x Nike Sportswear – “Stages” Touring Art Exhibition Supporting Livestrong [Arrested Motion]
Lance Armstrong x Nike Sportswear “Stages” Touring Art Exhibition [Hypebeast]
Lance Armstrong x Trek x Damien Hirst Stages Project Bike [Limited Hype]
Marc Newson for Lance Armstrong – TREK Art Bike [Freshness]
Lance Armstrong’s New Trek Madone Bikes By Kaws & Barry McGee [High Snobiety]
Tom Sachs‘ Lance’s TequilaBike For Girls [The World’s Best Ever]
Stages exhibition, Paris [Wallpaper]
Interview: KAWS @ Stages, Paris [DailyduJour]
AFC+: Will Damien Hirst Remind Lance Armstrong of His Mortality? [Art Fag City]
PARIS///LANCE ARMSTRONG’S TREK ART BIKES COME TO LIFE IN THE WINDOW OF COLETTE [Supertouch]
NEWS///LANCE ARMSTRONG SURGES BACK TO ACTION IN THE TOUR DE FRANCE ON A MARC NEWSON TREK TTX ART BIKE [Supertouch]
ANNOUNCING “STAGES”: LANCE ARMSTRONG’S SUPERTOUCH-CURATED ANTI-CANCER ART SHOW OPENING JULY 16TH [Supertouch]
Lance Armstrong rides bike decorated by Damien Hirst [Art Review]
L.A. artists lend a hand to Lance Armstrong [LA Times]
Livestrong x Stages | Recap [Limited Hype]
Trek Lance Armstrong STAGES Bike by Yoshitomo Nara [Hypebeast]

The bike Yoshitomo Nara designed for Lance Armstrong for the Tour de France via Hypebeast

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Os Gemeos at work on their mural in at Houston and Elizabeth via The Art Collectors

Brazilian street art duo Os Gemeos are completing a mural on the corner of Houston and Bowery in New York on the site of the Keith Haring tribute memorial [The Art Collectors]
A rare interview with Bruce Nauman after he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale [The Art Newspaper]
The British Museum has raised 2/3 of the $200 million for its new Herzog & de Meuron-designed wing [Bloomberg]

Hirst’s recurring butterfly imagery adorns Lance Armstrong’s bike frame via Designweek

With perhaps one of the more thought provoking of the Livestrong bike creations, Damien Hirst has designed the bike Lance Armstrong will use during the final stage of the Tour de France with his recurring mortality metaphor of butterflies [Galerie Perrotin]
A breakdown of ArtNews’s Top 200 Collectors: 81% collect contemporary, 34% collect modern, 9% collect Impressionist, and 9% collect Old Masters [ArtNews]

Digital rendering of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s menagerie on New York’s Park Avenue via NY Times

From Sept. 13 through Nov. 20, Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s animal menagerie will adorn the medians between 52nd and 57th Streets in Midtown Manhattan [NY Times]

Franz West’s The Ego and the Id via the The Public Art Fund

In related, Franz West’s 20 foot ‘The Ego and the Id’ will be installed Central Park at 5th Ave & 60th tomorrow, on loan from Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann through March [PublicArtFund]
BBC1 announces a four-part documentary focusing on Picasso, Dali, Matisse and Warhol, airing next year [BBC]
The Castlestone art fund is buying Post War art from deceased and non-producing artists such as Picasso and Warhol as it posits that pricing has dropped 20-40% from last year [International Advisor via ArtMarketMonitor] and a related email gaffe from Castlestone [ArtNewspaper]

Performance view of Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Am Anfang’ via Opera de Paris

German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer directed and designed, ‘Am Anfang,’ or ‘At the Beginning,’ for the Opera de Bastille in Paris, is currently running [TheGuardian]
In related, contemporary artist Zhang Huan will design and direct a 250 year anniversary production of Handel’s Semele in Brussels for the 2009/10 season [ArtDaily]

A new Banksy mural in Africa via SlamxHype

A number of Banksy murals in Africa have popped up, possibly in Mali [World’s Best Ever] and related, 120,000 have visited the artist’s exhibition in his hometown of Bristol [BBC Bristol via FAD]
Charles Saatchi has replaced his Abstract America show his Kings Road gallery for an installation promoting the Jaguar XJ [Vogue]

John Morton at the site of his sound installation in Central Park via NY Times

A pedestrian tunnel in Central Park is the site of an immersive sound installation by John Morton [NY Times]
A brush fire near Getty Center caused Getty museum officials to evacuate 1,600 visitors and 800 employees [LA Times]

Michael Jackson series by Andy Warhol via ArtDaily

A portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol is dropped from a NY auction after overwhelming inquiries [ArtDaily]
Phillips de Pury & Company is launching a series of new theme auctions, including 21st century art and “New York, New York” [Artdaily]
Abu Dhabi Art, a new art fair, will debut in November [Artinfo]

A “plinther” participant in Antony Gormley’s One & Other via The Guardian

Antony Gormley’s ‘One&Other’ continues its 100-day run on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square in London [One & Other (livefeed)]
In related participatory British art, 23 museum visitors sufferred minor injuries during Robert Morris’s recent Bodyspacemotionthings reprisal at the Tate Modern [ArtInfo]
The Tate announces the judges of the 2010 Turner Prize [The Art Newspaper]

A look at the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

Through July 11, Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin is showing works by the late sculptor Duane Hanson.  The exhibition, titled “Illusions Perdues (Lost Illusions),” is comprised of hyper-realistic depictions of lost souls, and loneliness, or taken literally, illusions of the lost.

Related links:
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin
Duane Hanson Biography [Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin]
Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin – Duane Hanson [ArtSlant]

From the Duane Hanson exhibition at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin.

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Musician and artist Pharrell Williams sitting on work from Perspectives, via The Clones.

Pharrell Williams, music producer and member of N.E.R.D, is currently exhibiting his latest design ambition entitled Perspective at the Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris. The exhibition consists of a single chair its seat supported with the legs of both a man and a woman and was created with the help of furniture designer Domeau & Pérès. The chair which is on display in four colors comes with a seat that can either be wrapped in leather, velour, or veal skin. Williams, no stranger to design, has previously worked on two separate jewelry lines, one in collaboration with Louis Vuitton’s in-house jewelry designer Camille Miceli the other with street artist KAWS. Earlier this year Williams curated the show Saturated by KAWS at Miami’s Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, as covered by Art Observed here.

Pharrell Williams: Perspectives [Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin]
Pharrell Williams Debuts His “Perspectives” Chair at Gallerie Emmanuel Perrotin [supertouch]
Pharrell’s Perspective Chairs at Gallerie Emmanuel Perrotin [hypebeast]
Pharrell Williams at Galerie Emmanuel Parrotin, Paris [Digital Ape]
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Pharrell on his design for Perrotin Gallery via [BBC]

Gallerist Perrotin collaborates with Pharrell [Billionaire Boys Club]
The recent effect of “non-doms” on the art market [Portfolio.com]
German gallery tries to halt Beuys sculpture sale [The Art Newspaper]
Vanessa Beecroft, Peter Brandt (2x) Aby Rosen in today’s Page Six [NYPost]
Remembering Robert Rauschenberg [NYMag]