Giacometti (Installation view), via Art Observed

White, for Alberto Giacometti, is presented as something of an etheric form, the color of death or absence playing on is interrelation with temporal action.  Space is generated only from the presence of space, and not from its reciprocal orientation. His practice is disposed towards the ideal void, where reality, untouched, is always waiting to be discovered. Giacometti’s opposition to easily read concepts of reality lies in his belief that merely representing figures alone, leaving behind the density and materiality of their  surroundings and ignoring the distance between himself and the object of his perception, offered an incomplete picture of the truth. Giacometti’s eye was profoundly sensitive to different kinds of empty, negative space. He wanted to give form to space, opening his figure from within to its presence or surroundings. (more…)

Danh Vo, Take My Breath Away (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view at The Guggenheim, artist Danh Vo’s major retrospective invites a swirling, multi-faceted experience of the world and its political/social hierarchies over the past 40 years. Investigating moments and memories from the artist’s own life in Europe after his family fled Vietnam in the wake of the war during the mid-1970’s, his pieces move between assembled objects (documents, photos and journals) from participants in various parts of the war era, other iterations and moments of conflict and co-existence between Asia and the West, and his own memories and experiences. Presented here, the exhibition offers a striking opportunity for the viewer to explore a wide body of the artist’s output, which only amplifies his creative and political vision.

Danh Vo, Take My Breath Away (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim, via Art Observed

The Guggenheim celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the Hugo Boss Prize this evening, hosting the bi-annual arts award gala last night in its iconic atrium space, and reflecting back on the string of nominees and winners over the past two decades, among them Matthew Barney, Paul Chan, and Lorna Simpson.  This year, Anicka Yi became the latest artist to receive the prestigious honor, receiving the $100,000 prize and an exhibition at the museum this coming spring.  Yi was nominated alongside Tania Bruguera, Mark Leckey, Ralph Lemon, Laura Owens, and Wael Shawky.

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The nationalist Finns party has blocked state funding for the Guggenheim Helsinki, stating that the funding for the museum is a waste of taxpayer money during a time of austerity.  “This is the end of the matter, we have ruled out state funding once and for all, for this government,” says Sampo Terho, the parliamentary head of the Finns party.  “We are not opposed to the project as such, we just don’t think it is something that the state should participate in.” (more…)

Artist Rashid Johnson has joined the board of the Guggenheim Museum, making him the first artist appointed to the position since the museum’s founding.  “The collective wisdom of the museum’s board will be considerably widened and deepened with Rashid Johnson’s joining,” says director Richard Armstrong.

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Doris Salcedo, From Unland series (Installation View), all photos via Osman Yerebakan for Art Observed

Visiting the Doris Salcedo retrospective currently on view at the Guggenheim through October 12th, attendees may experience a peculiar bitterness, stemming from poignance of Salcedo’s historically expansive and emotionally profound body of work.  Everyday commodities, from shoes to chairs, play a key role in Salcedo’s spacious installations covering multiple floors of the museum’s Tower Galleries. With their visually mute yet bleak façades, mundane objects assembled in distinct orchestrations venture into profound narratives, reflecting Salcedo’s meticulous study on consequences of political turmoil in her country and around the globe, often exploring the tragic, human cost of political turbulence, revolt and oppression.

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Mark Manders, Room with Reduced Chair and Camouflaged Factory (2003) , via Art Observed

Compiled from over 100 works in the Guggenheim Museum’s personal collection, the current exhibition at the uptown institution, Storylines: Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim, feels like something of a victory lap for the museum, following up on its excellent On Kawara exhibition with an extended show of contemporary works that spans the last thirty years, and which uncovers a broad curatorial focus at the core of its collection.  Emphasizing a nuanced interest in the narrative as a core unifying element for disparately realized works, objects and assemblages, Storylines pulls from diverse practices to portray the often challenging representative missions that contemporary artists set for themselves. (more…)

Former Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens is reportedly planning a new for-profit museum in North Adams, MA.  The proposed 160,000 square foot museum would bring a second major museum to the home of MassMOCA.  “The idea of spending a little more time in the Berkshires was attractive to me,” he says. (more…)

The Guggenheim has made two new appointments to its staff in a continuation of its commitment to Chinese contemporary art.  Hou Hanru, the artistic director of MAXXI, the National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome, will become a consulting curator, while Xiaoyu Weng, the founding director of the Kadist Art Foundation’s Asia programs, will become associate curator of Chinese art. (more…)

An article in The Wall Street Journal explores the eventful life (and afterlife) of Rudolf Bauer, a little-known early 20th century painter. A contemporary of artists such as Paul Klee and Vasily Kandinsky, the German-born Bauer explored the new movement of abstraction, creating innovative works with the support of patron Solomon R. Guggenheim. Bauer’s work, which had already been exhibited at the MoMA in the 1930s, was meant to feature prominently in the Guggenheim Museum as the core of the collection. In the 1940s, however, Bauer and Guggenheim suffered a falling-out, and Bauer renounced painting while his work went into storage at the museum. The article reports that, after over six decades of near-obscurity, Bauer will feature in upcoming shows by the German Consulate General and at Sotheby’s in addition to a documentary film and an Off-Broadway play.  (more…)

The court case between relatives of Peggy Guggenheim and the Guggenheim Foundation has been decided in favor of the museum.  The ruling was issued in a Paris courtroom this week, giving the museum free reign to show art as it deems fitting at the collector’s Venice palazzo.  “The Foundation is proud to have faithfully carried out the wishes of Peggy Guggenheim for more than thirty years by preserving her collection intact in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, restoring and maintaining the Palazzo as a public museum and contributing to the knowledge of modern and contemporary art in Italy,” the Guggenheim said in a statement. (more…)

The Guggenheim’s currently under construction space in Abu Dhabi is hosting a preview exhibition of its collection, showing 16 works in the exhibition  “Seeing Through Light: Selections From the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Collection” at Manarat later this year.  “It is small in nature because the space, a temporary exhibition gallery used to foster audience engagement for the three museums, is only about 15,000 square feet,” says Curator Susan Davidson. (more…)

The Guggenheim officially opened its call for design entries for its Helsinki Museum outpost yesterday, judged by a staff of architects, museum employees and  and politicians, including jury chair Mark Wigley, the Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University; Ritva Viljanen, the Deputy Mayor, City of Helsinki; and Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Guggenheim Foundation.  “This competition promises to be extremely exciting,” says jury member Erkki Leppävuori, President and CEO of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. “The site, which is rich and varied as a cultural and environmental setting, poses potentially productive technical challenges to architects and structural engineers, who also must address the high expectations and lively opinions of our citizens.” (more…)

Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Woman and daughter with makeup) from Kitchen Table Series(1990), all images courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim

Documenting the landmark work of video maker, photographer, spoken word poet and textile artist Carrie Mae Weems, The Guggenheim is currently presenting a body of work spanning over thirty years in the artist’s career, including a number of the artist’s most significant and iconic works.

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography (Installation View) (more…)

A recent installation by Paul McCarthy and Mike Bouchet in Bilbao, Spain has raised the ire of the Guggenheim Museum.  Depicting the museum’s Frank Gehry-designed facade covered in guns as if it was a battleship, Powered A-Hole Spanish Donkey Sport Dick Drink Donkey Dong Dongs Sunscreen Model has drawn a removal notice from the museum, which claims copyright over the museum’s image.  “We believe that the image displayed on the said property includes connotations that discredit this institution, so we urge you to withdraw the said canvas ASAP,” Alba Urresola, the Guggenheim’s associate director of legal and internal control, said in a notice sent to Bouchet’s gallery.  (more…)

The heirs of Peggy Guggenheim have filed a lawsuit against the Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, alleging that the foundation has failed to comply with the conditions of her gifts, and has placed her collection in storage to make room for various exhibitions in her Venice estate.   “They are totally disrespecting my great grandmother’s legacy… it’s appalling; it’s a big disappointment,” says Sindbad Rumney, the great grandson of Peggy Guggenheim.  “Basically… what we’ve [discovered] is that if you have the right amount of money and you have a collection, you can show it at the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice.” (more…)

The Guggenheim’s proposed outpost in the Finnish city of Helsinki seems to moving forward, with the museum posting an international call for architectural proposals following the city’s agreement to set aside a parcel of land on the city’s South Harbor waterfront.  The competition “will provide an opportunity to deepen public discussion surrounding the proposed museum,” the institution said in a statement. “We also believe it will bring Helsinki the heightened level of international attention the city deserves as a vibrant cultural center.’’ (more…)

Capitalizing on the current interest in early European and American Modernist movements, the Guggenheim has announced plans for an exhibition focusing on the pioneering work of the Futurist movement in Italy.  “Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe,” will open February 21st, and will be accompanied by an auction of early modernist works at Sotheby’s.  “It’s time to re-evaluate and broaden our notion of what avant-garde means,” said curator Vivien Greene.   (more…)

Paul Klee, New Harmony (Neue Harmonie) (1936), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 71.1960. © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

On view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, is a unique exhibition of abstract works taken from the museum’s 20th century collection, intended to show the trends present between the years of 1919 and 1939, during which time a variety of abstract artists flourished, pioneering new techniques and creative philosophies across the mediums of painting, sculpture and drawing.

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Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong and his colleagues have returned to the Finnish city of Helsinki, in an attempt to revive talks over the possibility of a Guggenheim Museum there.  Meeting with Finnish officials, the group of representatives are seeking what would be the Museum’s northernmost outpost in continental Europe.  “Topics that were mentioned during our discussion were the exclusion of the Helsinki Art Museum from the proposal, the possible sites, and funding,” says Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen.  (more…)

The New York Times has published an extensive profile on artist James Turrell in advance of his three museum retrospective opening this summer at the Guggenheim Museum, LACMA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, occupying 92,000 square feet in total, with some of Turrell’s most striking visual illusions and light works.  Profiling the artist’s career and body of work, the article covers the full range of Turrell’s discipline, including his massive project at Roden Crater.  “It has become, even unfinished, as important as any artwork ever made,” LACMA director Michael Govan said. “I know I’m going out on a limb here a little bit, but I think it’s one of the most ambitious artworks ever attempted by a single human being.” (more…)

Artist James Turrell recently spoke with the Financial Times as he prepares for his three museum retrospective at LACMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as a solo show at LA’s Kayne Griffin Corcoran space. The artist is still vigorously involved in his Roden Crater Project, as well as his early career in Los Angeles. “I would describe Los Angeles as actually not having taste. In New York there’s taste. But you have to remember that taste is censorship. It’s a form of restriction.” In Los Angeles, he said, “there wasn’t any party line so you could do what you wanted.”

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Thomas Messer, the legendary former director of the Guggenheim Foundation, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 93.  Messer, who came to the gallery in 1961, just two years after it moved into its signature building on Fifth Avenue, was instrumental in shaping the Guggenheim into the global institution it is today, developing its collection and tirelessly working to expand its mission.  “Here we are, three decades later, with Guggenheims in Bilbao, Berlin, Venice, and soon to be Abu Dhabi. The foundation for all this was laid by Tom Messer. And I can tell you, he laid that foundation under budget.”  said former Guggenheim President Peter Lawson-Johnston. (more…)

Gutai: Splendid Playground (Installation View), Courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The main hall of the Guggenheim Museum’s signature, spiraling exhibition space is currently dominated by an enormous hanging sculpture.  Long plastic envelopes swim over the atrium, filled with brightly-dyed water that casts faint, glimmering shadows on the floor below.  This is Work (Water), by Motonaga Sadamasa, a foundational member of the Gutai art collective. Hailing from the Japanese town of Osaka, the Gutai helped to define the vibrant Japanese contemporary and conceptual art scene of post-war Japan.  Blending an open exploration of the raw materials of creation with a playfully subversive worldview, the Gutai made enormous contributions to the contemporary art practice worldwide.

Shiraga Kazuo, Work II (1958),  Oil on paper, mounted on canvas  183 x 243 cm  Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe

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