Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXVIII (1977), via Phillips

Sales resumed for New York’s fall auction weeks yesterday evening, as a Sunday sale at Phillips combined early 20th Century works and contemporary artists in a brisk sale that began strong but stumbled towards the later half of the sale, as 9 of 52 lots ultimately went unsold, achieving a final tally of $66.9 million (just within estimate). (more…)

Carl Andre in His Time (Installation View), via Art Observed

Taking the minimalist exercises of Carl Andre as its starting point, Mnuchin Gallery has opened an exhibition taking the structural interests and shared visions of the New York school of minimalism during the 1960’s and 70’s as its core focus.  Titled Carl Andre in his Time, the exhibition presents pieces by Donald Judd, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt and more, each locked into conversation with Andre’s work.

John Chamberlain, Honest 508 (1973-74), via Art Observed

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Toby Ziegler‘s The Cripples, image via Art Observed

Back in 2003 in Frieze’s first year, no major international art fair had ever been hosted in London before. Frieze Art Fair, organized by Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, has helped take London from being a city without a focused art scene to its current state at the center of the European art market. Now in its tenth year, Frieze Art Fair in London’s Regent’s Park has seen around 60,000 visitors, with 264 dealers from 35 countries hoping to sell work (valuing an estimated  £230m) created by more than 2,400 artists within 175 of the world’s leading galleries.

An Aaron Young motorcycle burn out work at Massimo de Carlo in Milan, photo via Art Observed

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John Chamberlain displayed in the Seagram Bulding’s Plaza, all photos by Maya Steward

In the mid-1970’s, John Chamberlain took a little-known detour from his practice of employing automobile scrap-metal in his large-scale sculptures. Though still working within the same medium, he did so on a domestic level, manipulating household aluminum foil to craft sculptures fractions the size of his well-known work. Thirty years later, Chamberlain recreated these diminutive pieces, vitalizing their erratic biomorphic forms on a magnificent scale in industrial aluminum.  Four of these totems are currently on view in the Seagram Building’s Park Avenue Plaza.

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The late John Chamberlain‘s sculptures, presented by Gagosian Gallery, are to be displayed at the Seagram Plaza in New York, beginning this Friday.

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Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Olympics (1984) which sold for a record-breaking price of £6 million

This evening in London, Phillips de Pury‘s Contemporary Art Evening exceeded pre-sale estimates of £15.1- £21.1 million, with sales totaling £23.4 million. Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s Olympics (1984) at £6 million broke the record for a Warhol-Basquiat collaboration. With three pieces in the auction selling for over a million pounds, the take was over twice the amount received just a year ago for the auction house. Of 30 original lots, 2 were withdrawn (including a Cindy Sherman piece) and 4 were passed on. Although the total sum was not as large as the sales of either Christie’s or Sotheby’s, it was the only auction house to surpass pre-sale estimates for this week.

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‪‬Amalia Dayan of Luxembourg & Dayan and wife of collector Adam Lindemann profiled in her Manhattan town house decorated with works by Basquiat, Chamberlain, and Calder

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Moto (1963). All photos on site for Art Observed by Elene Damenia.

John Chamberlain: Choices opened at the Guggenheim on February 24th, and will remain on view through May 13th, after which it will travel to Bilbao, Spain. Chamberlain was preparing for the current Guggenheim retrospective from his studio in Shelter Island when he passed away this December, aged 84. Although the exhibition officially began to coordinate in 2010, Senior Curator Susan Davidson told the press conference that the idea had been brewing for over a decade. The museum currently showcases almost 100 works from a lifetime of aesthetic development, garnered from private collections in America and Europe, as well as more recent works by the artist before his death.

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American sculptor of crushed steel John Chamberlain (born 1927) has passed away [AO Newslink]

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Installation view of John Chamberlain sculptures at the Gagosian, all images courtesy of the Gagosian Gallery

Gagosian‘s 24th Street location is currently exhibiting a selection of works by American sculptor John Chamberlain, in conjunction with their show in London, which closed recently. Chamberlain’s industrial-style sculptures are made up of used-car parts that he terms “art supplies,” here he continues a technique begun in the late 1950’s that results in beautiful objects that contrast with the mundane origin of their material. The two Gagosian shows are the artist’s first with the gallery following a rumored dispute over the use of a Belgian fabricator for his most recent pieces, the work was refused by former representation Pace but purchased by Gagosian for $20 million.

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John Chamberlain, AWESOMEMEATLOAF (2011)

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Barbara Kruger’s installation at the Lever House on Park Avenue in New York via Lever House Collection
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Whether we realize it or not, our daily lives are filled with multitudes of graphic and visual information. While reading a newspaper, watching television, walking on the street past countless advertisement, we constantly absorb information. It is this aspect of social and public sphere that Barbara Kruger exploits in her current installation at the Lever House in New York. A project commissioned by the real estate  mogul Aby Rosen, whose collection features such names as Jeff Koons, George Condo, John Chamberlain, Keith Harring, and Barnaby Furnas, holds tight to its message of “an image is worth a thousand words.” The text as art exhibition, titled “Between Being Born and Dying” runs through November 21st, 2009.

Related links
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Barbara Kruger “Between Being Born and Dying” installation [Lever House]
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Barbara Kruger Bio [PBS]
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Barbara Kruger at Lever House [Lindsay Pollock]
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Helvetica at 50 [BBC News]
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50 Years of Helvetica exhibition [MoMa]

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