AO Art Observed™

‘The Night Cafe’ (1888) by Vincent Van Gogh, via New York Times

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night features nocturnal themes in the artist’s body of work, product of many sleepless nights contemplating the people, cityscapes and countrysides of France and Holland. ‘The Starry Night,’ one of his best known pieces, and the aesthetically- and thematically- related ‘Starry Night over the Rhone’ are among the 23 paintings and 10 works of paper on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Van Gogh’s fascination with the colors, forms and inhabitants of the night is palpable in the paintings, which all feature his signature bold colors and lines.

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night: Through January 5, 2009
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night: MoMA site [MoMA]
MoMA Presents First Exhibition to Examine Van Gogh’s Nocturnal Landscapes and Interiors [Artdaily]
Did Van Gogh Need More Sleep? Starlit Obsessions at MoMA Show [Bloomberg]
Van Gogh and the Colours of the Night, NY [Financial Times]
Nocturnal Van Gogh, Illuminating the Darkness [New York Times]

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Lucian Freud’s rarely-seen, unfinished Portrait of Francis Bacon via Artdaily

Lucian Freud’s unfinished Francis Bacon portrait to be auctioned by Christie’s London in October [Art Daily]
MoMA purchases Chinese contemporary art from private collection [Art Newspaper]
Osaka museum pulls three Chagall’s after authenticity is questioned [Art Info]
Jeff Koons “Man of Trust documentary” sold in €2,500 limited edition kangaroo mirror boxes at Colette [World's Best Ever]
On the vulnerability of the global art market “which has risen so very high on little more than PR and salesmanship” [Financial Times]

P.F.1 in the P.S.1 courtyard via NYSun

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art, has its summer courtyard installation up and running. This year, the ninth annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program selected WORK Architecture Company, from New York, to transform the outdoor courtyard into a fully functional urban farm, called Public Farm One, or P.F.1. The farm will stay at P.S.1 through the month of September.

Farming at the Museum [NYSun]
Works Like a Farm and Celebrating P.F.1 [Men's Vogue]
Summer Farming at P.S.1 [Artnet]
Amale Andraos on the MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program [Artinfo]
In Farm’s Way: PS1’s Hipster Farm [NYPress]
Going Farming at P.S.1’s Warm-Up Parties [VillageVoice]
P.F.1 (Public Farm One) by Work Architecture Company in P.S.1’s courtyard [PS1]

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This photograph taken in Jamaica four years ago, is believed to be Banksy via Daily Mail

After a year long investigation, Graffiti artist Banksy revealed? More here, and here [Daily Mail], [NYTimes], [Supertouchart]
Ad agencies reverse the long-evident trend of artists poaching from popular ads by creating popular ads that poach from artists [NYTimes]
A profile of Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Daria “Dasha” Zhukova, a new player on the art scene [TimesUK]
Previously thought ‘fake’ is a Rembrandt, but not a self-portrait [The Art Newspaper]
The Sun reviews Art Market tome ‘The $12 Million Stuffed Shark’ previously covered by AO here [NYSun]
On Page Six: 303 Gallery employee fired for mistaking Marc Jacobs for a homeless man and Andres Serrano keeps it gritty in his new Chelsea show [NYPost]
MoMA assembles modern prefab houses in adjacent vacant lot [NYTimesMag]

Olafur Eliasson, ‘Visualization of The Parliament of Reality’, Bard College via Artdaily

Bard College has Olafur Eliasson’s 1st permanent US installation [Artdaily]
MoMA purchases 23 photo works from eight Chinese artists controversially bought in bulk [Bloomberg]
Two Pulitzer Prize winning authors gain rights to new Francis Bacon biography [Bookseller]
Next-generation, under-30’s legacy arts patrons: on the scene [NYTimes]
Tracey Emin’s $122,000 4-inch bronze sparrow goes missing from public work and then is inscrutably returned (publicity stunt?) [BBC]

Starry Night over the Rhone, Van Gogh via NYTimes

‘Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night’ coming to The MOMA [NYTimes]
Details of contract for the Louvre Abu Dhabi revealed [TheArtNewspaper]
In industry executive news: MoMA’s Chief Curator of Paintings and Sculpture says ‘Good-Bye’ [NYSun]
In other executive moves, DIA Art Foundation has a New Director, Philippe Vergne [NYMag]
More executive news: Neil MacGregor, of the British Museum, declines directorship of the Met [TIME]
In page six today: Andy Warhol criticized in memoir by former friend and Ahn Duong, former flame to Julian Schnabel and Simon de Pury, ends her marriage [NYPost]

Louise Bourgeois via Artatien
The iconic artist, Louise Bourgeois, is honored by the culmination two major events. Her exhibit at the Guggenheim in New York recently opened on June 27th. June 25th was the theatrical premier of “Louise Bourgeois:The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine”, a documentary about her life and work at the Film Forum.

New Louise Bourgeois Documentary Film to Premiere at New York’s Film Forum [Artdaily]
Louise Bourgeois at the Guggenheim [The Art Newspaper]
Portrait of a Haunted Artist Who Befriended Giant Spiders [NY Times]
‘Louise Bourgeois’: An Intimate Look at a Provocateur [NYSun]
The Guggenheim Museum: Louise Bourgeois [Guggenheim]
Raw Materials of a Life, Revealed by Sculpture [NYTimes]
Louise Bourgeios at the Guggenheim [NYTimes]
`Cumuls,’ Dolls Recall Daddy Dearest in Louise Bourgeois Show [Bloomberg]
For Your Distorted Pleasure: Louise Bourgeois [NYTimes]
Bourgeois Looms Large at the Guggenheim [NY artbeat]

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Running June 3 - September 10, The Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective exhibit of the work of Richard Serra brings forty years worth of sculpture, often gigantic, to the museum’s forefront. On Tuesday night, LVMH hosted a dinner in honor of the new MoMA’s most ambitious sculpture exhibition to date. The opening of Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years drew over 500 guests to the midtown museum. Among them were painters Brice Marden, Frank Stella, and Chuck Close and a clutch of connoisseurs in the form of Larry Gagosian, Veronica Hearst, and Lily Safra. Beginning at the inception of the artist’s career in the late 1960s, the exhibit features his work with nontraditional materials like neon, rubber and lead, and moves chronologically through the many phases of Serra’s sculpting. (more…)