The New York Times speaks with Nan Goldin and a number of fellow artists on the impact of her landmark work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, and analyzes its relevance in an age of near-constant image sharing.  “I think she captures the human condition,” Klaus Biesenbach says.  “Show me the social media stream of anybody running back and forth today on the streets who really captures the human condition.” (more…)
Nan Goldin, Heart-Shaped Bruise, New York City (1980), via Art Observed
Few bodies of work have left an impact on the development of photography in the way that Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency did when it was first presented.  The ever-evolving compilation of photographs from Goldin’s life and travels between New York, Boston, Berlin, and elsewhere shows both fragility and joy, lust and love, life and death through a deeply personal focal point, as Goldin placed her own friends and familiars before the camera, and then reflected them back towards themselves during a series of slideshow performances in which she projected the images in a series to gallery audiences.
Performance artist Joey Arias with 60th gala cake
Tuesday night marked Aperture Foundation’s Sixtieth Anniversary Gala Dinner & Photography Auction. The live auction featured an incredible selection of 60+ works up for grabs by such notables as: Diane Arbus, Chuck Close, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Vik Muniz, Hank Willis Thomas and William Wegman. (more…)
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
Image: Warhol’s Cow Wallpaper and Silver Pillows, The New York Times
“Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years†is a group show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that juxtaposes fifty Warhol works with one hundred of those by his peers and successors. The show attempts to capture the scope and breadth of Warhol’s impact on contemporary art history. Presented 25 years after his death at the age of 58 in 1987, the exhibition showcases the works of both artists who have risen to fame after Warhol’s death as well that of his contemporaries. Some of the artists included are Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, Ed Ruscha, Alex Katz, Anselm Kiefer and Gerhard Richter.
‬Photographer Nan Goldin awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal for lifetime achievement in the arts. As Luc Sante chairman of the selection committee remarks, Goldin created a medium “halfway between still photography and cinema.â€
Nan Goldin, Swan-like embrace, Paris (2010). All images courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.
Nan Goldin: Scopophilia at Matthew Marks Gallery is the artist’s first exhibition in New York since 2007. Scopophilia, referring to the love of looking, contemplates Goldin’s images gathered from throughout her career, presenting them alongside recent photos shot at the Musée de Louvre. Her unprecedented after-hours access to the Louvre’s collections gave rise to new pairings and new interpretations of older work, as well as a 25-minute slide show.
‪‬Nan Goldin shoots “beautiful and raw” photos for new Jimmy Choo ad campaign [AO Newslink]
Sotheby’s Take Home a Nude annual auction. All photos on site for Art Observed by Nicholas Wirth.
Monday night on the seventh floor of Sotheby’s, art enthusiasts took in a variety of works—many of them nudes or variations thereof—at the 20th annual Take Home a Nude benefit by the New York Academy of Art. A 6 o’clock cocktail hour loosened up bidders for the concurrent silent auction, closing at 8:30 with a live auction, followed by dinner downstairs at 9:00. The night honored artist Jenny Saville and critic John Richardson, with artists Jeff Koons (in attendance further down town at the National Arts Awards) and Nan Goldin up for bid at the live auction, while artist Dustin Yellin—whose work caught the eye of Mary-Kate Olsen—fetched the highest bid at the silent auction at $9,500. However, Alyssa Monk’s Soft went to live auction after fierce bidding during the silent auction, fetching a final $12,000, and the evening’s overall highest piece was Joseph Kosuth‘s ‘Texts (Waiting for-) for Nothing’, Samuel Beckett, in play, 2011 at $37,500.
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Installation view of Rene Ricard’s “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. All images Ian Hassett for Art Observed.
AO was on-site for the opening of Rene Ricard‘s “Sonnets from the Portuguese,” presented by Vito Schnabel at the former Heidi Cho Gallery in Chelsea. This is the artist’s first solo painting show in over twenty years, and features paintings overlaid with sharp, evocative poems written by Ricard. The show is entitled “Sonnets from the Portuguese” after a book by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and is meant to “show [his] affection for the city of Lisbon.” It features sixteen canvases painted in basic “poison” green with short poems, and larger works featuring images based on those culled from family photo albums of Ricard’s friends, similarly painted over with text.
More text and images after the jump… (more…)
Nan Goldin, Amanda in the Mirror (1992). Via Matthew Marks Gallery
The Berlinische Galerie is showing a relatively unseen set of photographs by Nan Goldin. The show consists of around 100 color photographs that reveal an intimate portrayal of Goldin’s time spent in Berlin between 1984 and 2009. This acclaimed American photographer rose to popularity in the 1980’s as a leading figure in the movement of subjective photography. Goldin professed that photography was a stand in for memory, she unabashedly photographing drag queens, drug addicts, and night time lurkers that made up her circle of friends. Goldin created a voyeuristic world that held her firmly in the place as a cult icon to generations of photographers.
More text and images after the jump…
Honoree Gabriel Orozco (with Matthew Barney behind) at BOMB magazine’s 29th Anniversary Gala & Silent Auction at the National Arts Club, New York  All photos by Oskar Proctor for ArtObserved
Last night, BOMB magazine kicked-off their 29th Anniversary Gala at the National Arts Club in New York with a Silent Auction. Since the magazines’ founding in 1981, its pages have featured over 900 interviews comprised of 1,800 artists’ voices. Many of the featured artists contributed works to last night’s auction which featured both renowned and emerging names such as Alex Hubbard, Joan Jonas, Nan Goldin, Alex Katz, Julie Mehretu, Roxy Paine, Guy Maddin, Richard Serra, Joel Shapiro, Carrie Mae Weems, most of whom were in attendance. At 7.30pm, attendees were called to honor 4 individuals whose work and vision speak directly to BOMB’s mission of creative excellence. Rob Pruitt raised slices of toast to Honorees Cecily Brown and her husband, the New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. Brice Marden introduced the next Honoree artist Gabriel Orozco while Matthew Barney toasted honoree Nancy Spector, curator of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim. Along with Rob Pruitt’s generous offerings of slices of golden toast, the honorees were presented with “Pink Bomb†awards created by sculptor Tom Otterness.
Brice Marden introducing Honoree Gabriel Orozco
More photos and related links after the jump…..
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Exhibition view, “The Female Gaze: Woman Look at Women,” at Cheim & Read. Pictured works include Victoria Civera’s Searcher (far left) and Vanessa Beecroft’s Blonde Figure Lying (floor).
Through September 19, 2009, Cheim & Read will show “The Female Gaze: Women Look At Women.”  Featured are works by women of women, with aim to reorient the typically-male framing of women in art. Works range in medium from the paintings of Alice Neel and Lisa Yuskavage to the sculptures of Kara Walker, the text poems of Jenny Holzer and the photographs by Diane Arbus, the installations by Louise Bourgeois and even collage work by Ellen Gallagher.
Related links:
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Cheim & Read – Exhibition – The Female Gaze [Cheim and Read]
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Now Hanging: Girlie Show [The Moment Blog, New York Times]
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The Female Gaze, The Cheim and Read Gallery, New York [Financial Times]
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The Female Gaze: Women look at Women [Artforum]
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“The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women” at Cheim & Reid [Contemporary Art Daily]
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Cindy Sherman, Untitled, at Cheim & Read.
Huang Yongping's Sixty-Year Cycle Chariot sold for double the high estimate of $194,00, setting a new auction record for the artist, via Artdaily
Contemporary Asian Art Sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong brings in $8.5 million USD, well wthin expectations with over half of the lots above estimate [Artdaily] more here [Bloomberg] and here [AuctionPublicity] and here [Economist] and here [Artinfo]
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and finally more here [China Daily via ArtPatrol]
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And in related: The Getty acquires 9 contemporary Chinese photographs for $100,000, boosting its Asian collection despite a tighter budget [Bloomberg]
Takashi Murakami will soon debut a new collaborative collection with Louis Vuitton [HypeBeast]
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New York financier/art collector Ezra Merkin charged with $2.4 bilion fraud, the proceeds of which were used to fill his apartment with $91 million worth of art including Mark Rothko works from his collection, one of the largest in the world for the artist [Guardian UK]
Kate Moss by Damien Hirst is the new cover of Tar Magazine (anagram for “art”) [NY Times]
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Art funds launched in 2008, such as the London-based Art Trading Fund, are shelved due to failure to raise required funds [ArtNewspaper]
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Art:21, Art in Twenty-First Century is now available for free on Hulu [Hulu]
Russian Artist Andrea Molodkin, previously cited by AO here, prepares for Venice Biennale [Financial Times]
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Jeff Koons is speaking at Strand Books tonight at 7:00-8:30 in New York [Via FAD]
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New York Old Masters dealer Lawrence Salander is indicted and pleads guilty in $88 million charge [Bloomberg]
A look inside Rome’s MAXXI designed by Zaha Hadid via c-monster
A preview of the MAXXI in Rome, $108 million art museum designed by Zaha Hadid [c-monster]
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Adam Lindemann, financier, collector and author of Collecting Contemporary launches a new book from Taschen: Collecting Design [ArtInfo]
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Flash Art’s current cover featuring a portrait of Barack Obama by Marlene Dumas via Art Fag City
Marlene Dumas’s portrait of Barack Obama is the cover of Flash Art [Art Fag City]
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Madonna’s art collection is estimated at £80 million pounds [TimesUK]
A selection from the site via The World’s Best Ever
A timeline of modern & contemporary art artists by movement, school, style, period, theme & art prize [The-artists.org via The World’s Best Ever]
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Richard Serra to receive honorary degree from Pratt Institute at its 120th Commencement on May 18th [MediaBistro]
Interview with photographer Nan Goldin on why she is auctioning some of the curiosities she has collected [TelegraphUK]
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SFMOMA announces plans for a future expansion, doubling gallery space [SF Chronicle]
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A preview of SANAA’s design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavillion via Architect’s Journal
SANAA, the Japanese architectual duo behind the New Museum, release first glimpse of design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavilion [Architect’s Journal]
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Jim Dine donates 40 drawings influenced by Greek and Roman sculpture to the Morgan Library [Artinfo]
Julian Schnabel’s Picasso Femme au Chapeau will soon be sold by Christie’s [New York Times]
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The Mugrabis, a high impact, market-making collector family, may be addicted to the game of art [The Observer]
Untitled (mattress) (1991) by Rachel Whiteread, via The Museum of Modern Art
Brazilian Photographer Vik Muniz has curated an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art featuring approximately 80 works from the museum’s collection, including those by Eugène Atget, John Baldessari, Marcel Duchamp, Nan Goldin, Gordon Matta-Clark, Pablo Picasso, Dieter Rams, and Rachel Whiteread. The exhibit is part of Artist’s Choice, a series of exhibitions where an artist becomes a curator using selected works from the Museum of Modern Art’s Collection.
Muniz often questions the traditions and symbolism of visual representation by contrasting unlikely materials to depict subjects in his photographs. In this exhibition he has similarly brought works together out of their normal museological classification, thus allowing the viewer to create their own visual interpretation of artworks based on various linkages and connections. For the show’s theme, he employs a rebus, a puzzle that uses carefully connected images and symbols to create a phrase or a sentence. Instead of forming a sentence, he organizes the artworks by linking them through similarities in material, subject matter, technique, and form.
Artist’s Choice: Rebus, Vik Muniz
Museum of Modern Art
New York, New York
through February 23, 2009
Exhibition Page: Artist’s Choice: Rebus, Vik Muniz
Press: ‘Art’s Choice + Muniz = Rebus’- Connecting the Dots at the Museum of Modern Art New York [New York Times]
Vik Muniz on Guest-Curating his MoMA Show, ‘Rebus’ [New York Mag]
Vik Muniz Creates Rebus, an Inventive Narrative of Works from MoMA’s Collection [ArtDaily]
Leonard Lauder via The New York Times
Lauder Steps Down as Whitney Chair [NY Times, Art Forum]
“The primary market has only one event, and that is Art Basel” [Bloomberg]
A look at the work of the Guggenheim’s Chief Conservator [NySun]
An Interview with Nan Goldin in her Paris home [The GuardianUK]
