Subodh Gupta, This is not a fountain (2011), via Ross Maddux for Art Observed

Subodh Gupta’s most recent show at Hauser and Wirth is an exercise in the personal.  Long known for works combining the intensely personal with broader social constructs and ritualistic approaches to the art object, his current exhibition places an even more central focus on the intensely personal, communal relations life in India, and his emphasis on the unifying, material structures over which daily life proceeds. (more…)

Call and Response (Installation View)

Since its establishment at its Broome street location in 1994, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise has stood as one of the stables in the New York gallery scene, maintaining a distinct profile partially due to its non-Chelsea location and partially by its founder’s ubiquitous presence in the art world. Brown himself emerged in the 90’s as one of the young dealers in the then-booming market, and built himself into one of the world’s leading dealers, proven by his inclusion into The Guardian’s 2014 list of ‘the most powerful people in the art world’. (more…)

On Kawara, July 16th, 1969 (1969), via Art Observed

Taking On Kawara’s work at face value, one could imagine that the artist had been preparing for years for a career retrospective.  His near-endless stream of date paintings, accounting records for every book he read or person he met, and his series of postcards and maps are a record of the artist’s daily experience as he lived it, leaving behind a steady stream of locations, times and movements from each day of his life. (more…)

Jésus Rafael Soto, Ambivalencia en el espacio color no. 12 (1981) all photos via Galerie Perrotin

On view at Galerie Perrotin, both in Paris and in New York is a double exhibition dedicated to Venezuelen artist Jesús Rafael Soto, who lived from 1923-2005. Curated by Matthieu Poirer, the exhibition is comprised of around sixty works created between 1957 and 2003, drawn from the estate and from various institutions.  The title of the exhibition, Chronochrome, is meant to describe “the kinetic exploration of the monochrome,” a reference to the filmic production process that underscores the artist’s interest in multiple layers of carefully executed optics, creating a subtly shifting and alternating space within works for the viewer to discover. The eye’s movement back and forth, often between the two layers, the artist hoped, would produce a sense of visual vibration and a new perception of color.

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Brendan Lynch, Not Quite Spring (2015), via Art Observed

The Still House Group has always presented something of the enigmatic in their works and performances, lifting objects and materials directly from the quotidian landscapes of modernity and refashioning them as something of a compositional element, or a compositional subject in their own right.  Take Brendan Lynch for example, the young painter whose work has embraced slurs and gobs of paint, concrete, and plastic water bottles as elements for surreal installations.  A certain commodity element dominates Lynch’s work, blended in with a certain material fascination with surfaces and textures. (more…)

Following the death of Cornelius Gurlitt, the works he had willed to the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland have hung in limbo, the subject of a dispute filed by his cousin Uta Werner, which questions the authenticity and authority of his will.  “The Board of Trustees regrets this delay, in particular because it will impede the settlement of restitution cases that have already been clarified and endorsed by the Kunstmuseum Bern, but the circumstances are beyond its control,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)

Ryder Ripps, Heater (2014), via Art Observed

If there’s one thing that can be said about Ryder Ripps, it’s that the artist loves context.  Over the past few years, the artist has produced a number of timely and often razor-sharp critiques on the notions of authorship and production in the digital sphere, including his “WhoDat.Biz” troll of Kanye West, and his recent, controversial Ace Hotel performance piece, in which the artist hired a group of “sensual masseuses” to draw pictures for him to protest what he saw as an inequitable payment situation. (more…)

Harmony Korine, Fex Chex (2014), all images Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at Gagosian Beverly Hills is a group of new paintings by American film director, producer, screenwriter, author, and artist Harmony Korine. Although he is primarily working within the mediums of film and writing, Korine has recently begun publicly displaying his works, immense, swirling compositions composed in a variety of techniques and palettes.

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Mamma Andersson, Behind the Curtain (Installation View)

Currently on view at David Zwirner is Behind the Curtain, a new body of work by one of the most recognized contemporary artists from Sweden, Mamma Andersson. The Stockholm-based artist has gained international acclaim in recent years with her solo shows in Aspen Museum of Art, Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin and a mid-career survey that travelled to Finland and UK after its Swedish premiere several years ago. (more…)

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (1983), via Sotheby’s

The Contemporary Evening sale at Sotheby’s has concluded, following a sale of works that was fairly by the book in comparison with past auctions, with the exception of a massive new auction record for artist Gerhard Richter just one day after his 83rd birthday.  Despite a lack of exceptionally competitive bidding, the 77-lot sale still brought in impressive returns, finishing at a tally of £123,515,250. (more…)

Francis Bacon, Two Studies for Self-Portrait (1977), via Sotheby’s

Concluding a three week series of auctions, the Contemporary Evening Sales are set to take place in London in the coming evenings, offering a perspective on the strength of the market as 2015’s art season gets underway.

The auctions begin on Tuesday, February 10th, with Sotheby’s Evening sale.  The 77-lot sale is carrying a presale estimate of £89.7 million to £127.1 million, led by a large-scale Gerhard Richter Abstraktes Bild from 1986, which is estimated to sell for £14 million to £20 million.  Also topping the list is a rare Francis Bacon double self-portrait, executed in 1977 and carrying a £13 million to £18 million presale estimate.  The painting, executed  just weeks after the suicide of his partner George Dyer, is already commanding impressive buzz, and may turn out to be the night’s most coveted lot.  A Lucio Fontana “slit” work also sits at the top of the sale offerings, estimated at £5 million to £7 million.   (more…)

Kehinde Wiley is in New York Magazine this week, showcasing gowns from the spring fashion season worn by a number of female models the artist painted for his soon to open Brooklyn Museum exhibition.  “What we wanted to do was to play up the real world within the language of glamour,” Wiley says. “I wanted to have a reprise of that moment, to go back to this idea of fashion and art having something in common, the idea that fashion could change the perception of an individual.” (more…)

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has purchased an iconic portrait of George Washington, executed by portrait artist Gilbert Stuart from Los Angeles’s Armand Hammer Foundation.  The work will hang in a gallery featuring work exploring the notion of prominent individuality, alongside the Jacques-Louis David ’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps.   (more…)

Artist Mickalene Thomas is interviewed in the New York Magazine this week for the paper’s ongoing “21 Questions” segment, discussing her favorite New York sushi restaurants, her methods of working, and her nostalgia for the old Times Square.  “’It’s interesting because it was a really sort of crazy under-culture of different types of people walking around expressing themselves, and trying to make their dreams happen. Now you just don’t have that anymore.” (more…)

A Paul Gauguin painting from 1892 has reportedly been sold for close to $300 million, setting a new record for the most expensive work of art.  Rudolf Staechelin, a retired Sotheby’s executive, confirmed the sale with the New York Times, but the Qatari buyer’s identity has not been disclosed, nor has the official price.  “The real question is why only now?” Mr. Staechelin said of the Gauguin sale. “It’s mainly because we got a good offer. The market is very high and who knows what it will be in 10 years.” (more…)

The recent decision of Marina Picasso, granddaughter of painter Pablo Picasso, to sell off her collection of her grandfather’s works has many market analysts worried about a “flooded” market, even though Picasso has been selling works one by one for some time.  “Instead of having a dealer show them, it’s been an open secret that there are works for sale and people have been asking other people if they would be interested,” says historian John Richardson. “I’ve been asked by odd people who tell me, ‘We are in on a great deal, and Marina is selling all her stuff.’ ” (more…)

Sturtevant, Duchamp Relâche (1967)

The Museum of Modern Art is hosting the first US exhibition focusing on the work of the late Sturtevant, one of the foremost artists to initiate conversations on commodification and appropriation of artworks, after the late artist was the subject of various solo shows in Europe. Born Elaine Horan in Ohio, Sturtevant always chose to remain discrete about her biography, so much that her year of birth is still a matter of discussion. (more…)

A canvas by 17th Century French artist Claude Lorrain is the subject of a recent export ban placed by UK Minister of Culture Ed Vaizey, while the government seeks to find a buyer to keep the painting in the country.  “It is of outstanding beauty and it would be tremendous to see it permanently on display in a UK gallery where it can be appreciated by all,” Vaizey said. (more…)

Artist Kehinde Wiley is profiled in the New York Times this week, discussing his early life in Los Angeles, and his responses to the outrage over police violence in Ferguson, MO.  “I know how young black men are seen,” the artist says in his Williamsburg studio. “They’re boys, scared little boys oftentimes. I was one of them. I was completely afraid of the Los Angeles Police Department.” (more…)

The BBC looks at the early career of Vincent Van Gogh, and the artist’s decision to enter divinity school in his mid-20’s.  It was during this time that the artist visited the depressed Borinage region, and where his work among the laypeople inspired him to draw and paint.  “The people were poor and illiterate, and their work was hard and dangerous,” says curator Sjraar Van Heugten. “Yet for Van Gogh, there was some kind of bigger truth in their simple way of life. After he became an artist, he chose to find his subject matter there. Like artists that he admired, such as Jean-François Millet, he wanted to portray the life of working-class people, and he remained interested in doing so certainly for the first half of his career.” (more…)

Claude Monet’s L’Embarcadère will hit the auction block next week during Sotheby’s auction of Impressionist and Modern works next week in London.  The “museum-quality” work featuring the landscapes of Zaandam in the Netherlands, is estimated to sell for between £7,500,000 and £10,000,000.    “Monet captures the Dutchness, not merely externally…but also the delicate enveloping light and atmosphere, subtly different from the Ile de France,” writes art historian Ronald Pickvance.  “The superb manner in which he registers the immense and often changing Dutch skies is sufficient proof of this.” (more…)

Artist Luc Tuymans has been convicted of copyright infringement in Belgium for his 2011 work A Belgian Politician, featuring a cropped image of politician Jean-Marie Dedecker.  Tuymans plans to appeal the case.  “Like many contemporary artists, the work of Luc Tuymans is based on existing images,” says Tuymans’s lawyer, Michaël De Vroey.  “How can an artist challenge the world with his works if he cannot use images of this world?” (more…)

Egon Schiele, Death and Maiden (1915), via Kunsthaus Zurich

The Kunsthaus Zürich is currently presenting a historical study in portraiture and figuration over the course of a century, comparing the output of Austrian painter Egon Schiele with YBA-affiliated painter Jenny Saville, and tying together the pair’s varying approaches to powerful and, at times, visceral depictions of the human body.  Culling works from across the expanse of both artist’s careers, the exhibition seems to function both as a pair of parallel historical studies in each artist’s inspirations and development, while allowing a certain degree of overlap and cross-referencing into the various techniques each artist employed. (more…)

Mary Weatherford, La Noche (2014), via Art Observed

The Museum of Modern Art’s highly anticipated exhibition of contemporary painting, curated by Laura Hoptman, presents a cursory survey of current trends in this ever-evolving medium. Taking the concept of nonlinear time as its conceptual crux, The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World attempts to parse the impact that the daily experience of digital media has had on painting specifically, and on visual culture more broadly.  (more…)