Following its merger with Art in America, led by Peter Brant, ArtNews Magazine is moving over to a quarterly format, continuing the transition process that began this summer, and which will see a focused move to digital.   “We are committed to staying in that world,” Brant said. “These are art publications—they’re visual. You can go overboard on the digital side.” (more…)

In an unexpected turn, Art News and Art in America have announced a merger that sees Peter Brant taking controlling interest in the pair of companies.  “The idea is to make artnews.com the single domain for the company when it comes to any digital editorial content — news coverage or information,” says ArtNews CEO Izabela Depczyk. “That means content from Art in America will be housed on the website as well… all the archival content [from all magazines], back issues, subscriptions, anything and everything will be housed on artnews.com.” (more…)

The Real Deal reports that collector Peter Brant has recently purchased a large property in Manhattan’s East Village for $27 million. The space was originally a Con Edison substation in the 1920s before being purchased in 1980 and repurposed by artist Walter de Maria as both an art space and private home. Although Brant’s plans remain unclear, the article speculates that the space might serve as the New York City outpost for the Brant Foundation’s Art Study Center, which is based in Greenwich, CT.  (more…)

Peter Brant is recapitalizing his newsprint business, according to state regulatory filings, by pledging 56 artworks to the lending arm of Sotheby’s (BID), including pieces by Warhol, Richard Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Other filings show a pledge by Brandt of pieces to a unit of Deutsche Bank AG, including a 1963 Warhol that could be worth as much as $35 million. (more…)

Team Gallery Booth at Art Basel 2010, Image via Art Basel.

AO is on site at Art Basel, Switzerland, where Wednesday marked the official, public opening of the international show.  On the roster was an inaugural Conversation Series speech by Paul McCarthy, an Art Film at Stadtkino Basel, and an Artist’s Talk with Rodney Graham at Kunstmuseum.  If the congenial and thronged atmosphere hadn’t tipped us off to the anticipation surrounding this year’s exhibitions, Tuesday’s sales would have been a clear indication.   A $15 million Picasso 1960 plaster maquette, Personnage, was snatched up immediately from Krugier Gallery by one of the VIP guests (an American collector) invited to Basel’s early opening, as was a line drawing by the same artist, one by Egon Schiele, and paintings by Max Ernst and Paul Klee. Sara Kay of the Geneva- and New York-based Kugier Gallery was unable to disclose the buyer of yesterday’s Picasso sale, but ten minutes after the purchase’s confirmation noted to Art Info that “[The] piece went to a very important collector with the best modern masters.  This is museum-quality, not trophy-level. It’s a very serious piece.” Skarstedt Gallery also enjoyed a  meritorious patronage yesterday, with sales including a Christopher Wool painting, Untitled, for $800,000, a Barbara Kruger photograph for $700,000, a Cindy Sherman piece for $500,000, and two works by George Condo: The Madman and The Colorful Banker, which fetched $375,000 and $225,000, respectively.  Hufkens Gallery sold a Louise Bourgeois etching, A Baudelaire (#7), which the late artist completed several months before her death in May, for $650,000 to a European collector.  Cheim & Read boasted a lucrative afternoon as well, with sales including a $2 million Joan Mitchell abstraction, a $125,000 Sam Francis drawing, a $100,000 Ghada Amer painting, Paradise, and a 28-strong Bourgeois watercolor series, Les Fleurs.  Lisson Gallery sold two Anish Kapoor‘s for $742,000.  Richard Prince‘s Student Nurse brought Gagosian $4.2 million, and Paul McCarthy’s bronze suites–Sneezy and Dopey–yielded Hauser & Wirth a combined total of $3 million. Blum & Poe sold a dyptich by Takashi Murakami for $1 million. White Cube reportedly sold six of Damien Hirst‘s new paintings, as well as Hirst’s “Memories of Love,” valued at $3.48 million. Lehmann Maupin sold two neon works by Tracey Emin, each for $74,000.

Damien Hirst, ““Memories of Love,” at White Cube’s booth, sold for $3.48 million. Image by Art Observed.

More images and text after the jump…

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Untitled, Maurizio Cattelan (2001) Estimate: $3–4 million Price Realized: $7.9 million

Last night, Sotheby’s confirmed the art market’s return to form as 50 of the 53 lots on offer sold at its Contemporary art sale.  Tallying $189,969,000 in sales, well over the house’s $162 million pre-sale estimate, 39 works fetched more than one million dollars, with two selling for more than $30 million, and seven making more than $5 million. Further to this, the sale achieved the two top lots achieved so far at New York’s Contemporary sales week, surpassing Christie’s sale of Jasper Johns Flag for $29 million on Tuesday night  – Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait more than doubled its high estimate to sell for $32,562,500, and an Untitled Mark Rothko painting from 1961 soared over the high estimate to sell for $31,442,500.

Self Portrait, Andy Warhol (1986). Estimate: $10-15 million. Price Realized: $32,562,500

More images, text and related links after the jump….
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The Hirshhorn Museum with proposed “bubble” in Washington, D.C. via Washington City Paper

A high-tech, futuristic design for a meeting hall in the Hirshhorn Museum at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is making headlines this week across the art community. The proposed “bubble” would constitute dimensions of 145 feet and swell out like a balloon from the primary structure, inflating during the months of May and October and collapsing for the duration of the year. Advocating for the design, Hirshhorn Museum Director Richard Koshalek insists that it will not detract from the museum’s most valuable possession: its art [Washington Post].

Fernando Botero via Art Daily

Fernando Botero criticizes the art awarded by the $50K prize bearing his name, and the administrators of the prize decide to cancel it as a result [ArtDaily]

to stay apprised of the latest relevant news of the art world…

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Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Trophy Wife,’ depicting Stephanie Seymour, currently going through a messy divorce from Peter Brant, who owns the piece

-Recent court filings in the divorce of Peter Brant and Stephanie Seymour reveal disputes over nearly 50 works by Andy Warhol, as well as works by Richard Prince, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel, and a bust of Seymour made by Maurizio Cattelan [Vanity Fair]

-And in related, Udo Fritz-Hermann Brandhorst, an heir to Germany’s Henkel AG & Co. fortune, settled out of court a dispute with his former mistress over two works by Damien Hirst [Bloomberg]

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Allison Schulnik’s music video for Grizzly Bear’s ‘Ready, Able’

– Painter Allison Schulnik’s claymation music video for Grizzly Bear’s ‘Ready, Able’ via The Flog

-Tracey Emin reading her new book of poems “Those Who Suffer Love” and “Strangeland” at University Settlement as part of Performa 09 [Supreme Being]

-Also related, a round-up of Performa 09 includes a “Pasta Sauna” based on the Futurist Manifesto, Tacita Dean, William Kentridge, Merce Cunningham and more [Financial Times]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week…

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Performa 09 party via Artinfo

-To benefit Performa 09, party designer Jennifer Rubell invites 600 guests to “Creation” held at X Initiative in Chelsea in New York, where 3,600 drinking glasses, a pyramid of unshelled peanuts and 2,000 pound hillock of honey-soaked ribs were among the excess of food being served (Performa 09/ Food for Thought) [The Moment]

-In related, To mark the start of Performa 09 MoMA invited Fischerspooner to stage a show (Performance Art Enters the Museum) [Artinfo]

-In related, At Haunch of Venison in New York Marina Abramovich, Leandro Erlich, Mickalene and Rob Wynn pair with NYC pastry chefs to create performances; cakes were served by topless models (Kreemart or Cream Art Performance at Haunch of Venison) [NY Art Beat]

-Bikes used by Lance Armstrong and with frames designed by contemporary artists fetch $1.3 million at auction in Sotheby’s, among them Damien Hirst’s sold for $500,000 (Armstrong’s Tour de France Bikes Fetch $1.3 Million at Auction) [Bloomberg]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)

Installation view of Rothko’s ‘Seagram Murals’ via MSNBC

Tate Liverpool exhibits Rothko’s Seagram Murals after a 20-year absence [Artdaily]
Rochelle Steiner, under whose tenure Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls” was sponsored, leaves the Public Art Fund [NY Times] and in related, Sotheby’s CEO takes big paycuts in the wake of the market downturn [Bloomberg]

Alex James, bassist of Blur via The Mirror

Blur’s Alex James to judge Charles Saatchi’s art-star reality TV show [The Mirror]
Jonathan Jones on how consumerism spawned Warhol and Pop art and thus the shallowness of contemporary art [Guardian]
Vanity Fair’s imagined conversations overheard at a MoMA party [VanityFair]
A new show at Paris’s Musee d’Art Moderne acknowledges how Italian Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico sold backdated copies of his own work [Bloomberg]

Patti Smith via The Art Newspaper

Patti Smith, whose Polaroids are showing at Robert Miller gallery, on her early career as an artist and why she feels Jeff Koons’s work is “just litter upon the earth” [The Art Newspaper]

Andy Warhol’s BMW Art Car via W Magazine

The BMW Art Car series by artists such as Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg to appear at New York’s Grand Central Terminal starting March 24 [W Magazine]
Chinese art dealer who sabotaged Christie’s sale of bronzes during the Yves Saint Laurent sale weeps at his shattered credibility [Bloomberg]

Steve McQueen modeling for T Magazine

A brief profile of Turner prize winning film artist Steve McQueen’s fashion aesthetic [The Moment]
The Las Vegas Sun does a post-mortem on the Las Vegas Art Museum, which closed last month [Las Vegas sun via ArtsJournal]

Trailer for ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ via Entertainment Weekly

Soon to open in New York, an art world outsider chronicles his relationship with an art world insider in the film ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ [Entertainment Weekly]
Susan Moore looks at the recent emergence of a homegrown art scene in the United Arab Emirates [Financial Times]

Collectors Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant.  Image courtesy Mary Barone via Artnet

Art in America and Interview Magazine owner Peter Brant opens his private collection to the public, by appointment only, at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center [NY Times]
How the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland was unable to secure an immense 16,000 piece art collection obtained during a takeover of ABN Amro as that bank’s CEO deftly transferred ownership to a foundation before the merger [TimesUK]
Turner Prize winning sculptor Antony Gormley announces first public art installation for Scotland [TheScotsman]

Laura Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni and Lauren Cornell, curators at the New Museum of Contemporary Art via NY Times

A preview of the New Museum’s inaugural triennial, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” [NY Times]
Hans Ulrich Obrist’s book “The Conversation Series” includes interviews with artist such as Wolfgang Tillmans and Gilbert and George [ArtInfo]

A peek at Pierogi Gallery’s new annex, the Boiler via NY Times

Williamsburg’s Pierogi Gallery opens new annex, The Boiler [NY Times]
Chelsea galleries, including Andrea Rosen, Barbara Gladstone, Mary Boone and Matthew Marks, to show work at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba [The Art Newspaper]

Anish Kapoor’s ‘Temenos’ via AnishKapoor

Construction begins on first of five of Anish Kapoor outdoor sculptures in the UK: the ‘world’s biggest art project’ [DesignWeek]

Portrait of Pope Benedict XIV by Pierre Subleyras via NY Mag

Old masters prove to be a bellwether in the market downturn [Financial Times] as such, The Metropolitan Museum acquires a Renaissance portrait of Pope Benedict XIV for nearly $1 million amidst financial woes [NY Mag] and this painting also is featured here in a separate video discussion on the resilience of old master paintings [Sotheby’s]

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York, Tuesday, November 11th
Total Lots Offered: 63
Total Lots Sold: 43 (68.2%)
Total Sales Value: $125.1 million
Total Sales Pre-Auction Estimate: $202.4 million

On the heels of its Impressionist and Modern Art sale that brought in $223 million, well below its low estimate of $339 million, with only 45 of 70 lots sold as previously covered by Art Observed here, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York, held on Tuesday, November 11th, brought in $125 million against a $202 million estimate. The sale was 68.2% sold by lot, with 43 of 63 works finding buyers, marking the lowest selling rate for a multiple-owner evening sale of contemporary art held at Sotheby’s since November 1994. A third of the lots failed to sell, and most of the works that did sell went for less than their presale low estimate. The top lot of the sale was Yves Klein’s Archisponge (RE 11), seen below, which brought $21,362,500. Artist records were set tonight for Philip Guston Beggar’s Joys, which achieved $10,162,500; John Currin, Nice ‘N Easy (see above), which realized $5,458,500 (see above) and Richard Serra, 12-4-8, which fetched $1,650,000.

A Dreary Night for Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s [NYTimes]
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale defies worst fears [Reuters]
Sotheby’s New York Evening Sale of Contemporary Art Brings $125,131,500 [ArtDaily]
$125 million at Sotheby’s Contemporary [ArtNet]
The art market: Contemporary art gets hammered [FinancialTimes]
Bare Market [ArtForum]
Eli Broad Goes Shopping as Sotheby’s Art Auction Falls Short [Bloomberg]
Currin Nudes Set $5.46 Million Record at Spotty Sotheby’s Sale [Bloomberg]

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Tracey Emin and her sparrow, now returned via BBC

For second time in 3 months, Tracey Emin’s 4-inch Liverpool sparrow is stolen then returned [BBC]
Photo profile of collector / Art in America and Interview-owner Peter Brant [TMagazine-New York Times]
Art Basel commits Miami Beach for 3 years [ArtForum]
Midtown gallery sued after improperly safeguarded Dali’s are stolen [New York Post]
Oliafur Eliasson interviewed [GuardianUK]
New art fair Art Berlin Contemporary opens with 70 artists and 40 Berlin galleries [ArtReview]

Lowman and Colen’s, Wet Pain, at Maccarone via NY mag

A critique of Dan Colen and Nate Lowman at Maccarone [NY mag]
Supreme launches Marilyn Minter skate decks [Supertouch]
Collector/Art in America owner Peter Brant’s supermodel wife editor of Warhol’s Interview [Sassybella]
Antwerp’s low profile art gallery gems [NY Times]
Sotheby’s Previews $30 million of contemporary art in an upscale Russian mall [Bloomberg]
Update: Murakami as a capitalist in Brooklyn [The Economist]

Aby Rosen via New York Social Diary

Real Estate Mogul/Collector Aby Rosen Silent Partner with Peter Brant in Art in America and Interview [The New York Post]
Spiral Jetty threatened by energy development [Arts Journal via C-monster]
MCA Chicago Director Joins Haunch of Venison, London [Art Forum]
UK Corporate Art Spending Reaches All Time High [Financial Times]
Gap’s Fischer Family to Start Negotiations Concerning San Francisco Art Museum [Bloomberg.com]
Lucian Freud Reportedly to Paint Portrait of Actor Jack Nicholson [The New York Post]
Brian McMaster Disputes Potential for Current UK Art Scene to Rival the Renaissance [Guardian Unlimited]