AO Art Observed™

A part of the Chapman brothers’ ‘Family Collection’ via The Independent

Six years after Charles Saatchi acquired the “Chapman Family Collection”, the Tate Gallery is about to acquire the wooden figures for an unknown price. “The Chapman family collection” was first exhibit at the White Cube in 2002. At this time, the dealer and collector, acquired them for the average price of $2 million.

Jake & Dinos Chapman [White cube]
Tate buys Saatchi’s “Chapman Collection” [ArtInfo]
Jake and Dinos Chapman’s sculpture acquired by the Tate Gallery [The Independent]
Tate acquires Chapman Family Collection [First Post]

Sonic Youth via Aquarium Drunkard

Richter’s “Kerze,” famously a Sonic Youth cover, for auction at Sotheby’s [Cinemablend]
Sonic Youth’s new touring art exhibit could be featured at the Whitney [NYMag]
New Saatchi Gallery in West London, will show only Contemporary [UK Times Online]
Video: Interview with Damien Hirst [Charlie Rose]
Review Contemporary Art on the Lower East Side [Bloomberg]

Andy Coolquitt, JSUT, 2007 via Art Review

Galleries worth leaving Chelsea for [Art Review]
Details of 46,000 artworks stolen by Nazis [Bloomberg]
Interview with Armory Show chief Katelijne De Backer [Art Fag City]
Artist Hope Atherton on Peter Doig, soon to open at Tate [Style]
No market for stolen art: art thieves will have difficulty selling loot [NYSun]
Poussin Paintings together again [NYTimes]
Saatchi/HarperCollins join to sponsor a book design competition for Sean Dixon’s debut novel [Londonist]
Top Moscow contemporary art galleries merge [Bloomberg]
The Finnish version of the UK’s Turner prize: More of a marketing tool? [NYSun]

Damien Hirst “All You Need is Love” via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s Lowers Estimate for (RED) Auction by 28% [Bloomberg]
Damage to Antiquities Caused by Tax Scheme Accounts for Art Raids [New York Times]
Ryan McGinley to Shoot Ads for Converse by John Varvatos [GQ Magazine]
Picasso Exceeds Auction Estimate at Christie’s London [Bloomberg]
Met Hires Headhunter to Find New Director [Wall Street Journal]
Guy Cogeval Appointed Director of Musée d’Orsay [Art Info]
Saatchi buys Contemporary Heinrich Himler portrait [UK News]
Richard Prince and Terry Richardson create artwork for controversial James Frey novel [New York Post]
Gerhard Richter at Serpentine Gallery in September [Guardian UK]

Schandra Singh’s Lazy River via the Saatchi Gallery

Indian Art at Saatchi in London [The Saatchi Gallery]
Hedging with Art in Uncertain Markets [The Wall Street Journal]
Most Hyped Art Sales of 2007 [Bornrich.org]
UK gets the Go Ahead from Russia’s Royal Academy of Art [BBC]

McHarg’s Wax Saatchi via Yip Ghost

Robert McHarg III, a London based artist and gallery owner, created a life size wax sculpture of Charles Saatchi. Saatchi, the influential and legendary British art collector, has been dressed up in various outfits (i.e. as a cowboy, with a gas mask, in Mickey Mouse ears) by the artist and then photographed. Featuring HIM in his Subway Gallery, McHarg says, “It’s the biggest action figure I’ll ever own, it’s all about the artist collecting the collector, a David and Goliath battle over power and punch lines.” The images have been complied into a book released October 2007 by Trolley Books.

Yip Ghost
Trolley Books