AO Art Observed™

An untitled 1969 work by Mark Rothko via Telegraph The painting, created a year before the artist committed suicide, displays the dark color palette the artist primarily used during his last years of life a period that was said to be increasingly lonely and isolating for the artist.

Opening today at the Tate Modern is retrospective of abstract expressionist Mark Rothko. The Latvian-born American artist has not had an solo exhibition in the UK in over 20 years. The exhibit includes Tate’s permanent Rothko colletion that consists of nine paintings known as the Seagram murals. The paintings which are usually on display in what is known as the Rothko Room within the Tate have been moved to a larger space and joined by another six Seagram murals on loan from Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art in Japan and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. In 1958 the artist was commissioned by the Four Season’s restaurant in New York’s Seagram building to create the works, earning the paintings the name Seagram murals. However Rothko ultimately deemed a restaurant as an inappropriate place to display the works and did not hand them over. Instead the artist donated many of the works, including several to the Tate. The exhibition will also include the 1964 series Black-Form paintings, 1969 series Brown on Grey works on paper, as well as works from his last series before his death Black on Gray made in 1969-70.

Mark Rothko exhibition at Tate Modern, 26 September 2008 - 1 February 2009 [Tate Modern]
Bacon and Rothko in London [New York Sun]
How Mark Rothko became an Anglophile [Times Online UK]
Rothko’s Humor Shown by Son as Tate Fetes Artist’s Darkest Work [Bloomberg]
In at the Deep End Rothko Video [Guardian]
Rothko’s Gloom Is Compelling at London’s Tate: Martin Gayford [Bloomberg]
Rothko’s murals reunited at Tate [BBC News]
Rothko exhibition opens at Tate Modern [Telegraph]
First Major Exhibition Dedicated to the Late Works of Mark Rothko at Tate Modern [Art Daily]
Current Exhibition: Rothko [Art Info]
The trouble with Mark Rothko’s genius [Times Online] (more…)

Daria “Dasha” Zhukova, via Guardian.

More on Roman Abramovich’s Dasha Zhukova, straight from Moscow onto the art scene, and more on her and the Moscow Garage here [Times Online] [Guardian] On Gagosian’s Moscow Chocolate factory, and more on Gagosian in Moscow here [Financial Times] [Art Info]
After the sale, perhaps the most insightful Hirst Sotheby’s auction and art market summary article we’ve found [The Economist]
Christie’s sale in Zurich to auction significant Peter Fischli/David Weiss shown at Tate Modern in 2007 [Art Daily]
With Francis Bacon at the currently at the Tate, a video interview from 1985 [Small Drawings via C-Monster]

Rendering of Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard St. tower including the site specific sculpture designed by artist Anish Kapoor via Andrea Schwan Inc.

The design for Pritzer Prize winning architects, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron’s Tribeca tower was released earlier this week. The $650 million project will be 57-stories high with condominiums ranging from 1,430 square feet to 6,360 square feet, and is projected to be open in 2010. The tower is said to house 145 residences each with its unique floor plan and complete with a private balcony. The translucent skyscraper will be the first high-rise commission for the Swiss architects, who have had their hand in designing the Beijing National Stadium in China for the recent 2008 Olympic games, the Tate Modern in London, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. The contemporary artist Anish Kapoor has been commissioned to install one of his signature stainless steel, reflective sculptures on the ground floor. The tower will appear to be resting a top his sculpture, and will be the first permanent public artwork for the artist in New York City.

Construction Begins On Herzog & De Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street [Artdaily]
Olympic Bird’s Nest architects design NY high-rise [Associated Press]
A Stack of Houses [NYTimes]
Fantastical Form in TriBeCa: Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard St. [NYSun]
At 57 Stories, 56 Leonard St. to Tower Over Tribeca [Tribeca Tribune]
One’s Huge, the Other’s Crazy [NYMag]
Herzog & de Meuron reach for the sky [World Architecture News]
Herzog & de Meuron’s Plans Unveiled for New York City Tower [ArtForum]
New York Developer commissions Anish Kapoor for Herzog & de Meuron residential project in Tribeca [ArtObserved]

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German artist Jonathan Meese via TheMoment

Jonathan Meese, Daniel Richter, and Javier Peres as players in the Berlin art scene [NY Times- The Moment]
more Jonathan Meese, headlining Friday at the Journal Gallery, Brooklyn [The World's Best Ever]
Valuable, yet difficult to execute and display “extreme” art [ArtInfo]
Rothko, Bacon highlight a very British-painter-based fall exhibit lineup in London [Bloomberg]
On “democracy” as a trend in British contemporary art, and how pricing can suffer from it [Guardian]
Deborah Harris is the new managing director of the Armory Show [ArtForum]
Director Sir Nicholas Serota sets 1 year deadline for funds for Transforming Tate Modern project [London SE1]
In more Tate news: 2007/8 acquisition year for the Tate Collection brought a record $111 million - 494 work harvest [Art Daily]

Dasha Zhukova, via Daylife

Daria “Dasha” Zhukova, daughter of an oligarch, girlfriend of Roman Abramovich, and a symbol of the recent Russian push into contemporary art [NYTimes]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner’s photography show at Fuse Gallery in the East Village [Supertouchart]
Both Qatar and Abu Dhabi want Philippe de Montebello, who is leaving the Met, for a directorship [NYsun]
More on the Frank Gehry-designed summer pavillion at Serpentine Gallery in London [NYTimes Tmagazine]
Amidst art-world controversy, Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate’s director of 20 years made “permanent employee” [Independent]

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron via Financial Times

On Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, Swiss architects of the Tate Modern [Financial Times]
Amy Cappellazzo of Christie’s entertains in her home to support Pratt Institute [NYSun]
French designer Agnes B.’s other hat: art dealer [Bloomberg]
Sotheby’s reprises monumental sculpture exhibition and sale in Chatsworth, UK [Art Daily]
German artist Jonathan Meese remixes Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, underwear stapled to walls involved [NYTimes]

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 via Serpentine Gallery

Gehry’s Serpentine Pavilion, reflective of his early style, up through October 19 [Serpentine Gallery]
Sao Paolo police find $630,000 of stolen works, including a Picasso [BBC]
Banksy posts a comment on his identity [Banksy.co.uk via The World's Best Ever]
Royal Academy announces upcoming Anish Kapoor retrospective [Artinfo]
Sir Nicholas Serota, Tate Modern director, is ‘learning Russian fast’ to court philanthropic support of new extension [Russia Today ]

New extension to Tate Modern, designed by Herzog & de Meuron via Tate

The Tate Modern has announced a new development in the plan for it’s new wing. World-renowned Swiss Architectural firm, Herzog & de Meuron, has designed the new plan for the extension, called Tate Modern 2 (TM2). The extension was originally designed as a cubic glass-cast pyramid shaped structure, but has been redesigned to better complement the structure of the existing Tate Modern and be more sustainable. The project has a $429 million budget, and has so far received $100 million from the government, $14 million from the London Development Agency, and $26 million from private donors for the project. Work on the site will ensue in 2009, and is projected to be finished by 2012, but if the budget is not met, this could cause a delay in its completion.

New twist to the rise of Tate Modern [Financial Times]
Tate Goes Green with New Plans [Artforum]
Transforming Tate Modern: Green Scheme for Tate Modern’s New Building [Artdaily]
Tate revises £215m extension plan [BBC]
Tate Modern Redesigns New Wing; May Not Open in 2012 [Bloomberg]
£100m new wing plan for Tate Modern [Telegraph]
New Tate Modern design [Wallpaper]

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H BOX, designed by Didier Fiuza Faustino Portuguese, and produced by Hermès International via Bloomberg

Storied french luxury fashion house Hermès International presents the H BOX, a collapsible screening hall designed by Portuguese artist and architect, Didier Fiuza Faustino. The H Box is a traveling screening capsule that exhibits the video art of 8 international artists: Alice Anderson, Yael Bartana, Sebastián Díaz-Morales, Dora García, Judit Kúrtag, Valérie Mréjen, Shahryar Nashat, and Su-Mei Tse. The H Box will be exhibited in the Tate Modern in London until August 17.

Outside The Box [Vogue]
Hermes H Box, Tate Modern [Designtaxi]
The Tate Modern [Tate]
Vuitton’s Richard Prince Bags, Hermes at Tate: Fashion Art [Bloomberg]
Tate’s H-Box screens art films [Digital Arts Online]

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Artist Anish Kapoor via Billslater

Indian-born artist, Anish Kapoor, has been commissioned to design a large-scale public sculpture for a new residential tower in Tribeca. In addition to Kapoor, the New York-based real estate company, Alexico Group, has chosen the world-renowned Pritzker Prize winning architectural firm, Herzog & de Meuron to design the building. Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias, principals of the Alexico Group, have announced that the Kapoor sculpture will be installed at ground level and be fully incorporated into the architectural design. The designs for the building and sculpture that will sit at the intersection of Leonard and Church Streets, will be released in the fall, and construction is projected to be completed in Spring 2010 .

New Tribeca Tower to Include Kapoor Sculpture [Artinfo]
A New Tower For Tribeca [VanityFair]
Alexico Group Announces Manhattan Commission to Architects Herzog & De Meuron and Artist Anish Kapoor [Artdaily]
Swiss Firm to Design New TriBeCa Tower [NYTimes]
Alexico Group inked a deal with architects Herzog & de Meuron [NYDailynews]
Herzog & de Meuron and Anish Kapoor to Collaborate on New York Tower [InteriorDesign]
Tribeca Skyscraper to get Sculpture [TheRealDeal]

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Cy Twombly, Quattro Stagioni: Autunno, (1993-5) via Tate Modern

From June 19 - September 14, the Tate Modern presents the first solo retrospecitve of Cy Twombly in 15 years.  Twombly, an abstract expressionist painter, is regarded as one of the most influential artists of our time.

Cy Twombly at Tate UK [Tate Modern]
Cy Twombly at Tate Modern, London [Gagosian Gallery]
Cy Twombly – Cycles and Seasons [Digital Arts]
Tate Unites London, New York Versions Of Cy Twombly’s Great Painting Cycle [HulIQ]
Cy Twombly is the only graffiti artist I care about [Guardian UK]

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Image via World’s Best Ever

today:
First look street art exhibit at the Tate [World's Best Ever]
Studio visit interview with Ernesto Neto [ArtInfo via C-Monster]
Former Met Director de Montebello as NYU Professor [NY Times]
Art charity raises to buy Rubens for Tate where British state failed [Bloomberg]
French billionaires battle at Sotheby’s last week [Art Info]

“Study for Head of George Dyer” by Francis Bacon via Bloomberg

Sotheby’s to sell $15.6M Bacon portrait of suicidal boyfriend [Bloomberg]
IMPei’s new Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar [Financial Times]
Turner Prize announces 2008 Short List [Artforum]
Was Spring NY auction bidding “eerily thin?” [Wall Street Journal]
Update: Tate Street art exhibition includes only non-British [Financial Times]

Image via Overspray

This Friday, London’s Tate Modern will open an exhibition of six internationally recognized street artists. The show is the first major museum exhibition in London to display the work of street artists and it will use the riverside exterior façade of the Tate to display their work.  After the success of last weekend’s Banksy-organized Cans Festival, and with the current popularity of street art in London, the exhibition is expected to be well-received.

Street Art to Adorn Tate [The Overspray Magazine Fishbowl]
Tate Modern [Tate Modern]
Graffiti on the Gallery [Times Online]
How the Tate Got Streetwise [guardian.co.uk]
Street Art Comes to the Tate Modern [Artinfo]
The art market: Riding the street art wave [Financial Times]
(more…)

Marquise Casati by Man Ray via Tate Modern

The exhibition “Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia”, featuring the three artists often cited as responsible for launching Dadaism through their exhibitions in New York, is on view at the Tate Modern until May 26. 

Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Man Ray at the Tate Modern [Times Online]
Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia at Tate Modern [24 hour Museum]
Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia’s show at the Tate Modern [AFP]
Tate Modern [Tate Modern]

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Leonardo’s Annunciation via the Art Newspaper

For the first year, a survey has been made regarding the attendance figures in the museums for the year 2007. Unsurprisingly, the Musée the Louvre comes first with 8.3 million visitors in 2007. Of note is that the Tokyo National Museum had the highest daily average last year (regarding “Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation”) for any exhibition since the survey began in 1997.

After the jump, the Top 10 museums attendance in 2007… (more…)

Wallpaper Video Screenshot via Archinect

Earlier we told you about hotelier Andre Balazs’ loan of his Jean Prouve Flat-Pack Home, La Maison Tropicale, to the Tate Modern in London. Today, Wallpaper Magazine has a time-lapse video detailing the assembly of the famous design, originally intentioned for Niger and the Congo in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Video of Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale assembly [Archinect]
La Maison Tropicale, Jeane Prouve [Wallpaper]

Maison Tropicale via Trend Hunter

Jean Prouvé’s flat-pack home, Maison Tropicale, owned by hotelier Andre Balazs is going on display at Tate Modern in London. It was originally designed to house those from the Congo and Niger in the 40’s and 50’s.

Maison Tropicale [Trend Hunter]
Tropical House at Tate [Guardian]
Maison Tropicale Exhibition [Tate Modern]

Spider via Guggenheim Museum

Louise Bourgeois and anonymous benefactor donated Louise Bourgeois’ spider sculpture, entitled Maman, to the Tate Modern Museum. This is the largest of Bourgeois’ spiders at 9 meters. This is a significant addition to Tate’s collection of works by living sculptors.

Spider Sculpture Donated to Tate [BBC News]
Giant steel-and-marble spider makes return to Tate Modern [The Independent]