AO Art Observed™

‘I give you all my money 2008′ by Cathy Wilkes, a finalist at 2008’s Turner Prize, via Guardian

The Turner Prize is exhibiting this year’s finalists starting September 30th at the Tate Britain, in London. Founded in London in 1984 to support the development of contemporary artists under 50 years of age, the prize is widely considered one of the art world’s highest honors. This year’s finalists are Runa Islam, Goshka Macuga, Mark Leckey and Cathy Wilkes–the first time in the prize’s history that three of its four nominees are women. The works shown run the gamut from installation art to film.  Past award recipients have included Wolfgang Tillmans, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor and Steve McQueen.

Turner Prize page at the Tate Britain
A mannequin on a toilet and dry porridge – it’s the Turner Prize [Independent]
The Turner Prize 2008: who cares who wins? [Telegraph]
Turner Prize Nominees Offer Supermarket Checkouts, Broken China [Bloomberg]
Video: Take a tour of the Turner prize 2008 [Guardian]
Turner Prize 2008: Who’s Who [Guardian]
Dummies and china compete for Turner [Financial Times]
Turner fight begins again [Financial Times]
Nurses and Curses: Adrian Searle on this year’s Turner Prize finalists [Guardian]

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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]

David Hockney via Telegraph.co.uk

Hockney donates largest piece to the Tate [Daily Telegraph]
France loans to buyers, supports art market, competes with China [Int. Herald Tribune]
Inside Beijing’s Booming Central Academy of Fine Arts [New York Times]
“The Bather,” one of Cézanne’s greatest works [Wall Street Journal]
French film producer/director Claude Berri’s Paris art gallery in Paris designed by Jean Nouvel [ArtInfo]
MOMA lunch announces new IMPei designed Museum of Islamic art [NYMag]

‘The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory,’

J.M.W. Turner, 1806-8, via Tate

Tate sends 100 Turners to Moscow despite frigid diplomatic relations [ArtForum]
Update: French art market eclipsed by China [Financial Times]
Jasper Johns: Most successful artist ever? [New York Sun]
Russian artist Anna Mikhalchuk disapeared in Berlin [Artdaily]
View of Olafur Eliasson sculpture in Munich [contemporist via C-Monster]
Update: Interview of Whitney chief curator on Biennial’s process [Wall Street Journal]
Warhol’s Upper East Side townhouse for $5.99M  [New York Times]

John Baldessari, Carsten Holler, Nathalie Djurberg and Thomas Demand; Prada’s Patrizio Bertelli and Miuccia Prada; the curator Germano Celant;Francesco Vezzoli via the New York Times

Miuccia Prada as global patron of the arts [NY Times Magazine]
The expansion of South Korean art galleries in Chelsea [New York Sun]
Update: “Warhol’s Jews” the Sun reviews [New York Sun]
Salander profiled as a martyr of sorts for old masterworks [New York Mag]
On Artist Zhang Huan’s [Men's Vogue]
Hockney donates fifty works to Tate Britain [the Times.UK via ArtForum]
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster chosen for Turbine Hall [Guardian UK]
Sonnabend’s collection to be sold to pay taxes on $400 million estate [Crains]

The Apotheosis of King James I via the Times U.K

Tate seeking £6 million to keep “country’s most significant” Rubens[Times UK]
Monet, Rodin, 30 other works stolen from ‘priceless’ French collection [Bloomberg]
As Indian art gains value, is it a good time buy? [NY Sun]
Chanel commissions Sophie Calle, others for bag inspired installation [The Age Australia]
Fake Picasso prints sold over eBay, arrests made in the U.S. [New York Post]
Update: Is the Whitney Biennial too smart for its own good? [NYMag]
Sischy, Brant formerly of Brant Publications (Art in America), are new editors of European Vanity Fair [Mediaweek]

Gustav Klimnt, Beethoven Frieze via secession.at

Klimpt’s historic ‘Beethoven Frieze’ to be reconstructed at Tate Liverpool [NY Times]
Old master stolen by Stasi (East German secret police) valued at $2 million [Bloomberg]
The architectural intelligence of the New Museum [Financial Times]
Update: Goat farm video, other favorites, at Whitney Biennial [Bloomberg]
Brooklyn and Manhattan street art gains fans, collectors [NY Times]
A case against art for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth [Financial Times]
Gagosian’s Uptown Gallery Expands, with a new director (former Picasso biographer) [Art Info]

Anthony D’Offay via MSNBC

The British art dealer Anthony d’Offay has made one of the biggest arts sales in Britain for a reported fifth of their value. 725 works have been sold to the national collection, the Britain’s Tate and Scotland’s National Galleries on Wednesday.
British Art Dealer Anthony d’Offay Sells Major Collection [MSNBC]
More Modern Art for British museums [Telegraph.co.uk]
The Battle between the Tate and the MOMA [Guardian Unlimited]

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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]

Zhang Xiaogang “Big Family” via Artprice

Sotheby’s gears up this year for its February 27th contemporary auction with flag-ship pieces such as Warhol’s 1986 `Three Self- Portraits’ and Bacon’s 1969 painting`Study of Nude With Figure in a Mirror’ as well as a more trendy selection of Chinese contemporary art.

Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s to Offer Three Self Portraits by Andy Warhol [Arts Gallery]
Bacon Nude, Warhol Self-Portraits Star in U.K. Sales [Bloomberg]
London’s Grand Finale [The New York Sun]
Sotheby’s Offers $19 Million of Chinese Contemporary Art [Bloomberg]

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Peter Doig, Ski Jacket 1994 via Tate Britain

The Peter Doig retrospective opens today at the Tate Britain in London. This comprehensive survey chronicles the artist who in 2007 became one of Europe’s most expensive living painters when his work White Canoe sold for £5.7 million at Sotheby’s. His canvases blur the line between abstraction and figuration as he creates images drawn from photographs, newspapers or snapshots.

Peter Doig [Tate Britain]
Record Painter [The Guardian]
Peter Doig’s success [ ArtInfo]
Peter Doig’s exhibition at Tate Britain [The Economist]

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Cai Guo-Qiang: 1st Chinese born artist with Guggenheim retrospective [New York Times]
New five-year contract for Lowry at MOMA (Not the MET) [The New York Times]
Ordway Prize, America’s Turner, announced; Driskell Prize also announced [ArtInfo]
Co-Head of I-Banking at Morgan Stanley named to Tate Board [Bloomberg]
Economist: German Expressionism is back [Economist via C-Monster]
Waning art sales spells cancellation for fledgling Duesseldorf art fair [Bloomberg]
Madrid’s famed “art triangle” adds a new cultural center to it’s roster [The Canadian Press]

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]

Farhad Moshiri’s gold-leafed toy guns via Portfolio

Dealers and Auction Houses Scour Middle East [Portfolio]
International Buyers Ignore Turmoil and Look to Art [Wall Street Journal]
Louis Vuitton and Richard Prince Collaborative Handbag [NY Sun]
Minimalists Artist, Martin Creed, First at Tate [Guardian]
Diversifying with Art Investment Strategies [Wall Street Journal]

Damien Hirst’s “Mother and Child” via Guardian, Photograph by David Sillitoe

Damien Hirst has donated 4 major artworks worth £15m from his personal collection to The Tate Museums as part of the Tate’s Building the Tate’s Collection campaign. It is the first time Hirst has donated work to a museum. The works are:

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