Installation shot of Vanessa Beecroft’s “Performance VB70 – VB Marmi” in Milan. All images courtesy Galleria Lia Rumma unless otherwise noted.

In a sprawling gallery space in Milan, women with marbled skin mingle with marble plinths. One hundred and fifty people at a time streamed in to take in the sight of the vivid hues– green onyx, French red ochre, Portuguese pink marble, lapis lazuli, sodalite blue, macaubus light blue, and black Belgian– glowing against a white cube setting. As Roberta Smith said in a 1998 New York Times review of the artist’s work, “It’s art; it’s fashion. It’s good; it’s bad. It’s sexist; it’s not. It’s Vanessa Beecroft‘s performance art.”

Opening in Milan

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Move over vaporetti — there’s a new barge in town. Slated to gracing the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice over the past five days was a project by The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, entitled “Commercial Break.” The exhibition is organized by Neville Wakefield, a contemporary art writer prolific curator globally. Powered by POST Magazine, “Commercial Break” considers itself to be a provocative architectural intervention in a city where no advertising is traditionally displayed. Unfortunately, as Artinfo reported, the city pulled permits a few days before and the videos were instead screened at the project’s Bauer Hotel party. The woman behind the “GCCC” is Dasha Zukhova, girlfriend of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich; it is the institution’s second project in Venice.  All videos are now viewable on the exhibition’s website.

Among videos featured is one by  Richard Phillips, starring Lindsey Lohan.

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Masters of the Universe, Tim Noble & Sue Webster (1998-2000). All photographs by Oskar Proctor for ArtObserved.

“Skin Fruit,” the much-anticipated, Jeff Koons­-curated exhibition featuring million-dollar works by the biggest names in contemporary art continues at the New Museum through June 6, 2010. The New Museum’s questionable decision to exhibit works from the collection of one of its trustees, Greek billionaire Dakis Joannou, resulted in an art world controversy that threatened to upstage the show itself from the very beginning. When a large mix of celebrities and art-world-insiders flooded the Museum for the opening reception – attendees included Cyndi Lauper, U2’s the Edge, and collectors Don and Mera Rubell – the irony of placing the ritzy collection in a museum that was once championed for its promotion of the underdog was only exaggerated. And the critics responded accordingly. Christian Viveros-Fauné lambasted that the show is totally wrong for our times “in just about every possible way.” According to the exhibition press release, the featured works by Franz West, Charles Ray, Matthew Barney, Richard Prince, Robert Gober, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, Maurizio Cattelan, Tauba Auerbach, Chris Ofili, Dan Colen and Terence Koh, amongst others, aim to “evoke the tensions between exterior and interior, between what we see and what we consume” – a curatorial spin critics say was invented in an effort to disguise a “rudderless display of art as trophy hunting” as an art exhibition. While this may be true, Skin Fruit essentially offers the common man an opportunity to view important works from one of the finest and most original collections of contemporary art in the world that have rarely, or never been seen in New York.

Revolution Counter-Revolution, Charles Ray (1990/2010)

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Exhibition view, “The Female Gaze: Woman Look at Women,” at Cheim & Read. Pictured works include Victoria Civera’s Searcher (far left) and Vanessa Beecroft’s Blonde Figure Lying (floor).

Through September 19, 2009, Cheim & Read will show “The Female Gaze: Women Look At Women.”  Featured are works by women of women, with aim to reorient the typically-male framing of women in art.  Works range in medium from the paintings of Alice Neel and Lisa Yuskavage to the sculptures of Kara Walker, the text poems of Jenny Holzer and the photographs by Diane Arbus, the installations by Louise Bourgeois and even collage work by Ellen Gallagher.

Related links:
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Cheim & Read – Exhibition – The Female Gaze [Cheim and Read]
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Now Hanging: Girlie Show [The Moment Blog, New York Times]
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The Female Gaze, The Cheim and Read Gallery, New York [Financial Times]
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The Female Gaze: Women look at Women [Artforum]
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“The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women” at Cheim & Reid [Contemporary Art Daily]

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Cindy Sherman, Untitled, at Cheim & Read.

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Tony Cragg’s Big Head (2009), courtesy of the Marian Goodman Gallery, photo by Art Observed.

The 40th installment of Art Basel runs this year from June 10 to the 14th.  The annual event, dubbed the “Olympics of the Art World” by the New York Times, includes this year over 2,500 artists, and works exhibited in almost 300 galleries around the world.  Works range in medium, from painting and drawing to sculpture, installation art, photography, and video.  Featured are both old masters of modern art and contemporary artists: among this year’s roster are the works of Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp and more, alongside that of today’s artists, including John Baldessari, Vanessa Beecroft, and Rebecca Horn.

Related links:
Art_Base [Official Website]
Art Basel Catalog
Art Basel 40 Celebrates the First Art Basel Weekend with Special Presentations [ArtDaily]
Art Basel Shows Works of Art by 2,500 Artists at World’s Premier International Art Fair [ArtDaily]
Editor’s Picks: Art Basel Preview [ArtInfo]
Il Tempo del Postino – “The World’s First Visual Arts Opera” [ArtKey]
The art market: The biggest fairs around the world [the Financial Times]
Trading Places [the Financial Times]
Meanwhile, in Basel, Contemporary Works You Can Buy [Wall Street Journal]
Brad Pitt Buys Big at Basel, with a Little Push from Eli Broad [Wall Street Journal]
Preview sales defy all expectations [The Art Newspaper]
For Art Lovers, Basel Doesn’t End at the Fair [New York Times]
Warhol Price Slashed as Art Basel Fights Slump With Bargains [Bloomberg]
Pitt Buys in Basel as Broad Browses, $2 Million Sculpture Sells [Bloomberg]
Liste: Quality Uneven but Spirits High [ArtInfo]
To Bling or Not to Bling? [ArtInfo]
Locals Rule: Alternative Art Spaces Gear Up for Art Basel [ArtInfo]
BASELMANIA 2009 [ArtNet]
Preview sales defy all expectations [ArtNewspaper]
Forty Years of Art Basel [The Art Newspaper]

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Vanessa Beecroft VB64 at Deitch Studios – photo by ArtObserved

Long Island City isn’t the typical location for high-profile New York art openings, nor is Queens on a Friday night during Armory Week the usual hotspot for glossy fashion and art hordes. Then again, it’s been eight years since Vanessa Beecroft last staged one of her infamous performances in the city.   Judging from the crowd gathered outside on the East River waterfront and inside the brightly-lit warehouse, Deitch Projects managed to time her re-entry perfectly.

Deitch Projects
Vanessa Beecroft VB64
4-40 44th Drive, Long Island City
Opening March 6; through April 12, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Exhibition Page [Deitch Projects]
Manufacturing Value: Vanessa Beecroft’s VB64 at Deitch Projects, LIC [Art in America]
Vanessa Beecroft at Deitch! [Supreme Management Blog]
Vanessa and Kanye Get Metaphysical [Style File Blog]
Vanessa Beecroft Reveals All [The Art Newspaper]
For the Love of Art: Makeup on the Vanessa Beecroft Shoot [Life is Beautiful]
Vanessa Beecroft’s Nude Models at Deitch Projects [Village Voice]

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Grayson Perry; Entrance To The Forest; 2002; Victoria Miro Gallery; London -Photos by ArtObserved

“The surprise is the business we are doing. Frankly, people are expressing more confidence in the art market than the government or Wall Street right now,” said Sean Kelly of Sean Kelly Gallery. The night of December 2nd, Vernissage attendees glittered and Piper Heidsieck champagne flowed.  More importantly, buyers were in attendance, asking questions and indeed, according to most of the galleries interviewed for this article, buying.  On Thursday afternoon, Douglas Baxter, President of Pace Wildenstein professed “We’ve met expectations.” Also on Thursday, when asked his feelings on sales from the night before, a representative at Cheim & Read insisted his artists have been selling well, pointing to Jack Pierson sculpture and a pile of William Eggleston’s photos.  Margherita Belaief of Peres Projects had the same confidence, “It’s hard to say so early but in general, Dash Snow’s pieces are selling strong.”  While hesitant to disclose precise numbers, the overall sentiment of the top galleries was optimistic.

However, it’s important to note while the larger known artists have been selling strong, some galleries have reported some difficulty selling lesser known artist pieces.  Alfons Klosterfelde at Klosterfelde was most direct: “People are asking more questions and really want to know the details,” but he said pointedly as of Thursday, “there have been less sales” and Klosterfelde remarked the pieces sold were from the gallery’s more known artists.

Photos and Writing by Faith-Ann Young

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Pharrell on his design for Perrotin Gallery via [BBC]

Gallerist Perrotin collaborates with Pharrell [Billionaire Boys Club]
The recent effect of “non-doms” on the art market [Portfolio.com]
German gallery tries to halt Beuys sculpture sale [The Art Newspaper]
Vanessa Beecroft, Peter Brandt (2x) Aby Rosen in today’s Page Six [NYPost]
Remembering Robert Rauschenberg [NYMag]