Lynda Benglis sculptures and Hans Hurting paintings at Cheim & Read’s booth at Frieze Masters. All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Frieze Masters and Frieze London concluded on October 14th, with both fairs reporting solid sales on the high end. This year, there was a distinct focus on curated booths and curatorial projects and less of an overt feeling of commercialization. Frieze Masters in particular focused on serious connoisseurship and an academic approach, both of which translated into a successful fair for dealers.

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Image: Frieze London Courtesy Frieze

Exhibitors are gearing up for the tenth edition of Frieze London, which takes place in London’s Regent’s Park from October 11–14th. The fair kicks off with a vernissage on the evening of Wednesday, October 10th, once again housed in a temporary structure designed by architects Carmody Groarke.

Although mostly composed of UK and US galleries (almost exclusively from London and New York) account for 45% of the main fair, fair organizers are broadening the scope this year, with new sections and exhibitors from 35 countries, making it the most international event to date organized by Frieze.

Image: Mona Hatoum, KAPANCIK, 2012 Courtesy White Cube Gallery

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The second annual ArtRio fair closes in Brazil today, with blue-chip exhibitors seeing strong sales of work by international and Brazilian artists. Gagosian and White Cube reported millions of dollars in total sales. 120 galleries participated, around half of them international.

Go to ArtRio’s site

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Antony Gormley, Proppers (Gallery View)

With a major exhibition of work at the Centro Cultural Banco de Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasilia, British sculptor Antony Gormley has made his first foray into the South American art world in grand fashion.  To accompany this showing, the White Cube Gallery has sponsored its own show of new work by Gormley, in conjunction with his solo exhibition.

Antony Gormley, Liners (Gallery View)

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Darren Almond, Fullmoon Series (1998–2012). Images via Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire.

The arts program at Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, located 200km south of Paris, is dedicated to the artistic engagement of creativity and nature, showcasing contemporary artworks and installations in its galleries and grounds. From April 6 through November 7, British artist Darren Almond will showcase two series of photographs in the Galeries du Château and Galerie du Porc Epic. A Turner Prize finalist in 2005, Almond has participated in a host of international shows and biennials, such as the Tate London, the Venice Biennale 2003, and Charles Saatchi’s 1997 Sensation show; and is an artist of the post-YBA generation of Jay Jopling’s White Cube Gallery. Almond is represented by White Cube in London and Matthew Marks Gallery in New York.

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Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir From Three Windows, 5 Colours for 252 Places, Work in Situ at Lisson Gallery. Via Wall Street Journal.

In its fifth year, the Hong Kong International Art Fair drew a record 67,205 visitors, up 6% from last year according to Artlyst, with galleries and collectors from across the globe—over 700 booth applications narrowed down to 266, about half Asian, half European and American. The work on view was generally geared toward the more conservative, traditional local collectors, ebbing into today’s contemporary market; many of the works sold were by Asian artists to Asian collectors, though Western galleries were successful as well, including White Cube, Hauser & Wirth, Sprüth Magers, and David Zwirner. The MCH Group—owners of Art Basel—have bought a majority stake in the fair and will officially take the reigns in 2013, renaming the fair Art Basel Hong Kong as they hope to capitalize on the current growth of Asian wealth.

Tatsuo Miyajima’s mirror piece ‘Hoto.’ Via New York Times (more…)

Louise Bourgeois, Untitled (2004). All photos on site by Art Observed.

The last of the throng at the first Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island in New York City petered out Monday afternoon yet, the most avid collectors simply shifted course to the remainder auction sales at Christie’s and Philips de Pury. Overall, gallerists at the fair appeared to be immensely pleased with the inaugural event, some booths claiming blowout sales, while others were content with merely executing reserve transactions.

John Ahearn casts a fairgoer in plaster as part of Frieze Projects

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Gavin Brown and Mark Ruffalo cooking sausages. All photographs by Aubrey Roemer for Art Observed.

The always fresh but now venerable Frieze Art Fair of Regent’s Park, London, has successfully completed its maiden voyage to this side of the Atlantic. The pavilion, designed by Brooklyn-based SO-IL Architects, places Frieze New York on Randall’s Island Park from May 4-7, 2012. The fair is being held in a distinctly snakelike structure that houses 180 leading contemporary galleries presenting works by more than 1,000 artists. There are a number of culinary options as well: Roberta’s, The Fat Radish Café, Frankie’s Spuntino Restaurant, Sant Abroeus Café and the Standard Biergarten.

Entrance to the Frieze Art Fair

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Gilbert and George, Guns (2011). All images via White Cube.

The collaborative duo Gilbert and George opened London Pictures to large crowds in Hong Kong last week, bringing the duo’s brash, oddball brand of British pop to the east for the inauguration of the London-based White Cube gallery’s new location. Based on 3719 source images drawn from newsstand posters stolen in East London over the last six years, the 292 works which comprise the London Pictures are the largest single body of work yet created by the duo, and the exhibition spans all four White Cube spaces—the new Hong Kong location, as well as Bermondsey, Hoxton Square, and Mason’s Yard. The gridded patterns of anywhere from four to forty tiles of found text and imagery—with the artists added in—explore themes of violence, sex, and death, through various methods of repetition. According to the press release, the survey draws “directly on the quotidian life of a vast city, [and] allow[s] contemporary society to recount itself in its own language.”

Installation view (more…)

‪‬In his first interview in 10 years, White Cube founder and renowned art mogul Jay Jopling addresses his ability to walk the line of ‘privilege and populism.’ He explains to the Financial Times: “I always liked to collide the establishment with the avant-garde.”
[AO Newslink]

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‪‬Britain’s White Cube gallery opened its first branch outside Britain today with a Gilbert and George exhibition in a 557 square-meter space in Hong Kong’s central business district. Hong Kong is the world’s third biggest auction center after New York and London, with China overall accounting for 41.4% ($4.8 billion) of global art sales internationally in 2011. [AO Newslink]

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Gary Hume, The Indifferent Owl (2011). All images courtesy of White Cube.

Gary Hume returns to London for his first exhibition in the city in four years with The Indifferent Owl at White Cube Gallery. Occupying both the Mason’s Yard and Hoxton Square locations, Hume presents a collection of paintings and sculpture that shows off his streamlined aesthetic. With a muted palette and naturalistic subject matter—representations of birds and flora are dominant—The Indifferent Owl is a study in subtlety.

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Anselm Kiefer, Merkaba (2011)

Anselm Kiefer presents his largest show in London yet, covering over 11,000 square feet of the new White Cube Bermondsey gallery, Il Mistero delle Cattedrali. With ties to Fulcanelli’s publication of the same name (published in 1926), the show explores his longtime fascination with alchemy and its processes, Kiefer bringing to light the mystical notions behind the pseudo-scientific procedure. “In the past the alchemists sped up this process with magical means. That was called magic,” Kiefer states. “As an artist I don’t do anything differently. I only accelerate the transformation that is already present in things. That is magic, as I understand it.”

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Will Ryman’s Roses being installed on Miami Beach. Image via The Art Newspaper.

Art Observed is on site for this year’s 10th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach which officially runs December 1–4, with previews and parties throughout the entire week beginning on Tuesday, November 29th. More than 260 galleries from around the world will be representing over 2,000 artists, not including the several satellite shows taking place simultaneously across Miami, including NADA, SCOPE, Pulse, and the original Art Miami—twelve years Basel’s senior. Attracting 46,000 visitors in 2010, the fair is expanding every year, with various collaborations and special additions celebrating its 10th. The Swiss-based Basel art fair installment in Miami has evolved into something that may have lost some of its innocence from its earlier days but in the end has become the definitive closing party for the art market’s year. There have been many previews and summaries of the fair, the following is our view of the week to come.

Hennessy Youngman, still from ART THOUGHTZ: Relational Aesthetics. Via Youtube.
Youngman will be speaking at NADA Deauville Beach Resort on Thursday at 5 pm.

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Installation view of Tracey Emin, The Vanishing Lake (2011). All images by Stephen White courtesy of White Cube.

The Vanishing Lake, Tracey Emin’s White Cube-curated exhibition housed at 6 Fitzroy Square, is a meditation on personal metamorphosis. A new series of self portraits that were inspired by her novel of the same name provide the exhibition’s focal point while other works—including textual light installations and large-scale tapestries of her provocative paintings—help create an overwhelming sense of romantic melancholia.

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Crowds outside the Grand Palais on the public opening of FIAC, October 21, 2011. All photographs for Art Observed on site by Caroline Claisse.

After two days of previews, FIAC opened its doors to the Paris public on Friday, October 21st. Jill Silverman, Director of Paris/Salzburg-based gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, tells Art Observed that the fair presents “a very good cross section of European collectors.” FIAC is one of the most nationally-focused art fairs, boasting a solid 32% of French exhibitors, whereas last week’s Frieze in London had only 25% British galleries. American presence increased this year with several New York galleries making their debut at the fair: Matthew Marks, Eleven Rivington, Andrew Kreps, Michele Maccarone and Friedrich Petzel. After a 30+year absence, Pace Gallery made a comeback to the fair. Works by seasoned veteran Damien Hirst are exhibited at both White Cube and Gagosian. Anish Kapoor also has work spread across the fair, whose gargantuan installation Leviathan filled the entire interior of the Grand Palais earlier this year. Lisson is showing one of his signature colored concave mirrors in fire-engine red; Kamel Mennour has wine-red, Galeria Continua has green, and Kukje/Tina Kim has purple; all have different price tags. Sales have been strong thusfar; Pace Gallery’s Arne Glimcher told Artinfo, “We had sales right off the bat, it was really fascinating. I hadn’t anticipated this kind of rush, especially in this economy, where Europe is not in as good of shape as America. But I think we have the right artists.” He added, “FIAC is certainly an enormous cut above Frieze.”

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Two Less One (2011) at Galleria Continua

More on site coverage and images after the jump… (more…)

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FIAC 2011 at the Grand Palais in Paris. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

FIAC 2011 (The Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) opens this weekend in Paris for its 38th year. The international art fair, which boasts an impressive array of 168 galleries from 21 countries, will show the work of some 2,800+ artists. Running October 20–23rd, the exposition comes at the tail end of Frieze Art Fair, drawing artists, collectors, gallerists, and enthusiasts eastward from London. While the focus of Frieze leans toward contemporary, FIAC includes both contemporary and modern, including works from Picasso, Calder, and Matisse. The fair has been building momentum since 2006; Jennifer Flay, appointed general director in 2010, credits this boost to the fair’s move to the Grand Palais, one of the city’s most cherished architectural gems. The fair also expands this year to the Jardin des Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, the Museum of Natural History, and other venues around the city. Another innovation, a mobile application (in French) is available through Windows Phone which enables visitors to book tickets directly from their phone, as well as receive realtime news updates from the fair, find exhibitors and artists, and access videos and photos of the show.

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Jay Jopling of White Cube, which is exhibiting Damien Hirst’s Where Will It End.

More on site coverage and images after the jump… (more…)

London dealer Jay Jopling is profiled by the Guardian as Frieze week is set to begin [AO Newslink]

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White Cube to open third gallery this October 12, in a restored warehouse in Bermondsey area [AO Newslink]

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All images installation views of Jake or Dinos Chapman at White Cube, 2011. Courtesy Coco Bayley for Art Observed.

Jake and Dinos Chapman – The Chapman Brothers – reinstated themselves in the London art scene last week, across the twoWhite Cube galleries.  Both the Mason’s Yard and Hoxton gallery spaces are used in this double act, double venue exhibition.  The show, Jake or Dinos Chapman, runs from the 15th of July to September 17th and is alarmingly extensive.  The brothers are infamous for their elaborate teasing, deliberate vulgarity, and mocking of aestheticism- this show is no different.  However, for the White Cube exhibition, Jake and Dinos Chapman, who have consistently worked together professionally and are known as a gruesome twosome double act, have this year separated and worked alone.  Using different studio spaces, they have been working independently on the content of this exhibition, only having revealed their pieces to one another a few weeks ago.

More text and images after the jump…

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Jay Jopling’s White Cube, purveyor of art by Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Chapman Bros., to open first overseas branch in Hong Kong, shortly after Larry Gagosian [AO Newslink]

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Georg Baselitz, Haderung (2011), all images via Jochen Littkemann and courtesy of White Cube

German artist, Georg Baselitz is now showing at the White Cube Mason’s Yard in London. In “Between Eagles and Pioneers” Baselitz continues his famous upside-down images while using three main motifs – eagles, dogs and double portraits. These paintings were first shown as images that appeared in the historic edition of the German newspaper ‘Die Welt’ to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of German unification in 2010.

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Yutaka Sone Little Manhattan (2007-2009) at David Zwirner Gallery – All images by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

Art Observed remains on site in Basel, Switzerland for Art 42 Basel 2011.  The following is our second of the photosets of the main fair.  Stay tuned for more coverage of the main fair before the end of the week as well as profiles of the satellite exhibitions and events.

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Artist Wim Delvoye before one of his sculptures at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin

more images and links after the jump…

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