Photos for Art Observed by Charles Shoener

Every year, the Whitney Contemporaries, a group of young art patrons and enthusiasts, host a night of art, fashion, food, and entertainment on behalf of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Sponsored this year by fashion frontrunners Theory and Saks Fifth Avenue, the 2012 Whitney Art Party attracted the familiar well-dressed and named gathering.  However, the true spotlight remained on the artists and live performances of the evening.

Committee Co-Chairs Bettina Prentice and Margaret Betts and Social Tom Dunn, with Mark Amadei, Owner of The Lion, one of the event’s restaurant caterers

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‬Yayoi Kusama’s traveling exhibition to make its final stop at the Whitney on July 2. “This survey celebrates a career of exceptional duration and distinction, tracing the development of Kusama into one of the most respected and influential artists of her time.”

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Photos for Art Observed on site by Samuel Sveen.

Art Observed was on site for the Whitney Studio Party, the after-party of the Whitney Museum‘s annual gala. In honor of Calvin Tomkins—the New Yorker writer and profiler of 95 artists—dinner was followed by a dance party down the hall in the larger warehouse space at Pier 57 on the west side. As ?uestlove spun all night, guests danced and drank among various socialites and artists, including Nate Lowman and Ryan McNamara.

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?uestlove

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The Whitney‘s 2011 American Art Award Gala, all images Winston Morris for Art Observed.

AO was on site this Thursday for the Whitney Museum‘s 2011 American Art Award Gala, an event held for the presentation of the 20th Annual American Art Award, which honored Marissa Mayer and Google for their support of the arts in New York, and as celebration of the groundbreaking of the Whitney Museum’s new space in the Meatpacking district. The official groundbreaking, which will take place on May 24, marks the Whitney’s move from the Marcel Breuer-designed building it has been located in since 1966 on Madison Avenue and 75th Street. The event took place in a tent by the entrance to the High Line and ended with a performance by Debbie Harry and members of Blondie. The Annual American Art Award has been commissioned by the Whitney each year since 1992, and is designed by an artist. This year’s award was created by Ellsworth Kelly, and will be given to Marissa Mayer, Google VP of product management. The Whitney’s Education department has partnered with Google to hold a nationwide contest for young artists, Doodle 4 Google, which this year is themed “What I’d Like to Do Someday.” 40 Regional Finalists will have their drawings displayed at the Whitney from May 19th through June 16th, 2011.

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Glenn Ligon, Untitled (2009). All images Nicolas Linnert for Art Observed.

Ongoing at the Whitney Museum is Glenn Ligon’s mid-career retrospective, America. Showcasing his work including the well-known text-based paintings of the 1980’s through current day, the exhibition provides a broad perspective into the artist’s continually evolving career.

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Installation view at the Whitney Museum.

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Paul Thek, Technological Reliquaries, 1964-66. Via Tumblr

The most surprising thing about Thek perhaps, was his age. Of Andy Warhol’s generation, he is more theoretically aligned with the sincere art of David Wojnarowicz, who was twenty odd years his junior. Diver: A Retrospective manages to be a comprehensive overview of his work and his position in art history as well as a heartfelt look at his life and continuing influence, despite the absence of many seminal pieces which are no longer in existence. Thek is certainly a case of an artist before his time and perhaps is one who is altogether difficult to categorize.

Paul Thek, Technological Reliquaries, 1964-66. Via Un Regard Lubrique

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Installation Shot, Jenny Holzer “Retro” at Skarstedt Gallery. All images courtesy Skarstedt Gallery and Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Currently on view at Skarstedt Gallery, through December 18th, is Retro, an exhibition of truisms by Jenny Holzer. The exhibition, which is comprised of benches, plaques, painted signs, electronic LED signs and a sarcophagus, covers a decade of Holzer’s oeuvre from the late 1970’s to the late 1980’s. It aims to reintroduce the diverse use of media comprising Holzer’s historically iconographic works, as well as explore the use of text and language throughout the artist’s early career.

Installation shot, Jenny Holzer’s “Retro” at Skarstedt Gallery.

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John Currin, Mademoiselle, 2009. All images via Gagosian Gallery.

On view at Gagosian Gallery’s Madison Avenue venue is an exhibition of new and recent paintings by John Currin. Best known for his provocative, realist pictures inspired by Old Master works and vintage Danish pornography, Currin has expanded his figural repertory of female nudes to include satirical aristocratic portraits and mannerist re-imaginings of advertisements from Cosmopolitan.

John Currin, The Dogwood Thieves, 2010.

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Ed Ruscha, Baby Jet, 1998. Photo by Paul Ruscha, courtesy of Moderna Museet.

Currently on view at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, through September 5, is Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting. This exhibition, which is a collaboration with Hayward Gallery in London, shows more than 70 paintings. It spans the period from 1958, five years prior to his debut in 1963 at the legendary Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, to the present day. Curated by Lars Nittve and Ann-Sofi Noring, the installation groups Ruscha’s works in chronological order so as to allow the viewer to see the development of the artist’s various motifs and styles over time.

The exhibition’s overarching theme, of course, is words and their constantly shifting relationships with context and message. As the curators explain, “In all his paintings there are tensions and frictions at play: between foreground and background, between text and image, and between how words look and what they mean.”

Installation shot, Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years Of Painting. Photo by Ã…sa Lundén, courtesy of Moderna Museet.

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Tanguy/ Calder: Between Surrealism and Abstraction, Installation view. Image via L & M Arts.

In 1942, Peggy Guggenheim wore one earring by Yves Tanguy and one by Alexander Calder to the opening of Art of This Century; a year later, Pierre Matisse presented the artists in adjacent rooms of his gallery.  In the 1940s, critics began to notice the aesthetic likeness of the artists’ work, including mutual biomorphic designs in paintings and sculptures.  The colloquy and stimulus inspired by the pair’s mutual Connecticut community is explored in this extensive, two-floor exhibition.  Tanguy/ Calder: Between Surrealism and Abstraction at L & M Arts celebrates the creative relationship between these two artists, presenting their works from the 1930s-1950s alongside photographs and previously unpublished documents that testify to the collaborative aspect of their rapport and seamlessly harmonizing abstraction and Surrealism.
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Installation view: Richard Tuttle’s “Village V”. All images courtesy of Tom Powel Imaging for Sperone Westwater Gallery.

Currently on view at Sperone Westwater Gallery through May 22, 2010, is Richard Tuttle‘s “Village V”. The exhibition is composed of 26 drawings and one sculpture against stenciled walls. It seeks to expand the concept of drawing, investigate color and line, question ideas of composition and frame, and merge the mystical with the tangible. The work was one of Tuttle’s six “Villages” shown in “Richard Tuttle: It’s a Room for 3 People” at the Drawing Center in 2005.

Richard Tuttle, “Village V, No. II, 9”, 2004, balsa wood, sawdust, acrylic and graphite on paper, 14 x 16 7/8 inches (35,6 x 42,9 cm)

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All photographs by Oskar Proctor for ArtObserved

Currently on view at Hauser & Wirth New York is “Else,” the first exhibition in the United States devoted exclusively to the drawings of Roni Horn.  The show, composed of six new large-scale works up to eight by ten feet in size, will remain on view through June 19, 2010 at 32 East 69th Street.

The new works lend themselves to multiple viewing angles: from far away they appear as densely-packed thumbprints and dissipating hearts. A closer look reveals involved diagrams reminiscent of tesselations and multiplying cells. The heavily textured images are composed of cut paper, red painted lines, and the artist’s fractured pencil notes. Ever aware of the material, the stamp of the paper manufacturer feature prominently on the outer edges of several works. The intricacy and density of the compositions are contrasted with the artist’s simple, large scrawled signature, which floats, relaxed, detached from the rest in a sea of oaktag.

Björk at Friday night’s opening

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Installation view, Brucennial 2010: Miseducation (image courtesy of The New York Times)

Thought you missed your chance to see what the artist group known as the Bruce High Quality Foundation claims to be “the most important survey of contemporary art in the world. Ever.”? Fear not – the Brucennial 2010: Miseducation has been extended until May 22.

The exhibition’s opening in February was greeted with snow, but visitors were not deterred by the weather, and the entry line extended far beyond the block. Boasting to exhibit 420 artists from 911 countries working in 666 disciplines, the Brucennial 2010 is not to be missed. The BHQF, as they are called, were a highlight in this year’s Whitney Biennial. Their video installation piece entitled “We Like America and America Likes Us” featured a 22-minute video projected onto the hood of a white hearse.

We Like America and America Likes Us by Bruce High Quality Foundation

Along with celebrated artists the likes of David Salle, Francesco Clemente, Ron Gorchov, George Condo, Donald Baechler, James Nares, Rita Ackermann, and Julian Schnabel, hang works by younger artists without privileged connections. To make sense of the chaos, use, as your map, Hyperallergic’s piece-by-piece guide to the works in the exhibition.

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Five Points/Triangles by Alexander Calder, 1957
All images via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, New York is an exhibition of the large-format sculptures of Alexander Calder, produced between 1957 and 1970. The exhibition pays tribute to the late oeuvre of this renowned American sculptor, illuminating the period when Calder almost exclusively dedicated himself to sculpture of monumental proportions – the genre that brought him the international acclaim.

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Omer Fast’s Nostalgia III, 2009 – production still super 16mm film transferred to HD video running time: 32:48 minutes via Whitney Museum of American Art

Now on view at Postmasters Gallery and Whitney Museum of American Art are concurrent exhibitions by the iconoclastic video artist Omer Fast, known for his non-sequential cut ups of tragedy and humanity. Splicing disjunctive narratives of traumatized subjects – actual, staged or imitated – Fast’s dystopian imaginings shun aesthetic formality and evoke what truth lies in the ambiguity of storytelling. As highly interpretive mash ups collapsing space and time, his films recall the intimacy of reality and fantasy through mingling documentary and fictional styles.

Omer Fast’s Take a Deep Breath, 2008 – production still two channel HD video running time: 27:07 minutes

Chronicling the plight of the refugee, Omer Fast’s Nostalgia, showing at Whitney Museum of American Art, pinpoints feelings of longing and dislocation in a labyrinthian network of disparate ethnic voices. Tracing themes of displacement, war and loss through the recurrent motif of an animal trap, jumbled bits of dialogue and streams of overlaid images, Fast explores different permutations of cross-cultural encounters.

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Roni Horn’s You are the Weather (1994-95) All images via the Whitney Museum of American Art unless otherwise noted.

Currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art is Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, a thirty-year retrospective of approximately seventy of the artist’s works, including drawings, sculpture, installations, photographs and artist’s books comprising two floors of the institution. Jointly organized by the Tate Modern, it is the most comprehensive survey of the artist to date.

Roni Horn’s Ant Farm (1974/2007)

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Curators Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari announce the artist list for the Whitney Biennial, 2010 – video by Pierce Jackson via Whitney.org

Today the Whitney Museum of American Art announced the list of fifty-five artists who will participate in the upcoming Whitney Biennial, 2010, which is to take over the Museum from February 25 through May 30 2010. The Biennial is the Whitney’s signature panoramic survey of the latest in American art that blends well established artists together with a predominance of emerging artists from all over the country. This is the 75th in the ongoing series of Biennials and Annuals presented by the Whitney since 1932.  Traditionally the Whitney Biennial seeks to reflect the way in which art is shaped by the particular historical moment in which it was created and so in 2010 the curators, Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari, have told us to expect works reflecting diverse responses to the anxiety and optimism of the past two years.

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Jeanne-Claude and Christo via smh

Jeanne-Claude, the radical artist best known for the joint projects undertaken with her husband Christo – most notably the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the installation of 7,503 vinyl gates with bright orange panels in Central Park in 2005 – dies at the age of 74 in New York City [Guardian] a review of some of the couple’s monumental art here [Guardian]

Jeff Koons’ train installation via artculture

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) reconsiders plans for a Jeff Koons sculpture involving a replica of a 70-ft 1944 Baldwin locomotive to hang from a crane and estimated to cost $25 million [LATimes]

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The Royal College of Art Secret Postcard fundraiser via The Guardian

-The Royal College of Art’s Secret 2009 event has 2,500 postcards for sale for £40, made by artists including Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry and Yoko Ono.  Though buyers don’t know who the artist is until after they buy. [Times UK]

-Penelope Curtis has been appointed director of Tate Britain, the first woman to hold a directorship at Tate. [Guardian]

-Tracey Emin opens a new exhibition in New York, that, while popular, comes nowhere near the levels of sales or attendance she normal receives in Britain. [NY Times]

An artist’s rendering of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Cirkelbroen’ bridge to be built in Copenhagen via Artinfo

-Olafur Eliasson has designed a bridge to be completed by 2012 in Copenhagen’s harbor. Called ‘Brikelbroen,’ the bridge is comprised of five circles that take pedestrians on a winding path rather than straight across. [Artinfo]

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Georgia O’Keeffe, “Abstraction White Rose” (1927). Via NY Times..

On view now until January 2010, the Whitney Museum of American Art is featuring abstract works by Georgia O’Keeffe. The exhibition contains over 130 paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures by O’Keeffe, including selections taken from Alfred Stieglitz’s photographic portrait series of the artist. “Abstraction” will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, which follows O’Keeffe’s celebrated career and life.

Related Links:
Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction [Whitney Museum of American Art]
In Full Flower, Before the Desert [NY Times]
Out of the Erotic Ghetto [NY Magazine]
Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction [Time Out: New York]
Georgia O’Keeffe, Whitney Museum, New York [FT.com]
Love It Or Hate It, O’Keeffe’s at the Whitney [New York Observer]
Painting a New Picture of Georgia O’Keeffe [The Wall Street Journal]

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Installation view of Adansonias at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris via gallery’s website

Terence Koh, a controversial Canadian multimedia artist, has premiered his first solo show with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris. The enigmatic exhibition cum installation cum operatic performance in two parts distinctly embodies Koh’s ouevre. The gallery is transformed via the artist’s multitude of references to mythology, identity, power, religion, fashion and sexuality. In addition to the time-based pieces Koh presented on October 6th and October 22nd, on display are various objects and wall pieces executed in the artist’s signature white monochrome style. An amalgam of drawings, photographs, and collages document the experimental opera project and reflect the influence of Parisian architecture and sensibility on Koh’s art.

A photograph of Adansonias opera performance staged by Terence Koh and 8 white-clad participants via Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

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The First Annual Art Awards via Guggenheim.org

Last night, October 29, marked the inauguration of a new annual art event: Rob Pruitt presented The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New Yorkin association with the city’s oldest alternative art space, White Columns.

The awards were conceived by artist, Rob Pruitt, as a performance-based artwork; for the occasion he recruited the characters of Index Magazine’s wry satirical web series, Delusional Downtown Divas. The New York Times have reported that “…the Divas schemed to infiltrate the art establishment by any means possible. In one segment they pitched a tent in the Guggenheim, doing their laundry in the lobby fountain.”

Jeffrey Deitch and Kembra Pfahler at The First Annual Art Awards at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum via style.com

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Jeff Koons’s giant rabbit at the Covent Garden in London via Hypebeast

A giant helium-filled Jeff Koons balloon made its UK debut on October 8th, the inflatable rabbit floated above central London, it will be displayed in Covent garden [The Independent]
Coinciding with the Frieze fair, the 10th Turbine Hall commission launches, Baldessari’s retrospective opening the same day, Hayward Gallery presents Ed Ruscha, Turner Prize coming up and many other shows and openings, turn London into the center of attention [Guardian UK]
Frieze art fair excites not merely the International art scene, but also the social diaries of those who like to mingle with the rich and famous [Guardian UK] the contemporary art event even has installations to turn its visitors into the subjects of the artwork. [The Independent] Only displaying works by contemporary living artists, Frieze has been considered 1-dimensional in the past. Frieze helps London take over the art world in October [The Independent]- but not without competition, as FIAC, the Parisian fair, is to begin next week and may steal the battle as art collectors in today’s economic climate are forced to pick which fairs they will be attending [The Wall Street Journal]

Unrecognized work by Leonardo Da Vinci via Antiques Trade Gazette

A drawing sold at auction for $19,000 in the late 1990s is now attracting attention for its authorship, if by Leonardo Da Vinci, a theory that recent research strongly suggests, the work could be worth as much as $147 million [Bloomberg]
The Wapping Project in London, often compared to Tate Modern, is expanding with the opening of the Wapping Project Bankside- a new gallery reminiscent of a New York loft to feature film, video and photography almost “a stone’s throw” from Tate [The Moment]
The Whitney Museum of American Art’s plans for a second Renzo Piana location have advanced [The New York Times]

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Marc Quinn’s Blood Head Self-Portrait displayed in a refrigeration unit at The National Gallery in London via Guardian

The National Portrait Gallery in London acquires and shows the most recent of Marc Quinn’s self-portraits created with the use of artist’s own blood [Bloomberg]

Titian, Diana and Acteaon via Artdaily

In related, Titian’s Diana and Acteaon, one of the six large-scale mythologies inspired by Ovid, acquired by The National Gallery in London, is to be displayed at Trafalgar Square [Artdaily]
Three paintings attributed to Adolf Hitler were sold at Weidler’s auction house in Germany for an accumulative price of  $60,000 to three phone bidders [The New York Times]
The Museo National del Prado’s is exhibiting 2 Sorolla paintings of the Fanjul family that were illegally confiscated by the Cuban government which may cast the museum’s directors legal bind [Reuters]
A private European collector helps settle a 7-Year discord between the Swedish Moderna Museet and heirs of a Jewish businessman over a Nazi-looted Nolde painting and in related, Dutch Museums will return 13 artworks lost during Nazi occupation to heirs of Jewish collectors [Bloomberg]

Velázquez, Portrait of a Man via The New York Times

After restoration and cleaning of “Portrait of a Man” in MET’s collection, the author of the painting attributed to Vélazquez’ workshop is confirmed to be Vélazquez himself [The New York Times]
Phillips de Pury auction house, known for its focus on contemporary art, is adding 18 new sales for the upcoming year and a half [The Wall Street Journal]
As the market fluctuates, art collectors seize opportunities of investment, yet the auction market based on no identical units, making calculated predictions almost impossible, turn investing into gambling [NYTimes]
The Glyndebourne Opera House, England to sell a painting by the Italian Old Master, Domenichino; estimated at $16.5 million [Bloomberg]
Bill Viola declines an invitation to participate in a culture summit, organized by Pope Benedict XVI in an attempt to reconcile spirituality and artistic expression, supposedly due to the artist’s disagreement with policies put forth by the Vatican and the Catholic Church [Artnet]

Six of the missing works by Andy Warhol via Telegraph

$1million is being offered for a lead to locating the “Athletes” series by Andy Warhol from Richard Weisman’s collection that has been stolen from the collector’s Los Angeles residence [Telegraph]
Pencils from an installation by Damien Hirst were stolen by a 17-year old artist named Cartrain [The Independent] who had been stripped of his artwork for incorporating Damien Hirst’s ideas into his collages [ArtObserved]
“You can be immortalized in an artwork” says Damien Hirst in his search for a numerous sets of identical twins to literally become part of his artwork at Tate Modern [Guardian]

Charles Saatchi with his wife Nigella Lawson via The Independent

“My Name is Charles Saatchi and I am an Artoholic”, a book written by Charles Saatchi, who almost never gives interviews, is released without a loud PR campaign and is written in a format of potential interviewer’s questions and answers [Guardian UK]
Aleksandra Mir’s installation at Collective gallery in Edinburgh consists of rows of a limited edition cookbook titled “The How Not to Cookbook: Lessons Learned the Hard Way” [The Moment]
German police uncover a thousand fake Giacometti bronzes in the possession of  a man who tried to sell them as originals [Art Market Monitor]
An editorial on the state of galleries dictated by the financial market provides an encompassing snapshot of what a gallery represents in the art-world and how it is likely to function in the current economic condition [NYTimes]

Bruce Nauman’s skywriting fittingly reads “Leave The Land Alone” via Los Angeles Times

On September 12 in Pasadena, artist Bruce Nauman realized his skywriting project, reading Leave the Land Alone, after a 40 year wait [Los Angeles Times]
Frédéric Mitterrand’s appointment to the post of French minister of culture is well received by most for his extensive previous background  and involvement in the world of art and culture [The Art Newspaper]
London’s Outset Contemporary Art Fund brings artwork to a fair to be seen publicly and then purchased by the Tate [Bloomberg]
The story of Tony Shafrazi, art terrorist and later gallerist [Artnet]

A view of Sol LeWitt’s unveiled mural at 59th street via Gothamist

Sol LeWitt’s mural, comprised of 250 porcelain tiles, is installed at Columbus Circle subway station in Manhattan[Lindsay Pollock]
Run by oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, the PinchukArtCenter in Kiev announces a new art Prize and the shortlisted 20 nominees [ArtReview]
Gagosian’s plan for a gallery in Paris’ prestigious 8th arrondissement promises to gain instant success by providing access to Picasso’s work [Bloomberg]
In related, Gagosian is to open a bookstore on Madison avenue in Manhattan selling books, catalogues, magazines and Jeff Koons puppy vase that come in an edition of 3,000 [Art fag City]
UBS, a global financial services firm, is to close its gallery in Manhattan in an attempt to cut back on costs [Artinfo]

A photograph of Emmanuel Perrotin via The Selby

The Selby visits Emmanuel Perrotin at his gallery in Paris [The Selby]
Research shows that visitors to museums housing modern art are likely to respond emotionally, while those viewing ancient artworks are more prompt to describing their experiences in more cognitive terms [Miller McCune via Artinfo]
“The Art of the Steal”, a documentary film by Don Argott, explores the Barnes Foundation, a Post-Impressionist and early Modern art collection [The New York Times]
John Currin interviewed by Glenn O’Brien speaks about art, the art market and shares personal stories [Interview Magazine]
The rating service Moody’s estimates the current financial troubles and hence auction market distress to persist and drops Sotheby’s corporate credit rating by one level [Bloomberg]
Kara Walker’s participation in Whitney’s Biennial is manifested in an email correspondence with the organizer of the show documenting the artist’s refusal to participate in the Biennial [Artnet]

Centquatre art space in Paris via The Daily Undertaker

A site of the Municipal Funeral Services in Paris is now turned into an arts center providing the capital’s northern reaches an art initiative it has been lacking [Financial Times]
A survey of artistic practice based on technology and its move towards the usage of the Internet as means of expression [The New York Times]
Thomas Campbell, director of Met, shares his plans for the museum in an interview with The Art Newspaper [The Art Newspaper]
American artist Greg Wyatt’s 22-thousand-pound bronze sculpture “Two Rivers” is being transported to Piazza della Signoria in Florence, “the soul of the world of sculpture,” where it is to become the first American displayed at that location [Bloomberg]
An interview with the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, who spoke about democratization of art and educational reforms [The Wall Street Journal]