‘The Night Cafe’ (1888) by Vincent Van Gogh, via New York Times

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night features nocturnal themes in the artist’s body of work, product of many sleepless nights contemplating the people, cityscapes and countrysides of France and Holland. ‘The Starry Night,’ one of his best known pieces, and the aesthetically- and thematically- related ‘Starry Night over the Rhone’ are among the 23 paintings and 10 works of paper on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Van Gogh‘s fascination with the colors, forms and inhabitants of the night is palpable in the paintings, which all feature his signature bold colors and lines.

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night: Through January 5, 2009
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night: MoMA site [MoMA]
MoMA Presents First Exhibition to Examine Van Gogh’s Nocturnal Landscapes and Interiors [Artdaily]
Did Van Gogh Need More Sleep? Starlit Obsessions at MoMA Show [Bloomberg]
Van Gogh and the Colours of the Night, NY [Financial Times]
Nocturnal Van Gogh, Illuminating the Darkness [New York Times]

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“Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio” by Lucio Fontana via Christie’s

Highest-valued sale Christie’s has yet to auction during Frieze Art week will be a Lucio Fontana egg-shaped canvas estimated at $21.8 million [Bloomberg]
LACMA announces $55 million gift directed toward new pavilion amongst other endeavors from POM Wonderful and Fiji water owners [ArtDaily]
Street artist Kaws, now at Emmanuel Perrotin in Miami (as covered by AO here), collaborates on shoes with Marc Jacobs [TheWorldsBestEver]
An interview with Catherine Opie, whose work can now be seen at the Guggenheim [Artforum]
Ukrainian (not Russian, as cited in linked article) steel oligarch Victor Pinchuk announces Director for his new Kiev museum and that he was in fact a major buyer at Hirst’s Sotheby’s auction [ArtInfo]

‘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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Whitney Expansion plans via Culturegrrl

Whitney hits milestone for expansion approval, but will it be funded? [The New York Sun]
Video of a Jeff Koons-guided tour through his Versailles installation [VernissageTV]
Art and wine, a solid investment in financial turmoil? [The Wealth Report/WSJ]
Large and quiet, a new contemporary art space in Bologna [Times UK]
A monochromatic art book for babies features Hirst and Murakami [Guardian]
$730,000 Renoir, stolen from a Milanese family, is recovered [New York Times]
In related news: Lawyer sentenced who hid $30 million in stolen art, including a Cezanne, for 30 years [The Art Newspaper]

Portrait of Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon, via the BBC

Francis Bacon, one of the best known painters of the 20th century and the focus of a recent retrospective at the Tate Britain, is in the news again. His 1969 portrait of socialite Henrietta Moraes, who also posed for Lucian Freud and other British artists, will be on sale at Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary auction on October 19th, in London. The painting, which was previously owned by Guinness heir Garech Browne, is expected to fetch £7.5 million.

Christie’s: Postwar and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Go See: Major Francis Bacon Retrospective [ArtObserved]
Bacon Portrait Press Release [via Art Market Monitor]
Bacon portrait to sell for £7.5m [BBC]
Bacon Bit and the Whole Hog [Art Market Monitor]
Old School Bad Boy’s Messy World [New York Times]

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Le Rêve, Pablo Picasso (1932) via Ocasionalidades

The $139 million Picasso painting, Le Rêve, that was damaged in 2006 by billionaire Stephen Wynn will be publicly shown for the first time since the accident at Acquavella Galleries in New York City.  Stephen Wynn, the operator of a Las Vegas casino and one of the most significant art collectors in the world, damaged the Picasso painting when he accidentally bumped it with his elbow back in 2006, only hours after agreeing to sell it to Steven Cohen for $139 million.  The sale was canceled due to the damage of the painting.  Since then, the painting has been repaired and will be included in the upcoming Picasso exhibit opening October 15 at Acquavella Galleries. The exhibit will include an estimated $500 million worth of artwork, much of which is not for sale.

Watch Those Elbows: Wynn’s $139 Million Picasso Joins N.Y. Show [Bloomberg]
Acquavella To Show Wynn’s Damaged Picasso [NYSun]
Steve Wynn’s Repaired Picasso Joins New York Show [Artinfo]
The $40-Million Elbow [New Yorker]

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‘Paris, 2008’ by Jonathan Yeo, at The Outsiders show, via Gawker

Damien Hirst, who set a record in a groundbreaking primary market auction, has bought Jonathan Yeo’s ‘Paris, 2008’ piece for an undisclosed amount. ‘Paris, 2008,’ which is on display at the UK Lazarides Gallery’s Outsiders show covered by AO here and currently housed at 282 Bowery.  Though the show was not without other spectacle, this particular collage piece has made the news because it is made entirely of clippings from porn magazines, much like Yeo’s other famous portrait of George W. Bush.

Hirst snaps up Paris Hilton picture [The Press Association]
Hirst buys Paris ‘porn’ portrait [BBC]
AO On Site: The Outsiders [ArtObserved]
Damien Hirst’s primary-market Sotheby’s auction sets records alongside historic financial market collapse [ArtObserved]

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Banksy mural at Wooster and Grand St, via The World’s Best Ever

A three story high rat wearing an I Heart New York t-shirt, caught red handed drawing another rat, was erected on Saturday near the intersection of Wooster and Grand Streets in SoHo. Unmistakably done in Banksy’s signature style, the mural was actually painted by Colossal Media, a professional firm, and not the artist himself. The mural was comissioned, although its not exactly clear by whom. There is also speculation that Banksy himself may have been near the site of the mural as it was going up, or at least may have been in the city for the Lazarides Gallery’s Outsiders show on Bowery, which AO recently recently covered On Site.

New Banksy piece in NYC’s SoHo [The World’s Best Ever]
Banksy mural going up right now in SoHo [Gothamist]

Cellophane House at the MoMA site, for sale starting at $1.75 million

MoMA is selling homes from the pre-fab exhibit; separately, Warhol’s final home pulled off the market [Wall Street Journal]
Which exhibits to see while at Frieze, London October 16-19 [New York Sun]
British businessman/collector allocates $5.5 million for 40 sculptural works to coincide with the London Olympics in 2012 [Art Info]
Inside Dafen, China’s production of 3.75 million fake “replica” paintings [Bloomberg]
“Young British Artist” Sam Taylor Wood will cover The Passions’ ‘I’m in Love with a German Film Star’ in a single produced by the Pet Shop Boys [FactMag via ArtFagCity]

Monkey Queen by Banksy, via Lyon and Turnbull

Despite an initial reluctance to identify the works as his, five pieces confirmed to be made by prolific and secretive graffiti artist Banksy went up for auction in Central London last night on September 27th. However, in a marked departure from other, recent high profile contemporary art auctions by popular artists, this time no records were broken. In fact, the Lyon and Turnbull auction struggled to drum up enough interest to meet the lower end of estimates, with some lots even being withdrawn from the auction altogether. In fact, more than two thirds of lots in the auction remained unsold when it was over (74 of 270 sold). One shocked expert even went as far as calling the auction “a bloodbath,” according to the UK’s Independent. Other artists whose works were auctioned included Kate Moss, Sam Taylor-Wood (who recently split with Jay Jopling, owner of the White Cube gallery), Peter Doherty, and Sean Scully, among others.

A prevalent opinion of art market followers is that the recent auction success on the higher end from artists such as Damien Hirst may be due to an artificial propping up of the sales from direct marketing to new buyers such as Russians and other new found pools of wealth by well oiled marketing machines such as Sotheby’s. However, for the bread and butter lower priced works, there perhaps simply is no escaping that there is less confidence and less money in the system overall.

Banksy Official Website
Lyon and Turnbull: Sale 222 page
Banksy’s artworks fail to shift [BBC News]
Banksy Works Go Unsold; Buyers Stay Away From Urban-Art Auction [Bloomberg]
Banksy Won’t Say if Works for Sale Are His [Gawker]
Art Sale Moss-acre [Independent]

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No Title (They’ve shot the) (1982), Raymond Pettibon via Regen Projects

A little-known fact about Raymond Pettibon is that he raised “sporting” pitbulls and mastiffs in the backyard of his home in Hermosa Beach, California.  For someone so inextricably linked to the punk and hardcore music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980’s, this may not come as such a surprise to some.  Pettibon won wide-spread appeal for his ambiguous and irreverent monochromatic comic-like posters and album covers for the band Black Flag and SST records, both founded by his older brother Greg Ginn. One can digest Pettibon’s work as a type of stark and detached reenactment of a depraved silent-film with wry, tongue-in-cheek undertones. Even Pettibon’s use of “sporting” rather than “fighting” with reference to his dogs exemplifies his seemingly caustic dryness.  Part one of a two part Pettibon solo exhibition at Regen Projects in Los Angeles runs from September 13th to October 18th and features seminal works showcased in some of his early ‘zines. His second exhibit runs from December 13, 2008 to January 24, 2009 also at Regen Projects.

Raymon Pettibon Part I: Seminal Early Works 1978-88 [Regen Projects]
Raymon Pettibon Seminal Early Works 1978-88 [LA Times]
Raymon Pettibon Exhibit at Regen Projects [LAist]
Interview with Raymond Pettibon [Believermag]

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‘Study for Agony I’ (1946-7) by Arshile Gorky, part of a Christie’s auction which will include works from the Kathleen and Richard Fuld collection, via Art Market Monitor

“I’ve been selling things for the past few years, but nobody cared until now,” Kathleen Fuld was reported to have said to the New York Times in an interview with Carol Vogel. Kathleen Fuld, trustee of MoMA–and wife of beleaguered Lehman Brothers’ CEO Richard Fuld–recently announced that she will be auctioning 16 works of post-war and contemporary art through Christie’s on November 12th, following a related report  (covered by AO) that Lehman may sell some or all of its 3,500-work corporate collection. The Fulds make regular appearances on ARTNews list of Top 200 collectors, and have been collecting since the 1980s, focusing mostly on drawings and studies that yield insight into the artists’ creative process. The auction will include drawings from the likes of Barnett Newman, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Agnes Martin, and is expected to raise $15 to $20 million.

Study in Financial Agony: Lehman Chief’s Wife Hires Christie’s to Auction $20 M. Collection [New York Observer]
Fallen Tycoon to Auction Prized Works [Wall Street Journal]
Kathy Fuld, Wife of Lehman CEO, to Auction Artworks [Bloomberg]
Lehman Brothers CEO is a top art collector. For a few more minutes. [C-MONSTER]
The Russians Aren’t Coming, They’re Already Here! Lehman Chair Looks to Moscow to Sell His Art Collection [New York Observer]
Fuld Folds Paper [Art Market Monitor]
Modern Drawings Head for Auction [New York Times]

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Catherine Opie via NYTimes

On Catherine Opie, whose exhibition opens at the Guggenheim today [NY Times]
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Sotheby’s: Cat painting by 17-year old Damien Hirst is worthless [Guardian]
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Auction of purported artist friend-of-Andy Warhol blocked by Warhol foundation due to its never having heard of the man [New York Post]
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A review of “After Nature”- an apocalyptic themed exhibition at the New Museum [NYMag]
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Accusations of a conflict of Interest concerning François Pinault and Jeff Koons at Versailles exhibition [ArtForum]
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A full 1/2 of Gagosian Gallery’s London sales are to Russians [ArtInfo]

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Zevs recreating his Chanel logo on a ‘naked canvas,’ at ‘The Outsiders,’ Photo by ArtObserved

Lazarides Gallery, which opened in 2004 and now has four spaces in the UK, opened The Outsiders, a special “hit-and-run” show at 282 Bowery (at Houston Street) in New York City. Open Sept. 26-Oct. 12, 2008.
Featured artists include Faile, one of the most recognizable international street artist collectives; Paul Insect, France’s JR, Antony Micallef and the refreshingly controversial Jonathan Yeo. Also on display are works by Vhils, Invader, Conor Harrington, David Choe, Zevs, Mark Jenkins, Todd James, Miranda Donovan, Blu, Polly Morgan Borf, BAST, Mode 2 and Ian Francis.

THE OUTSIDERS -LAZARIDES
282 Bowery (at Houston St)
September 26 to October 12, 2008

Lazarides – The Outsiders
Graffiti Adorns New Gallery [New York Sun]
JR Gets Large in NYC [The World’s Best Ever]
Video of Zevs Performance [The World’s Best Ever]
Paris Hilton portrait is made of Porn [AP]
Portraits of President Bush, Paris Hilton exhibited in NYC are made of porn mag images [Chicago Tribune]
Photos: Outsiders NY at Lazarides in NYC [C-MONSTER]
Giant Girl Reclines on Houston Street [NyTimes]

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Democracy in America: The National Campaign at the Park Avenue Armory via Art Observed

Creative Time is presenting a week-long exhibition of public artworks at the convergence center for Democracy in America: The National Campaign at the Park Avenue Armory. Curated by Nato Thompson. The exhibition houses work done by over 40 artists, including Jon Kessler, Allison Smith, and Chris Stain. Democracy in America: The National Campaign is a multi-phased initiative that has traveled across the country collecting artistic interpretation of the country’s view on political democracy.  Site-specific projects that look at issues of democracy were created by artists Rodney McMillan, Olga Koumoundouros, Mark Tribe, Steve Powers, and Sharon Hayes and are now on view at the Armory, as well as ongoing mobile projects, such as Tactical Magic’s Ice Cream truck. The week-long exhibition is happening in conjunction with a series of performances, speeches by artists and political leaders, and viewer participatory projects. Creative Time calls the yearlong program, Democracy in America: The National Campaign, one of its largest public art initiatives through out its 34-year history.

Art Observed Exclusive Video of the opening:
Rachel Mason’s performance for the opening night at the Park Avenue Armory [Art Observed]

Convergence Center at Park Avenue Armory [Creative Time]
Nato Thompson on “Democracy in America” [Artinfo]
Democracy in America: Convergence Center at Park Avenue Armory [Flavorpill]
Democracy in America Convergence Center [ArtCal]
Creative Time’s Democracy in America Convergence Center [WorldsBestEver]

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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…)

Yvonne Force Villareal from Art Production fund (left) and others attend the opening reception for Cecily Brown at Gagosian New York via Art Observed

Gagosian New York is currently showing a collection of new and recent work by British painter Cecily Brown. The exhibit, entitled Cecily Brown 2008, displays her signature style in which bold figures are covered in abstract layers. The displayed work mirrors Brown’s previous work in its attempt to expand abstract expressionism, combining the influence of Willem de Kooning with figurative influences Nicolas Poussin and Edouard Manet. The exhibit also includes a series of uncharacteristically small scale paintings which marks a unique transfiguration for the artist who is best known for her large-scale works. Art Observed was at the opening reception along artists John Currin, Francesco Clemente, and Hope Atherton, Art Production Fund’s Yvonne Force Villareal, Tim Hunt from the Warhol Foundation.

Cecily Brown Press Release [Gagosian]
Reading Between the Linens: Cecily Brown at Gagosian Gallery [NYSun]
Cecily Brown Exhibition [NY Art Beat]
Galleries Awaken From Summer Slumber [NYSun]

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Jenny Holzer’s light projection For the Guggenheim via Art Daily.

Jenny Holzer’s site-specific design for the facade of the Soloman R. Guggenheim museum is now on display. The Guggenheim commissioned the piece to mark the completion of the museum’s three-year restoration project.  The piece is a light projection of political statements about terrorism and the Iraq war along with poems by Nobel Prize recipient and Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska.  The work was inaugurated September 22 when Mayor Bloomberg switched on the installation causing the epigrams of white capital letters to cascade down the building.  The work entitled “For the Guggenheim” will be on display from sunset to 11 PM every Friday through December with a special showing on New Year’s Eve.
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Jenny Holzer to Light Up Facade of Guggenheim Museum [Art Info]
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Guggenheim Marks Completion of Restoration With First Public Viewing of Work by Artist Jenny Holzer [Art Daily]
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Guggenheim Museum to display text art to celebrate renovation [USA Today]
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Guggenheim Museum Marks Completion Of Building Restoration With First Public Viewing Of Commissioned Work By Artist Jenny Holzer [Guggenheim Press Release]

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Beauty, John McCracken (2006) via David Zwirner

David Zwirner opened a show of new work by artist John McCracken on September 11th. The exhibition houses nearly 100 pieces made by McCracken, many of which are components of multi-part sculptures. This is McCracken’s fourth solo exhibition at David Zwirner; he has also shown at S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Belgium in 2004 as well as a variety of group shows.  Born in Berkeley in 1934, John McCracken has been showing his conceptual, abstract, and minimalist sculptures since the 1960s. In concurrence with this David Zwirner show, Radius Books is publishing and making available for the first time, John McCracken: Sketchbook. This publication is filled with the artists working sketches from the 1960s. The author of the publication, Neville Wakefield, is an independent curator and has most recently put together a group show at MoMA P.S.1.

John McCracken at David Zwirner [David Zwirner]
John McCracken: Sketchbook [Radius Books]
John McCracken talk & book signing at David Zwirner [Art Slant]
David Zwirner: Press Release [Artinfo]

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Sam-Taylor Wood and Jay Jopling via Art Info.

“Young British Artist” couple Jay Jopling and Sam Taylor-Wood are separating after 11 years of marriage. The two have both been a constant force within the British contemporary art world.  Jopling’s White Cube gallery represents famed British artists Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and the Chapman brothers among an international roster that includes Chuck Close, Andreas Gurksy and Jeff Wall.  Taylor-Wood is a Turner Prize winning artist whose photo and video work has included celebrities Elton John, Jude Law and Benicio Del Toro among others. The artist furthered her fame in 2002 when she created a video portrait of David Beckham sleeping. The announcement follows Jopling in the news alongside Damien Hirst’s record breaking sotheby’s auction last week in which the artist cut Jopling and other dealers out of the selling process. The couple has stated that no other parties were involved in the split which they have described as “amicable.” Jay Jopling and Sam Taylor-Wood have two daughters together.

Jay Jopling and Sam Taylor-Wood separate after 11 years [The Times UK]
Jay Jopling and Sam Taylor-Wood split after 11 years of marriage [Telegraph]
Art’s golden couple Sam Taylor-Wood and Jay Jopling split after 11 years of marriage [Daily Mail]
Jay Jopling and Sam Taylor-Wood Separate After 11 Years [Art Info]

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Love and Pain by Edvard Munch via Art Market Monitor.

Edvard Munch’s 1894 painting Love and Pain, known as Vampire, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s New York November 3, 2008. The piece has been in private hands for the past 70 years and will be the feature work during Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art. It is estimated that the painting will sell for $35 million surpassing the existing Munch record of $30.8 set this past May for Girls on a Bridge. The painting which is said to represent love, sex, and death shows a woman and man in embrace. It is one of four paintings by Munch that explores the same theme, the other three works are housed in institutions in Oslo and Gothenburg. Curiously, the work was painted within years of Bram Stoker publishing the hugely popular ‘Dracula’ which may have caused the painting to be effectively renamed in popular culture. [Coxsoft] Prior to its sale the work will be displayed at Sotheby’s London from October 3-7, and in Moscow from October 16-19.

Iconic Masterwork by Edvard Munch to be Sold by Sotheby’s New York on November 3, 2008 [Sotheby’s Press Release]
Munch’s Vampire to be auctioned [BBC News]
Munch’s Vampire Comes to Market [Art Market Monitor]
Munch’s Vampire Goes Up for Sale With $35 Million Estimate [Art Info]
Iconic Masterwork by Edvard Munch to be Sold by Sotheby’s New York in November [Art Daily]

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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]

Richard Armstrong, the new Director of the Guggenheim via NY Times.

As anticipated by Art Observed earlier this month in a report here, Richard Armstrong of the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has been named the new Director of the Soloman R. Guggenheim Foundation and its flagship the Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.  The announcement made yesterday by the Board of Trustees follows an extensive seven-month international search. The search begin February 2008 after Thomas Krens resigned as Director of the Guggenheim after nearly 20 years. Armstrong served four years as Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Carnegie Museum prior to his appointment as director there. He has also worked previously as the curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art where he organized four biennials and as curator at La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California.

Guggenheim Chooses a Curator, Not a Showman [NYTimes]
Guggenheim Foundation Names New Director Richard Armstrong [Art Daily]
Richard Armstrong appointed director of the Guggenheim [The Art Newspaper]

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Gerhard Richter’s 4900 Colours: Version II via Serpentine Gallery

London’s Serpentine Gallery is set to display celebrated German artist Gerhard Richter’s 4900 Colours: Version II today, September 23. The piece is comprised of 4900 brightly colored squares arranged randomly by a concept Richter has coined “controlled chance.” The squares have been painted on 100 aluminum panels. The panels can be viewed altogether as a single work of art that measures 69 square meters or the work can be displayed as 49 separate pieces. Serpentine will display the 4900 Colours: Version II as separate original works. The new piece strongly resembles both the artist’s previous color abstractions dating back to the 70’s as well as a recent stained glass piece the artist created for the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

Richter Says Nouveau Riche Have Sent Art Market `to the Dogs’ [Bloomberg]
Gerhard Richter Brings 4900 Colors to Serpentine [Digital Art]
Richter’s all square at the Serpentine [Guardian UK]
Gerhard Richter: 4900 Colours: Version II [Serpentine Gallery]
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