The Peaceable Kingdom, by Edward Hicks, the subject of a dispute between Halsey Minor and Sotheby’s, via Wikimedia

The founder of CNET sues Sotheby’s, citing non-disclosure of its economic interest in a painting sold to him, which he has withheld payment for [Bloomberg] more on this here [LATimes] and here [Wall Street Journal] and here [New York Times]
A prediction that the new leadership of the MoMA and Guggenheim will broaden and focus each institution respectively [NewYorkMag]
A profile of the emerging Zoo Fair artists at the National Academy in London [Guardian]
In a recent interview, Tracey Emin addresses her being raped at age 13 in Margate as well as her being a victim of child abuse [ThisisKent]
Artist builds a custom environment to work for 3 months at the Whitney for an upcoming exhibit of photographs of the happenings [ArtInfo] more on this here [New York Times]

Self (1991) by Marc Quinn, via Culture Loves Us

The National Portrait Gallery, home to portraits of major British figures such as kings, queens, and prime ministers, has set its eyes on acquiring ‘Self,’ a sculptural self-portrait of Marc Quinn made from ten pints of his own frozen blood. Marc Quinn–one of the most celebrated of the YBAs (Young British Artists) along with Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin–has made three sculptures using his blood as the raw material since 1991, and has said that he plans on making similar sculptures every five years until he is unable to. The original ‘Self’ was acquired by advertising magnate Charles Saatchi for £13,000; White Cube Gallery is offering the NPG the most recent iteration (dating from 2006) for £350,000, with its open market value being quoted at £1.5 million. The Art Fund and several other sources have committed £150,000 to acquiring the work, leaving £200,000 which the NPG needs to raise by December 31st.

National Portrait Gallery criticised over purchase of Marc Quinn’s Blood Head [TimesUK]
National Portrait Gallery Raises Money for Self-Portrait Made From Frozen Blood [ArtInfo]
Museum needs £200,000 for Marc Quinn’s blood portrait [The Art Newspaper]

Previously:
Go See: ‘Statuephilia’ at The British Museum today through January 25th [ArtObserved]
Marc Quinn’s gigantic baby sculpture up for private auction by Sotheby’s [ArtObserved]

Life by Gilbert and George, part of Death Hope Life Fear series, via the Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum is the final stop in the global tour of the Gilbert and George retrospective, offering a comprehensive overview of the art the British duo has been making since 1970. Many of the 90 pieces on display will only be shown in Brooklyn. The pair’s work encompasses performance art and charcoal sketches as well as large, monument-scale digital picture installations which address politics, sexuality, race, identity faith, and other aspects of modern life in a very idiosyncratic, provocative way. Gilbert and George met at Central St. Martin’s College in 1967 and have been working exclusively with each other ever since, winning the Turner Prize in 1986 and representing Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2005.

Brooklyn Museum Exhibits: Gilbert & George
Gilbert and George Retro at Brooklyn Museum Begins [Gothamist]
Provocative Duo, Naked and Natty [New York Times]
Gilbert & George Retrospective At The Brooklyn Museum [rawArt]
Gilbert and George Retrospective [The Art Newspapers]

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Artist Richard Serra poses for photographers beside one of his works entitled ‘Fernando Pessoa’ during the unveiling of his new exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in London October 3, 2008 via Reuters

Richard Serra, widely regarded as the ‘greatest living sculpture’ has a two concurrent exhibitions at the Gagosian Galleries on Britannia Street and Davies Street in London. Simply titled, ‘Sculpture’, the Brittania Street exhibit displays three new large-scale steel installations and four smaller wall hanging pieces, while the Davies Street gallery houses new works on paper. This is the first time that Richard Serra has exhibited in London since Weight and Measure at Tate Gallery in 1992. The 70 year-old artist has not slowed down in the recent years with a critically acclaimed installation at the Grand Palais in Paris this summer, a “40 Years” retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2007, and the widely recognized “Matter of Time” installation at the Guggenheim Bilboa in 2005. The sculptures at the current Gagosian show weigh over 300 tons and will occupy the gallery space until December 20, 2008.

Interview with Richard Serra, Man of steel [GuardianUK]
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Serra Recalls 9/11, Shipyard as Steel Labyrinth Opens in London [Bloomberg]
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Richard Serra shows off his rings of steel [Economist]
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Serra brings giant steel sculptures to London [Reuters]
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Super slabs and steely nerves and Heavy metal: Richard Serra exhibition for London [GuardianUK]
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Richard Serra: Sculpture [Gagosian Gallery]

Previously:
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Go See: Richard Serra – Thinking on Your Feet [ArtObserved]

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A London building-side JR via Woostercollective

Some large works mark JR’s return to London from NYC (previously covered by AO here) for a solo show at Lazarides [Woostercollective]
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The Tate will brand a cruise ship line focused on art [GuardianUK]
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Jackie Wullschlager’s biography of Marc Chagall reviewed [The Economist]
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Focusing on the sculptures of Pablo Picasso [Wall Street Journal]
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Due to gambling regulatory concerns, Lazarides cancels ‘art raffle’ meant to coincide with Frieze [ArtInfo]
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Tar magazine (anagram of art) debuts with a cover by Julian Schnabel [Mediabisto]
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The Chapman Brothers produce a fuzzy backdrop for Stella McCartney’s spring/summer show in Paris [Independent]

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Marc Quinn, Siren, 2008, Gold – via Telegraph

Today, The British Museum opened Statuephilia – a show of five major contemporary sculptures by five leading British artists – Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Ron Mueck, Antony Gormley, and Noble and Webster. The works are placed separately throughout the museum’s permanent collection in their respective relevant historical contexts. The exhibition includes Siren, Marc Quinn’s life size solid 18 carat gold statue of Kate Moss in a Yoga position which is set in the museum’s Nereid Room among ancient statues of Greek goddesses which was previously covered by AO here.

Images from Statuephilia [Telegraph]
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Statuephilia Opens [Art Daily]
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Kate Moss: The Muse [Independent]
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Marc Quinn Immortalizes Kate Moss [TimesUK]
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Solid gold Moss statue revealed [BBC]
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Statuephilia at The British Museum Website

More images and links after the jump.
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Shepard Fairey via the NYTimes

Street art legend Shepard Fairey shadowed in action by the New York Times[NYTimes]
Art as an unexpected hedge amongst billionaires in uncertain times, and Sarah Thornton has more on this here [Forbes] [TelegraphUK]
Levi’s to launch limited edition jeans featuring Murakami’s flowers [Nylon]
Ex-wife of Jeff Koons/former porn star/Italian parliament member gets to keep her son [Bloomberg]
Flea market purchase revealed to be work by 17th-century Flemish master Pieter Brueghel the Younger [GuardianUK}
Art Market Blog offers another view to market conclusions drawn from last week’s Kate Moss, Banksy auction,  previously covered by Art Observed here [Art Market Blog] 
A guide to buying contemporary art[TimesOnline]

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Bansky mural at Howard St. and Broadway photo by ArtObserved

The large-scale Banksy piece on the corner of Howard St. and Broadway in Soho is the second entire-building-facade work found in downtown Manhattan this week (the first covered by ArtObserved here) and is also the second collaboration between Banksy and the professional advertisement firm, Colossal Media.  The massive rat, filled with fast scrawling black-lines to appear as if done in crayon or marker, stands next to dripping red letters reading, “LET THEM EAT CRACK.” 

Banksy Goes Legal: Rent Walls & Hires Painters[Supertouch]
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Banksy Reacts To Wall Street [TheWorlds Best Ever]
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A Could-Be Banksy Mural Appears on Soho Wall [NYTimes]
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Banksygate 2008: Natives Respond [Gothamist]
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Banksy Official Website

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Desmond by Jean Michel Basquiat, up for auction at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Auction, via Christie’s

In addition to selling a rare portrait by Francis Bacon, Christie’s October 19 auction catalogue features a long list of post-war luminaries. Several portraits of Mao and Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol figure prominently among the auction’s offerings. A sculpture by Jeff Koons, as well as pieces by Jean Michel Basquiat, Gerhard Richter, Richard Prince, Anish Kapoor, Willem de Kooning, Lucian Freud and a plethora of other artists account for the rest of the lots. The priciest of 48 lots is expected to be Lucio Fontana’s canvas, Concetto spaziale, la fine di Dio, which should fetch around £12 million pounds ($21.8 million).

Christie’s: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Christie’s: Press Release for Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Fontana work may fetch $21.8 million in Record Christie’s Sale [Bloomberg]
Bacon Portrait Expected to Sell for £7.5 million at Christie’s Auction in October [ArtObserved]

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Still Life (Natura morta) (1943), Giorgio Morandi via [Metropolitan Museum of Art]

‘Giorgio Morandi, 1890-1964’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the first  exhibit of its size and scope in the United States, displaying approximately one hundred still life paintings and a dozen landscapes. Composed with narrow-ranging hues of cream, brown, and gray, Morandi projects a study of rhythm, balance and intricacy of shape with his identifiable style. The show includes works which span Morandi’s 50-year tenure as a painter and track the lineage of the painter’s influence upon Cézanne, Cubism, Futurism, and the pittura metafisica of Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà.  In addition, the intimacy of the underground gallery of the Robert Lehman wing provides well-suited location for the subtleties of such an artist.

All That Life Contains, Contained [NYTimes]
Morandi’s Subtle Spectable [NYSun]
Tables for One [New Yorker]
Giorgio Morandi, 1890-1964 [Met Museum]
Museo Morandi Website

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‘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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