Jenny Holzer, at Between Bridges.

Fresh off the Whitney Museum of American Art, Jenny Holzer is currently showing at London’s Between Bridges.   The exhibition features two collections of work by Jenny Holzer: “Truisms” and Essays.”  As their names suggest, the series are text-based, so that the exhibition consists of blocs of text mounted on the walls of the gallery.

Related links:
Jenny Holzer [Between Bridges]
Jenny Holzer [the centre of attention]
Jenny Holzer. Biography [Art:21]
Jenny Holzer’s ‘PROTECT PROTECT’ at the Whitney Museum of American Art [Art Observed]

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Paul McCarthy,  M, at Hauser & Wirth.

A collection of works by Paul McCarthy is showing at Hauser & Wirth Zürich. The exhibition looks to showcase the “raucous, exuberant mayhem” that, for McCarthy, is art and society. In some pieces, this agenda is overt, with sculptures featuring George Bush together with pigs.  McCarthy comments on America, here, and the audience; “I’ve always been interested in the audience being a prop,” he has said.

Related links:
Paul McCarthy [Hauser & Wirth]
Paul McCarthy Interview [BOMB magazine]

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Carsten Höller’s ‘Upside Down People’ in ‘Il Tempo del Postino’ via Artinfo

The 40th edition of Art Basel closed on Sunday, drawing over 60,000 visitors. General impressions of the fair, one of the most respected in the world, were that quality was high and sales surprisingly strong. Many dealers chose a single-artist or closely curated format, often bringing older, proven artists rather than emerging or trendy artists. After a hesitant spring auction season, the results from Basel seem to signal a leveling off of the market. While some of the satellite fairs received poor reviews, most accounts of Art Basel have been very positive. Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno’s ‘Il Tempo del Postino,’ a time-based exhibition featuring artists such as Matthew Barney, Carsten Höller, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Olafur Eliasson, was a particular highlight, selling out all three nights of the fair.  Few have declared the market downturn over, but the emphasis of quality over spectacle at Basel combined with brisk and steady sales has given a much needed confidence boost as galleries prepare for the summer down time.

Art 40 Basel: Extraordinary Quality; Surprisingly Strong Results [Artdaily]
Window Shoppers [Wall Street Journal]
A Thriftier Lot Comes to Basel This Year [NYTimes]
The art market: Buoyant Basel contrasts with Russian reluctance [FT]
Surprise Success – Art Basel dispels credit crunch blues [The Art Newspaper]
Billionaire Broad Says Art Market ‘Levels Out’ After Price Drop [Bloomberg]
Eli Broad’s Basel mission for LA Moca [The Art Newspaper]
Time is Money [Artforum]
The Postman Rings Twice [Artinfo]
Ruby Tuesday [Artforum]
Report from Basel: Art Unlimited [Art in America]
Scope Basel: Brash, but Humble [Artinfo]
Art Bargain-Hunters Trawl Basel as Hockney Fetches $1.8 Million [Bloomberg]
Jeff Koons: “If people say they don’t like my work, I feel like a failure.” [The Art Newspaper]
Previous AO coverage of Art Basel

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Yayoi Kusama, Installation View via Gagosian Gallery

To celebrate Yayoi Kusama’s eightieth year, Gagosian’s Gallery is exhibiting some of her recent works at their West 24th Street location until June 27, 2009.  Although the show features only Kusama’s latest works, it can be considered as a retrospective: Kusama has been exploring the same themes and forms in her artistic production since the late 1950s, with her paintings, collages, sculptures and environmental works all sharing an obsession with repetition, pattern and accumulation.  Gagosian’s exhibit of Kusama’s work reveals how the production of this eccentric and elusive artist is not exactly Abstract-Expressionist, Minimalist, psychedelic or Pop, yet shares characteristics with all of these movements.

Related Links:
Yayoi Kusama Exhibition Page [Gagosian]
Yayoi Kusama Artist’s Page [Gagosian]
The Kusama Myth [ArtNet]
Yayoi Kusama by Grady Turner [Bomb]
Yayoi Kusama’s Myspace

Yayoi Kusama, “Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity” installation view (2009) via Gagosian Gallery

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The entry installation via the Telegraph
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Graffiti artist Bansky unveils his biggest exhibition to date at the Bristol City Museum featuring more than 100 works of which 70 are new pieces including a burned-out ice cream van. The show, which opens today, has been kept secret from the media, local politicians, and even top museum staff.  Of the exhibition the artist said, “This is the first show I’ve ever done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off.”

Bansky at Bristol City Museum [The Guardian]
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An Ever better video of Bansky [The World’s Best Ever]
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Bansky takes over Bristol City Museum with biggest ever exhibition [Times Online UK]
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Banksy plays it safe and that’s the key to his success [TimesUK]
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Video: Bansky in Secret Exhibition Stunt [BBC]
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In pictures: Banksy’s Bristol Show [BBC]
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Video: Banksy’s back: Bristol project revealed [BBC]
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Graffiti artist Banksy unveils largest project to date [CNN]
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Take a Stuffy Old Institution. Remix. Add Wit. It’s Bansky v the Museum [The GuardianUK]
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Banksy comes in off the streets [The Independent]
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Oh, Bansky, You’ve Done it Again [Artsbeat blog, NY Times]
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Secret Bansky Show Opens Tomorrow [Artinfo]
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Bansky back in Bristol for biggest British Exhibition [The Telegraph]

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Damien Hirst’s ‘For the Love of God’ via Artinfo

Ukrainian collector Viktor Pinchuk, who is currently hosting Damien Hirst’s retrospective in Kiev, is revealed as the fourth stakeholder in the artist’s platinum, diamond-encrusted skull, which has yet to sell despite a £35 million offer from Alberto Mugrabi [The Art Newspaper]
in related, Fiats decorated by Hirst have had little problem selling at a London charity auction [Art Review]
Two proposed tax-free ports in Paris and Singapore aim to revolutionize international art handling [NY Times]

Roxy Paine with one of his ‘Dendroid’ sculptures via Artinfo

National Gallery of Art commissions a Roxy Paine ‘Dendroid’ sculpture [National Gallery of Art via Artnet]
Art Basel’s Marc Spiegler says that now is an essential time for collectors to buy work from galleries to support artists and local art scenes [ArtInfo]
In conjunction with Saatchi, the Times lists top 200 artists of the 20th century with Picasso and early Modernists at the front [TimesUK]
Three arts professionals describe how they collect for their own homes [Financial Times]

Sam Francis, Grey, the subject of an auction dispute at Christie’s

Shipping magnate Gregory Callimanopulos appealing court decision in auction dispute with Christie’s and Broad Art Foundation over Sam Francis’ ‘Grey’ [ArtForum]
Art during the Nazi regime: Van Meegeren and Göring, forgery and thievery [New York Times]
Unusual Renoir painting recovered in Venice 25 years after it was stolen [Artinfo]

Edward Hopper, Rooms by the Sea, recently acquired by Yale University. via ArtDaily

Yale University counter-sued over Van Gogh painting ‘The Night Café,’ seized during the Communist takeover of Russia [Bloomberg.com].
In related, Yale University Art Gallery acquires Edward Hopper preparatory drawings ‘Rooms by the Sea’ and ‘Western Motel and the Study’ [ArtDaily]
Young collectors pooling resources and sharing art [Financial Times]

Pablo Picasso’s Homme à l’épée for sale in London. via The Telegraph.

€7 – 10 millionv notebook of Picasso sketches discovered stolen from the Picasso museum in Paris [ArtDaily]
and in related, two ‘Musketeer’ paintings by the artist to be auctioned at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, respectively [The TelegraphUK]
As early as 2010, the Louvre may be at risk financially, despite a wave of acquisitions totaling an estimated  €38 million [NYTimes]

Andreas Gursky’s ‘James Bond Island III’ via FOTO8

An interview of Andreas Gursky in which he speaks of scaling down his monumental prints, the influence Bernd and Hilla Becher, and working with North Korea [FOTO8]
Vito Acconci closes his studio, citing cash flow troubles [The Architect’s Newspaper via ArtInfo]

Massimiliano Gioni navigates Venice during the Biennale opening via NY Times

Following curator and critic Massimiliano Gioni and his various party obligations at the Venice Biennale [NY Times]
Points on whether or not the recession is indeed good for art [GuardianUK]
Gagosian has hired Richard Meier to double the space in his Los Angeles Gallery [The Art Newspaper]

62 Imlay Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, recently leased by Christie’s for storage

Christie’s leases a building for storage in Red Hook, in what is likely one of the largest real estate deals in Brooklyn this year [Brownstoner]
A guide to investing in contemporary art in current market conditions [NY Times]
Sotheby’s London Russian Art Evening Sale totals £7.9m with 17 of 28 lots sold [Art Market Monitor]

Video of Banksy’s exhibition in Bristol via BBC

Banksy secretly sets up exhibition in Bristol museum [BBC]
Beginning June 16, 2009 the Metropolitan Museum of Art will display ‘The Torment of Saint Anthony,’ now widely believed to be Michelangelo’s first painting, before it goes to its new home at Kimball Museum in Texas [ArtDaily]

Picasso’s Château de Vauvenargues via Artinfo

Picasso’s Château will open to the public this summer [Artinfo]
Billionaire collector Eli broad contends that the downturn in the art market has bottomed [Bloomberg]
Christie’s similarly calls a leveling off of the art market’s downshift [Reuters]

Diane Arbus, “Identical Twins” (1962) via Fine Art Photography Masters

From May 9 to August 31, Cardiff’s National Museum’s main exhibit will reveal the work of legendary New York photographer Diane Arbus (1923-1971).  The retrospective exhibit is comprised of 69 black and white photographs, including the rare portfolio of ten vintage prints, “Box of Ten,” which Arbus began assembling in 1969.  This limited edition portfolio, which was intended to present her work as an artist, constitutes a conscious statement of what she stood for and how she regarded her own photography.  Arbus’ photography, marrying the conventions of 19th century portraiture with the seamy concerns of the 1960s, remains startling today.

Related links:
Diane Arbus at the National Museum Cardiff [Financial Times]
Diane Arbus Exhibition Page [National Museum Wales]
Exhibition Preview: Diane Arbus, Cardiff [Guardian UK]
Diane Arbus: a Flash of Familiarity [Telegraph]
Exhibition of Legendary Photographer Diane Arbus’ Work to be Displayed at National Museum Cardiff [Art Daily]

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

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

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

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Nigel Cooke, “Experience” (2009) via Andrea Rosen Gallery

Andrea Rosen Gallery is presenting a group of recent works by British artist Nigel Cooke.  The show, which features a combination of large canvases, miniatures, and small sculptures, is Cooke’s third solo exhibition at the gallery, and will run until June 13, 2009.  Combining painting conventions of the past with the illustrative styles of street art and children’s books, Nigel Cooke has a growing reputation for his obsessively detailed fictional scenes set against unsettling landscapes.  His later work focuses more closely on the single, isolated figure, seemingly caught in the nightmarish, highly disturbing version of a fairytale.

Related links:
Nigel Cooke Exhibition Page [Andrea Rosen]
Nigel Cooke Biography [Andrea Rosen]
Artist’s Page [Art Observed]
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Michaelangelo Pistoletto’s performance of ‘Seventeen Less One’ at the Venice Biennale, photo by ArtObserved

The 53rd Venice Biennale is now open to the public after a press preview June 4-6.  During that time, Art Observed was on site and also has collected some of the relevant news stories covering the event from the global press.

U.S. representative Bruce Nauman won the Golden Lion for best national participation for his exhibition ‘Topological Gardens,’ curated by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Also receiving Golden Lions are Yoko Ono, John Baldessari, and Tobias Rehberger, who won the best artist award for his work ‘What you love also makes you cry.’  Highlights of the Biennale include Britain’s Steve McQueen’s film ‘Giardini,’ which portrays the Biennale Gardens when not used as exhibition space, Liam Gillick at the German Pavilion, covered by AO here, Elmgreem and Dragset’s ‘The Collectors’ at the Danish and Nordic Pavilions, and ‘Making Worlds,’ the International Art Exhibition curated by Daniel Birnbaum, both covered by AO here.

On the Biennale:
Venice Biennale 2009: the opening day [GuardianUK]
Venice Biennale 2009 [Vernissage TV]
On your vaporetto to the far pavilions [GuardianUK]
Venice Biennale is a glimpse of the future [TimesUK]
Venice Biennale 2009: A photographer’s view [GuardianUK]
Trading places [Financial Times]
Venice Biennale Opens Showing Works by Over 90 Artists from all Over the World [Artdaily]
A More Serene Biennale [NY Times]
This, That, and the Other [Artforum]
It’s Reigning Men [ArtForum]
Blasblog From Venice: And So It Begins [Style.com]
“Art Is Everywhere” [Style.com]
The Venice Biennale opens with top honors for a German artist [Deutsche Welle via Art Review]
Over and Over: Art That Never Stops [NY Times]

On Bruce Naumann and the US Pavillion:
Bruce Nauman wins a Golden Lion at Venice Biennale [LA Times]
Venice is doubly enamored of Bruce Nauman [LA Times]
Venice Biennial: Hear the U.S. Roar [Wall Street Journal]
Shaking up the world of art for decades [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Golden Lion for the Best National Participation Awarded to the U.S. Representation [Artdaily]
Nauman Tops Venice Biennale, Wins Golden Lion: Martin Gayford [Bloomberg]

On Pinault’s innaugaration of his new museum:
Francois Pinault Opens The New Punta della Dogana Contemporary Art Centre in Venice [Artdaily]
How the French Charles Saatchi became the merchant of Venice [Guardian]
Pinault’s Venice Empire Grows With Cool Contemporary-Art Museum [Bloomberg]

On Steven McQueen, representing the UK at the Biennale:
Steve McQueen at the Venice Biennale: Private view with Adrian Searle [Guardian]
Art Charities Collaborate to Fund Steve McQueen’s Giardini for Venice [Artdaily]
Steve McQueen found something new in Venice [Guardian]
Steve McQueen’s “Giardini” at the Venice Biennale [IFC]
Steve McQueen lets Venice Biennale viewer do the feeling with Giardini [Times]

On Swoon’s Swimming Cities of the Serrenisma,video from the New York Landing of her boat in previously in Long Island City covered by Art Observed here:
Barging in to Venice [New York]
Swoon in Venice, Italy [dailyDuJour]
Barging in to Venice [New York Magazine]

And more:
Venice Biennale: Flashing Lights [NY Times]
Venice Biennale: Ships in the Sky [NY Times]
Venice Biennale: Listening to Art [NY Times]
Rauschenberg at the Guggenheim in Venice [Financial Times]
United Arab Emirates confronts stereotypes in Venice Biennale debut [GuardianUK]
Ukraine pavilion is a Venice Biennale knockout [TimesUK]

more photos and story after the jump…

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Untitled (Four Single Men with Interchangeable Backgrounds Looking to the Right) (1977) by Richard Prince, via The Met

Currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is “The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984.” It is the first major museum exhibition devoted entirely to the “Pictures Generation,” a close-knit group of artists concentrating on the self-reflexive and critical principles of Minimal and Conceptual Art.  The exhibition explores how images shape perceptions of ourselves and the world and features 160 works made in all media by thirty artists including Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Robert Longo, Louise Lawler, Laurie Simmons and David Salle.

The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984 [Exhibition Page]
The Original Artistic Recyclers [Wall Street Journal]
The Pictures Generation [The New Yorker]
At the Met, Baby Boomers Leap Onstage [NewYorkTimes]
Framing the Message of a Generation [NewYorkTimes]
The Pictures Generation: A Conversation with Douglas Eckund [Art in America]
Preview the Met’s Fab New Show, “The Pictures Generation” [The Washington Post ]

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Liam Gillick’s installation in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, photo by ArtObserved

Whereas the lines outside the Danish, American or British Pavilion were growing longer, the German Pavilion seemed rather calm on the opening day on June 4th.  For his room filling installation, British artist Liam Gillick in dialogue with the Pavilion’s curator Nicolas Schafhausen, decided to hide as little of the famous facist architecture of the Pavilion as possible. Inside, the artist built a kitchen-like structure in clear pine wood formally reminescent of Donald Judd’s wood sculptures. The facist background of the Pavilion’s architecture has been made the topic of their submissions by many artists. Gillick, in a spontaneous talk in front of the Pavilion this morning, explained that his intention was not to make a comment on why this architecture was built in the first place, but why it was maintained instead of being reconstructed as proposed in 1957 by Arnold Bode, founder of documenta.  Gillick mentioned the post-war rethinking of Germany and its identity in contemporary art and architecture in the 50s and 60s as one of the topics of his Biennial submission.  Though British, Liam Gillick is not the first non-German to exhibit at the German pavillion. Korean born Nam Jun Paik exhibited in this space in 1993, and was awarded the Golden Lion for his work.

German Pavillion 2009
Liam Gillick, the British artist representing Germany, outlines the challenges of working in a “problematic Fascist building” [The Art Newspaper]

Liam Gillick speaking in front of his installation in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, photo by ArtObserved

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Tomas Sarceno’s ‘Galaxies’ in ‘Making Worlds’ at the Venice Biennale, photo by ArtObserved

Under the title of ‘The Collectors’, the artist duo Elmgreen&Dragset curated and staged the first joint venture between two Pavilions at the Venice Biennial.  As the title suggests, the show explores collecting as a practice combining privacy, public visibility, obsession and self-expression.

On the opening day, the line in front of the Danish Pavilion that served as the entrance to both Pavilions was as long as the rooster of represented artists was impressive: Terence Koh, Hernan Bas, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jonathan Monk to name only some of the 24 international artists and designers participating.  The public was guided on a tour by a real estate agent through a “For Sale” Danish Pavilion and into the neighboring Nordic Pavilion counting the story of a kinky bachelor named Mr. B. and his collection of contemporary art and his ex-lovers’ swim wear. The naked young man lasciviously posing in an Arne Jacobsen arm chair was the definitely the favorite photo occasion of the day.

The Collectors
La Biennale
Venice Biennale Shows Men Embracing, Bruce Nauman’s Rituals [Bloomberg]
Rising to Biennale’s Curatorial Challenge [WSJ]
Politics dominates Venice Biennale [Globe and Mail]
It’s Reigning Men [Artforum]

Installation view of ‘The Collectors’ by Elmgreen&Dragset at the Danish and Nordic Pavilions, photo by ArtObserved

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Mona Hatoum’s Impenetrable, from her show “Interior Landscapes.” Courtesy Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venezia.

Mona Hatoum’s solo show “Interior Landscapes” runs from June 4 to September 30 at the Palazzo Querini Stampalia.  Curated by Chiara Bertola, the exhibition shows 29 works, most of them new, by the artist.  The show is part of an ongoing series of projects entitled “Conservare il futuro (Preserving the Future)” that explores the relationship between historic and contemporary art.

Related links:
Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia
Mona Hatoum [White Cube]
Mona Hatoum [Alexander and Bonin]

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PTG.75 (2007) by Eric and Heather ChanSchatz, via Saatchi

Currently on display at the Saatchi Gallery is “Abstract America: New Painting and Sculpture.” Saatchi presents the work of more than 30 artists, mostly from New York and Los Angeles many of which have never been previously shown in the United Kingdom. The exhibition highlights the ambition and breadth of new ideas being explored by American artists such as Francesco DiMattio and Gedi Sibony, Aaron Young and Agathe Snow from New York, Guerra de la Paz from Miami, and Mark Grotjahn and Sterling Ruby from Los Angeles.

Exhibition Page [Saatchi]
Saatchi Gallery’s Abstract American Show [The TimesUK]
Saatchi Shows Young American Artists [Artinfo]
Never mind the Pollocks: The New Generation of American Art [The Indpendent]
“Abstract America” at Saatchi Gallery [FT]
America Abstracted in London’s Saatchi Gallery [The Guardian]
Abstract America: New Painting and Sculpture on View at the Saatchi Gallery [Artdaily]

Greeting Card 10a (2007) by Aaron Young, via Saatchi

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A piece from Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts, via ArtInfo.

A year after Robert Rauschenberg’s death on May 12, 2008, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is showing a lesser-known collection of the late artist.  Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts comprises forty works of metal. Gluts presents pieces actually glutted from the Gulf Iron and Metal Junkyard in Fort Myers, Florida, near the artist’s home.  Constructed of metal culled from old traffic signs and automobiles, awnings and exhaust pipes, these pieces, Rauschenberg has said, are “souvenirs without nostalgia.”  The collection confronts its viewers with possibilites: what metal can become in the face of consumerism and greed, which Rauschenberg has called “rampant.”

Related links:
Overview: Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts [The Peggy Guggenheim Collection]
Guggenheim in Venice Celebrates the Memory of Robert Rauschenberg with Exhibition [Artdaily]
Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents Robert Rauschenberg [Artipedia]
Robert Rauschenberg Has Died At Age 82 [Art Observed]
Guggenheim Museum Honors Late Artist Robert Rauschenberg [the Guggenheim]
Robert Rauschenberg: The Wild and Crazy Guy [Time]

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This year’s Venice Biennale runs from June 7 to November 22, with press preview on June 4-6.  Since 1985, emerging and long-established artists have represented their countries at the Biennale.  The event, happening every other year, has evolved to exhibit current movements in art, architecture, cinema, dance, music, and theatre.  The Biennale presents the artistic trends at the forefront of contemporary art and the avant-garde.  Art Observed will be on site for this event, as Venice opens its doors to artists and art fans from around the world.

Related links:
La Biennale di Venezia
Venice Biennale 2009 Exhibit Map
Blood, oil and designer rugs: the world’s top artists set for the Venice Bienniale [The Guardian UK]
Braco Dimitrijevic’s Future Post History to be Shown at Ca’Pesaro and Ca’Farsetti as Part of Venice Biennale  [ArtDaily]
Can-Do Canadians Struggle Toward Venice Biennale [ArtInfo]
Does Venice Still Matter? [The Art Newspaper]
‘Flying Art’ Gallery in Venice [Ansa.it]
French Pavilion presents Claude Leveque at 53rd Venice Biennale [Artipedia]
Home Team: A Pair of Artists Play Home [TMagazine]
How the French Charles Saatchi became the merchant of Venice [The Guardian UK]
The Internet Pavilion at the Venice Biennale [Wired]
Mark Lewis Represents Canada with Four New Films at the 53rd International Art Exhibition [ArtDaily]
My week: Steve McQueen [The GuardianUK]
Steve McQueen at the Venice Biennale: Private view with Adrian Searle [The Guardian UK audio]
New Funding model behind the British Pavilion [The Art Newspaper]
The Pavilion doesn’t even have a bathroom [The Globe and Mail]
Russia makes its presence felt in Venice [The Art Newspaper]
Russian Pavilion to Present Victory over the Future at 53rd International Venice Biennale [ArtDaily]
Too Haute for Commerce: The Venice Biennale [The New York Observer]
Venice Biennale in the past [The Telegraph]
Venice Biennale: Let the Invasion Begin [The New York Times]
Venice Biennale Preview [ArtInfo]

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Alice Neel’s ‘Hartley’ via David Zwirner

Running concurrently at David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea and Zwirner & Wirth on the Upper East Side are two shows surveying the work of painter Alice Neel. Known best as a portraitist during a time when figuration fell into disdain and obsolescence, Neel is considered one of the twentieth century’s most important American painters. While Neel gained critical acclaim by the end of her life (she died in 1984), recent years have seen increased interest in Neel’s work as contemporary figurative painters such as Lucien Freud and Elizabeth Peyton have attracted both record prices and museum retrospectives.  MZwirner & Wirth’s ‘Nudes of the 1930s’ covers the beginning of Neel’s career with sketches, watercolors, and oil paintings of desexualized nudes, including many of women with imperfect bodies. ‘Selected Works’ at David Zwirner presents a wider, more mature range of work.

The Estate of Alice Neel
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David Zwirner
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Zwirner & Wirth
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Decades of Painter Alice Neel in a Single Sweep [New YorkMagazine]
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Art in Review [NY Times]
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Overview: Alice Neel: Selected Works [Artinfo]

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Anish Kapoor’s ‘Shooting into the Corner’ via The Independent

Britain’s Royal Academy opens its galleries in September to Anish Kapoor for the first single artist exhibition there since 1988 [Independent] and Kapoor’s commission for the Deutsche Guggenheim, ‘Memory,’ opens in October [Guggenheim]

Gilbert and George in Hong Kong via Financial Times

Gilbert and George describe their trip to Hong Kong for the opening of ‘Louis Vuitton: A Passion For Creation’ at the Hong Kong Museum of Art [Financial Times]
Oreg0n art dealer indicted for running gallery as a Ponzi scheme [Artinfo]

Glenn Brown’s ‘Christina of Denmark’ via Art in America

Lynn MacRitchie visits painter Glenn Brown’s studio [Art in America]
Predictions about the future of auction houses following the burst of the art market bubble [CNBC via Art Market Monitor]

Aerial view of Governors Island via Governors Island

Creative Time announces Plot, a public art quadrennial, to take place on Governors Island this summer, with 19 international artists showing in 5 buildings previously closed to the public [Creative Time]

Pablo Picasso’s ‘Homme à l’épée’ via Philippe Sollers estimated to sell for £5-7 million at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sale later this month

Christie’s announces its Impressionist and Modern Art Sale, with important works by Monet, Duchamp, and Picasso as highlights [Auction Publicity] and in other auction news, Latin American sales follow the downward trend [Artinfo]

Terence Koh and Tom Sachs celebrate the release of Koh’s new book at Julian Schnabel’s house via Style

Vito Schnabel holds a dinner party at Palazzo Chupi in honor of Terence Koh’s new book, ‘Flowers for Baudelaire’ [Style]
Eric Fischl is organizing a touring exhibition aimed at involving artists in the evolution of American identity in the wake of post-9/11 politics [LA Times]

Takashi Murakami signing posters for the Vogue Nippon launch via Hint

Comme des Garçons x Vogue Nippon concept shop opens, featuring Takashi Murakami collaborations [Hint]
Controversial modern museum, the Ara Pacis, in the heart of historical Rome, is vandalized [BBC]

Jenny Holzer’s ‘Monument’ via Economist

Daniel Arizona looks at how Jenny Holzer’s early aphorisms stand up now and how her new ‘Redaction Paintings’ capture today’s anxiety [Economist]
Antony Gormley and Sir Peter Blake among judges of Saatchi Gallery-Sunday Telegraph Art Prize for schoolchildren [TelegraphUK]

King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium looking at René Magritte’s ‘Black Magic’ at the inauguration of the Magritte Museum in Brussels via Artdaily

A museum dedicated to Belgian Surrealist artist René Margritte opens today in Brussels. The Magritte Museum houses the world’s largest Magritte collection, with two hundred and fifty artworks as well as archival material, and is the product of a partnership between the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the Magritte Foundation, the Belgian Régie des Bâtiments, the Belgian Federal Science Policy Administration, and the GDF SUEZ Group. Following in the footsteps of other recently built single artist museums, such as the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam or the Zentrum Paul Klee at Berne, the Magritte Museum is intended as a research center for the life and work of the artist.

René Magritte Museum
Who said there weren’t any famous Belgians? Two museums honour country’s most celebrated sons [GuardianUK]
New Magritte Museum Houses the Largest Collection of Magritte Works in the World [Artdaily]
Magritte Museum Opens as Surreal House, Tintin Gets Spaceship [Bloomberg]

Suzanne Valadon, “La Chambre Bleue” (The Blue Room) (1932) via Centre Pompidou

For an entire year (May 27, 2009 to May 24, 2010), Paris’ Pompidou Center is dedicating the space its reserves for the Museum’s permanent collection to the work of female artists, effectively re-transcribing the history of art since the beginning of the twentieth century from a gendered perspective.  The exhibit, which spans 6,000 square meters, presents over 500 works by 200 artists.  These works are drawn entirely from the museum’s own permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, the largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world.  Following “Big Bang” in 2005 and “Mouvement des Images” in 2006-7, this is the third time in recent years that the Centre Pompidou chooses to display its collection in an original way.  It is also considered the most polemic, with critics either applauding this marked gesture of support to women artists or disapproving of its segregation.

Related Links:
Elles@centrepompidou [Pompidou Center]
Centre Pompidou Dedicates Exhibition to Women: elles@centrepompidou [Art Daily]
At Paris’ Pompidou Center, the Year of the Women [LA Times]
Pompidou Gets Set to Become Women’s Only Institution [Art Review]

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Sigmar Polke ‘Lens Paintings’ via Michael Werner

Michael Werner Gallery on the Upper East Side is currently presenting artist Sigmar Polke’s:’Lens Paintings’.  The exhibition features new works by Polke.  Sigmar Polke’s career spans 40 years of radical innovation in painting.  Each of the twenty six paintings on display is one of a kind.  The conceptual frame work of these paintings is grounded in theories set forth by Johann Zahn in his 1685 book, ‘Telescope’.  According to Zahn, every luminous object in the universe varies in appearance depending on the viewers position.  This theme is reflected through the various interpretations of each of the images in this show.

Art in Review – Sigmar Polke [New York Times]
Overview-Solo show: Sigmar Polke [Artfacts]
Lens Crafter: Critic’s Notebook [The New Yorker]
Michael Werner Gallery Exhibitions [Michael Werner]

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Tracey Emin’s ‘Angel’ via White Cube

Tracey Emin opened her first solo show in London in four years at White Cube Mason’s Yard, ‘Those who suffer Love.’ The exhibition coincides with the release of her book ‘One Thousand Drawings,’ published by Rizzoli, and is primarily composed of drawings. The centerpiece of the show is a short animation piece of a woman masturbating. Emin, L’Enfant terrible and one of the Young British Artists – a group notorious for both its regard to art and personal behavior – is well known for radical, very personal exposés of her sexuality. Emin explains, ‘The title for my show is self-explanatory: love rarely comes easily and if it does, it usually goes quite quickly. And there is death, and loss, which at some point in our lives we all have to deal with. I’m constantly fighting with the notion of love and passion. Love, sex, lust – in my heart and mind there is always some battle, some kind of conflict.’

Tracey Emin: Those who suffer Love [White Cube Gallery]
Sex craze fading fast, says Tracey Emin at London exhibition launch [GuardianUK]
Tracey Emin London Show Explores Solitary Pursuit of Lust [Bloomberg]
Tracey Emin, White Cube [TimesUK]
Tracey Emin’s really done it this time [Evening Standard]
Interview: Tracey Emin [Channel 4 London]
Ghosts of my past [GuardianUK]
Tracey Emin: Those Who Suffer Love at the White Cube, review [Telegraph]
Those Who Suffer Love by Tracey Emin, London [Wallpaper]
Tracey Emin: Art from the heart [Independent]
Lunch with the FT: Tracey Emin [Financial Times]
Tracey Emin: Confessions of a saucy seamstress [GuardianUK]

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‘Untitled’ by Christopher Wool via Museum Ludwig

Christopher Wool won the Wolfgang Hahn Prize Cologne 2009.  As part of the prize, Wool has a solo exhibition at the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, which has also acquired two silkscreen prints by Wool.  Wool is interested primarily in abstract painting, with ‘Porto-Köln’ focusing mainly on a number of large abstract canvases and silkscreen prints.

Museum Ludwig
Christopher Wool
Christopher Wool Wins Wolfgang Hahn Prize [Artinfo]
Christopher Wool: Porto РK̦ln / Museum Ludwig, Cologne [VernissageTV]

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