Pablo Picasso’s ‘Mousquetaire à la Pipe’ via Artnet, goes on sale at Christie’s with estimates between $12-18 million

Following mixed results at last night’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Sotheby’s, where two high profile works by Picasso and Giacometti failed to sell, auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s continue tomorrow.  C hristie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale tonight features two late Picasso paintings, both with estimates between $12-18. One, ‘Mousquetaire à la Pipe,’ is offered by Madoff victim Jerome Fisher, co-founder of show company Nine West.  The other painting, ‘Femme au Chapeau,’ comes from the collection of artist Julian Schnabel. The auction sees 50 lots with estimates of $94.9–134.6 million.

Madoff Investor Puts Picasso ‘Musketeer’ on Sale at Christie’s [Bloomberg]
What a Difference a Year Makes [Artinfo]
Impressionist and Modern Art [Christie’s]
Bernie Swindle Is a Pablo Blow [NYPost]

Picasso’s ‘La Fille de l’Artiste a Deux Ans et Demi Avec un Bateau’ via AP. Failed to reach its reserve, attracting one bid at $12.25 million, falling short of the $16-24 million estimate.

Hours after Standard and Poor’s downgraded Sotheby’s credit rating to junk status, citing the depressed art market, the auction house’s spring Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale got underway last night in New York, yielding mixed results. The auction brought in $61,370,500 against estimates of $81.5/1-8.8 million, and was 80.6% sold by lot. This year’s figure represents slightly more than a quarter of last year’s sale, which realized $208.63 million. The auction’s highest priced lots, Picasso’s ‘La Fille de l’Artiste a Deux Ans et Demi Avec un Bateau,’ put up by a victim of the Madoff Ponzi scheme, and a rare Giacometti sculpture, ‘Le Chat,’ both failed to sell.  For both pieces, the $16-24 million reserve was cited as overreaching in an uncertain market.

However, the auction did have its highlights.  A 1934 painting by Piet Mondrian, ‘Composition in Black and White, with Double Lines,’ nearly doubled its high estimate of $5 million, selling to an anonymous caller for $9,266,500 after extensive bidding.  Four paintings by Polish Art Deco artist Tamara de Lempicka, from the collection of German fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, sold for a total of $13.8 million. ‘Portrait de Marjorie Ferry’ sold for $4.9 million, a new record for the artist.

Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art Totals $61,370,500, Picasso and Giacometti Go Unsold [Artdaily]
Modern Masters Suffer at Auction [NYtimes]
Sotheby’s $61.3 Million Sale Disappoints; Picasso Goes Unsold [Wall Street Journal]
Top Lots Flop at Sotheby’s Imp/Mod Sale [Artinfo]
Sotheby’s Impressionist Sale Hits 7-Year Low as Picasso Flops [Bloomberg]
$80 Million? Try a Tenth of That. Art’s New Numbers. [NY Times]
What a Difference a Year Makes [Artinfo]

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Kandinsky’s “First Abstract Watercolor 1910” via abcgallery

After showing at Munich’s Städtische galerie im Lembachhaus and before moving to New York’s Guggenheim Museum (autumn 2009) the international retrospective of Wassily Kandinsky will spend the spring and summer months at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (8 April – 10 August 2009).  The exhibition, showcasing some hundred of Kandinsky’s paintings, will offer a comprehensive chronological survey of the Russian Artist’s contribution to modern art while investigating his formal and conceptual offerings to the course of 20th century abstraction.  Kandinsky is noted for striving to give painting the freedom from nature he felt in music.

Pompidou Offers Comprehensive Overview of the Work of Russian Artist Wassily Kandinsky [Art Daily]       
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“Kandinsky” at Centre Georges-Pompidou, April 8–August 10, 2009 [ArtInfo]
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Kandinsky’s Squiggles, Amoeba Delight in Paris Show: Review [Bloomberg]                                                                    
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Landmark Kandinsky Retrospective Planned for Guggenheim Museum’s 50th [Guggenheim]

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Artist Francesco Clemente at the opening of A History of the Heart in
Three Rainbows at Deitch Projects. Photo by Art Observed.

Last night, Francesco Clemente’s latest show at Deitch Projects opened with a star-studded evening in SoHo.  The exhibition consists of large-scale watercolor paintings that are positioned in a continuous line along the gallery walls. This particular hanging corresponds to Clemente’s aim to embed art with a spiritual experience.  The idea of a rainbow closely reflects the works in the show.  For Clemente, a rainbow is a symbolic structure that sets up connections between people and worlds, and using watercolor allows the light of the paper to come through. Moreover, the watercolors are bright and come after a long period in which the artist worked with a darker palette.  In order to arrive at the final form of the works, Clemente started out with three large scale canvases that were each 60 foot (about 18 meters) long.  He then divided each of them by cutting them into five separate sections. When hung next to each other, the rainbows reconnect in the mind of the viewer. The iconography in the work is derived from candomblé from the Americas, alchemy from Europe and tantra from India. The exhibition will run through May 30, 2009.  Among the crowd were Goldie Hawn and daughter Kate Hudson who were enjoying the show with artist Dustin Yellin who was is now showing at Robert Miller Gallery and who was interviewed by AO recently here.

Opening Francesco Clemente’s A History of the Heart in
Three Rainbows at Deitch Projects. Photo by Art Observed.

A History of the Heart in Three Rainbows
Deitch Projects
18 Wooster Street, New York
May 2, 2009 – May 30, 2009

RELATED LINKS
Exhibition Page and Press Release [Deitch Projects]
Francesco Clemente at Deitch [Purple Diary]
Francesco Clemente: The History of the Heart in Three Rainbows [Dante Ross]
Francesco Clemente [Daily Serving]

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Spanning from early interactive work from the 1970s to more recent large installations, LACMA’s retrospective exhibition on Austrian artist Franz West is his most comprehensive in the United States so far.  The exhibition, organized by The Baltimore Museum of Art, explores West’s history and position and highlights West’s critical contributions to post-1965 art.  West expanded the definition of sculpture as an environmental and social experience and “continues to do so today,” according to Michael Govan, LACMA CEO.  His work with furniture, found materials, papier-mâché has infused his work with a unique European character.  Informed by philosophers Freud and Wittgenstein, West brings together the aesthetics of trash art and painterly abstraction in prosthetic and biomorphic forms.  West’s collages, installations, sculptures and furniture can be experienced in over a hundred objects at LACMA, through June 7th, 2009.

Franz West, To Build a House You Start with the Roof: Work, 1972 – 2008
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Los Angeles County Museum
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5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
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March 12, 2009 – June 7, 2009

RELATED LINKS
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Exhibition Page [LACMA]
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Press Release [LACMA]
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An Interview with Franz West [LACMA]
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LACMA Presents West Coast Premier of First Comprehensive Franz West Survey in U.S. [Artdaily]
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Franz West @ LACMA [TRYHARDER]
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Review: Franz West at LACMA [Los Angeles Times]
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Franz West arrives at LACMA [Artsjournal]
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Franz West Installation [Vimeo]

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Dustin Yellin’s ‘The Invisible Man’ via Robert Miller Gallery

Currently at Robert Miller Gallery in Chelsea is Dustin Yellin’s third New York solo exhibition, ‘Dust in the Brain Attic.’ Yellin’s signature works are composed by building up layers of ink and resin to create what appears to be an entity trapped in amber. Yellin works primarily with organic forms, creating a bizarre taxonomy of suspended plant and animal artifacts, as well as MRI scans of human heads and skeletons. The works skirt between painting and sculpture, and could be more accurately described as 3D painting, with the final forms created by as many as 100 of resin painted with acrylic, ink, or computed generated transfers.  When Yellin spoke with AO before the opening of the show here, he explained that with many of the pieces, the work becomes like a computer code set in motion to create a final product, while with other, more abstract works, the process is far more painterly and inventive.

Robert Miller Gallery
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Dustin Yellin
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Skeletons in the Attic [Interior Design]
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Dustin Yellin talks to Rebecca Schiffman [ArtObserved]
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Dustin Yellin – Dust in the Brain Attic [Look Into My Owl]
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Antony Gormley’s ‘Clutch II’ via Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Currently on view at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac’s Salzburg location is Antony Gormley’s exhibition of new drawing and sculptures, ‘ATAXIA II.’ Ataxia, a Greek word meaning ‘lack of order,’ is a neurological condition that results in the loss of coordination and bodily control. A series of seven sculptures composed of iron blocks shows the body in varying physical states representing a a loss of control. The works’ titles, Turn, Splice, Shrive, Shy, List, Clutch, and Haft, correspond to different pathologies and movements.  Also on view are several small black and white drawings exploring the idea that our bodies are heavily influenced by outside forces, both social and physical.

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
Antony Gormley
Body Art [Artinfo]

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Crowds poured into a sweltering Freeman Alley yesterday evening to attend the opening of Marilyn Minter’s Green Pink Caviar at Salon 94 Freemans. On show were seven new works by the artist that formulate a juxtaposition between photorealistic paintings and painterly photographs. In “her examination of glamour and its underbelly,” Minter’s work operates on the verge between clearness and abstraction, and situates itself ambiguously between the appalling and the beautiful. Minter appropriates the body as a site to play out these dualities. For example, in Snake Charmer (2009), a nipple with a tattooed snake protrudes from an enamel surface. Throughout the exhibition, the tongue and other erotic zones, such as the lips and fingers, boldly enter the viewer’s space. Green Pink Caviar will run through June 13th, 2009.

Marilyn Minter: Green Pink Caviar
Salon 94 Freemans
1 Freeman Alley
April 28, 2009 – June 13, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Exhibition Page [Salon 94]
Marilyn Minter: It’s About Mainting the Integrity of Ideas [Two Coats of Paint]
CHEWING COLOR, curated by Marilyn Minter [Creative Time]
A Mouthful of Marilyn Minter [WMagazine]
Marilyn Minter – Green Pink Caviar [Green Pink Caviar]
Marilyn Minter by Johanna Burton [Amazon]
What Does Goo Mean To You? [New York Magazine]

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Acquavella Galleries presents Chinese contemporary artist Zeng Fanzhi’s first solo exhibition in the United States. The show consists of twenty oil on canvas works, both portraiture and landscape painting. The majority of these pieces have never been shown to the public before. Fanzhi’s oeuvre is a manifestation of personal feelings, the people that surround him and his daily encounters. Early in his artistic development, German Expressionism largely influenced Fanzhi’s aesthetic, but his more recent work draws upon more traditional Chinese practices, such as the landscape painting of the Song Dynasty. In addition, Fanzhi’s use of line recalls Chinese calligraphy and the process of attaining this art. To achieve this, Fanzhi developed a dramatically different technique in which he holds two –sometimes even four- brushes at a time, allowing him to create and to destroy form simultaneously.  As a result, the paintings convey a sensation of spontaneity and sentiment. The works currently on display at Acquavella Galleries are illustrative of Fanzhi’s latest aesthetic.

Zeng Fanzhi
Acquavella Galleries
18 East 79th Street
April 2, 2009 – May 15, 2009

RELATED LINKS
Exhibition Page with Selected Press [Acquavella Galleries]
Artist Page [Acquavella Galleries]
Q & A with Zeng Fanzhi: The solo exhibition at Acquavella Galleries [ArtZine China]
Zeng Fanzhi [Saatchi Gallery]
China’s Art Market: Cold or Maybe Hibernating? [New York Times]
Chinese Contemporary Artist Zeng Fanzhi Solos at Acquavella Galleries [Artron.net]

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Death Explained (2007) by Damien Hirst, via White Cube

Requiem, a major retrospective of over 100 works by Damien Hirst dating from 1990 to 2009, is currently showing at the PinchukArtCentre in Kiev, Ukraine. The show brings together many of Hirst’s most renowned works which range from early iconic sculptures such as A Thousand Years (1990) to more recent works such as the monumental butterfly triptch Doorways to the Kingdom of Heaven (2007) and the famous Death Explained (2007), a sculpture of a shark cut in half and placed into formaldehyde.

Press Release [PinchukArt Center]
Pinchuk to open major Hirst Retrospective [Flash Art]
Damien Hirst Requiem at PinchukArt Center in Ukraine [Artdaily]
Requiem by Damien Hirst at the PinchukArt Center [Gagosian Gallery]            
Hirst Says Art Prices May Still Fall as His Biggest Show Opens [Bloomberg]
Damien Hirst says crisis will stimulate artists [Reuters]
Pinchuk to mount Largest Hirst Retrospective [Artinfo]
Damien Hirst Exhibition to be shown in Kiev [The GuardianUK]
Billionaire Pinchuk to Host Biggest Hirst Show at the Kiev Museum [Bloomberg]

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L.A. based artist Marnie Weber invents fractured narratives that conjure up twisted fairy-tales and haunting, dream like worlds populated by fantastical characters.  The exhibition, The Bondage of Decay, presents one of the final chapters of her narrative of the Spirit Girls, an all female band who die tragically and return as ghosts in a quest for spiritual enlightenment.  In this tale, the lead Spirit Girl guides a group of 12 clowns through varying adventures until she ultimately rejoins the spirit world, leaving them alone to grieve. In addition to an installation of clown sculptures and collages, the exhibition will feature two significant large-scale sculptures: a marble ghost clown and a painted wood circus bear. These are the most ambitious sculptures that the artist has produced, standing approximately 6 feet and 9 feet tall respectively.

Marnie Weber
Marc Jancou Contemporary
Marnie Weber on Artnet
Marnie Weber Wikipedia

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The James Turrell Museum of the Hess Art Collection in Argentina

James Turrell Museum of the Hess Art Collection opens its 18,000 sf space in Argentina, almost 8,000 sf above sea level [Reuters]
The Tate galleries issue over 400 video and audio lectures, talks, debates for free on iTunes [Apple]
A video look inside the studio of Jeff Koons [Tate]
Bruce Nauman in his studio, in anticipation of his representing the US in Venice [NYTimes]

Portrait of Nicholas Roerich via Reuters

Despite the above portrait of Nicholas Roerich by his son fetching $2.9M, close to 3x its high estimate of $1.1 million, sales of Russian art in New York by Sotheby’s and Christie’s clear an unsubstantial $27 million versus last year’s $64 million [Reuters]
Is the value of the work of Richard Prince particularly at risk in this recession? [Portfolio]
Angus Murray launches Castlestone’s $50M Modern Art Fund [Portfolio Advisor]

Damien Hirst with The Hours and the painting he created for their album cover via The GuardianUK

Win the £125,000 orignal painting Damien Hirst made for The Hours’ new album cover [GuardianUK]
MoMA sued by heirs of George Grosz over three works the artist left behind when fleeing Nazi Germany [NY Times]
In related, Austrian city of Linz may return $15 million Gustav Klimt to Holocaust victim [Bloomberg]

A shot of the scene sans Mona Lisa via Vanity Fair

A excerpt from a new book on the famous theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911 [Vanity Fair]
A summary of how dramatically US Museums have been hit by the economic slowdown [ArtNewspaper]
In directly related, a timeline of Museums and the recession [ArtInfo]
The “hottest” art exhibitions of summer 2009 according to Times UK [TimesUK]
London usurps New York as top auction location for 2008, bolstered mainly by Damien Hirst’s Sotheby’s sale [ArtInfo via ArtFagCity]
The low profile nature of private sales causes them to rise in popularity due to the impact of public failure of sales at auction [NYTimes]

Saatchi-online’s billboard partnership with Clearchannel via ArtDaily

Clearchannel partners with Saatchi’s to promote through its billboards Saatchi-online’s commission-free online art sales [ArtDaily]
In related, The 10 winners of the Guardian/Saatchi art competition are announced [Guardian UK]
The world’s largest art prize, decided by vote, launches in Grand Rapids, Michigan [artprize.org]
The Park Avenue Armory in New York announces an annual commission for it’s Drill Hall, on May 14th its inaugural exhibition will be Ernesto Neto [ParkAvenueArmory]
Christie’s auction house creates a specific unit to divest of corporate art works [Crain’sNY]
On its 5th anniversary, the UK’s Art Council Initiative interest free loan program has supported a total of £10.5 million worth of arts purchases involving 12,500 people [Artscouncil]

Damien Hirst’s custom Harley-Davidson motorcycle via Motorcycle News

Damien Hirst creates a custom Harley Davidson for charity [Motorcycle News]
Lawsuit alleges fraud from Louis Vuitton in Murakami 2007-08 LA MOCA exhibition due to prints being merely “factory leftovers from handbag production” [LATimes]
In related, Murakami protege Mr. collaborates on a Lucien Pellat-Finet clothing collection [Hypebeast]
Following the National Portrait Gallery in London announcing its shortlist of three artists for the 2009 BP Portrait Award, an in-depth article on craft [IndependentUK]
Vacant retail locations as exhibition space in London [GuardianUK]

The New Museum presents The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, an exhibition representing fifty international artists who were all born around 1980. Underpinning the exhibition theme is the idea that artist make firm gestures in the early stages of their artistic development. The exhibition gives insight into how this generation of artists experienced and reinterpreted, through their art work, personal and world events that occured during their lifetime so far. Within that reinterpretation, issues of memory , and cross-cultural and cross-generational communication arise. Addressing these issues through questions of technology, identity, collaboration and family uncovers an intimacy in the work that is not obvious at first. Taking up a large part of the museum (the lobby, second floor, third floor, fourth floor and fifth floor), the exhibition will run through 5 July 2009.

The Generational: Younger than Jesus
The New Museum
235 Bowery, New York
8 April 2009 – 5 July 2009

RELATED LINKS
Exhibition Page and Media [The New Museum]
Exhibtion Blog [The New Museum]
Announcement of the Opening [Art Newspaper]
Questioning the Durablity of Young Artists [Two Coats of Paint]
A “Wunderkind” Review [C-Monster]
BLT Gallery “Wiser than God” responds [Two Coats of Paint]
Video Review of the Exhibition [The World’s Best Ever]
Jerry Saltz reviews the Exhibition [New York Magazine]
A “Refreshing” Show [NY Art Beat]
New Art is Complete Anarchy [New Yorker]
A “Vibrant” and “Energetic” Show [NY Art Beat]
“Useless Information” [ArtNet]
The Strengths and the Weaknesses [ArtNet]
An Impression of the Opening Night [New York Times]
Review of the Opening Night [Art Forum]

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Sunset 3 (2008) by Alex Katz, via Pace Wildenstein

Currently showing at Pace Wildenstein Gallery in New York is a new series of ten large-scale paintings on linen and canvas by Alex Katz. The ten landscape paintings captured at twilight and sunset reveal the artist’s continual influence from nature.

Katz studied plein air painting at the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine during the summer following his graduation from The Cooper Union in 1949.  It was the landscape of northern New England which captivated his artistic sentiment drawing him back each summer to the coast of Maine.  In his new works,  Katz captures the Maine light, “which is richer and darker than the light of the Impressionist paintings that helped me separate myself from European painting and find my own eyes,” the artist once explained. The delicate and soft Maine light which he depicts is often found at dusk when the sun is below the horizon.

Press Release
Alex Katz: Fifteen Minutes [Artinfo]
Alex Katz: Fifteen Minutes at Pace Wildenstein [Timeout New York]

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The artist Dustin Yellin talks to Rebecca Schiffman for ArtObserved in his Red Hook studio about his upcoming show ‘Dust in The Brain Attic’ which opens tomorrow, April 23, at Robert Miller Gallery, New York.  The show has been the subject of a good amount of press, including a preview in this month’s Vanity Vair.   Art Observed will be on site to cover the exhibition tomorrow night.

Robert Miller Gallery Dustin Yellin Exhibition Page
Press Release – Dustin Yellin at Robert Miller Gallery Thursday, April 23

‘Smoke Flows in All Directions’ by Aaron Young via Galerie Almine Rech

On the first floor of Galerie Almine Rech in Paris is Aaron Young’s first solo exhibition in France, ‘Introducing Aaron Young.’ The show brings together a number of Young’s signature works. The young New York-based artist is most well-known for his September 2007 performance of ‘Greeting Card’ original video of which was taken by Art Observed and can be seen here. For that show, Young hired professional motorcyclists to skid around and “burnout” over painted wooden panels in the Park Avenue Armory, inviting hundreds of art world notables to see the show. The event was derided by some as thin spectacle, embodying the Gilded Age decadence seen before the financial crisis but it’s resonance in the media was strong.  According to Roberta Smith of the NY Times, some spectators called the result ‘the world’s largest Brice Marden painting.’ A diptych of panels from one of Young’s motorcycle performance is included in ‘Introducing Aaron Young.’

Original Performance of Aaron Young’s ‘Greeting Card’ in New York recorded by Art Observed

Galerie Almine Rech
Aaron Young: Galerie Almine Rech [The Parisian]
Locals Only [Purple]
Warhol’s Child (Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist) [Flash Art]

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Rosson Crow, Queen’s Butcher Shop, 1910 (2008) via Artdaily

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas is currently showing the exhibition FOCUS: Rosson Crow until May 17, 2009.  The exhibition features a small selected collection of Rosson Crow’s grand scale paintings.  It is the first solo exhibition in a museum for the young artist.  Crow’s work has been previously included in numerous galleries including White Cube, London; Deitch Projects, New York; and Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg.

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Exhibition by Painter Rosson Crow Features Large-scale, Vivid Depictions of Nostalgia-laden Interiors [Art Daily]
Texas// First Look: Rosson Crow’s “FOCUS” at the Fort Worth Modern [SuperTouch]
Rosson Crow brings her theatrical flair to Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth [Dallas News]

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Sophie Calle, from “Take Care of Yourself,” French Intelligence Officer, Louise (2007). Via Paula Cooper Gallery.

French conceptual artist Sophie Calle has invited guests into her temporary bedroom in the Eiffel Tower, worked as a maid to photograph strangers’ travel possessions, collaborated on a fictional character with writer Paul Auster, and been followed by a private detective at her own request.  Her latest turn, at New York gallery Paula Cooper, finds Calle dealing with a lover’s breakup via email, using the traumatic experience to explore issues of intimacy vs. mass technology.

Paula Cooper Gallery
Sophie Calle, Take Care of Yourself
534 West 21st Street
April 9 – May 22, 2009

RELATED LINKS
Exhibition Page [Paula Cooper]
Interview: Sophie Calle [Guardian UK]
Sophie Calle: Paula Cooper [Art Forum]
Private pain, public revenge [FT]

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David Zwirner presents Adel Abdessemed’s first solo gallery exhibition in New York.  The particular installation of the exhibition throughout the three main gallery spaces (519 W 19th st., 525 W 19th st., 533 W 19th st.) allows the visitors to set out their own path in a maze-like environment that nevertheless respects the autonomy of the individual artworks. RIO includes Abdessemed’s latest 2008 and 2009 drawings, photographs, videos and sculpture, which are of a strong political nature. Prostitute (2008) addresses religion through a number of copies of the Koran, the Tora and the Bible that were handwritten by prostitutes and Practice zero tolerance (retournée) (2008) consists of a mold of an impounded car from the 2005 violent uprisings in the Paris banlieues.  Abdessemed has titled the show after his daughter with whom he shares the fascination with which “she contemplates the big animals in the zoo that are thirsty and hungry.”  The exhibition runs through 9 May, 2009.

Adel Abdessemed: RIO
David Zwirner
519,525 and 533 West 19th Street

RELATED LINKS
Exhibition Page, Press Release and Biography [David Zwirner]
Exhibition Review highlighting Telle mère tel fils (2008) [Design Boom]
Biography and Discussion of Nature of Abdessemed’s Work [Re-Title]
Exhibition Review [Supertouch]
Exhibition Review II [NY Art Beat]
Article on Controversial Work by Abdessemed [National Coalition Against Censorship]
Video on Controversial Work by Abdessemed (graphic nature, in Italian) [Ribeiro Art]

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Kate Moss by Damien Hirst is the new cover of Tar Magazine (anagram for “art”) [NY Times]
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Art funds launched in 2008, such as the London-based Art Trading Fund, are shelved due to failure to raise required funds [ArtNewspaper]
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Art:21, Art in Twenty-First Century is now available for free on Hulu [Hulu]

Russian Artist Andrea Molodkin, previously cited by AO here, prepares for Venice Biennale [Financial Times]
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Jeff Koons is speaking at Strand Books tonight at 7:00-8:30 in New York [Via FAD]
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New York Old Masters dealer Lawrence Salander is indicted and pleads guilty in $88 million charge [Bloomberg]

A look inside Rome’s MAXXI designed by Zaha Hadid via c-monster

A preview of the MAXXI in Rome, $108 million art museum designed by Zaha Hadid [c-monster]
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Adam Lindemann, financier, collector and author of Collecting Contemporary launches a new book from Taschen: Collecting Design [ArtInfo]

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Flash Art’s current cover featuring a portrait of Barack Obama by Marlene Dumas via Art Fag City

Marlene Dumas’s portrait of Barack Obama is the cover of Flash Art [Art Fag City]
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Madonna’s art collection is estimated at £80 million pounds [TimesUK]

A selection from the site via The World’s Best Ever

A timeline of modern & contemporary art artists by movement, school, style, period, theme & art prize [The-artists.org via The World’s Best Ever]
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Richard Serra to receive honorary degree from Pratt Institute at its 120th Commencement on May 18th [MediaBistro]

Interview with photographer Nan Goldin on why she is auctioning some of the curiosities she has collected [TelegraphUK]
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SFMOMA announces plans for a future expansion, doubling gallery space [SF Chronicle]

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A preview of SANAA’s design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavillion via Architect’s Journal

SANAA, the Japanese architectual duo behind the New Museum, release first glimpse of design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavilion [Architect’s Journal]
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Jim Dine donates 40 drawings influenced by Greek and Roman sculpture to the Morgan Library [Artinfo]

Julian Schnabel’s Picasso Femme au Chapeau will soon be sold by Christie’s [New York Times]
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The Mugrabis, a high impact, market-making collector family, may be addicted to the game of art [The Observer]

Bust (1970) by Pablo Picasso, via Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at Gagosian’s Chelsea Gallery in New York is “Picasso: Mosqueteros,” one of the first exhibitions in the United States to focus on the late paintings of the artist. The selection of works aims to shed new light on the context and subjects that influenced the artist’s later work. Featuring a large group of important paintings and prints from the collection of Bernard Ruiz-Picasso as well as works from The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museo Picasso, Malaga, and various other private collections spanning the years of 1962-1972, the exhibit is the first to display works from Picasso’s later period since the exhibition “Picasso: The Last Years: 1963-1973” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1984. Such unique images of matadors, musketeers, twisted couples and disturbed women provide a glance into the world of Picasso’s later life.

Press Release
A Personal Lesson in Late-Period Picasso [NY Times]
Picasso’s Mosqueteros [Luxury Culture]
Picasso’s Mosqueteros at Gagosian Gallery [Time Out New York]
Picasso Looks Death In the Eye [Economist]

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Terence Koh’s ‘Untitled (Urinal)’ on the opening night of ‘KKK,’ photo by ArtObserved

On Saturday, April 4, ‘Koons-Kelley-Koh,’ or ‘KKK,’ curated by LA-Berlin dealer Javier Peres opened at Mary Boone Gallery. The theme of the exhibition is rather loose. In the press release Peres wrote, ‘My purpose in assembling this exhibition was not to emphasize a curatorial message as such, but rather – quite simply – to put three of my favorite American artists side by side. No tricks, no gimmicks, no bullshit, just sculptures representative of each artist’s practice. I hope you enjoy looking.’ The show includes two sculptures by each artist. It does not feature any of Jeff Koons’s recent signature large-scale sculptures, with all but one of the works on the relatively small side. There is, however, a 24-foot-long piece by Terence Koh, a smashed-up urinal glued back together.

Koons-Kelley-Koh [Mary Boone Gallery]
About Last Night… [PaperMag]
Talking With Terence Koh [ArtCat]
Crate of the week (if not the year…) [Fine Art Shipping]
Terrence Koh, Jeff Koons, And Mike Kelley Host An Exibition At The Mary Boone Gallery [Guest of a Guest]
Terence Koh’s Mary Boone Opening [Style.com]

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Currently on view at Sotheby’s New York for the first time and for a short time only is a selection of works from the collection of Steven and Alexandra Cohen.  The exhibition consists of twenty pieces by masters of the modern period, such as Picasso, de Kooning and Warhol, and leading contemporary artists, dealing with women as subject matter.   Other artists represented in Women are: Edvard Munch, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani. Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil, Yves Klein, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Lucian Freud, Richard Prince, Marlene Dumas and Lisa Yuskavage.

Sotheby’s New York
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Women: A Loan Exhibition from the Collection of Steven and Alexandra Cohen
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1334 York Ave, New York,
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10th floor
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April 2 – April 14, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Exhibition Page and Press Release [Sotheby’s]
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NY Times Carol Vogel Previews the Exhibition [New York Times]
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Steven Cohen’s Rise as a Collector [The Independent]
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MAO Critiquing Cohen’s Motives [MAO]
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NY Mag Examines Cohen’s Motives [New York Magazine]
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The Exhibition in the Light of the Art Market [Wealth Bulletin]
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Speculations on the Exhibition [ArtForum]
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Speculations on the Exhibition II [ArtInfo]
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Speculations on Cohen’s Motives [Bloomberg]
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Exploring Cohen’s Motives [Luxist]
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Preview of the Exhibition [Bloomberg]

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Installation view of Matthew Barney’s ‘Ancient Evenings: Libretto’ via Gladstone Gallery

On view now at Gladstone Gallery in Brussels is Matthew Barney’s ‘Ancient Evenings: Libretto,’ a series of drawings from the seven act opera that Barney is developing with Berlin-based composer Jonathan Bepler.  The opera is based on Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings, set in ancient Egypt chronicling the journeys of the dead, reincarnation, and the gods. The opera follows the seven stages the soul passes through after bodily death according to Egyptian mythology.  Barney replaces the human body with that of the 1967 Chrysler Imperial that figured heavily in his film Cremaster 3, displacing the ancient mythic landscape of the Nile and pyramids for an industrial contemporary setting.  The exhibition includes very detailed drawings of characters in the opera as well as a number of copies of Mailer’s book which Barney has reworked.

Matthew Barney – Ancient Evenings: Libretto [Gladstone Gallery]
Matthew Barney – Ancient Evenings: Libretto [Look Into My Owl]
Ren Master [Interview]

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