Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s ‘Strazzenszene (Street Scene)’ via Artdaily

Claude Monet’s ‘Dans La Prairie’ via Daylife

Sotheby’s London to sell rare work by Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner tomorrow night [Artdaily]
and Monet’s ‘Dans la Prairie’ headlines Christie’s Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art, the night after [Artdaily]
Jeff Koons honored at National Arts Club in New York [NY Observer]
and more on the artist’s multimillion dollar townhouse acquisition woes [NY Times]
An excerpt from Philip Hook’s upcoming book on how in the 50’s, Impressionist works became blue-chip investments through the auction frenzy of nouveau-riche [Financial Times]

Glenn O’Brien for Adam Kimmel via The World’s Best Ever

Interview’s Glenn O’Brien models for Adam Kimmel’s Fall 2009 Collection along with Nate Lowman, Aaron Young, Dan Colen and other downtown art world denizens [The World’s Best Ever]
Jenny Holzer talks about her solo exhibition at MoCA, Chicago [Art21]
The legal ambiguities behind the copyright dispute regarding Richard Prince’s recent Canal Zone show [Wall Street Journal]

The winning design of P.S. 1’s Young Architects Program via NY Times

P.S.1 announces the winning design of its Young Architects Program, described as an ‘afterparty’ of the market boom and bust [NY Times]
The BBC will put 200,000 of the UK’s publicly owned oil paintings online [GuardianUK]
The Economist provides a provenance background of the rare Lucio Fontana soon to be up for sale at Sotheby’s [More Intelligent Life]
Damien Hirst is #13 on GQ’s list of Britain’s 100 most powerful men [Daily Mail]

New view of the planned Tate Modern Extension via Londonist

New renderings released of upcoming Tate Modern extension [Londonist]
Value of Warhol sales have gone down more than 50% in the past 18 months [Artnet]
After the success of Jeff Koons, Versailles is set to exhibit the work of contemporary French artist Xavier Veilhan [Artforum]
Several London Old Master dealers consort to attempt to de-leverage art fairs in favor of a gallery week held in conjunction with Christie’s and Sotheby’s [The Art Newspaper]

Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored, by J.M.W Turner, via Sotheby’s; Sold for $12.9 million.

Christie’s and Sotheby’s recent New York Old Master results were weaker than usual although there was some success amidst slow sales. The roster for the three days of New York sales (28 January at Christie’s and 29th and 30th January at Sotheby’s evening sales), included over 500 prestigious works. Such an opening of the 2009 auction season contained artworks of very fine quality at highly priced estimates. Even despite current economic challenges the two auctioneers offered a number of exceptionally refined artworks. These included a set of works by Francisco de Zurbaran consisting of twelve paintings (the twelve sibyls) priced between $2 and $3 million at Sotheby’s. Christie’s offered a still-life by Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin entitled “Still-Life with a copper pot” estimated between $1.2 to $1.3 million, quite an optimistic pricing since nothing by the artist has sold above the million dollar mark since 1992.

The marquee success came at Sotheby’s. A stunning work by Joseph Mallord Turner entitled “The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius” sold for $12.9 million, a price that is the second highest price ever realized for a work by Turner at auction. The painting won the bid from an anonymous buyer on the telephone and was sold by Richard Feigen, a Manhattan dealer who bought the painting at Christie’s London in 1982 for $1.1 million. The painting was featured in the traveling Turner retrospective that closed in September at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Catalogue: Sotheby’s Old Masters Painting including European Works of Art
Turner and a Few Others Succeed at Slow Sales [NY Times]
Art Market Insight: New York Auctions Open with Old Masters [Art Market Insight]
The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius by JMW Turner sells for $12.9 Million at Sotheby’s New York [ArtDaily]

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Fred Sandback’s ‘Untitled (no. 48, Three Leaning Planes, from 133 Proposals for the Heiner Friedrich Gallery)’ via David Zwirner

Fred Sandback, who died in 2003, is known best for his yarn sculptures that fall somewhere between Minimalist and conceptual art. On view now are two concurrent solo exhibitions at David Zwirner in Chelsea and Zwirner & Wirth in the Upper East Side. Sandback’s sculptures create large planes using colored yarn, outlining a shape and using walls, floors, and ceilings to create a perception of depth and space. The sculptures present an optical illusion of boundaries, of planes cutting across space that look like they may not be crossed but in fact do not exist. It is in that illusion that the theatricality of Sandback’s work lies. Using only the sparest of material he creates a vast, imposing presence.

Fred Sandback at David Zwirner
Fred Sandback at Zwirner & Wirth
Art in Review: Fred Sandback [NY Times]

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Race Riot by Andy Warhol, top left, Forget It! Forget Me! by Roy Lichtenstein, right, and Life is a Killer by John Giorno, bottom left. Undated picture taken at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts. Image via Bloomberg.

Several major Brandeis University donors and trustees suffered substantial losses when Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was exposed, leaving the university in a very precarious financial position.  Facing a potential $79 million deficit, according to an official interviewed at the Daily Beast, the university is facing some rather stark choices: closing the Rose Museum and selling the entire collection at a fire sale price, or potentially firing up to half of its faculty.

Museum page: Rose Art Museum
Statement from Michael Rush, Director of the Rose Art Art Museum, regarding the impending closing of the museum [Rose Museum]
Brandeis Forced To Close Museum [WSJ]
Outcry Over a Plan to Sell Museum’s Holdings [NYT]
Brandeis Art Sale Illustrates Pressures on Colleges [WSJ]
Brandeis President Says School May Keep Its Art, but Rose Will Close [ARTINFO]
Brandeis may keep art, says president [Boston Globe]
Critics Blast Brandeis Plan to Close Rose Museum, Sell Artworks [Bloomberg]
Protests, Rumors swirl in Rose Musem closing [Artnet]
Q&A with Rose Art Museum director Michael Rush [ArtJournal]
A Madoff Sell Off? [TIME]
Brandeis on the Brink [The Daily Beast]
Save the Rose Art Museum [Facebook]

More detail on the story after the jump…

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Fashion 4 (2008) by Alex Katz, via Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery

Alex’s Katz’s most recent works, focusing on the world of style, are currently exhibited at the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery in Paris through February 14th, 2009.  Fashion is a recurring theme for the American artist.  The sitters of Katz’s paintings are not the subjects of his work; they serve merely as a way for him to focus on what is considered glamorous and fashionable.  Style thus takes on a dimension of its own in Katz’s work serving as an undeniable catalyst for social commentary.  He paints people that he often encounters in his circle such as celebrities, models, actors, and artists as well as his long time muse and wife, Ada.

Alex Katz: Fashion Studies
Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery
7, rue Debelleyme 75003 Paris France
through February 14, 2009
Exhibition Page: Alex Katz Fashion Studies

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New York Stock Exchange After Bond Rally 1919 (2006) by Rosson Crow, currently on display at the White Cube Gallery, Hoxton Square, London; picture via White Cube

Rosson Crow’s ‘Texas Crude,’ which explores themes from American history and myth, is on display at Jay Jopling’s White Cube Gallery in London through February 21st, 2009.

Crow’s paintings depict locations set during historical periods or evocative of culturally significant events, devoid of people yet retaining vestiges of their presence–or rather, theatrical vestiges of their most Dionysian, excessive behavior. The settings tend to be large rooms at bars, hotels, or theatres, painted on a scale that inserts the viewer into the space.

‘Texas Crude’ continues in the vein of her previous works, with the titles of the paintings serving as a guide to their contents: ‘Wildcatting in Paradise’ serving as an exploration of the early days of Texas oil prospecting and its impact on the physical and economic landscape of Crow’s home state, while ‘New York Stock Exchange after Bond Rally 1919’ conjures the moment between the end of World War I and the Roaring 20s. Similarly, ‘Lincoln’s Funeral’ references the death and assassination of the President; a somber hearse carriage is the background to an explosive palette of red, white and muted blackish blue found in flowers and ribbons intersecting the painting. Crow’s style incorporates a wide array of influences, from Impressionism to Las Vegas to Baroque interior design.  The paintings in this show, like her oeuvre as a whole, reflect these influences and inspirations while tying them together in a very unlikely fashion, creating a very original and unmistakable aesthetic.

Crow, who graduated from Yale’s MFA program just over two years ago, and being born in 1982 is relatively young amongst those represented by the gallery,  is showing at White Cube for the first time.  Crow is also represented by Honor Fraser in California and CANADA in New York.  The artist, who was born in Texas, currently resides in California.

TEXAS CRUDE
by Rosson Crow on display through Feb 21, 2009
White Cube Gallery
48 Hoxton Square
London, England

Exhibition page: Texas Crude
Artist page: Rosson Crow

more images after the jump…

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Charles Saatchi, photo via Welt

British art collector, Charles Saatchi, famous for launching the now established careers of “Young British Artists” of the 1990’s such as Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin and others, is set to preside over a new reality television show on BBC2, described as the Art X Factor.

In an attempt to be the next YBA Hirst or Emin, artists over the age of 18 and residing in the UK will submit their work online.  All artistic genres, from painting to conceptual, will be accepted.  A panel of art world experts will narrow the entries down to approximately 50 which will then be presented to Saatchi in the form of an exhibition.  Saatchi, himself, will then select six of these artists to participate in the TV show “Saatchi’s Best of British.”

Charles Saatchi is indisputably one of the most significant figures in the art world.  In 1970, Saatchi founded the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi with his brother Maurice.  By 1986 Saatchi and Saatchi grew to be the largest ad agency in the world, with over 600 offices.  Yet Saatchi is as much famous perhaps for his direct influence in the art market, establishing the Saatchi Gallery in 1985 in London.  He recently opened his new space in October of last year at Duke of York Headquarters Building in Chelsea, London (as covered by Art Observed here).  In 1997 he mounted an exhibition at the Royal Academy titled Sensation, which travelled to Berlin and New York ruffling feathers along the way and causing the regognition of the artists in the show to in most cases shift to an entirely higher plane.

Jonathan Jones: Reality TV has nothing to offer the art world [Guardian]
Saatchi to front art talent show [BBC]
BBC and Charles Saatchi Launch Reality Show [Art Daily]
Charles Saatchi to host Art X-Factor [Times]
TV show hunts for next Damien Hirst [Metro]
Reality show taps Saatchi [CBC]
X Factor for budding artists [Marie Claire]

More after the jump… (more…)

The late Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge

A look into Christie’s coming Yves Saint Laurent sale, the largest single owner sale in auction history [Economist]
An interview with artist Jenny Holzer [Art21]
A review of Denis Dutton’s book “The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution” which attempts to define art within a socio-biological context [NYObserver]

Bernd Runge, now at the helm at Phillips de Pury via Tattler.ru

Ex-VP of Conde Nast (and ex-East German Stasi secret police spy) appointed by newly Russian owned Phillips Auction house as CEO and in related, Ex-British Petroleum CEO to run the Tate museum group [Bloomberg]
Sotheby’s discontinues the practice of allowing art to be bought at auction with credit cards [NYMag]

Guernica – By Pablo Picaso via Pdx.edu

Picasso’s Guernica to adorn Whitchapel Gallery reopening in April [ArtNewspaper]
Christie’s combines 19th Century European Art, Old-Master Paintings, Old Master Drawings and British Drawings into one department to create an umbrella category for art between 1300 and 1900 [NYTimes]
The complicated process behind creating and selling forged Russian artwork [Forbes]

Installation view, Plant Lithographs by Ellsworth Kelly, at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, via Ingleby Gallery

One of the greatest living artists, Ellsworth Kelly, 85, was a founding protagonist of the abstract expressionist movement that emerged in 1950s America.

Kelly was once a contemporary of Pollock and Rothko, developing his own minimalistic compositions where line, color, form and space are thoughtfully crafted into abstract visual compositions, bearing a very distinctive and identifiable sensibility that has become his trademark. The works on display at Edinburgh’s Ingleby Gallery span his career from the 1960s to as recently as 2004, and show a persistence and consistency that is surpassed only by the purity and deceptively simple beauty of the pieces. The lithographs have the effect of appearing more figurative than they actually are–upon closer inspection, the lines in the composition become less obviously configured to represent its subject, and more abstract.

Kelly began to explore the form of plants and other subjects culled from nature while living in Paris in the 1940s.  He moved back to the U.S. in 1954, and began making prints ten years later. The lithographs in the show are from the artist’s personal collection and several have never been exhibited before. They are available for sale and will be on display through January 31st.

PLANT LITHOGRAPHS FROM THE ARTIST’S COLLECTION
Ellsworth Kelly
on display at the Ingleby Gallery
through February 7th, 2009
15 Calton Road, Edinburgh, Scotland

Exhibition page: Ellsworth Kelly
Gallery page: Ingleby Gallery
Pick of the week: Plant Lithographs by Elsworth Kelly [Times UK]
Exhibition preview: Ellsworth Kelly, Edinburgh [Guardian]

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Abstraktes Bild 809-3 (1994) by Gerhard Richter, via the Tate

Under a program called “Artist Rooms,” the British public (and anyone visiting the United Kingdom) will be able to enjoy a large and diverse collection of contemporary art, including works by Joseph Beuys, Jenny Holzer, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Diane Arbus, Gerhard Richter, Gilbert and George, Damien Hirst and other prominent and influential artists ranging from the immediate postwar period to the present.

The works originally belonged to Anthony d’Offay, one of contemporary art’s most powerful dealers and collectors. d’Offay relinquished his 725-piece collection worth £125 million to the British and Scottish governments; the dealer effectively sold his collection to the governments for £26.5 million, far below market value . The collection was then transferred it to the National Galleries of Scotland and the Tate.

The works are set up in a series of 50 rooms featuring 25 artists, located at 18 galleries and museums throughout the United Kingdom, in an ambitious effort to broaden the audience and geographical reach of contemporary art. Sir Nicholas Serota, head of the Tate, expressed the hope that the show could be kept on the road indefinitely(as reported last February by Art Observed here).  The Art Fund, an arts charity, is working in conjunction with the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, and has pledged £250,000 a year to help keep the “permanent tour” going.

“Artist rooms” marks the first time a national collection is being shown simultaneously across the UK, and the first room will open on March 2nd, 2009 at the Tate Britain, featuring the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay.

Rooms with a view: £125m art collection tours UK [Guardian]
Art collection to be split and shown around UK [Reuters]
Artist Rooms Collection of Contemporary Art Goes Nationwide [ArtDaily]
British Dealer Anthony D’Offay Sells 725 Works to Tate for Reported Fifth of Their Value [ArtObserved]
Exhibition page: Artist Rooms collection at the Tate
Exhibition page: Artist Rooms collection at the National Galleries of Scotland

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Diamond Mind Circle of Tears Fallen All Around Me via Peter Freeman.

Peter Freeman presents for the first time in the United States Bruce Nauman’s 1970’s installation Diamond Mind Circle of Tears Fallen All Around Me. The piece was first displayed at the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1975 and then at the S.M.A.K in Gent, Belgium in 1992. The work, which is intended to explore the visual discernment of the viewer, consists of six sandstone blocks distributed in a rhomboid shape.  The presentation of the cubes creates a sense that the room itself is slightly aslant forcing the viewer to take a closer look at the work and its surrounding expanse. The installation is one in a series of seven the artist created in the 1970’s consisting of rhomboid cubes aimed at examining human perception. On display as well are the large drawings that served as Nauman’s blueprint for the work.

Press Release [Peter Freeman]

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Jubilee Operations #1 (2007) by Edward Burtynsky, via Flowers East

Australian Landscapes by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, now on view at Flowers East in London, captures various landscapes of Australian mines. They document iron ore operations at Mount Whaleback, salt mining in the Pilbara regionm the Kalgoorlie super pit, and various open cut nikel mines in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.

Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in Burtynsky’s work. “I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning,” he says. Burtynsky has explored China’s Three Gorges Dam Project, Italy’s marble quarries, and the open-pit copper mining procedures in Western Australia that appear in these photographs.

Edward Burtynsky: Australian Landscapes
Flowers East
82 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DP
through February 9, 2009
Exhibition Page: Edward Burtynsky: Australian Landscapes

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Terence Koh in United  Bamboo via Refinery29

Artist and downtown NYC fixture Terence Koh Models for United Bamboo [Refinery29]
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A review of director of Hauser and Wirth gallery Gregor Muir’s book on the seminal period of the Young British Art movement of the 80’s “They were too drunk, too coked up, too busy scrounging up some rent, too out of work and squalor-happy to remember much about the glory days.” [TimesUK]
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Art Tactic reports 81% fall in confidence levels in contemporary-art market, predicts 3-5 years to recovery, institutes new “survival rating” to predict artists to be considered still relevant in 10 years [Bloomberg]
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In related, the Art Newspaper offers predictions for the market in 2009 [ArtNewspaper]
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Olafur Eliasson’s book via Space Invading

Commissioned by MOMA, Olafur Eliasson creates 454 page, 85:1 scale, laser-cut negative space rendering of his home [SpaceInvading]
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Video of Rirkrit Tiravanija serving up vegetarian curry at a grafitti’d construction installation at David Zwirner [NewArtTV]
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The Louvre begins managing its first ever endowment of $230m received from the United Arab Emirates to build a museum there [NYTimes]
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When artwork decays and requires reproduction [WallStreetJournal]
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Anthony Haden-Guest on Yves Saint Laurent’s 700+ work art collection to be auctioned in February by Christie’s Paris at a £200m to £300m estimate [GuardianUK]
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Invitation to Jonathan Meese’s ‘Casinoz Babymetabolismn’ via re-title

Showing now at Stuart Shave Modern Art in London is Jonathan Meese’s solo show ‘Casinoz Babymetabolismn.’ It is comprised of paintings, sculptures, and collages, and centers around a rather unlikely subject: Scarlett Johansson. Giving a tour to Art Review, Meese said, ‘This exhibition is a total homage to metabolismn Scarlett Johansson. There you see the mouth of Scarlett Johansson eating a human strawberry, and that is wonderful. If this mouth says that art will rule the world soon, all politicians have to go home…all politicians have to leave the parliaments so that art can rule the world totally.’

Jonathan Meese at Stuart Shave Modern Art [Modern Art]
Jonathan Meese, Casinoz Babymetabolismn [Art Review]
Jonathan Meese – “CASINOZ BABYMETABOLISMN” (Put DR. NO’S MONEY in your mouth, Baby) [Artnet]

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Opening night for New Paintings by Peter Doig at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise photos by Art Observed

New Paintings by Peter Doig, opened at Gavin Brown’s enterprise and Michael Werner Gallery on January 17th. Doig, a Scottish artist who grew up in Canada and Trinidad, where he currently lives, has not had a solo show in New York since 2002, when Michael Werner Gallery exhibited a survey of his works on paper. ‘New Paintings’ feature several works painted by Doig over the last two years in his studio in the Caribbean.

Man dressed as a bat (2008) by Peter Doig, via Gavin Brown’s enterprise

NEW PAINTINGS
January 17th to February 21st, 2009
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St
New York, NY
Open Tues – Sat, 10am to 6pm.

Exhibition page: New Paintings
Profile: Peter Doig at Saatchi Gallery

My life in art: How Peter Doig taught me to pay attention [Guardian UK]

Previously on ArtObserved:
Go See: Peter Doig Retrospective at the Tate Britain
Go See: Peter Doig Retrospective at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

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Andrew Wyeth, photographed at his Chadd’s Ford, Pa. property, via the New York Times

“Wyeth was an anti-modern painter … He did paintings that never changed, in a style that never changed. His image is one of stasis in a world that changed dramatically around him, and for my money that is a conservative position. It is in many ways a futile exercise, but he did it with great energy and conviction.”
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— Robert Storr, Dean, Yale University School of Art, to the New York Times.

Andrew Wyeth, a key figure in 20th century American art and one of its most popular artists, died on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at the age of 91.  Wyeth’s oeuvre, which falls squarely within the realism genre of painting, has provoked both intense praise and intense criticism regarding the quality and content of his work.

His paintings centered around depictions of rural America, its landscapes and its people, and was often dismissed as formulaic, trite Americana. His works were infused with a sincerity that stood in marked contrast to the Modernist, Abstract Expressionist and Pop art movements that emerged during his career.  Nevertheless, the artist was always sought out among the general populace, with paintings such as Christina’s World becoming as familiar as Grant Wood’s American Gothic, becoming widely reproduced in prints. Wyeth was especially popular in Middle America for what many considered a steadfast, romantic patriotism and attachment to rural themes and subjects.

An Unmistakable Figure on the Barren Landscape [Washington Post]
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For Wyeth, Both Praise and Doubt [New York Times]
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Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91 [New York Times]
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Andrew Wyeth, painter of Christina’s World, dies aged 91 [Times UK]
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Andrew Wyeth, Painter of ‘Christina’s World,’ Dies [Bloomberg]
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Weighing Andrew Wyeth [Wall Street Journal]
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US artist Andrew Wyeth dies [BBC]

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Francis Bacon – Man in Blue VI via TimesUK

Francis Bacon’s ‘Man in Blue VI’ highlights Christie’s February 11th sale [BBC]
Museums cut budgets as endowments shrink [Art Newspaper]

Art Dealer and White Cube Gallery owner Jay Jopling and Artist Sam Taylor-Wood via the DailyMail

On the fractious Jay Jopling and Sam Taylor-Wood “£100m divorce” and a brief history of the couple [DailyMail]
Art galleries Guild & Greyshkul, Cohan and Leslie, and Roebling Hall are the latest to close [Artnet]
The Guggenheim museum sets record attendance [Cranes] as does The Louvre [ArtInfo]
Fashion brand Lucien Pellat-Finet to collaborate with artist Marc Quinn [Vogue]

Lucio Fontana – Concetto spaziale, 1961 via ArtDaily

Sotheby’s February 5 London Contemporary Art Evening auction to sell
Lucio Fontana’s rediscovered Concetto spaziale (1961) at at estimate of £5-7 million [Reuters]
The total value of London’s art auctions in February are a mere 23% of 2008 levels [Bloomberg]
Scores of artists settle in Sunset Park, Brooklyn’s “Industry City” [NYMag]
Art colleges as hype machines? [GuardianUK]

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s cover for U2 via Blitz.pt

Hiroshi Sugimoto is the cover art for U2 new album [Rolling Stone]
Edward Winkleman offers tactics for art galleries to weather a recession [ArtworldSalon]

Installation view of Will Ryman’s ‘The Bed’ via Saatchi

Will Ryman’s sculptural installation ‘The Bed’ is on view at Saatchi Gallery in London through May 6, 2009. The work is constructed out of papier mâché and is centered around a 26-foot-long bed with a sleeping man, surrounded by empty malt liquor cans, cigarette butts and various debris from a night of lonely indulgence.  It depicts a scene described as ‘somewhere between Sunday morning lie-in bliss and nervous breakdown.’ The exaggerated scale and clumsy construction depicts a cartoonish world while also presenting a formidable spectacle.  In his artist’s statement, Ryman said that ‘The Bed’ originated with his childhood impression of his parents’ bed being much bigger than it actually was, and is an exploration of one’s distorted perspective of one’s place in the world and relationship to surroundings.

Will Ryman [Saatchi]
Huge bed sculpture installed at gallery [Worthing Herald]
Another unmade be receives the Saatchi treatment [Evening Standard]

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Chiara Clemente, photo by Maciek Kobielski via NYT

Our City Dreams, a new documentary by Chiara Clemente, daughter of renowned painter Francesco Clemente, is set to have its New York theatrical premiere at Film Forum, Wednesday, February 4, 2009.

The film, an 87-minute-long “love letter to the city,” enters the creative spaces of five women artists ranging in age from 30 to 80, from different generations and cultures, but whose work and lives are now intrinsically connected to New York City – Swoon, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Marina Abramovic, and Nancy Spero.  Each artist is allotted her own segment which explores her work and complex relationship to the city.

The film is crafted in black-and-white, color, super 8, 16mm, DV and HD shot by Theo Stanley, and followed by a theme-driven score by Thomas Lauderdale.  Variety’s Ronnie Scheib states that Clemente’s “exquisitely crafted” documentary “itself quite simply ranks of a work of art.”

Our City Dreams Website
Film Forum
Review of Our City Dreams [Variety]
Loving Portrait of 5 NYC Women Premieres at Film Forum [Art Daily]

Our City Dreams – 87 minutes – distributed by First Run Features

More information and images after the jump..

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‘Untitled’ by Wallace Berman, via NY Times

Opening tomorrow at Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles is ‘She,’ an exhibition featuring the works of Richard Prince and the late Wallace Berman, centered around both artists’ love of women. Prince and Berman ostensibly have little in common. Berman, who died in 1976, was influential in the Beat community in San Francisco and Los Angeles and well known for for his verifax collages and hand-made magazine, ‘Semina,’ mailed only to his friends.  Prince, an often controversial contemporary art star whose works fetch high prices, has long been drawn to Berman and his work, collecting many of those ‘Semina’ magazines. The artists’ work both explore the sexuality and carnality of women while aiming to avoid explicit pornographic undertones, though both been accused of obscenity.

‘SHE’ works by Wallace Berman and Richard Prince [Michael Kohn Gallery]
Two Artists United by Devotion to Women [NY Times]
Richard Prince and Wallace Berman ‘She’ Exhibition [SLAMXHYPE]

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Christie’s headquarters, 8 King Street, London

Christie’s has announced a broad restructuring plan in measures designed to deal with the deteriorating economic environment, and the resulting fallout in the art market.

While details are still vague, a statement issued by Christie’s indicated that the company has “begun to implement a company wide reorganization, which includes significant staff reductions, not renewing many consultants’ contracts, and the continuation of other cost-reduction initiatives, that will ensure we remain competitive and profitable in 2009,” without specifying exactly how many jobs would be eliminated.

“There’s a consultation process going on at the moment, so we’re not in a position to comment on numbers,” Alexandra Buxton, Christie’s European head of public relations, said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. These measures follow a series of dismal auctions including a contemporary art sale in November where $114 million, or less than half of the low estimate was raised, as covered here by ArtObserved.

Christie’s cut costs as art market slows [New York Times]
Christie’s Auction House to Slash Jobs [Wall Street Journal]
Christie’s to Cut Jobs as Crisis Cuts Auction Sales [Bloomberg]
Christie’s Plans “Significant Staff Reductions” [ArtInfo]
Cuts Announced at Christie’s and Denver Art Museum; LA Arts Writers See Layoffs [ArtForum]

Previously on ArtObserved:
CHRISTIE’S AND SOTHEBY’S OLD MASTERS AUCTIONS IN LONDON SHOW RESILIENCE Dec 5
AO AUCTION ROUNDUP 5 OF 5 – NOVEMBER AUCTION SUMMARY: THE REALITY OF AN INDISPUTABLE BUYER’S MARKET Nov 19
AO AUCTION RESULTS: CHRISTIE’S “THE MODERN AGE,” THE ALICE LAWRENCE AND HILLMAN FAMILY COLLECTIONS SELL FOR LESS THAN 50% OF ESTIMATE AS ROTHKO AND MANET HEADLINERS ARE PULLED Nov 8
SOTHEBY’S STOCK DROPS 14% (DOWN 75.7% FROM ITS HIGH) FOLLOWING DISMAL ASIAN AUCTION RESULTS Oct 7
TOP AUCTION HOUSE PHILLIPS DE PURY BOUGHT BY RUSSIAN LUXURY RETAIL COMPANY MERCURY GROUP Oct 7

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Soma Series (2) (detail) by Carsten Höller, via Gagosian Gallery

Reindeers and Spheres by Carsten Höller, now on view at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, presents an intriguing mix of photographic collages, sculpture, and installation that provoke the structure of learned behavior in order to question what is considered rational. “The real material I am working with is people’s experiences”, the artist said of his work. There is no cohesive underlying meaning; everything is left to the interpretation of the viewer. The exhibition is Höller’s first show in Los Angeles.

Carsten Höller Reindeers and Spheres
Gagosian Gallery
456 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
through February 14, 2009
Press Release: Carsten Höller Reindeers and Spheres
Press: Carsten Höller Exhibition, LA [Wallpaper]
Carsten Höller’s Double Club Project in London[Gagosian Gallery News]
Carsten Höller: Reindeers and Spheres [LA Times]

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Erasmus portrait purported to be by Holbein the Younger, via The Art News

Experts speculate that new portrait of Erasmus is by Holbein the Younger [ArtInfo]
Art auction houses have always been touted as the most transparent transactions in the system, but they are  far more complex and secretive, and in recent years, much more is at stake [Financial Times]
Review of critic Michael Fried’s latest book: Why Photography Matters… [Artforum]

Shepard Fairey’s ‘Hope’ portrait of Barack Obama, via AP

Smithsonian acquires Shepard Fairey’s ‘Hope’ portrait of Obama [ArtInfo]
White Cube’s Jay Jopling’s rise to power and the current pressure from a failing market, gossip tabloids [The Times UK]

Brad Pitt portrait in daguerreotype by Chuck Close, via W Magazine

Chuck Close’s daguerreotype portrait of Brad Pitt is W Magazine’s new cover [W Magazine]
The Vatican aims to exhibit art in a ‘national pavilion’ during the Venice Biennale as a counbterpoint to “blasphemous” modern art [Times UK]

Black on Maroon (1959) by Mark Rothko, part of the Seagram mural series, via Tate Modern; studies for the Seagram series are owned by Ezra Merkin, who lost billions to Bernie Madoff ‘s investment scheme.

Assailed Madoff victim has 12 Rothkos; collectors salivate [Bloomberg]
The Art Newspaper explores the changing emerging art markets of China, and Russia here, and India here [Art Newspaper]

Degas’ ‘Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans’ via Guardian

Degas’ Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, bought for £5m five years ago, is  expected to sell for £12m despite the recent market slowdown. Sir John Madejski, owner of Reading FC and a noted British philanthropist, will be selling Degas’ sculpture at Sotheby’s sale of impressionist art in London next month.

Petite Danseuse, created during 1879 and 1881 is the only sculpture Degas exhibited in his lifetime, and was cast in wax since the artist could not afford to have it done in bronze. The model for the sculpture was Marie van Goethem, a ballerina with the Paris Opera, who was also the inspiration for several of Degas’ paintings.

Madejski puts Degas dancer back in the transfer market at £12m [Guardian]
Degas’s The Little Dancer up for sale [Telegraph]