Richard Prince (left) and Larry Gagosian (right), via ArtInfo

Patrick Cariou, a photographer, has filed a lawsuit against Richard Prince after the artist allegedly used photographs without consent from Yes Rasta, a book released by Cariou in 2000, in several of his works in his ‘Canal Zone’ series, which is based in part on a post-apocalyptic vision of the island of St. Barths (exhibit covered by Art Observed here).  Larry Gagosian and Rizzoli, the publisher of Richard Prince’s book, are also named as defendants. Gagosian’s involvement stems from the fact that the works in question were featured a month ago at the ‘Canal Zone’ show at his gallery, while Rizzoli is responsible for the book covering the exhibition.

Prince, who is most famous for collages of photographs from ads often featuring prominent brands and iconic figures, among other things, has caused a stir in the past due to allegations of copyright infringement and misappropriation.  In this specific instance, Cariou is especially incensed due to the fact that he spent 10 years in the mountains of rural Jamaica gaining the trust of the Rastafarians who are the subject of his book, only to have these images easily appropriated by Prince without any indication of context or subtext.

Richard Prince and Gagosian get slapped with suit [ArtFagCity]
Photographer Sues Prince, Gagosian, and Rizzoli [ArtInfo]
Artist site: Richard Prince
Gallery: Gagosian

Previously on ArtObserved:
AO ON SITE: RICHARD PRINCE’S CANAL ZONE, GAGOSIAN GALLERY, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH, CHELSEA, NEW YORK

Installation view of Yoshitomo Nara at Blum and Poe, Los Angeles, via Blum and Poe

Yoshitomo Nara’s sixth solo show with Blum & Poe features a new series of paintings and drawings, as well as a large scale sculptural installation of a prairie wagon that is as Old West as it is Modern. The wagon’s interior features a number of items: drawings, stuffed animals, and found or specially selected objects–designed to evoke innocence and nostalgia, although the subtle hint of menace usually found in much of Nara’s work is absent here.

The other pieces of the installation by the Japanese pop artist also weave in allusions to the old American West and Manifest Destiny: two paintings resembling billboards feature young girls, one playing a guitar, the other depicted alone surrounded by the words “So…how can you tell me you are lonely?” The installation reflects Nara’s and Japan’s post-war fascination with American pop culture as well as Nara’s childhood as an only child of blue collar parents, often left to his own creative devices due to his parents’ long work shifts.

Acrylic paintings in an adjacent room are typical of Nara’s oeuvre, featuring children with large eyes, more often than not alone. The eyes convey a wide array of ambiguous emotions, including fear, warmth, defiance, elation, and boredom, often in combination. The children’s eyes in the most recent paintings take on a more haunting, glassy yet somehow inviting appearance than in previous pieces due to the creative application of different colors, textures and materials. The color departs  a bit more from the pastels that have become Nara’s trademark, while the texture of the pieces differs markedly from the oil, pencil, and crayon-like pieces he has become known for, putting a new twist on a very intriguing artist who has become a star in his own country, much like his contemporary Takashi Murakami.

YOSHITOMO NARA
through January 31, 2009
Blum and Poe
2754 La Cienega, Los Angeles, CA

Exhibition page: Yoshitomo Nara at Blum & Poe
Press release: Yoshitomo Nara at Blum & Poe
Yoshitomo Nara at Marianne Boesky Gallery
Yoshitomo Nara – Artnet Profile [Artnet]
A critical essay on Yoshitomo Nara [AssemblyLanguage]

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Anish Kapoor – ‘Installation View at Regen Projects’, LA, via Regent Projects

Drawings and Installations, a show by Anish Kapoor, is on view at the Regen Projects in LA, until February 28^th. The show deviates from the usual sculptures that Kapoor is best known for. Using drawings and installations, Kapoor manages to fill entire rooms with simple yet large objects to create a sense of scarceness yet serenity. Anish Kapoor is an Indian-born British Installation Artist, best known for his large sculptures, which often simulate simple curves with cavities and bends. These traits can be found in the installations at the Regen Projects exhibition. The large concave white disc disorients the viewer through its glossy finish, reflecting the room’s light and other objects – namely the black item placed opposite. The choice to exhibit the installations in white rooms, accents this.

 

Focus: Anish Kapoor: Regan Projects, LA

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Winter Landscape, Huang Xi via Interview/Terence Koh

Winter Landscape, an installation by Tianjin-based artist Huang Xi, is on view twenty-four hours a day until January 31, through a peep hole in the window of Terence Koh’s Asia Song Society Gallery, on Canal Street in New York’s Chinatown.  Koh describes Xi’s piece as a “joyful winter landscape” based on Caspar David Friedrich’s “Winter Landscape With Church” (1811), but without the “religious” part.  At night a red light glows from ASS’s store front window which has been treated to look as if frosted over in a storm.

Invite for Winter Landscape, Asia Song Society

Winter Landscape is on view at Asia Song Society, 45 Canal Street, New York, NY, December 19, 2008 – January 31, 1009

Asia Song Society
Terence Koh [Hint Mag]
Winter Postcard from Terence Koh [Interview]

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Jasper Johns’ ‘Flag’ via MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art now has on view a survey of the work of Jasper Johns. The exhibition presents a focus on Johns’ reworking and repetition of ideas and motifs, and celebrates the Museum’s recent acquisition of thirteen new works on paper done by Johns in 2001. These untitled works are based around Johns’ ‘Catenary’ theme, so named for the curve of a string between two points, a figure prominent in most of the works. Johns received leftover, rejected prints from the printshop of two aquatints, ‘Untitled (Positive)’ and ‘Untitled (Negative).’ He used those prints to rework the images, collaging, painting, and drawing over the prints.

Focus: Jasper Johns [MoMA]
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MoMA Shows Off: 13 Works On Paper by Jasper Johns [SFGate]
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The Museum of Modern Art Presents Focus: Jasper Johns [Artdaily]

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Installation view of Jim Dine’s ‘Hot Dream (52 Books)’ via PaceWildenstein

On view at PaceWildenstein’s West 25th Street location is a new multi-media show by Pop artist Jim Dine.  The exhibition includes books, sculpture, photographs, poetry, and collage, and reportedly is born of the artist’s desire to produce one book a week for a year. In the installation, Dine explores his consciousness and memory with a profuse juxtaposition of his poetry, both spoken and written, old photographs and mementos, along with sculptures and books.

Jim Dine: Hot Dream (52 Books) Exhibition Detail [PaceWildenstein]
Hot Dream (52 Books) [Steidl]
Jim Dine: Poet Singing (Getty Villa Exhibitions) [Getty Museum]

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Alanna Heiss via ArtNet

Alanna Heiss has retired after 37 years of curating MoMA’s PS1; an article on her final show [NYTimes]
$250,000 worth of prints including those by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse stolen in Berlin [AssociatedPress]
A chronicle of the rise of auction prices before the fall, and a rumor that 2/3 of the bidders for Hirst’s monumental September auction may not actually pay for the works, and part 2 here [Bloomberg]
A video of  Eric Fischl at Mary Boone [Newarttv]

Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally via the ArtNewspaper

US lawsuit filed to confiscate Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally from the Leopold Museum in Vienna is suspended [ArtNewspaper]
Art dealers as paparazzi fodder?  White Cube owner Jay Jopling garners attention with singer Lily Allen in St. Barths [TheMirror]
also on the island, dealer Larry Gagosian and the band Kings of Leon fete collectors Roman Abramovich, Dasha Zhukova and Aby Rosen, designer Marc Jacobs, hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, musician Jon Bon Jovi and actor Daniel Craig among others [IndependentUK]
In other art world vacation news, Damien Hirst hires 4 guards formerly in the British Special Forces to protect him during his Mexico holidays [MercoPress]

The Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion via architecturelist

The Zaha Hadid-designed Chanel Mobile Art tour is stopped; London, Moscow, and Paris canceled [ArtInfo]
Emmanuel Perrotin on three current Parisian exhibitions [The Moment – NYTimes]
MoMA to launch two-year series of live performance works [NYMag]
Collector Ronald Lauder interviewed at his Klimt-rich Neue Galerie in New York [Financial Times]
Damien Hirst bans a documentary film of his Statuephilia work [TelegraphUK]
The Velvet Underground’s John Cale will represent Wales at Venice Biennale of Art next year [BBC]
The controversial act of State museums deaccessioning works [NYTimes]
The Getty endowment has declined 25% [LATimes]
Art Info’s Top 5 art world figures of 2008 [ArtInfo]

‘Rabbit’ by Jeff Koo ns, as displayed at Versailles via Bloomberg

Jeff Koons’s show at Versailles, previously covered here by ArtObserved, was mired in controversy right up to its very end.  Prince Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme, a descendant of the Louis XIV, the Sun King who built the Versailles palace where the exhibition took place, filed a lawsuit in the administrative court of that town to bring the show to a halt based on the “right to live without the profanation of one’s ancestors” and the “right to access knowledge of heritage without pornographic constraints.” Prince Charles-Emmanuel considered the show “pornographic” and “a desecration and an attack on the respect due to the dead,” and vowed to take the lawsuit to the Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest court for state affairs, after it was dismissed by the judge in Versailles.

Jeff Koons Versailles was the first Koons retrospective in Europe, and is considered responsible for a 15% increase in visitors to the Versailles palace since it opened in September. The exhibition closed on January 4th, 2009.

Descendant of Louis XIV tries to ban exhibition [Guardian]
Royal Heir Angered by Koons at Versailles [New York Times]
Sun King descendant loses case against Koons exhibition at Versailles [ArtForum]

Previously on ArtObserved:
GO SEE: JEFF KOONS’S CONTROVERSIAL INSTALLATION AT VERSAILLES, FRANCE, THROUGH DECEMBER 14 [September 12th, 2008]
JEFF KOONS SETS UP AT THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES, FRANCE IN SEPTEMBER [August 8th, 2008]

more images after the jump…

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Knives (1981) Polaroid Photography by Andy Warhol, via Paul Kasmin Gallery

A selection of 70 Still-Life Polaroids by Andy Warhol are currently on display at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York. The works depict a unique assortment of objects taken by Warhol between 1977 and 1983 and photographed as subjects for Warhol’s drawings, silkscreens, and paintings. The rarity of Polaroid film tells of a specific moment in Warhol’s practice as well as in the history of photography.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is famous for his contributions to Pop Art, an art movement that emerged in the 1950s and remained popular over the next two decades.  Photography was an integral part of Warhol’s artwork.  He often referred to his Polaroid Big Shot camera that he purchased in 1970 as his “Pencil and Paper.”

The exhibition captures a variety of subject matter including ballet shoes, eggs, bananas, knives, guns, and disorderly arrangements of shoes and perfume bottles as well as other commercial products such as his iconic soup can and Brillo boxes.

Andy Warhol Still-Life Polaroids
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Paul Kasmin Gallery
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511 27th Street New York, New York
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through January 10, 2009
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Press Release: Andy Warhol Still-Life Polaroids
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Press: Andy Warhol’s Still-Life Polaroids at Paul Kasmin Gallery [NY Daily News]
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