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Auction brewings: A 1961 Roy Lichtenstein could go for $35 million at November 8th auction at Christie’s; a Picasso is estimated to sell for $25 million at Sotheby’s [AO Newslinks]

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On the Chinese factor within the art market: “The Chinese stars initially anointed by the West are still the segment’s top sellers, but the Chinese are also seeking out lesser-known artists whose works center on potent themes like political corruption.” [AO Newslink]

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Ryan Gander’s Locked Room Scenario. All pictures for Art Observed on site by Caroline Claisse.

British artist Ryan Gander‘s Locked Room Scenario is set in the mysterious Londonnewcastle Depot in north London. Every detail, from postcards and notes left throughout the scene, to teenage actors sitting on the stoop, create an intriguing, paranoia-inducing installation. Walking past locked rooms and peering through windows of a seemingly closed exhibition, the viewer is frustrated, left wanting more. Indeed, “the crime scene” reaches an intolerable suspense as the public must decipher the art within and the possible meaning thereof. Gander’s game plays with imagination and paranoia, creating an experience of total immersion, leaving the viewer second-guessing everything and everyone involved.

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Opening night. All images for Art Observed on site by Ana Marjanovic.

Rosy Keyser’s solo exhibition Promethean Dub is on view now at the Peter Blum gallery in Chelsea. Using both traditional and nontraditional materials on her abstract canvases, including house paint, enamel, and mica, Keyser explores the theme of rebirth and sustainability. As explained in the press release, the title of Promethean Dub refers to the “myth of Prometheus, who was responsible for endowing humankind with the fire of life and the musical genre Dub, born of poverty and ingenuity, a means of creating new sounds by reformatting preexisting songs.”

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Photos for Art Observed on site by Samuel Sveen.

Art Observed was on site for the Whitney Studio Party, the after-party of the Whitney Museum‘s annual gala. In honor of Calvin Tomkins—the New Yorker writer and profiler of 95 artists—dinner was followed by a dance party down the hall in the larger warehouse space at Pier 57 on the west side. As ?uestlove spun all night, guests danced and drank among various socialites and artists, including Nate Lowman and Ryan McNamara.

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?uestlove

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ASCO artists, self-portrait series

“ASCO: Elite of the Obscure” comes highly recommended as a way of experiencing a movement that is often neglected within a larger art history context. As noted within the Los Angeles exhibition’s literature, ASCO takes its name from “the forceful Spanish word for disgust and nausea,” and was a movement primarily active from 1972 to 1987. Much of the work featured describes both the joys and hardships of being Latino in a Hollywood culture, a traditionally Caucasian experience. The work—a combination of sketches, collaged photos, graffiti, and even costumes—falls in the tradition of Dadaism and Surrealist art of the 1920s and 1930s, but with a particular Chicano psyche.

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Neo Rauch to donate all graphical works from 1992 and on, establishing new foundation in hometown of Aschersleben, Germany [AO Newslink]

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Jen Lindblad, unless otherwise noted.

Twenty-five tons of copper, bronze, iron, and lead cover the floors of Barbara Gladstone Gallery, enveloping visitors in an industrial post-apocalyptic landscape. The subject is ancient Egyptian mythology, by way of Detroit, and it is Matthew Barney‘s new endeavor. Manifested in the form of large scale sculptures and accompanying preparatory drawings, the exhibition, DJED, is part of the artist’s new project Ancient Evenings, in progress since 2007. It marks a departure from Barney’s usually gelatinous media—thermoplastic, tapioca, and petroleum jelly—in favor of traditional industrial metals. On the opening night, visitors flocked to the gallery to see the artist’s newest spectacle, forming a queue that reached halfway down the block.

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Gerhard Richter provides some frank statements on the art market and the upcoming sale of his work at auction during the press conference for his soon to open show at the Tate Modern “It’s just as absurd as the banking crisis” [AO Newslink]

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Video on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

A glowing sky over Greenpoint in Brooklyn drew several thousand art and light enthusiasts for the Bring To Light | Nuit Blanche New York 2011 light festival, a one-night event on October 1st. Wandering a playground and weaving through dark warehouse alleys, even out onto the India Street Pier, visitors could see over 50 installations—depending on how hard they looked—including sculptures, light projections, interactive installations, and live music and performances by both established and emerging artists. ‘Nuit Blanche’ translates to ‘white night’ or ‘all-nighter,’ a European tradition turned art festival ten years ago in Paris. New York’s second annual installment was joined by not only Paris, but also Brussels and Toronto in a simultaneous night of light, an effort to “re-imagine public space and civic life.”

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Rikrit Tiravanija, (Untitled) 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling), (2011). Via Carolina Nitsch

Currently on view at the Carolina Nitsch Project Room is Rikrit Tiravanija’s print project (Untitled) 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling) I-III, a three-part scroll three feet high and totaling 84 feet in length. The scroll took three years to complete, created using various techniques of screen-printing, offset lithography, and inkjet printing, finally producing elaborate layers that chronicle the artist’s physical and temporal passage of the last 20 years of his life. Tiravanija lives a perpetual negotiation of cultures, born to Thai parents in Buenos Aires and raised in Argentina, Bangkok, Ethiopia, and Canada. His career as an artist maintains his constant state of itinerancy and is gracefully recorded as “the map of the land of feeling.”

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Courtyard ‘zinester’ tent at MoMA PS1. All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

Over 200 exhibitors, ranging from artists and zinesters to antique booksellers and international publishers, tabled their wares at MoMA PS1 this weekend. Free admission was granted throughout the museum, with the book fair beginning in the courtyard and extending to the first and third floors, while other exhibitions were also on view—in particular, the 9/11 exhibition on the second floor. The sixth annual event was presented by Printed Matter, Inc., and also included several performances, talks, and book-signings.

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Interview with William Acquavella about life, the day of Lucian Freud’s death [AO Newslink]

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Young gallerists are looking beyond Chelsea [AO Newslink]

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All photos by Gautier Pellegrin  for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

An hour by hour, interactive feature on a typical day of Jeffrey Deitch, Director of LA MoCA [AO Newslink]

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Christian Marclay, Cassette Grid No. 9 (2009). All Images courtesy Fraenkel Gallery and Paula Cooper Gallery.

A series of cyanotype photograms by Christian Marclay are on display at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco until October 29th. The exhibition explores the interplay between two outdated recording methods—the cyanotype and the audio cassette—in a fashion both new and yet consistent with the work of Marclay. Commonly referred to as “blueprints” because of the silhouetted blue images produced, cyanotypes are prints uniquely created by placing objects on photosensitive surfaces. Developed in the 1840s and popularized by botanists, architects, and engineers who used the method to reproduce drawings and artifacts with only tracing paper and sunlight, Marclay’s use of the cyanotype continues his exploration of the artistic practice of record-keeping, especially with respect to both audio and visual representations.

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