Cosmos (2008) by John McCracken, via Castello di Rivoli

My works are minimalists and reduced, but also maximal. I try to make them concise, clear statements in three-dimensional form, and also take them to a breathtaking level of beauty.

– John McCracken

Currently on view at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin, Italy is a retrospective featuring the works of American artist John McCracken. McCracken believes that the contemplation upon pure absolute forms of beauty as found in his minimalist sculptures, can aid in the obtainment of spiritual liberation. Art can thus be used to enrich the lives of the spectator. The largest retrospective to date of the artist’s work, on display are around sixty historical works including early paintings from the 1960s exhibited for the first time; the artist’s early bichrome sculptural works such as Theta-Two and Mykonos; his rarely exhibited Mandala paintings; and recent works Wonder and Fair both created in 2010 by the artist for the exhibition.

Untitled (Mandala) (1971) by John McCracken, via Castello di Rivoli

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View of All That is Unseen exhibition, photo by L. Streeter, Art Observed.

A large-scale group show opened last Friday night in Greenpoint at Allan Nederpelt, showcasing 17 new artists such as Tony Oursler, N. Dash, Rachel Garrard, and Matthew Stone in the colossal space on Freeman Street on the very north-east tip of Greenpoint. The recently opened Allan Nederpelt exhibition space housed a large number of works all concerned with the idea of “Art addressing Metaphysics” and the artist’s relationship to the external world, the exhibit titled “All That is Unseen.”  Curators Meg O’Rourke and Caris Reid believe that this interest in the ethereal and otherworldly is partly a reaction to the mounting scientific complexity of our time, and marks the beginning of a transition in creative attitude. O’Rourke states in the press release, “Just as delving into spiritualism (along with shifts in science and technology) led to the birth of abstract art at the beginning of the last century, we feel we are currently at the edge of a collective shift.” Works ranged in a variety of mediums, from wooden sculpture to new media to electrical design.

Tony Oursler, Occult (untitled) for Cage (2011). Photo by Daniel Terna, Art Observed.

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Marcel Dzama, Polytropos of Many Turns (2009), installation view. All photos by D. Terna, Art Observed.

Canadian-born artist Marcel Dzama debuts his latest film, “A Game of Chess” in his sixth solo exhibition at David Zwirner. The exhibition Behind Every Curtain is on view through March 19, and the three-tiered exhibition of drawings, dioramas, and motorized sculptures provide both a prelude to Dzama’s film as well as a record of the artistic process behind it. And while Dzama’s work has always been characterized by a fairy-tale like violence, both “A Game of Chess” and the pieces leading up to it seem to take a much darker and sinister turn than do Dzama’s previous exhibitions.

Installation view of the film, A Game of Chess.

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Philip-Lorca diCorcia, W, September 1997, #2 (1997). Via David Zwirner

Currently on view through March 5th at David Zwirner is a résumé of the eleven editorial photo shoots that Philip-Lorca diCorcia produced over the course of his eleven years at W Magazine. The exhibition—appropriately titled “Eleven”—illuminates Mr. diCorcia’s unique combination of his technical and narrative expertise applied to the genre of fashion photography.  The exhibit was opened to appropriately coincide with New York Fashion Week.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia. W, March 2000, #10 (2000). Via David Zwirner

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Romulo Celdran, Reality Bites (left) and Zoom 12 (right) at Raquel Ponce gallery stand at Ifema Fair, ARCOmadrid. Via ArtDaily.com

ARCOmadrid, Spain’s biggest and oldest art fair, took place this weekend February 16th through the 20th in Madrid, Spain. ARCOmadrid celebrated its 30th Anniversary this year with 197 galleries from 21 countries. This year’s fair was perhaps a smaller and more centralized event than previous years and had a special focus on Russian contemporary art.  Carlos Urroz, the new director of ARCOmadrid, stated in an interview with Vernissage TV, “I think this year people will find a smaller fair, with less galleries and only two pavilions [and] with all of the projects surrounding ARCO trying to focus the attention on the participating galleries and the works exhibited.”  “I think what’s special about ARCO is the relationship between Latin American and European galleries,” Urroz continued.

Fernando Botero’s The Beach, (2006) was featured at the booth of Marlborough Gallery, the highest priced painting at the fair at 946,000 euros (3.1 million dollars). Via ArtKnowledgeNews.com

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Installation view of Cory Arcangel, ‘Beat the Champ’ via Artdaily

Currently on view at London’s Barbican Gallery is “Beat the Champ” by Brooklyn-based Cory Arcangel, known for diverse and innovative work using DIY low-fi tech materials. Cory’s recent project for The Curve, a co-commission with the Whitney Museum of Art is an installation featuring 14 bowling video games from the 1970s to the 2000s. The artist has used custom-made electronics in order to hack each unit to play a loop game whereby the bowler fails to score.

Beat the Champ (2011) by Cory Arcangel, via Barbican Gallery

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Installation view of Los Carpinteros: Rumba Muerta at Sean Kelly Gallery.  All images via Sean Kelly Gallery

Currently on view at Sean Kelly Gallery is the project Rumba Muerta by artist duo Marco Castillo and Dagoberto Rodriguez a.k.a. Los Carpinteros.  The duo was formed in 1991 (along with then-collaborator Alexandre Arrechea) and the artists choose to work under the name Los Carpinteros in order to renounce the socially problematic ideology of individual authorship.  Instead, the collective name evokes the cultural tradition of skilled artisans—in this case, carpentry.  Indeed, the notion of craft is crucial to their practice, as is that of design.  With Rumba Muerta Los Carpinteros incorporate aspects of architecture, design, and sculpture to create installations and drawings which seek to negotiate the divide between inhabited spaces, social consciousness, and non-functional art objects.

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The Three Shades (1881-1886) by August Rodin via Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris is an unprecedented exhibition pairing the works of acclaimed nineteenth-century sculptor Auguste-Rodin (1840-1917) with acclaimed present-day Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto (b.1948).  The exhibition features three monumental works by the late French sculpture including The Three Shades (c.1880), Monument to Victor Hugo (1897), and the Whistler Muse (1908). Sugimoto’s work revolves around the relation of images to sculpted light. Seen side-by-side Rodin’s powerful works is his series Stylized Sculptures (2007) in which he selected distinct garments by some of the world’s most celebrated fashion designers and photographed them in such a way as to reveal their inherent sculptural qualities.

Stylized Sculpture 008, designer: Yves Saint Laurent (2007) by Hiroshi Sugimoto, via Gagosian Gallery

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Ellsworth Kelly, Black Curve Diagonal (2010). Via Two Coats of Paint

In this series of thirteen new paintings, a new sculpture, and twenty small drawings from the 1950s, all at the Matthew Marks Gallery, Ellsworth Kelly demonstrates his dedication to the concept to which he has adhered for his time as an artist.  Simple in form and color, the new paintings and the sculpture in the ‘Reliefs’ show emphasize the bold shapes and hard edges characteristic of Kelly’s work. The twenty drawings of ‘Black and White Drawings’ from early in his career show a continuity of vision in their similarity to Kelly’s newest works.

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Jim Dine, The Dahlias, The Cherries, The Swiss Chard (2010). Via Pace Gallery

In ten large-scale paintings, Jim Dine’s familiar heart comes back in a new splash of color. The Pace Gallery’s show of new paintings from 2010 continues Dine’s tradition of centrally displaying the heart, and includes a 5’ x 12’ triptych titled The Dahlias, The Cherries, The Swiss Chard. Despite the continual reuse of the heart as a prominent shape in his paintings, Dine maintains integrity of the image by revisiting it with varying techniques and always a high level of attention to detail.

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Andy Warhol, Self Portrait, 1967 (est. £3-5 million, realized £10.8 million ), via Christies.com

Wednesday evening’s sale of Post-War and Contemporary art at Christie’s London brought in £61.4 million against a high estimate of £52 million for fifty-eight of sixty-three lots sold (a Tom Wesselmann painting was withdrawn). The auction had a sell through rate of 92% by lot and 98% by value, and, as was the case with Sotheby’s, the evening’s total was the highest realized for a Contemporary sale at Christie’s London since the market’s peak in June 2008. The auction house reported that they had over 160 registered telephone bidders with twenty-one countries represented. The top lot was Andy Warhol‘s red and white self portrait that sold for more than double its high presale estimate of £5 million after a bidding war between Jose Mugrabi and Larry Gagosian. Mr. Gagosian took the canvas home for £10.8 million (with fees).

The Warhol self portrait installed in the sale’s room at Christie’s London, via Art Observed

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Kai Althoff, Punkt, Absatz, Blümli (period, paragraph, Blümli) (2011). All images via Gladstone Gallery

Kai Althoff‘s most recent effort Punkt, Absatz, Blümli (period, paragraph, Blümli), currently on view at Barbara Gladstone, consists of work in all media yet reads as one cohesive installation.  Partitioned off with a lush red velvet curtain, the installation interrogates the evocative, highly intimate quality of private spaces.  Althoff’s facility with working in multimedia is highlighted in Punkt, which features an artificial ceiling, handmade carpet and life-sized paper-mâché figures, as well as the artist’s iconic two-dimensional painted works. The critic Linda Yablonsky aptly equates the installation to “a walk-in painting.“

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Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1990 (est. £5-7 million, realized £7.2 million ), via Sothebys.com

February’s Contemporary Art auctions began Tuesday night at Sotheby’s London. The auction house offered fifty-nine lots (a work by Anslem Kiefer was withdrawn) with a presale estimate of £30-43 million. The sale just beat its high estimate, raising £44.4 million with a 91.5% sell-through rate by lot and 95% by value. Sotheby’s noted that this is the strongest sell-through rate they’ve had in several seasons and that combined with the Contemporary offerings at the “Looking Closely” sale last week, the auction house has sold £88.2 million worth of Contemporary art in 2011 thusfar, making it the most successful Contemporary sales season at Sotheby’s London since July 2008.

Tobias Meyer standing in front of Andy Warhol‘s Marilyns at Sotheby’s London, via Art Observed

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Thomas Houseago, All Together Now, Installation view. All photos via L&M Gallery

A native of northern England, Thomas Houseago brings his hulking, brutish sculptures to the L&M Gallery in Los Angeles through March 5. The 18 sculptures vary in both style and material, composed of wood, aluminum, plaster, bronze, rebar, hemp, and more, drawing on influences from tribal art to Picasso to Rodin. These new works are some of the artist’s largest, lending an architectural air to the exhibition, positioning pieces both inside and outside the gallery.

Installation view, outside the gallery

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Installation view. Dangerious Book Four Boys. Photo by Zain Burgess, Art Observed

Peres Projects presents James Franco‘s now infamous foray into art, The Dangerous Book Four Boys, initially shown at the Clocktower Gallery in NYC. The press release mildly proclaims that this is Franco’s first European solo show.  While technically true, this seems a wholly redundant statement as Franco takes over the cultural world, his films almost constantly being released, a 2011 Oscar nod and, as for art, his General Hospital work at LA MoMA last year still might be the crossover leap heard ’round the world. “I’ve been spending most weekends in L.A. shooting pre-taped stuff for the Oscars and this is the first weekend I wasn’t doing that,” Franco said at The Dangerous Book Four Boys opening.  The continued critical acceptance of Dangerous Boys, while not yet universal critical acclaim, is solely one facet of Franco’s creative dispersion.

James Franco, Untitled (Double third portrait polaroids); (detail of 15 photos) (2009). Via Peres Projects

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Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1990 (est. £5-7 million), via Sothebys.com

The February auctions continue this week in London with Contemporary Art sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury. The day after Valentine’s Day buyers can cozy up to sixty lots at the Sotheby’s Contemporary art evening sale that are estimated to bring upwards of £30 million. The following night Christie’s will offer sixty-four lots that are expected to fetch £36-52 million. Phillips de Pury closes the week’s auctions with a twenty-nine lot sale that carries an estimate of £5.8-8.5 million. Christie’s is the only house to have officially released their 2010 global sales figures, and the numbers are impressive. The company sold £3.3 billion (or $5 billion) worth of art last year, more than any previous year in their 245-year history. Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art London, revealed that the firm sold $845 million worth of Contemporary art in 2010 and that this is the third-highest total at the company in the field. At November’s Contemporary art auctions Phillips de Pury debuted a sparkling new gallery space on Park Avenue in New York and had the biggest sale of the week when Andy Warhol’s Men in Her Life sold for $63.4 million. It was a good year for Contemporary art, and the results of this week’s sales are expected to indicate whether the market will continue to recover in 2011 as it did in 2010.

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Andy Warhol, Nine Multicoloured Marilyns (Reversal Series), 1979-1986 (est. £2-3 million), via Sothebys.com

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Terence Koh, nothingtoodooterencekoh (2011) All photos by Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

Chinese-Canadian artist and Lower East side fixture Terence Koh opened his first solo show nothingtoodooterencekoh in New York (February 12th through March 19th 2011) at Mary Boone Gallery with a serene performance in which he circumnavigated a perfectly conical pile of crystalline salt rocks. Moving excruciatingly slowly and delicately, Koh made several rounds as onlookers such as Vito Schnabel observed in almost complete silence.

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RETNA “The Hallelujah World Tour” (2011). All photos by Art Observed

In the 1980’s Jean-Michel Basquiat became one of the most significant artists of that decade and those that followed in part through his art being recontextualized by his travels from the gritty world of the street into the paths of the wealthy, famous and fashionable.  Many years later, the fashion and media elite diligently cultivate a similar paradigm, and in a scale that is immediately as grand a display as it ever was in the time of Basquiat.  What is notable here perhaps however, in RETNA’s recent exhibition, is that rather than the artist being serendipitously integrated with the scene, the scene is now constructed in formidable scope and scale and seems to plug the artist in.  The result is something that, if not significant for the art itself, is considerable as a reflection of how art can be marketed.

The New York debut of LA – based street artist and muralist RETNA’s exhibition “The Hallelujah World Tour” in the West Village on Thursday night, opened to a spectacle worthy of its positioning during fashion week, drawing a packed and trendy crowd to the warehouse space located almost at the water’s edge. Returning from a sold-out show in Art Basel Miami Beach (also likely the world nexus of art merging with fashion and commerce), RETNA’s work was here received by a diverse mob of invited New York insiders who were able to be granted access by the best in class, and no doubt expensive, PR teams checking in attendees at the door.

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Luc Tuymans, Interior Nr. III (2010). Via Zeno-X Gallery

Currently on view at Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp is The Twenty Seventh of January Two Thousand and Eleven by Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. The artist’s fourteenth solo show at the Antwerp gallery, the artist’s new works explore the use of light as a claustrophobic element in indoor intimate domestic spaces.

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Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1964 (est. £7–9 million, realized £23 million), via Sothebys.com

This evening’s Sotheby’s 60-lot auction of works from the collection of Geneva-based collector George Kostalitz brought in an astounding £93.5 million against a high presale estimate of £54 million. All sixty works were sold, and lot after lot exceeded expectations during the most exciting of this week’s auctions. Fetching £23 million against a high estimate of £9 million, Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud was the top lot and is believed to have been bought by Cologne-based dealer Alex Lachmann.

Tobias Meyer conducting the “Looking Closely” auction at Sotheby’s London on Thursday evening, photo by Art Observed

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Antony Gormley, Transport (2011) via Kentish Gazette

Antony Gormley, famed English sculptor and creator of the well known public installations featuring manifestations of the human form “Angel of the North” (Gateshead, England) as well as “Event Horizon“(New York/London) and “One and Other” (London) recently unveiled his newest creation in an uncanny location – a crypt within Canterbury Cathedral dating back to the 12th century. The  2 meter-long piece, entitled “Transport”, hovers suspended from the vaulted ceilings in permanent limbo. Shaped in the form of the human body, the work is entirely constructed from hand-made nails re-purposed from a recent restoration. Though seemingly gruesome, Gormley is in fact attempting to explore a higher level of meaning above the physical realm. The specific form calls attention to the idea of our own mortality, as Gormley seemingly is pointing at the transient nature of the human body.

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Will Cotton and Katy Perry at the exhibition opening, via People

Will Cotton‘s new paintings at Michael Kohn Gallery depict beautiful women caught inside dreamlike, manufactured fantasies.  In a show that tethers Cotton’s natural mastery of painting to the undeniable pull of popular culture and mass consumption, Cotton seems to be struggling to walk the line between the empowerment and overpowering his subject matter.  Contextualizing the female icon within a candy-coated dream world, Cotton is no newcomer to traditional subject matter, and his large-scale paintings straddle exaltation and exploitation.

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Pierre Bonnard, Terrasse à Vernon, 1923 (est. £3–4 million, realized £7.2 million ), via Christies.com

Christie’s London hosted two back-to-back sales on Wednesday evening that brought in a combined total of £84.9 million. The forty-five lot Impressionist and Modern sale realized £61.9 million for thirty-five lots sold. The estimate of £54-80 million for that auction included a Franz Marc painting that was withdrawn from the sale (it carried an estimate of £900,000-1.4 million). Thirty-one lots at the “Art of the Surreal” sale that immediately followed realized £23 million for twenty-five lots sold. Including a withdrawn De Chirico, the Surreal sale carried a presale estimate of £19-28 million. Bidding stopped at £5.8 million for a featured Gauguin painting (est. £7-10 million) that carried the highest presale estimate of any work offered at both sales. Instead, the evening’s top lot was a fresh-to-market Bonnard painting that broke the auction record for the artist when it sold for £7.2 million against a high presale estimate of £4 million. At the press conference the auction house revealed that the seller of the painting intended to use the proceeds to purchase land in France in order to “save horses.”

The sale room at Christie’s London on Wednesday evening, via Art Observed

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Dan Colen, Me, Jesus and the Children (2001-2003)

The aftereffects of Dan Colen’s highly publicized, and certainly polarizing breakout show at Gagosian Gallery last fall still resonate.  Though some saw Colen’s show as Icarian, it certainly put the artist on the map for a broader audience.  Astrap Fearnley gallery in Oslo now presents a show that, while displaying works that are certainly less grand and ambitious than the inverted life sized skateboard ramps and toppled motorcycles of the Gagosian show, still has a nicely broad scope of the artist’s works over time.  Chewing gum, oil paint imitating bird droppings, graffiti tags, stills from Disney movies: these are what Dan Colen uses to create his art. Part of the “Bowery School” from downtown New York, Colen creates art from everyday objects and experiences. His painstaking reproductions of recognizable scenes undermine perception, as in The Cloud and the Ghost (The Birds and the Bees), where an impossible ghost rises out of a glass on the bedside table towards a hand holding out pills from a cloud. At the same time, his purposeful randomness takes away the control most expect in art. Astrup Fearnley brings together a collection of a wide range of Colen’s work in his exhibition, Peanuts.

Dan Colen, Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover (Another Country) (2010)

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