Michael Heizer‘s “Levitated Mass” opens to the public at LACMA. The 340-ton boulder suspends just above a channel, allowing visitors to walk under the sculpture and see it from multiple angles. The reclusive artist poses the question: “When do you get to see the bottoms of sculptures?”
Visitors traverse Jeppe Hein‘s “Invisible Labyrinth” (2005) via The Independent
A new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London is eliciting a good degree of attention among members of the public and press alike. Titled “Invisible: Art of the Unseen 1957-2012”, this joint showing contains otherwise empty rooms, save for a number of blank canvases and empty pedestals. The exhibit’s purpose however is less to display and showcase than it is to survey past and current ideas related to the unknown and push the boundaries of art as we know or perceive it.
Tom Friedman‘s “Untitled (A Curse)” via the Independent
Francesco Clemente, The Artificial Princess (2012). All photos by Ryann Donnelly taken on site for Art Observed
Francesco Clemente’s show of new work, Nostalgia/Utopia is on view through June 30 at Mary Boone’s Chelsea gallery in New York City. The large-scale works exemplify his signature style laid by languid, painterly expressions. Referencing Colonial Baroque, Afro-Brazilian, Indian, and urban American cultural imagery, the otherwise undefined subjects are accompanied by three dimensional objects attached directly to their canvases.
Property owned by Anish Kapoor, designer of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower for 2012 Olympics in London, is occupied by protesters. The group, called Bread and Circuses, plans to hold arts events in the empty Georgian house.
Francis Bacon’s full length Study for a Self-Portrait is up for sale at Christie’s following a dramatic last appearance in 2008. The work is expected to fetch £20 million ($31.2 million).
$150,000 Dalà Stolen From Adam Lindemann’s Venus Over Manhattan Gallery. Police sources say “surveillance cameras show a man wearing a dark shirt with white polka dots enter the gallery with a black cloth bag. He was later seen on camera leaving the gallery with the painting.”
Jason Martin, Yaba (2011). All images courtesy of Lisson Gallery.
“Infinitive,” on view now at Lisson Gallery though June 23, showcases a selection of Jason Martin’s signature monochromatic gestural paintings, and bold new cast works. Also included is a massive sculptural work, which brings Martin’s fascination with material into three dimensionality.
Jason Martin, Behemoth (2011).
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Regen Projects to upgrade to a 20,000 square foot space in Central Hollywood. The new building, designed by architect Michael Maltzan, will open with a multi-artist show on September 22, 2012.
American artist, LeRoy Neiman, popular for his bright colored depictions of sporting events, died at age 91 in New York yesterday, June 20th. While overall not receiving the critical acclaim and presence at auction as contemporaries with similar name recognition, his overall popularity in a way seemed to transcend the vagaries of the contemporary art scene. He painted and sketched an expansive range of subjects spanning from athletes to wild animals, to jazz musicians to presidents. Close friends with Hugh Hefner, Mr. Neiman was a prolific contributor for Playboy Magazine. Mr. Neiman further contributed to fashion magazines such Vogue in his early years and appeared in three “Rocky” movies because of his ties to the boxing world. His longtime friendship with Muhammad Ali dates back to the boxer’s time as Cassius Clay.
“Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present” trailer released: “The hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing.”
Pablo Picasso, Femme Assise (1949) which sold for £8.5 million
In London yesterday, Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale totaled £92.5 million – close to the high pre-sale estimate of £108.7 million. Of the 70 lots offered only 14 did not sell, determining a sell through rate of 80%. Nearly a third of the artworks, 27 to be exact, sold for over £1 million achieving sales of 84% by value. Two artist records were set in the process, making Christie’s inaugural sale this season in London a notable one.
René Magritte, Les jours gigantesques (1928) which sold to Wilbur Ross for £7.2 million, nine times its low hammer-price estimate
T Magazine exposes the ‘punk, haute glam and horror’ blend that is the life of artist Kembra Pfahler, “I would rather do concerts in the parking lots of 7-11’s across the country than do a show at the Louvre.”
The NY Times reports on art experts’ growing apprehension over authenticating original works, fearing potential lawsuits. “Art scholarship is fighting a losing battle against commerce,” says Peter R. Stern, an art lawyer in New York who advises his clients to withhold unsolicited opinions.
Fragment of Ru Ware pottery piece from Song Dynasty; Photos by Rachel Willis for Art Observed unless otherwise noted
Brice Marden: New Paintings is currently on display at two of the Matthew Marks Gallery locations in the Chelsea district of New York. 502 West 22nd Street, the smaller of the two galleries, houses Ru Ware Project while the remainder of the New Paintings exhibition is being shown at the 526 address down the street. Both parts of the show were made as individual responses to two specific trips that Marden took overseas; one to China and the other to Greece. The aesthetic of the show epitomizes Marden’s interest in historical antiquities and how they relate to contemporary art, particularly abstraction.
Ai Weiwei warned by police to stay away from his court hearing in Beijing. With his lawyer missing, the Chinese artist and activist is fighting allegations of having unpaid back taxes. Denying the accusations, Ai says that “the price that the authorities will pay for blatantly violating the law is now too large… This case has always been a fabricated case.”
Donations to arts organizations in the U.S. totaled $13.1 billion in 2011, a 4.1% increase from the year before. “Giving is going up modestly along with a modest economic recovery, but it’s going to take some time,” says Una Osili, research director at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy.
| The Sixties | Claes Oldenburg (October Files) | Writing on the Side 1956-1969 |
Set design from Claes Oldenberg/Coosje van Bruggen’s Il Corso del Coltello
For the first time in seven years, the work of Claes Oldenberg and his wife/collaborator Coosje van Bruggen returns to New York. The Pace Gallery’s Theater and Installation 1985-1990: Il Corso del Coltello (The Course of the Knife) and The European Desktop marks the first time in seventeen years that Coltello has been seen in the United States, while The European Desktop will be on display in America for the first time ever. Oldenberg/van Bruggen’s whimsical, elephantine sculptures are the result of a partnership that lasted 32 years, ending only with van Bruggen’s death in 2009.
Il Corso del Coltello is a result of combined efforts by Oldenberg/van Bruggen and architect Frank O. Gehry. It was performed just three times in front of a combined 1,500 people in September of 1985. The piece was staged amongst the canals and bridges of Venice, the open air providing the only ceiling high enough to allow Coltello’s massive ornaments to move fluidly on and off stage. The Pace exhibit includes slideshows of Coltello’s production and staging, with video of the company bouncing the towering luggage of Dr. Coltello over the canals as that same luggage (eight pieces, each cast to spell a letter of “C-O-L-T-E-L-L-O”) stands stacked in the corner of the room.
Dr. Coltello’s luggage: “C-O-L-T-E-L-L-O” via the Pace Gallery
Reproduction of Coltello’s “Knife Ship,” left, and The European Desktop, right
Coltello’s most famous prop, the 78-foot fully functional Knife Ship, appears twice in a smaller, slightly more manageable size. The original Knife Ship is part of the collection at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. This Swiss Army knife turned slave galley personifies Oldenberg/van Bruggen’s ability to underwrite their comic sensibilities with a blunt realism that pits the images of war and slavery alongside their commercial counterparts. The costumes and playful carnival atmosphere of Coltello’s movements simultaneously situate the piece as a part of Italian folklore: the artists invoke both the traditions of commedia dell’arte and the films of Fellini by positioning the supernatural within the real. The props exist in that liminal space between dream and memory that has no solid footing in one world or the other, appearing for an instant before disappearing.
Early study for The European Desktop via the Pace Gallery
In studies for The European Desktop, Oldenberg had sketched the tools of mid-century commerce (stamp blotters, scales, quills and inkpots) falling to earth as rain from a blackened sky. In the final sculptural product, we have progressed to the moment of impact. The massive aluminum and plaster pieces, strewn about the Pace like hail after the storm, recall Europe’s chaotic history in the second half of the twentieth century. Borders have been redefined, cities destroyed, and truth decidedly written by those left standing. These relics of a war torn Europe signify time’s ability to reconstruct memory as history, and those scattered and forgotten in the process.
The studies for both Il Corso del Coltello and The European Desktop are tied by their emphasis on movement, an energy that transfers to the bright primary colors of Coltello and the raw, colossal power of Desktop’s ink pots caught mid-shatter.
Oldenberg/van Bruggen’s collaborations with Frank Gehry (the tail end of which is represented by Desktop) combine the towering drama of the architect’s scale with the poignant commentary and comedy of two legendary artists. Theater and Installation justly represents its advertised offerings, revisiting forgotten histories and questioning the process behind the categorization of that memory. The exhibit runs through June 23rd.
—G. Corrigan
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| Raw Notes | An Anthology | Sculpture by the Way |
Marc Chagall, Noce et Musique (1939) which sold for £2.5 million
Last night at Sotheby’s marked the opening night of three straight weeks of art auctions in London. The evening achieved a few exceptional and even record breaking sales, yet it did not compare with the astonishing May auctions held previously this year in New York. Out of the 48 lots offered only 33 of them sold – a sell through rate of 69%. Still, Sotheby’s total sales for the night reached £75 million – above their low estimate of £73 million.
Joan Miró, Peinture (Étoile Bleue) (1927)
Tonight in London begins three consecutive weeks of auctions – commencing with the Impressionist and Modern Sales this week. An upwards of £ 500 million in sales is expected from Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary Art. This week alone is expected to fetch in excess of £ 159 million between the two major houses. Although New York is generally deemed the art auction capital, London’s geographic positioning is advantageous to the billionaire collectors of Russia and the Eastern world. Based upon the record breaking sales held this past May in New York – namely the $120 million paid for Munch‘s The Scream – London’s summer auctions are hoped to follow suit.
Domenico Gnoli, Ritratto di Luis T (1967) All images courtesy Luxembourg & Dayan unless otherwise noted.
Prodigious Italian artist Domenico Gnoli left behind only several dozen paintings when he met an early fate – at age 36 – in April 1970. Eighteen of those important works are currently on display in the first U.S. exhibition dedicated to the artist in over 40 years. The paintings are primarily acrylic mixed with sand; finely detailed and close cropped, they are intimate portraits of a very certain place and time.
Wim Delvoye – Gallery View – Galerie Perrotin
Belgian neo-conceptualist Wim Delvoye is known for his re-interpretations of classic art. By taking the classic symbols of Romantic and Gothic sacred art (crucifixes, towering spires, mythological sculpture) and twisting their forms into the shapes and forms of contemporary art and science. His recent show, “Rorschach” at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, extended this practice, offering a selection of works that continued to use sacred and classical art to turn a lens on modernity.
The Telegraph contributes another perspective on Jeff Koons‘s popularity and demeanor in a comprehensive report. After an interview at his studio, Lucy Davies concluded that “Koons’s appeal is beyond love or hate. His is a sunny, pleasure-filled world whose pull is hard to resist… The real world outside is, well, a bit of a let-down.”
James Stourton, chairman of Sotheby’s UK, to leave company to pursue a 2016 completion of a biography on Kenneth Clark, a controversial director of the National Gallery in London. Contrasting other opinions in the art world, Stourton calls Clark the “grandest of grandees in the art world.”
Jerry Saltz of the NY Magazine critiques the art of Documenta 13, exploring the rise of Post Art but only in select installations: “even with its tremendous flaws, Documenta allows us all to feel a stake in this thing called art, and sense that Post Art is on the immediate horizon, approaching fast.”
