Pablo Picasso, Le Rêve (1932)

Hedge fund manager and notable collector Steven A. Cohen, who has just settled two insider-trading lawsuits with the government, has just purchased Picasso’s Le Rêve for $155 Million.  The exchange, between Cohen and Las Vegas Hotel Mogul Steve Wynn, is estimated to be the largest price ever paid for a work of art by an American collector. The sale of Le Rêve, Picasso’s 1932 portrait of a sleeping woman, had previously been discussed between Wynn and Cohen, particularly in 2006, when the sale was canceled after Wynn accidentally thrust his elbow through the piece, causing a 6-inch tear.  “Steve has wanted that painting for a long time. The timing of the sale is just a coincidence.”  Said an unnamed source.

Steven A Cohen, via Patrick McMullan

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Artist and musician Nick Cave’s Heard•NY opened at Grand Central Terminal in New York yesterday, filling the terminal with actors dressed in surreally designed horse costumes.  Bloomberg spoke with the artist about his practice, and his goals for the installation, which will remain open all this week.  “I’m looking at the station as a platform to get people back to that place where we dream. We’re in a world where we’re trying to do what we can to exist and hold on to our jobs. So I’d like to transmit this dream-state feeling, to get us out of our day-to-day routine for a moment.”  Cave says. (more…)

The Wooster Collective is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary, and has welcomed a number of artists the site showcased in its early years to offer advice and lessons learned over the past decade.  The most recent contribution comes from the Los Angeles-based Skullphone, who offers: “If you are too pure you will never fly, drive, or physically go anywhere.” (more…)

Nick van Woert, Microscope (2013), (Nick van Woert in Ted Kaczynski’s clothes), courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

Since his first solo exhibition at Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam in 2010, Brooklyn-based artist Nick van Woert has quickly risen through the ranks of the contemporary arts scene, creating a prolific and experimental body of work informed by his unique interests in history, architecture, environment, and philosophy.  From ancient Rome to the Unabomber, van Woert casts an eye on the past as a means of understanding the present and inquiring into the future. His work blends an emphasis on sculptural craft and process with the use of found objects and readymades, resting between aesthetic value and conceptual statement. While preparing for the opening of No Man’s Land, his first exhibition at OHWOW in Los Angeles, (open through April 6, 2013), the artist sat down to answer some questions for Art Observed.

Nick van Woert, No Man’s Land (2013), Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

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Jim Shaw (Installation View), via Simon Lee

On view at London’s Simon Lee Gallery is a solo exhibition of eclectic new works by Los Angeles-based, American artist Jim Shaw. A California Institute of the Arts graduate and longtime L.A. resident, Shaw’s works highlight the anxieties and triumphs of  late capitalist society, phantasmic religion and the shamanic, mythical world of his dream life. This idiosyncratic body of work utilizes comic book aesthetic in pencil drawings and groupings of sculptures juxtaposed against new painted and drawn portraits of unhinged and broken body parts, which engender a distinct unease in the viewer.  

Jim Shaw, Oden’s Broken Staff and Emerald City Asgard (2013), via Simon Lee

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The New York Times has published a profile on art forger Guy Ribes, whose remarkably accurate forgeries of works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir are being used in the biographical film exploring the life of the late artist (Watch Trailer).  Ribes, who served several years in prison for forging works by renowned artists and selling them to a criminal art ring, was brought in to recreate works by Renoir, as well as works the artist may have painted.  “It’s funny, isn’t it,” Says writer Jean-Baptiste Péretié, “that the same thing that led to his conviction is what he’s being paid legally to do?” (more…)

The Art Dubai fair closed its doors yesterday on the most successful fair in its seven year history, with $45 million in fine art exhibited over the course of the four day fair.  Initial reports signal strong sales across the board, and underlines the rising prominence of the city for the global arts market.  “The growth of Art Dubai over the past seven years reflects the rising prominence of the UAE as a centre of art and cultural discourse.” said Fair Director Antonia Carver.  (more…)

Visitors to The Museum of Modern Art in New York were treated to a special performance by actress Tilda Swinton yesterday, as the actress launched a month-long performance at the museum called The Maybe.  The artist spent the day sleeping in a glass case in the museum’s lobby, and will return to the case several times during the duration of the performance.  No one knows when Swinton will appear for her performances, emphasizing the unpredictability of the work.  “There is no published schedule for its appearance, no artist’s statement released, no museum statement beyond this brief context, no public profile or image issued,” MoMA stated in a press release. “Those who find it chance upon it for themselves, live and in real-shared-time: now we see it, now we don’t.”

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The Guardian has published a lengthy piece on the role of the artist’s assistant, and assistant’s often ignored contributions to the work of major artists.  The piece features an interview with Jake and Dinos Chapman, who recall their early work as assistants to Gilbert and George.  ‘It was hard labour by any measure,” says Jake Chapman.  “There was absolutely no creative input at all. They were very polite and it was interesting to hear them talking – as we did our daily penance.”  (more…)

Robert Rauschenberg: Jammers. All artwork © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery in London is a display of Robert Rauschenberg’s vibrant and unique Jammers installations from 1975, a series of elegantly draped fabrics inspired by nautical aesthetics and Rauschenberg’s then recent move from New York to Captiva Island off the coast of Florida.

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James Angus, John Deere Model D (2013), via Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

Pulling together three disparate artists in its three galleries on Greenwich Street in  New York’s West Village, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise is currently presenting a group of works that illuminate and reinterpret the construction of physical and structural realities.  Combining sculptural, installation projects, assemblage and conceptual painting practices, the works on-view by James Angus, Rikrit Tiravanija and Jonathan Horowitz highlight their drastically different conceptual practices in exploring similar thematic territory.  

Rikrit Tiravanija, Untitled (2013), via Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

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In homage to the late Cornell astronomy professor Carl Sagan, artist Leo Villareal has installed a massive light work at the Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, New York.  Titled Cosmos, the work uses 12,000 LED lights to emit complex patterns of shimmering light.  (more…)

Beginning July 1st, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be open to the public 7 days a week.  The changes also apply to The Cloisters museum in northern Manhattan, and are the result of a decision to make the spaces “accessible whenever visitors have the urge to experience this great museum.”  Says Museum Director Thomas Campbell. (more…)

Since opening in 2011, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has faced criticism for its dearth of Post-War Contemporary Art.  In response, the museum has gone on a spree of acquisitions to fill out its collection, including works by Andy Warhol, Donald Judd and Mark Rothko.  “It’s fair to say that we are very actively seeking to shore up the 20th century, including early Modernism,” says museum president, Don Bacigalupi, “though not to the exclusion of other things.”  (more…)

Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei will create a new installation this summer along the Emscher River in Germany’s Ruhr Region for the Emscherkunst triennial arts festival.  The artist plans to erect 1,000 small tents along the river, allowing festival-goers to stay in the tents for a small fee.  “The idea is to let normal people participate” says festival curator Florian Matzner. (more…)

The New York Times has published an in-depth look at Brooklyn’s newly founded Cultural Recovery Center.  Comprised of a task force of 106 volunteers, this rapid response team works to salvage work in the wake of major disasters like last year’s Hurricane Sandy.  “We’re not doing any big conservation,” says studio manager Anna Studebaker. “We are a kind of MASH unit.” (more…)

The Park Avenue Armory’s production of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Oktophonie opened this week, featuring a unique, immersive set design by artist Rikrit Tiravanija that places the viewer on an otherworldly lunar landscape.  The 70 minute performance asks audience members to sit on the floor in all white robes for the sonorous, droning soundscape , has already sold out all of its shows for its weeklong run. (more…)

Jim Dine (Installation View), via Pace Gallery

In a refreshing break from his figurative painting and Pinocchio art, Pace Gallery presents a collection of new abstract paintings by Jim Dine.  The paintings are large, romantic, intense renderings of universal situations and emotions – sometimes literally, with titles like “A Fingerprint of Stars”, a painting that reaches fourteen feet wide and five feet tall.

 
Jim Dine, Late Friends (2012), via Pace Gallery

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From Figuration (Installation View), via Skarstedt Gallery

Currently on view at Skarstedt Gallery’s London location is a compelling exploration of figurative sculpture, titled From Figuration.  Welcoming a host of high-profile names, including George Condo, Thomas Schütte, Jonathan Meese, Rosemarie Trockel, Rebecca Warren, and Paul McCarthy, the exhibition seeks to capture a broad range of approaches and themes expressed by this particular niche in the field of sculpture. (more…)

Anthony McCall, Face to Face (2013), via Sean Kelly Gallery

Anthony McCall’s body of work is punctuated by decades of silence.  Withdrawing from the art world in the late 1970’s after a number of promising exhibitions and installations around the globe, the artist completely ceased his artistic production until 2003, when he began experimenting with digital film projectors.  10 years later, the artist is presenting Face to Face at Sean Kelly Gallery, showing two works from the opposite ends of the artist’s career.

Anthony McCall, Face to Face (2013), via Sean Kelly Gallery

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The New York Times Magazine has published a profile on German gallery mogul David Zwirner, documenting his growing chain of galleries worldwide, and the dealer’s modest origins.  The profile comes after Zwirner recently opened his new space in Chelsea with a show of work by Dan Flavin and Donald Judd, and responds to scrutiny over the aggressive monetizaton of the art world.  “I don’t mind everyone knocking the money, complaining about how much money there is — that goes with the territory,” Zwirner says. “But what they don’t understand is that work like this has to have space like this to be shown the right way and you have to have money to be able to provide it.” (more…)

Curators Alex Gartenfeld and Norman Rosenthal are preparing to unveil an exhibition in Rome next month, looking at the city of New York through the framework of the capital of the ancient Roman Empire.  Titled Empire State, the show brings 25 New York artists to Rome for a show exploring the creative essence within the two iconic metropolises.  “Instead of just celebrating a city, I hope it’s an exhibition that questions what it is to be an art center today, and what sort of cultural cachet a city wields by having these art institutions. I think a lot of cities, Rome included, are thinking about what it means to be a contemporary art center. That’s where empire becomes this very relevant theme.”  Says Mr. Gartenfeld. (more…)

The 2013 Edition of Art Dubai opens this week, featuring a number of high-profile works from Yayoi Kusama, Chris Burden, and Wim Delvoye.  Featuring 75 museum groups from over 30 countries, the show has brought $45 Million in art to the Middle Eastern City.  “From the perspective of business, Dubai has centrality no one can deny,” said Arif Naqvi, a Dubai real estate executive. “In the regional cultural perspective, the city is acquiring the same centrality.” (more…)

The Guardian has posted a video interview with French artist Laure Prouvost, discussing her winning of the Max Mara Award for Women, and her immersive video work Swallow, exploring the raw emotion of sensation, now on view at Whitechapel Gallery.  “It’s this idea of what’s real and what’s not, expressed in video and bricolage.”  She says.
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