Long Island art dealer Glafira Rosales was arraigned this week in court, pleading “not guilty” to charges of selling over sixty fraudulent art works claimed to be by post-war masters Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, among others. The prosecution also accused Rosales of hiding the proceeds (over $12.5 million in undeclared incomes) of the sales in foreign sales accounts. (more…)
CODA, Party Wall (Installation View), via MoMA PS1
The Young Architects Program, presented jointly by MoMA and MoMA PS1, challenges young professionals and recent graduates alike in its annual competition to design an installation for MoMA PS1’s courtyard. Each year, the winning design is fabricated and opened to the public during the summer months. The jury takes environmental sustainability heavily into account when choosing the design, which is an especially relevant criterion considering that EXPO 1, the ecology and politics-focused three-venue event, is currently on view at PS1. This year’s winning entry, Party Wall by the Ithaca-based firm CODA, features a semi-permeable skin made from skateboard manufacturing by-products mounted upon a frame of steel beams.
CODA, Party Wall Rendering, via MoMA PS1 (more…)
Detroit’s bankruptcy filing this week has once again placed the future of the Detroit Institute of Arts collection in question, with creditors sizing up the museum’s collection of works by Caravaggio, van Gogh and more. Despite arguments for the preservation of the collection, emergency manager Kevyn D. Orr’s spokesman, Bill Nowling claims: “We cannot negotiate in good faith with our creditors by taking assets off the table. And all of our creditors have asked about the worth of the D.I.A. And we’ve told them that they’re welcome to find out.” (more…)
A number of works from the collection of the late Jan Krugier will go on sale this fall at Christie’s in Manhattan. The sale, estimated to bring in about $160 million, includes a 1911 landscape by Kandinsky, estimated to bring somewhere between $20 million and $25 million. “This painting represents a world he loved, one that falls between the figurative into the abstract,” said Conor Jordan, deputy chairman of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department. (more…)
Diana Widmaier-Picasso, granddaughter of Pablo Picasso by his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, is currently undertaking an ambitious project: a catalogue raisonné of her grandfather’s sculptures. Widmaier-Picasso’s ambitious project looks to consolidate the artist’s output in the form, thereby increasing his work’s value in the marketplace. “Picasso is the greatest sculptor of the 20th century,” Carmen Gimenez of the Guggenheim Museum said. “He practically reinvented modern sculpture. But as soon as you begin working with his sculptures, you realize you need to learn more.” (more…)
A number of U.S. Museums are exploring new approaches to exhibiting works while in storage, the LA Times reports. Museums like LACMA and the Broad Museum have attempted to place larger portions of their collections in “visible storage,” where interested visitors can view them. “There is this public assumption that museums are hoarding objects in dark rooms, and by the way that isn’t totally wrong,” says LACMA Director Michael Govan. “What we’re saying is that those objects are worthy for viewing and studying if not always for exhibitions. So you’re not contemplating a masterpiece, but maybe you’ll find value in comparing and contrasting different examples of vases.”
Thomas Hirschhorn, Gramsci Monument (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed
“Everyone is an intellectual.” These words by Italian anarchist/Marxist Antonio Gramsci adorn the walls of Gramsci Monument, the fourth and final entry into Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn’s monumental installation series to his favorite thinkers and writers, currently open in the Forest Houses housing project in the South Bronx. Opening the platform to cultural dialogues, political research and community art efforts, Gramsci Monument continues Hirschhorn’s efforts at destabilizing the spatial encounters of a work of art, broadening its scope to a space where all participants are welcome to create their own meaning. (more…)
Renzo Piano, Model for New Whitney Museum (Installation View), via Alex Cosio for Art Observed
The Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, in collaboration with Fondazione Renzo Piano, is currently exhibiting a retrospective of work produced by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the architecture firm conceived and headed by Pritzker Prize laureate Renzo Piano. Piano, who was born into a family of contractors in Genoa, has emphasized the importance of hands-on experimentation as well as technological innovation throughout his career. Particularly of note are Piano’s models and sketches regarding the design and construction of the Whitney Museum’s future home, tucked between the High Line and Hudson River in the Meatpacking District. (more…)
James Turrell, Roden Crater (Sunset) (2009), via Kayne Griffin Corcoran
With concurrent shows opening at LACMA, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, James Turrell is certainly in the spotlight this summer. The Kayne Corcoran Griffin gallery is also joining in on the artist’s ubiquity, filling its new space on south La Brea with an exhibition focused on the Roden Crater project. Aptly named Sooner Than Later, Roden Crater, the show examines Turrell’s unfinished transformation of the crater into a sight-specific masterwork that has been in development since 1974. (more…)
Dinner view, all photos by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand for Art Observed unless otherwise noted
The Parrish Art Museum held their annual Midsummer Party this past Saturday, an essential event in the Hamptons social calendar, welcoming benefactors and guests to the museum’s newly completed home.
Guests inside the museum (more…)
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dustheads (1982), via Christie’s
This week, Sotheby’s and Christie’s released their sales reports for the first half of 2013, with both sides announcing record sales figures. Christie’s has achieved a global sales total of £2.4 billion, including buyers’ premiums, a 9% increase on last year’s figure. The total includes the private sales of £465.2 million, an increasingly popular segment of the sales market, which saw a 13% growth from last year. The report also marks the third year in a row that the auction house has set new records for the period in both company and art market history.
The Washington Post has published an extensive look at the failure of the Hirshhorn “bubble” project, which saw the departure of several museum board members, and a readdress of the museum’s core mission. Slated to cost between $12.5 million and $15.5 million, the bubble would have also operated at a loss of $2.8 million annually, which added to the increasingly poor morale around the project. The museum is currently in recovery mode, with sponsors, donors and staff taking a moment to gather themselves. “We’ve hit a rough patch, but they say they want it to succeed and move on,” Smithsonian Undersecretary Richard Kurin says. (more…)
Belgian-born Carsten Höller has announced a major site-specific installation for his first major exhibition in Spain, at the soon-to-open, €62 million BotÃn Centre in Northern Spain. Designed by Renzo Piano, the new museum will house the visual arts program of the Bótin Foundation, and Höller’s installation will seek to mirror its mission as “a laboratory to investigate how art influences emotion and creativity”. (more…)
The Jibaozhai museum in the northern Chinese region of Hebei has been shut down after authorities determined that nearly all of the works in its collection were fake. Counterfeiting has been a major issue for China in the past, and government agencies are working to crack down on these violations. “Jibaozhai has no qualification to be a museum as its collections are fake and it hasn’t reported to my department for approval,” says an official from the Hebei cultural heritage bureau. (more…)
Artist Thomas Hirschhorn, in New York for the opening of his Gramsci Monument at Forest Houses in the Bronx, appeared last week at Artists Space in Manhattan, for a discussion with art historians Hal Foster and Lisa Lee on his practice, writing and the necessity of documentation. “The act of writing is a good way of taking it seriously, to be clear with the work, and also to be clear with intention. The act of writing is most important for the artistic will.” He says. (more…)
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is leading a push to bring the Marfa Dialogues, a series of discussions and art events combining the arts and sciences in the small Texas arts community, to New York City, with the help of Cooper Union, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Columbia University. The first edition of Marfa Dialogues/NY will focus on climate change and the environment. “When a number of different organizations align on a topic, it elevates the visibility,” says director of the Rauschenberg Foundation Christy MacLear. (more…)
Dealer Gavin Brown is the subject of a recent profile in W Magazine, documenting his pioneering work in the New York art scene, and his ongoing war against the status quo for gallery spaces in an increasingly uncertain time for mid-level galleries. “It always petrifies me, these moments of shift. And if you focus on this small world of artists and galleries and museums, I think we’re kind of spinning our wheels wondering what’s next because we know something is coming. All the old models seem to be running out of gas. It’s a fascinating time,” Brown says. “Everything is up in the air.” (more…)
Fearing for her son, the suspect in the theft of seven paintings by Picasso, Monet and more from a Dutch Museum, a Romanian woman has come forth saying that she has burned the paintings in her stove. Olga Dogaru, the mother of suspect Rodu Dogaru, had buried the works when her son was arrested, and finally destroyed them in February. Investigators are analyzing the contents of her stove to check for evidence of the works, which were worth tens of millions of dollars. (more…)
Floor Cone (1962), in front of Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, (1963) Image courtesy of Oldenburg van Bruggen Studio.
Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929, Stockholm) is widely regarded as one of the founding pioneers of Pop Art, a superstar in the history of art, and a visionary who opened new doors on the world of conceptual practice, sculpture and performance. Embracing this foundational role, the artist’s current retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art maps the early beginnings of Oldenburg’s career, alongside the formative years of Pop Art. (more…)
The M+ museum in Hong Kong’s developing West Kowloon district has announced that it will appoint Doryun Chong as its head curator. Mr. Chong is currently serving as the associate curator of painting at MoMA, where he organized shows of work by Ernesto Neto, Bruce Nauman, and Henrik Olesen. He will also oversee the completion of the M+ project, working under Dr. Lars Nittve. (more…)
London’s Mayfair district, traditionally known for its boutique shops and high-end British art galleries, is seeing a number of American dealers moving in, The New York Times reports. Gagosian, Pace, David Zwirner and more have opened spaces in the area, seeking to provide an even greater global offering for potential artists and customers in a vibrant market. “We’re all chasing the same artists,” says Marc Glimcher, president of Pace. “But the intensity of interest in art in London is long-lasting. You can get 10 reviews in 10 different newspapers. And besides the new collectors and galleries, there is a very vibrant museum community.” (more…)
The ongoing growth of the Asian art market has brought a new focus on local identities and markets within the region, The Guardian reports, leading to a new market segment increasingly interested in predominantly Asian artists and works. “What’s happening in London or New York remains important of course, but so is what’s happening in Mumbai, Jogjakarta or Tokyo,” says Philip Tinari, director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing. (more…)
Opening in October, the Tate Modern will present a landmark exhibition of works by German-Swiss painter Paul Klee. Exhibiting over 100 of the artist’s works, the show will aim to “redress the idea that he was a quirky artist, allowing his cat to paint, but rather show that he was extremely rigorous, with a clear sense of how his work was progressing … and it will give a sense of the extraordinary variety of his production.” Says Tate curator Matthew Gale. (more…)
Taiyo Kimura, Performance Study With Plastic Bag (1997), via MoMAPS1
In the hustle and bustle of the art fairs and auctions of the two weeks prior, the opening of MoMA’s EXPO 1: New York went almost unnoticed, despite its three-venue makeup that includes modules at the museum’s midtown location, the PS1 annex in Queens, and at the newly built VW dome in the Far Rockaway, all which explore new conceptions of ecology and politics in the post-millenial landscape.
Steve McQueen, Static (2009), via MoMAPS1 (more…)
