Ellen Gallagher, Don’t Axe Me (Installation View), Courtesy New Museum, New York. Photo: Benoit Pailley

Currently occupying multiple floors of the New Museum is a series of works by artist Ellen Gallagher, a painter and multimedia artist whose work is layered and deeply informed by contemporary and historical references, not only from modern art historic and literary canons but also politics, popular culture and sub-cultures such as Black Power and Detroit Techno.  Represented by two major galleries, Gagosian and Hauser & Wirth, Gallagher’s intellectually conversant work has tantalized critics and collectors alike for the past 20 years.

Ellen Gallagher, Watery Ecstatic (2001-2005), Courtesy New Museum, New York. Photo: Benoit Pailley (more…)

As social attitudes towards country living shift in the United Kingdom, more and more artists are abandoning city life for residence and working space in the countryside, where inexpensive living and the economic struggles of small British towns have paved new modes of work and living for British artists.  “I can negotiate having a social life living in a city, or I can be an artist. I found I can’t do both … Britain has become so complex to be poor in. At least if I am skint here, I can look at the mountains.”  Says artist Bedwyr Williams. (more…)

A $2 million painting by Arshile Gorky has been ruled to be the property of tennis legend John McEnroe, and must be returned, a New York Judge has decided.  McEnroe purchased the piece Pirate II in 2004 with gallery owner Lawrence Salander, who is currently serving a six year sentence for grand larceny, and sued for the recovery of the works from dealerJoseph Carroll after they were sold without McEnroe’s knowledge.  “Carroll acquired Pirate II in a grossly undervalued transaction in which he chose to make no inquiry as to Salander’s authority to sell the work,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich wrote in her decision.

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The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia has announced its intent to sell East Wind Over Weehawken, a 1934 canvas by Edward Hopper, to raise funds for the purchase of new, contemporary works for its museum.  The sale, set for Christie’s December auction, is estimated to earn between $22 and $28 million, marks a return to the museum’s tradition of buying contemporary art.  Harry Philbrick, the museum’s director, remarks:  “We had a very strong tradition of doing that until the 1950s when we pulled back.  In recent years, we have been trying to be more active.” (more…)

Orly Genger, Red, Yellow and Blue (2013) via Madison Square Park

On view in Madison Square Park through September 8, Orly Genger’s Red, Yellow and Blue is an astounding yet whimsical feat of sculpture. Commissioned by Madison Square Art, Red, Yellow and Blue is constructed from 1.4 million feet of rope from repurposed lobster traps, crochet stitched into braids, covered with over 3,500 gallons of paint and stacked and twisted into over 100,000 pounds of colorful and continuous wave-like shapes.

Orly Genger, Red, Yellow and Blue (2013) via Madison Square Park

Genger, 34, is known for pushing the limits of sculpture using rope and found materials.  Her large-scale installations play with the language of the Minimalist, Post-Minimalist and Feminist art historical canon, often utilizing massive installations of repurposed materials.  Past works have referenced Tony Smith, Donald Judd and Walter de Maria, and 2010’s Big Boss at Mass MoCA included 100 miles of red rope that suggested a play on abstract painting.  Though executed in a vocabulary all her own, Genger’s Red, Yellow and Blue also recalls the monumental forms of Richard Serra and the pop textures of Claes Oldenburg. (more…)

Georges Braque, Studio with Black Vase (1938), via Phillips Collection

Georges Braque was a French artist born in the late 19^th century and was a determining force, along with the likes of Picasso, in the forming of the Cubism movement, pioneering new forms and techniques in figuration and depiction that ultimately became a driving force for much of the 20th century avant-garde.  Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928-1945, currently on view at the The Phillips Collection, is a  reflection of the changes happening in society in its modern period, with Braque positioned at the forefront; an in-depth look at the years leading up to and through World War II, and the artist’s simultaneous reactions. (more…)

Lorna Simpson, Chess (2013), via Jeu de Paume

Lorna Simpson (b.1960, Brooklyn, New York) is an African-American artist, working across multiple media, often focusing on photography.  After completing studies at University of California-San Diego and the School of Visual Arts, New York, Simpson achieved recognition in the mid-1980s.  In an era of avid multiculturalism, her work explored themes of racial stereotyping, ethnicity and gender, placing her at the forefront of females and ethnic minorities gaining recognition in the art world.  She was also the first female of color to participate in the Venice Art Biennale (1990).

Lorna Simpson, Wigs (1994-2006), via Jeu de Paume (more…)

Activist Hedge-Fund Investor Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC has acquired a 5.7% stake in Sotheby’s Auction House, a $156.7 million holding that hints to a potentially intervention on the part of Third Point.   “They [Sotheby’s] haven’t radically rejigged their business in the past 10 years,” says former Christie’s COO Michael Plummer, now a principal of Artvest. “It would appear that these hedge funds have an idea that Sotheby’s could be doing its business differently.”

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The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has announced a new line of three-dimensional replicas of some of the artist’s most famous works.  Recreated down to the frame, the replicas are available for £22,000.  “This particular process has been developed with paintings in mind. The work of Van Gogh lends itself particularly well, since the pictures are so rich in surface structure. We have been working with them on the color quality and fine-tuning.”  Says Museum Director Axel Rüger. (more…)

The Nordic Choice hotel chain, in a statement against sex trafficking and exploitation, has begun replacing the pornographic channels on its PayTV system with contemporary art.  Led by owner Peter Stordalen, the hotel has included video works on each TV, including Sam Taylor-Wood’s Still Life from 2001.  “Art is important to me, but hotel art has always had a bad reputation – cheap paintings that match the sofas and so on,” said Stordalen. “I wanted to redefine hotel art to be something unique.” (more…)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is preparing for its first retrospective in thirty years on the work of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, better known as Balthus.  In anticipation, the Wall Street Journal has published a short series of stories about the artist, as related by his daughter, Harumi.  “He thought you should know what’s been done before, to have respect for all masters, to know how to make your own colors, and he frequently complained that nowadays people don’t really learn the tradition. He also complained that there was too much ego, that it was not about what you make with work but more about who you are.”  She said. (more…)

Still House Group, Bru(s) (Installation View), via Galerie Rodolphe Janssen

The Belgian Galerie Rodolphe Janssen is currently presenting a show focusing on the diverse output and extended vocabulary of The Still House Group collective of artists based in Red Hook, New York.   A small, yet varied show, the show allows common thematic elements to jut out from vastly different aesthetics and media, showcasing the group’s common practice and shared techniques of production.

Still House Group, Bru(s) (Installation View), via Galerie Rodolphe Janssen

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The increasing use of the word “curation” in the economic and creative sphere has lead writer and curator Daniel Blight to question the cultural implications of the word for the world of fine art.  As people often taking a more proactive stance in creating meaning and distributional flows online, curators are challenge to increase emphasis on transparency and accessibility in the art landscape, Blight says. (more…)

The New York Times has published a profile on Bivouac NY, a rooftop camping project created by artist Thomas Stevenson in East Williamsburg.  Welcoming visitors onto his roof for a night of food, drinks and views of the New York skyline from canvas tents, the experiment has created an aura of rustic withdrawal within city limits.  “When given the opportunity to pay attention to other people and commune with each other, folks just seem to do it,” Stevenson said. “That was a nice surprise.” (more…)

The Louvre’s iconic Greeks sculpture, Winged Victory of Samothrace, is set to begin a 9-month restoration process next month, the Wall Street Journal reports.Covered in years of dust and grime, the statue will be cleaned to return it to its original white color, and minor repairs will also be made to the statue itself.  “It’s not only a Hellenistic masterpiece, it is also a historic example of 19th century art”says Ludovic Laugier, who heads the project for the Louvre. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal recently sat down with sculptor Anthony Caro, who is currently in the middle of a series of shows in Europe, including exhibition at the Venice Biennale and a soon to open show at Gagosian Gallery.  Speaking with the newspaper, Mr. Caro discussed his prolific output, working approach, and his preference to work on sculptures at full-scale. “I’m never comfortable working on something that has to be imagined bigger or different,” he says. (more…)

A flash mob in Oslo, led by artist Marina Abramovic was shut down this week, following noise complaints.  The performance, done in tribute to painter Edvard Munch, involved a group of over 300 participants “releasing their emotions by screaming,” as Abramovic said.  The sound startled several local residents, who in turn called the police.  “We received four or five  reports,” said police spokesperson Ola Kroken. “But now it’s over.” (more…)

A noble attempt at transnational harmony between France and Germany at the Venice Biennale has hit a stumbling block, the Wall Street Journal reports.  Exchanging exhibition pavilions in honor of the 1963 Franco-German reconciliation treaty, the two parties have complained of issues with their respective spaces and environments.  The awkward nature of Germany’s Nazi-commissioned pavilion has made for some gaffes in presentation, while Germany has complained of insufficient storage for some of its works.  “I’m looking forward to the next edition of the Biennale,” said Giulia de Manincor, a staff member at the French pavilion. “Hopefully France will be France again, and Germany Germany.” (more…)

The Marina Abramovic Institute has reached its target goal of $600,000 on the Kickstarter online funding platform, with two days left before the campaign closes.  The funds will go to cover the design process for the museum, before it moves into its construction phase.  In total, the project is anticipated to cost a total of $20 million. (more…)

After several months of deliberation, Berlin officials have announced a new plan for a $174 million museum to house the city’s extensive 20th century art collection.  Located in Potsdamer Platz, the new museum will boast an area of about 9,900 square meters (106,563 square feet), and could open as soon as 2022 if work starts immediately.  It now falls to the German government to approve these plans.  “With a new building, the Nationalgalerie collection could at last be exhibited permanently on a big scale.” German Culture Minister Bernd Neumann said in a statement. (more…)

The New York Times reports on the impacts of a globalized art market, and the near constant travel to China, Southeast Asia, Europe and elsewhere to cater to any number of growing markets.  With the massive increase in art fairs from 4 major events during the 1970’s to today’s 180 fairs worldwide, gallerists are feeling the pressure to be everywhere at once, a feeling that many feel detracts from the act of buying or selling works of art.  “Fairs are beneath the dignity of art,” says Arne Glimcher of Pace. “To stand there in a booth and hawk your wares — it is just not how you sell art.” (more…)

David Hockney, The Jugglers, June 24th 2012 (detail), (2012), © David Hockney, Via Hockney Pictures and Pace Gallery

The Jugglers, June 24th 2012 (2012), the U.S. premiere of artist David Hockney’s first video installation, presents a panorama of bright color and whirling objects, tinged with mordant humor. In a darkened room on the second floor of the Whitney, the viewer will find a bare theater with a single long bench and eighteen screens arranged in a grid. The screens switch on to reveal a composition of red and blue horizontal blocks almost as flat as Hockney’s early acrylics. Also bearing similarities to his Polaroid collages, Hockney has chosen to create a fractured composition using video to achieve the same effect by combining feeds from eighteen different cameras mounted in his Yorkshire studio on a sunny day. The light is even and saturates the space, permitting no highlights or shadows, and without figures, the red and blue studio looks relatively seamless on the screen. (more…)

Artist and dealer Margaret Lee is interviewed this week in New York Times Magazine, discussing her busy schedule as an artist, owner of the 47 Canal gallery, and the solitary studio assistant for Cindy Sherman.  “It was good for me to see that you can be this amazing artist and not be an ego-driven, horrible monster,” she says. (more…)

This fall Ovation, the arts-themed cable network, will debut James Franco Presents, a series focused on the artistic works and interests of actor and artist James Franco.  The series will give viewers “an unprecedented look at the fascinating projects and real life adventures of James Franco.”  The network said in a statement.  “From his gallery exhibits to his students’ films, the innovative series will also provide an exclusive opportunity to hear Mr. Franco’s point of view on his most-personal passion projects, most of which have not been seen by the public.” (more…)