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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As part of its new “Artists Experiment” initiative, The Museum of Modern Art has announced Kenneth Goldsmith as the first “poet laureate” of the museum.  Seeking to bring contemporary artists into dialogue with the institution,the initiative has welcomed Mr. Goldsmith, who also runs the online arts archive Ubuweb, to program a series of readings and events at the museum.  “Poets have this idea that what they do is casual, but the minute you get up onstage anywhere, it’s performative. Poets tend to want to show some degree of “authenticity,” and the structural theatrics around the performative gesture are never questioned. That’s something I always do. I’m a bit of a dandy as a result.”  Goldsmith says. (more…)

José Parlá, Broken Language (installation view) via Haunch of Venison

Haunch of Venison presents “Broken Language,” itsx first solo exhibition of work by New York-based artist José Parlá. Born in Miami to Cuban parents, Parlá’s works highlight the layered stories embedded in urban environments. His practice of combining of personal text, found objects and graffiti styles into large paintings and site-specific installations results in expressive works that relate to the legacies of calligraphy, modernism and abstract expressionism. The works on view include a selection of new paintings, works on paper, photographs, and sculpture spread throughout the gallery’s three spaces.

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For the launch of Lily Cole’s television show Art Matters, on British television channel Sky Arts, the actress and model will interview sculptor Antony Gormley, visiting his studio as well as traveling to the location of some of his most famous public works.  The show will also feature a selection of interviews with curators and critics on Gormley’s practice. (more…)

Portage Falls on the Genessee, a painting by Hudson River School Founder Thomas Cole has been removed from the Seward House Historic Museum in Auburn, NY by its owner, citing poor protection of the work by the institution.  The removal of the painting, given to then New York Governor William Seward by the artist in thanks for his work o the Erie Canal, has caused a stir in the upstate town, with many describing its removal and potential sale as a “betrayal.”  “You’re giving away the centerpiece of the Seward House. The picture is integral to the museum. It doesn’t make any sense.”  Says Hudson River Museum director  Michael Botwinick. (more…)

The New York Times is reporting on 9Y40, an Armory Week sound installation by Brooklyn artist and taxi driver Daniel J. Wilson, which replayed recordings from the artist’s graveyard shift cab fares around New York.  Ferrying art lovers and fair attendees from exhibition to exhibition, Wilson offered riders a glimpse at themselves from the front seat.  “It’s this world where people act like you don’t exist, even though you’re three feet away,” says Wilson “You get this fragment of a person.” (more…)

The Guggenheim Museum has received a $10 million grant from the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation in Hong Kong to comission new works from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.  The move comes as the museum continues to expand its global view of contemporary art.  “This is all part of our global narrative,” says Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. “For years people have asked what we are doing about China. This is a crucial next step.” (more…)

Leo Villareal, The Bay Lights (2013) Courtesy of The Bay Lights; Photography Lucas Saugen

The work of Leo Villareal often operates on grand scales, using bright LED lights to accent and underline the inherent characteristics of human structures around the world.  Frequently using coded algorithms to create complex, shifting patters of light on buildings, walls, and other constructions, his infinite variations of light offer new ways of seeing and viewing already present architectures.

Following up on a number of massively successful public projects (including his popular “Buckyball” installation at Madison Square Park in New York), Villarreal has unveiled his largest installation to date: a string of LED lights running the length of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.  TitledThe Bay Lights, his work highlights the iconic dimensions of the bridge, and projecting its stature into the night sky of the San Francisco Bay.

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The recently opened David Bowie Is… exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is smashing all attendance records for the museum, early reports say.  Chronicling the creative life of rock star David Bowie, more than 42,000 advance tickets had already been sold when the exhibition opened last week, and merchandise from the show is already off to a booming first week of sales.   (more…)

The French Government has announced that it will return seven paintings taken from Jewish owners by invading Nazi forces in the early-to-mid 20th Century.  The hand-over is part of new efforts to return stolen works to their rightful owners.  “It’s as much a moral issue as a scientific one.”  Said French culture minister Aurélie Filippetti, who underlined a need for a “proactive search” to return all looted works to their rightful owners. (more…)

This year’s Venice Beiennale will see a new generation of Young British Artists spotlighted at the exhibition’s “Encyclopedic Palace,” including Ed Atkins, James Richards and Helen Marten.  “The common factor, perhaps, is that all these young artists grew up with the internet. It’s inside them. Because of that, they have a particular attitude to the way images and objects are made, dispersed and distributed.” Says Polly Staple, director of the Chisenhale Gallery, which has hosted all three of the afforementioned artists. (more…)

Initial reports on this year’s TEFAF Maastricht art fair are indicating a high number of museums looking to buy at this year’s edition.  Filled with over $5 billion in art and antiques, the fair is luring a number of museums looking to further bolster their collections.  “Museum board members have realized that this fair is a real opportunity that has to be seized,” Says New York Dealer Richard L. Feigen says. “Or they’ll miss out.” (more…)

Since 1990, the FBI has pursued the perpetrators of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft of over $500 million in art, including works by Rembrandt, Manet, Degas and Vermeer.  Twenty three years later, the bureau has announced that it knows who committed the thefts, but is witholding the information in hope of getting the works back.   The theft holds the disctinction of the largest property theft in U.S. history. (more…)

Christo, Big Air Package (2013) via Reuters

Inside the hulking structure of the Oberhausen Gasometer in Oberhausen, Germany, a massive, billowing expanse of translucent fabric runs down the walls, held upright by the constant airflow of industrial fans.  A gentle, diffused light glows inside, the product of the Gasometer’s skylights shining down from above it.  This is Big Air Package, an enormous pressurized envelope of air created by the Bulgarian artist Christo specially for the Gasometer, turning its spacious, cylindrical main room into a towering column of light and space. (more…)

For the first time in its 84-year history as an independent state, the Vatican City will have its own contemporary art pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Biennale president Paolo Baratta announced yesterday.  The news comes as the Catholic Church seeks to move forward from issues associated with the last pope stepping down.  “They said they wanted to put into public view the fact that there were other things beyond mere country boundaries, political state boundaries, that united people.” Says Andrea Rose, the British Council Director of Visual Arts, who met with Vatican officials last year. (more…)

TEFAF is currently in talks with Sotheby’s and Beijing GeHua Group (China’s state-owned development company) over a new art fair in China.  “TEFAF Beijing 2014” would place a new edition of the world’s largest art and antiques fair  in the world’s second-largest art market.  “We feel now is the time to further develop our presence in China, one of the most important art markets,” said TEFAF Executive Ben Janssens. “Tefaf is committed to contributing to the further growth of the market for European art in China.” (more…)

A painting bequeathed to the British National Trust has been identified as a self-portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn, refuting prior beliefs that the work was done by one of his students, or perhaps a copy.  Donated in 2010, the work was recently rexamined by Rembrandt expert Ernst van de Wetering, of the Rembrandt Research Project, and who was immediately convinced that the work was by the famous Dutch artist.  This new discovery raises the estimated value of the work to £20 million.  “Over the past 45 years we have gathered far more knowledge about Rembrandt’s self-portraits and the fluctuations in his style,” said Van de Wetering. “In 2005 I published an analysis of the genesis of the painting on the basis of an x-ray. This analysis and newly found circumstantial evidence remarkably increased the likelihood that the painting was by Rembrandt himself.”

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Dan Flavin (Installation View) via David Zwirner

The inaugural show at David Zwirner’s spacious new location on W. 20th Street in Manhattan is a pairing of two of minimalism’s major figures and long-time friends, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin.  Given the size of the new location, with its towering ceilings and ample floor space, the show is sparese in both form and quantity, containing 8 illuminated frameworks by Flavin and 5 welded steel boxes by Judd.

Donald Judd, untitled (1991), via David Zwirner

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The New York Times has published a profile of the recently deceased Lisa de Kooning, daughter of 20th Century American painter Willem de Kooning.  The article traces her youth in New York City, her active championing of her father’s estate after his death in 1997, and her struggles with alcohol and drugs, which ultimately led to her early death.  “She had an immense amount of talent,” says actor Alex Kilgore, “but she knew what genius was and she could never free herself from her own eye.” (more…)

Following a turbulent year of art sales and auctions, which saw a 7% reduction in worldwide sales, the United States is once again the leader for art sales globally, according to art economist Claire McAndrew.  Presenting her findings this week at TEFAF Maastricht, McAndrew underlined the current instability of the global economy, and the resultant reliance on safe art investments and blue chip artists. (more…)