The National Museum of China has opened a new exhibition, featuring a large collection of works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  Earth, Sea and Sky: Nature in Western Art is the first large-scale collaboration between the two major arts institutions, and pulls from the American museum’s vast collection.  “Never before has an exhibition of this scope and theme, drawn entirely from the Met’s holdings, traveled to China.” Says Met director Thomas Campbell. (more…)

Street-artist JR spoke with Nowness Magazine this week, elaborating on his ongoing, collaborative street art project.  The artist has been printing large-scale photographs for contributors around the world, and empowering them to paste these images in their communities.  “It’s true art. That’s why people want to participate.” says photographer Matt Black. (more…)

The Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas has installed Tulips, a large-scale stainless steel sculpture by Jeff Koons, in its ground floor rotunda.  Acquired at auction in November for $33,682,500, the work is one of the largest and most complex of Koons’s Celebration series, and will sit near the hotel’s showroom lobby.  “Many people believe that Jeff Koons is one of the most important living artists on canvas and in sculpture in the world today,” said CEO Steve Wynn. “I’m happy to be one of those people and particularly delighted to share with our guests his magnificent creation of the Tulips sculpture.” (more…)

Air de Pied-à-terre (Installation View), via Lisa Cooley

Walking into  Air de Pied-à-terre, the newest show on display at artist Lisa Cooley’s gallery, one is reminded of an otherworldly hotel lobby. With the help of fellow artist and curator Alan Reid, Cooley has created an “Air de-Pied-à-Terre” (an alternative living space, located away from one’s home). The gallery has numerous articles that evoke a nostalgic atmosphere within the show – mobiles that dance around the room, paintings that mimic children’s creations, and homely looking text juxtaposed against more classical looking portraiture. The entirety of the show is punctuated by stereotypically domestic constituents such as chairs and potted plants that engulf the viewer and invite them to make themselves at home. (more…)

New York’s now-closed Knoedler Gallery is being sued by a family trust for allegedly selling them a forged painting by Mark Rothko for $5.5 million.  The gallery has faced similar lawsuits in the past, and is accused of withholding information that may have discouraged the sale, including telling the buyers that the work came from the secret collection of a “Mr. X.”  “At all relevant times, defendants knew that the Mr. X story was untrue,” lawyers for the trust stated. “Indeed, defendants privately equated Mr. X to the fictional ‘goose that laid the golden egg.’”  (more…)

A small statuette stolen in 1901 from the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai, France has been discovered and returned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  The statue’s origins were uncovered during a routine history check, and was promptly handed back to the French institution.  “We don’t want to hold onto, nor do we have any business holding onto, stolen objects,” says the MFA’s full-time provenance researcher, Victoria Reed. (more…)

The Art Dubai fair has announced its commissioned projects for 2013, including works by Mary Evans, Mohammed Kazem and Fatima Al-Qadiri.  The works range in scope and size, from a festival wide radio project to a video gallery installed within a narrow stairwell, and reflect the blend of Arabic and global artworks on view at the fair.          (more…)

Entrance to Hauser and Wirth’s second gallery in New York, where Martin Creed’s ‘Work No. 1461’ greets visitors

At 511 West 18th Street, in the 24,700 square feet that formerly housed the roller disco known as “The Roxy,” Hauser & Wirth have found their second home in New York. Maintaining their other location on the Upper East Side, the expansion to Chelsea is their fifth location worldwide, and celebrates an important landmark: the gallery’s twentieth anniversary. A hefty book of over 1,000 pages, edited by Hatje Cantz, accompanies the event: Hauser & Wirth 20 Years. The exhibition inaugurating the space could not be more fitting: a father-and-son collaboration which took place over that same twenty year period: Dieter and Björn Roth.

Artist Dieter Roth smokes a cigarette in Roth New York Bar.

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The Office for Contemporary Art Norway has announced that it will send a special exhibition to Venice this year, titled Beware of the Holy Whore: Edvard Munch and the Dilemma of Emancipation.  Featuring several rare works by Edvard Munch and a newly commissioned film by Lene Berg, the exhibition will explore the dichotomy of freedom and isolation found in the state of emancipation, and will take place from 31 May to 22 September 2013 at Galleria di Piazza San Marco of Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. (more…)

Lost in LA (Installation View) All photos by Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Los Angeles’ Municipal Art Gallery recently exhibited Lost in LA, a group show featuring artists of both American and French origin working in a collaborative dialogue. The immensely popular television show “LOST,” which throughout the last decade acted as both a source of inspiration and speculation for these artists, serves as the backdrop to the themes presented in the exhibition. (more…)

British artist Tracey Emin will exhibit her first American public art installation next month, taking over the enormous LCD billboards of Times Square with a selection of the artist’s handwritten text pieces on love.  The six works will be on view each night from 11:57PM to Midnight in February, coinciding with Valentine’s Day, and presented by the Times Square Alliance. (more…)

This Sunday, the Tate Modern will host an ambitious performance work, organized by artist Suzanne Lacy, in its new performance space, The Tanks.  Welcoming 400 women over 60 who were active in mass political actions of the past 40 years, Silver Action will provide the platform for open, unscripted discussions on aging and political activism.  Visitors will be able to listen into the many conversations concurrently running, and dialogues will also be transcribed online.  “I’m trying to shift the discourse away from one of isolation and increasing frailty: we should see older women as an amazing resource – not just talk about them taking resources.”  The artist says.   (more…)

German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer’s 1515 woodcut “The Rhinoceros” has sold at Christie’s in New York City for $866,500, setting a new record for the artist’s works.  Originally estimated at $100,000 to $150,000, the price of the piece quickly exceeded its estimate.  While some highly valued works, including Knight, Death and The Devil failed to attract bidders, Dürer’s record price for a single work was broken three consecutive times over the one-hour auction.   (more…)

Christie’s has announced its first online only auction of works by Andy Warhol, with all proceeds going to benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.  The auction includes a selection of highly recognizable works, as well as a number of Warhol’s photographs, and will open for bidding on February 26th.

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Mere weeks after the announcement that Christopher D’Amelio would be joining David Zwirner Gallery, the gallery has  announced that it will be opening a new, five-story location in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.  The gallery will be christened with a dual show by Dan Flavin and Donald Judd on February 15th, and plans to host major exhibitions that rival the those of much larger art institutions.  “The first show is a marriage between the space and the work,” Zwirner said last week. (more…)

In an effort to encourage visitors to enter the Milton Keynes Gallery in Milton Keynes, England; artist Tomas Georgeson has hidden a blank check for £8,000 somewhere inside.  While Georgeson stands by the check as art, he also considers it an investment in the gallery and its visitors.  “It almost doesn’t matter what happens, it’s the fact that it’s there. If somebody chooses to spend it on mortgage payments, then those mortgage payments would become art, which is quite miraculous to me.”  He says. (more…)

Maxwell Snow, Shroud V (2012), via Colette

Paris’s iconic Colette concept store is currently exhibiting new photographic works from artist Maxwell Snow, brother of the late Dash Snow. Monochromatic images feature French actress Rebecca Dayan and model Arizona Muse in a homage to 19th century Romanticism, fittingly titled after Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott”. (more…)

Billionaire Roman Abramovich has purchased a collection of works by Ilya Kabakov, Russia’s most expensive living artist.  The collection of over 40 works ranges from early installations and albums to paintings, and is estimated to have totaled over $60 million.  “It’s one of the largest Kabakov collections in the world,” said Emilia Kabakov, the artist’s wife and collaborator since 1989. (more…)

Frank Cohen, the Mancunian billionaire and art lover, has announced plans to open a free art gallery in the Bloomsbury area of London.  The new space, situated in the former depot for Express Dairies, has already drawn comparisons to Charles Saatchi’s Chelsea location, and has been purchased in partnership with fellow collector Nicolai Frahm.  “We’re trying to give London another space which has a completely different feel.” Says Cohen. (more…)

The heir to Jewish art dealer Alfred Flechtheim is pushing the German government for a decision on a pair of paintings by Paul Klee and Juan Gris that he claims were sold to Nazi collectors under duress.  Flechtheim’s great-nephew, Mike Hulton, claims that there is sufficient evidence to prove his claims, but he is currently being challenged by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.  “We are asking for late justice. My aged stepmother Penny and I are very disappointed and somewhat puzzled — we hope this emotionally stressful and difficult situation will come to an end soon.” Hulton says.

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Salem, MA’s Peabody Essex Museum has quietly risen up the ranks to become one of the United States’ top 20 art museums for gallery space and endowment, thanks in part to a new revenue model that focuses on strengthening the museum’s endowment over physical expansion.  Led by director Dan L. Monroe, the museum has also shifted its focus towards the local community, and away from occasionally unreliable streams of tourists.  “That gives you a dynamic relationship with the community and the capability to develop a support base,” Mr. Monroe says. (more…)

Sotheby’s announced that its will soon hold its first evening auction of Indian works in 12 years, a collection of 43 works from collector and dealer Amrita Jhaveri.  The upcoming auction will be exhibited in New York, London and New Delhi in advance of the sale, and will include works by Tyeb Mehta, Francis Newton Souza and Syed Haider Raza, with a total value of $7 million. “Her father and mother were also collectors and knew various artists. But I believe that these are her works.” Says Yahmini Mehta, international director of Indian and South-east Asian art at Sotheby’s. (more…)

While fine arts auctions in New York State generate total sales of $8 billion annually, many dealers and market analysts are calling foul on auction practices intended to drive up the price of works with little to no supervision of the market.  “The art world feels like the private equity market of the ’80s and the hedge funds of the ’90s,” says James R. Hedges IV, a New York collector and financier. “It’s got practically no oversight or regulation.”

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LA Art Show (2013), Installation View

The LA Art show held its opening night premier party on Wednesday, January 23rd at the LA Convention Center. During the Patron Hours, James Franco was the guest of honor and was joined by an eclectic LA crowd, with an incredible mix ranging from the overtly contemporary to the traditionally elegant. Entering its 18th year, the fair has earned a reputation for its well planned juxtaposition of traditional and modern art, and this year’s edition was no different.  The milling crowd moved easily from the traditional to contemporary sections and back, taking their time to comb through the sheer scale of the festival and its one hundred prominent worldwide galleries.

LA Art Show (2013), Installation View

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