With prices for copper more than quadrupling in the last decade, sculptors are thinking twice before using bronze in their works, instead looking to cheaper materials and more economically sound production techniques in an effort to cut costs. Â Foundries are also feeling an impact on their bottom line as their customers explore other options in the U.S. and abroad.
Having just opened its doors in October, the Power Station of Art in Shanghai is already making big moves as China’s first state-run contemporary art museum.  The 19th century industrial site was converted by the state into a premier public art center, and is currently hosting a massive exhibition in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris to show 119 of the Centre’s works.  “It is a prestige object for the city, to have a museum that, at least in scale, can compete with Tate Modern in London or MoMA in New York,†says Jens Hoffmann, co-curator of the Shanghai Biennale. (more…)
New York art dealers R. Scott Cook and his wife Sousanna A.E. Cook have been ordered to pay $17.96 million in damages to collector George Ball after allegedly fleeing the country with 11 of his works, including pieces by Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Henri Matisse.  Ball claims that the couple had agreed to sell his pieces at Christie’s on his behalf, but instead left the country for France without ever listing the works.
The daughter of photographer Laurie Simmons and painter Carroll Dunham, writer and actress Lena Dunham has worked her art-world experiences into her work long before her hit television show Girls. In 2009, Dunham wrote, directed and produced “Delusional Downtown Divas,” a short online miniseries parodying New York City’s arts scene. Released in conjunction with Index Magazine, the show also featured a guest performance by artist Nate Lowman.
Barnaby Furnas, Jonah in the belly of the Whale (2012) courtesy Marianne Boesky
Visceral and dynamic, the canvases of American graffiti artist and painter Barnaby Furnas ripple with a kinetic energy. Filling his paintings with evocative imagery, explosive movement and the near-omnipresent splatters of blood that has become one of his calling cards, Furnas has culled a reputation for his unique take on culture and history.
Barnaby Furnas, The Gutter #2 (2012) courtesy Marianne Boesky
Installation view of Ann Hamilton, “the event of a thread”, all photos by James Ewing and courtesy of The Park Avenue Armory
American artist Ann Hamilton is widely recognized for her large-scale immersive multimedia installations, touching upon themes of collective consciousness, space and labor. Her current installation, “the event of a thread†commissioned by and on view at The Park Avenue Armory in New York, does not fall short. (more…)
Two exhibitions will celebrate the seminal Armory Show of 1913 this year, “The New Spirit: American Art in the Armory Show, 1913”, which opens at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey on the exact day of the centennial anniversary; and “The Armory Show at 100”, at the New York Historical Society in the fall. The original show, organized by Walt Kuhn and Arthur B. Davies, was so shocking to American audiences that “…in Chicago, art students felt so threatened that they burned Brancusi and Matisse in effigy, a scene that a German expressionist might have done justice to – except that there was no German expressionism in the show.” (more…)
Gillian Wearing, Self Portrait at 17 Years Old (2003). All images courtesy Maureen Paley.
On view through January 6th at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf is a survey of Gillian Wearing’s film and photographs. The 1997 Turner Prize recipient’s work explores the relationship between one’s public and private personas, and the difference between reality and fiction.
