Björn and Dieter Roth, Selbstturm (1994-2013), via HangarBiocca

HangarBicocca, Milan’s 12,000 square meter former industrial space turned gallery, is the perfect place for Björn and Dieter Roth’s Islands exhibition. The huge interactive installation, curated by HangarBicocca’s Artistic Advisor Vicente Todolí (the former Director of the Tate Modern in London), interacts with the space beautifully, creating a unique environment defined by the artists. Visitors are drawn into the artwork as they walk through the several “islands” created by groupings of work: walls of paintings and prints, sculptures, an installation of repurposed materials, musical instruments, furniture, screens and household items that visitors are encouraged to interact with, including the 131 screens of Dieter Roth’s well-known video diary, the floors from the artists’ studio, and their sculptures: Zuckerturm (Sugar Tower), 1994-2013 and Selbstturm (Self Tower), 1994-2013. (more…)

Jill Kroesen, The Original Lou and Walter Story, performance at The Kitchen, December 21—23, 1978. Courtesy the artist. Photograph by Robert Alexander

Currently on view at The Whitney Museum of American Art is Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama — Manhattan, 1970-1980, an ambitiously titled exhibition that focuses on the underground performance art circuits that made New York City a founding ground for the medium.  Looking at a broad range of performers, exhibition spaces, practices and historical contexts, the exhibition is an intriguing look at the early days of performance, and its impacts on contemporary art. (more…)

Hong Kong’s M+ Museum has received a major gift of 37 contemporary Chinese works from the collection of Guan Yi, one of the nation’s most significant collectors.  The donation includes a number of important works, most notably the entire checklist from the 2003 Venice Biennale Exhibition Canton Express.  “Guan Yi’s generous donation is a marker of the trust and respect that M+, Hong Kong’s future museum for visual culture, already holds within the international artistic community, and signals building global anticipation for the first museum of its kind in Asia – already housing one of the most important collections of Hong Kong and Chinese contemporary art worldwide,” says Michael Lynch, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority’s Chief Executive Officer.  (more…)

As violent protests continue to rock the city of Kiev in the Ukraine, the country’s National Art Museum has issued a statement asking both police and protestors to spare the museum’s cultural heritage.  The statement comes after city police lit a bonfire on the steps of the Museum to stay warm during violent clashes with protestors, and asks protestors and police to “remember their responsibility in preserving the cultural heritage of the state [and] refrain from deliberate or accidental actions that may damage the museum and the surrounding territory”. (more…)

Christie’s has announced its final sales figures for 2013, and the auction house is claiming a world record for sales during 2013, with a $7.13 billion final tally.  The final total is a 14% increase on last year’s numbers, and sees a $5.9 billion of the sales coming from auctions, beating out competitor Sotheby’s, which achieved a sales total of $5.1 billion at auction.  The auction house also boasted considerable increases in sales for each region worldwide. (more…)

 Martha Beck, New York curator and founder of the Drawing Center, has passed away at the age of 75.  Ms. Beck, a champion of  both emerging artists and the more rugged, experimental drawing works of masters like Michelangelo and architect Antonio Gaudi, established the Drawing Center in the late 1970’s, using a small, publicly-funded budget to put on world-class shows of drawings and works on paper that earned her museum a reputation of quality and adventurousness.  “Amazingly, she would ask the most important museums all over the world to lend their precious rare old master drawings to this funky warehouse space in Lower Manhattan — and they would — because its reputation for innovation, connoisseurship and excellence preceded it,” says Ann Philbin, a former director of the museum. (more…)

The criminal proceedings against a Long Island City foundry owner over the purported sale of a fake Jasper Johns sculpture will see the artist taking the stand to testify.  Johns will testify that he did not give foundry owner Brian Ramnarine a version of his sculpture Flag in 1990, but that he used a mold that the artist contracted him to create in order to create an unauthorized copy, which he then attempted to sell for $11 million.  Ramnarine is also accused of selling copies of works by Robert Indiana and Saint Clair Cemin, the latter of whom has also testified in the case.  Cemin, in fact, claims that he found an illegally duplicated version of one of his works, and confronted Ramnarine at his studio.  “I smashed [the sculpture] to the floor, breaking it, and I left,” Cemin testified. (more…)

Roxy Paine, Carcass (2013), via Kavi Gupta

Chicago’s Kavi Gupta Gallery is currently showcasing an immense sculptural project by New York-based artist Roxy Paine, a series of sizable wooden dioramas, carved into uncanny models of an unnamed fast-food restaurant, and a control room, filled with switches, faders and television screens.

Roxy Paine, Control Room (2013), via Kavi Gupta (more…)

The LA Times has published an in-depth profile of newly announced MOCA Director Philippe Vergne, examining his “collegial” arts background, and his vision for a new, “Artist Enabling” Museum.  Particularly of note is Vergne’s plans to refraine from curating shows himself.  “My role as a director is to enable curators to be what they are at the highest level. By doing that, you enable the artist,” he says. (more…)

A number of iconic works from the early years of the YBAs will go on sale at Christie’s in London next month.  Offered by commodities trader Frank Gallipoli, the works were all part of Charles Saatchi’s iconic Sensation show in 1997, including pieces by Tracey Emin and Jenny Saville, and are being cited as a test of the market for works from the 1990’s British movement, which some believe may have passed their market peak. (more…)

Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic, (Installation View), all images courtesy LACMA

Currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a landmark exhibition of from American sculptor Alexander Calder, including his iconic series of mobiles, as well as his later stabiles. Titled Calder and Abstraction: From Avant Garde to Iconic, the exhibition will remain on view at LACMA for over half a year, from November 24, 2013 through July 27, 2014.

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Responding to a number of articles and analyses of the Chinese contemporary art market, Forbes has published a list of myths about the nation’s ever-burgeoning sales of contemporary art.  Noting a number of overly negative, pessimistic claims over forgeries, lack of collectors and a dearth of interest in international artists, the list sets straight a number of commonly held beliefs about contemporary art in China today. (more…)

The Guggenheim Museum’s upcoming show on Futurist art will feature a number of rarely seen murals, on loan from the central post office of Palermo, Sicily.  Created by Benedetta, the works have never left Italy, and have hung in the same place since they were commissioned in the 1930’s.  “It’s the grand finale of our exhibition,” says curator Vivien Greene. “It’s such a beautiful way to end the show. It ends it on a really positive note. Instead of lingering more on the end of the war, when poor Italy is so beat up it’s so depressing, I thought, ‘Let’s have a finale that shows you at your best.’ ” (more…)

The Delfina Foundation has reopened its doors after a ten-month. £1.4 million renovation, making it London’s largest artist residency program.  The foundation’s gallery space opens today with an exhibition titled The Politics of Food.  “It’s great to be in a place that takes food as seriously as I do,” joked UK Culture Minister Ed Vaizey. “I expect hundreds of MPs will be beating a path to the door, especially when they hear how tidy it’s kept and that there is food here.”  (more…)

Isa Genzken, World Receiver (2012), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

Open since November, Isa Genzken’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art is a colorful affair, combining the artist’s playful manipulation of consumer objects, every day materials and multiple media forms with a studied historical perspective that underlines her architectural and structural interests.

Isa Genzken. Rot-gelb-schwarzes Doppelellipsoid ‘Zwilling’ (Red-Yellow-Black Double Ellipsoid “Twin”), 1982. Lacquered wood, two parts. Overall: 9 7/16 x 8 1/16 x 473 1/4″ (24 x 33.5 x 1202.1 cm) Part one: 5 1/8 x 8 1/16 x 236 1/4″ (13 x 20.5 x 600 cm) Part two: 4 5/16 x 5 1/2 x 237″ (11 x 14 x 602 cm). Collection of the artist. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin. © Isa Genzken (more…)

Indian artist Subodh Gupta is profiled in the Wall Street Journal, as his first major museum retrospective opens at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.  Titled Everything is Insisde, the show is curated by former Venice Biennale director Germano Celant, and includes a number of new works.   “A good artist starts with his roots and uses that cultural identity to say something larger to the international art world,” Mr. Celant said. “But for an artist like Subodh, it’s also important to come back and be seen at home.” (more…)

The Tate Modern has signed a landmark sponsorship deal with the Hyundai Automobile Corporation, an 11-year commitment to commissions for the museum’s Turbine Hall, making it the largest corporate partnership the organization has ever agreed to.  “These commissions have been reflecting major steps, major transformations, major disruptions in the history of contemporary art,” says Tate Modern Director Chris Dercon. “Contemporary art is evolving in a different way than just materials and methods. We are faced with a global world of art.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles Industry City, the business incubator and artist studio space in Sunset Park that played home to Come Together: Surviving Sandy, Year 1 late last year.  Despite its populist appeal, the space has been drawing continued criticism over its rapidly rising rents, which have already pushed out a number of artists from the building.  “Part of why we moved to Industry City was because of the community of artists, of art lovers,” said Krista Saunders, the director of programs and communications at Art Connects New York.  “It’s really beneficial that we are located within an artistic community, and now that this is dissolving, we are considering our options,” Ms. Saunders said. (more…)

The Guardian reports on the rising rent and low return on investment in the rapidly developing London neighborhoods of St. James and Mayfair, and the impacts the growth in high-end construction is having on the long-standing galleries of the area.  The story centers around Cork Street, where a number of storied London galleries are located.  “I am an angry old man,” says gallerist Leslie Waddington of the 80-year old gallery Waddington Custot. “Cork Street has been built up over the years and relies on a mix of different galleries. We are the victims of a kind of commercial fascism, where those making decisions based on profit feel they are unaccountable.” (more…)

With artist Doug Aitken’s The Source series of creative dialogues has opened at Sundance Film Festival, he sat down with New York Times Magazine to discuss the work, his recent Station to Station project, and his ideas of creative immediacy.  “I see it as trying to reduce and reduce and reduce,” he says. “Bringing things back to a candid and immediate conversation between two people. Having something that has very little filtration, that is not reprocessed by a critic and is not repurposed through the filter of cultural history.” (more…)

Georg Baselitz, Ohne Titel – 3.IV.2002 Der Schachspieler im Profil, (2002), via The Albertina

In honor of German-born Georg Baselitz’ 75th birthday, Albertina Gallery, Vienna, Austria, is presenting a cross-section of its broad collection of his work. Baselitz (b. 1938) is of the most easily recognized living modern artists, working as a painter, printmaker, sculptor, and draughtsman. He has had shows at institutions including MoMA, The Guggenheim, The Royal Academy, The Saatchi Gallery, The Gagosian Gallery, and Centre Pompidou.

Georg Baselitz, Untitled, 16 April (2006), via The Albertina (more…)

Dana Schutz, Yawn 2 (2012), Courtesy Hepworth Wakefield Gallery

At The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, is the first solo show in the UK for young artist Dana Schutz. Mostly made up of new paintings and drawings, the exhibition includes 20 vibrantly colored works depicting absurd, hypothetical situations.

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Matthew Barney’s latest filmic project, the nearly 6-hour long epic River of Fundament is set to premiere next month at Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Created in collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler,  the work takes its inspiration from Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings, paralleling Mailer’s tale of Egyptian mythology with the rise and fall of the American auto industry.   (more…)

Philip Guston, Painter’s Head (1975), Courtesy Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

On view at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is an exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of American painter and printmaker Philip Guston (1913-1980), with a selection of around forty works from the later part of his career.

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