One of two paintings exchanged by artist Jackson Pollock for the convertible he ultimately crashed and died in will be on sale at Christie’s later this year, the Wall Street Journal reports. Pollock reportedly exchanged his work Number 5 (Elegant Lady) for art dealer Martha Jackson’s Green Oldsmobile, which he crashed two years later. The work is valued between $15 million and $20 million. (more…)
Sentencing for the convicted Knoedler Gallery defrauder Glafira Rosales has been postponed until September, following the March 14th filing of a secret court document with Manhattan federal court. Analysts speculate that Rosales, who has already agreed to forfeit $33.2 million, which includes her Sands Point home and $81m in restitution, is negotiating with federal officials in building a larger criminal case for her co-conspirators. (more…)
Katharina Fritsch, St. Michael (2008), via Matthew Marks
Simple yet explanatory, Sculpture is Matthew Marks Gallery’s current exhibition, bringing together the most recent three dimensional works by artists Katharina Fritsch, Robert Gober, Jasper Johns, Charles Ray, Ellsworth Kelly and Martin Puryear. Adopting the newest in the medium as its main concept, this group exhibition presents an opportunity for gallery goers to view and compare current modalities in the art of sculpture. (more…)
Brendan Fowler, (That) hat on bedspread (countries of origin:my deposition was postponed and Matt’s took all day) (2014), via Half Gallery
Brendan Fowler’s new works, currently on view at Half Gallery uptown, are nothing if not elusive. The show, on view last month at Los Angeles’s LAXArt, to New York as a follow-up of sorts to the last showing of photographic works by the artist at MoMA’s survey of new photography late last year (a series of Fowler’s highly-popular crash works). Here, Fowler seems more interested in the image itself, rather than the potentials for combination and assemblage of the modern image. The works are created entirely using a commercial grade embroidery machine and thread, leaving layered, textured works that offer a striking commentary on the photographic image. (more…)
Dustin Yellin is profiled in the New York Times this week, focusing on the artist’s close ties among the expansive New York arts scene, and his work founding the Pioneer Works exhibition space in Red Hook. “Dustin does amazing things for the community,” says Red Hook resident and friend Billy Durney. “The amount of charity he does would set a record.” (more…)
Long-time collector and founder of Exis Capital Management Adam Sender is selling off his monumental art collection over the next year and a half through Sotheby’s, the New York Times reports. The collection of works, including pieces by Dan Flavin, Martin Kippenberger and Cindy Sherman, is valued at $70 to $80 million. “I grew up Jewish, but more and more I find myself embracing a Buddhist philosophy,” Sender says. “I will still be lucky enough to live with a lot of art.” (more…)
Tom Gidley, Everything Is Permitted Within the Circle (2012), all images courtesy Saatchi Gallery
Following up on Saatchi Gallery’s look at the contemporary landscape of British artists practicing today, New Order II marks a continuation of the institution’s 25-year-long investment in and support of new faces to the British contemporary art scene. The exhibition will run through March 23, 2014.
Next month, Pace Gallery will open a temporary space in the Menlo Park area of Silicon Vallery, part of a new attempt by the art world to cater to the growing wealth of the tech-sector. Pace President Marc Glimcher has been quoted as saying that the pop-up space represents a growing interest from clients for space to sell: “not necessarily a gallery, but we need a moment.” (more…)
Marianne Boesky and Dominique Lévy have announced their official co-representation of artist Frank Stella. The two galleries will take over for the artist’s somewhat scattered representation of the past few years, representing him jointly worldwide. (more…)
Skarstedt Gallery will open its new Chelsea space on May 8th, the gallery reports. Designed by Selldorf Architects, the exhibition space will take over the previous home of Haunch of Venison on 21st Street. “We have an ongoing commitment to mounting key historical exhibitions,” founder Per Skarstedt said in a statement. “I’m delighted to open this new gallery space in Chelsea with an exhibition of incredible works by these quintessential modern masters. This approach suits the collaborative way we have always worked with artists and their estates.” (more…)
The New York Times reports on the growing practice for museums to live-stream and archive lectures online, allowing interested parties to view them around the world. The article also explores MoMA’s recently initiated online tours and courses, and a recent collaboration by the Metropolitan Museum of Art with the TED lectures brand. (more…)
A German student has discovered the composition of Joseph Beuys’s iconic brown-hued paint Braunkreuz (brown cross), the Art Newspaper reports. Beuys used a special rust-proofing agent in his paints, giving them their signature sheen, reports Ole Valler of the Hochschule Rhein-Waal. “This shows his belief in the strong connection between art and everyday life. Materials have a special meaning in Beuys’s work,” says Barbara Strieder, of the Museum Schloss Moyland. (more…)
Douglas Gordon is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as he prepares to exhibit his work at this year’s Sydney Biennial. “The idea of art is to be as free as possible,” he says. “I am the least hippy person. I am an extremely hardcore dogmatic bastard, actually. But I retain the right to do whatever I want.” (more…)
George Condo, Constellation Portrait (2013), via Simon Lee
In the middle of 2013, George Condo fell ill with legionnaire’s disease and triple pneumonia, a combination of illnesses that left the prolific artist at death’s door. Traveling between Berlin, London and New York, the artist’s demanding schedule finally got the best of him, placing him in the hospital for several weeks recovering. It was during this time that Condo painted the works currently on view at Simon Lee gallery, a suite of paintings that see the artist branching ever further into his particular approach to portraiture and abstraction.
George Condo, Headspace (Installation View), via Simon Lee (more…)
Dealer James Fuentes will launch a show next month reflecting on the infamous Real Estate Show held in the Lower East Side in 1980, a seminal exhibition in protest of the city’s dealings with low-income neighborhood residents that ultimately led to the formation of the famous ABC No Rio space. The show will include many artists from the original show, as well as videos and films documenting the event. (more…)
The New Yorker reviews the career of Ryan Trecartin this month, taking a look back at the artist’s series of videos from the past ten years, and examining his depictions of youth culture, internet dialects and his “breaking news about the future.” (more…)
Crain’s Business takes an inside look at the growing trend of high-end pawnshops, accommodating wealthy collectors interested in quickly monetizing their artworks. The growing popularity of personal asset loan companies like Borro has seen more art collectors in particular using the site, like one Marc Kaye, who used the site to get a loan on a $64,000 Picasso drawing during a dry spell. “I was in just a little pinch, and this was an elegant and discreet way to get cash,” he says. (more…)
New research has shown that a set of watercolors by J.M.W. Turner, previously thought to depict the burning of Parliament, are in fact paintings of a fire at the Tower of London. The note was discovered by Matthew Imms, a cataloguer at the Tate. “We could tell that the works were fairly late in Turner’s career so I cast around for other events at that time, and came across various images, popular prints and so on of the Tower of London fire in 1841,” Imms says. “It immediately clicked, because the various uncertain features of the architecture and so on matched quite well.” (more…)
The ongoing dispute between two members of the Cy Twombly Foundation appears to have reached a settlement, the New York Times reports. Twombly Foundation President Nicola Del Roscio and Vice President Julie Sylvester had filed suit accusing fellow director Thomas Saliba and lawyer Ralph Lerner of valuing several Twombly works (held in their own trust) at a highly inflated $1 billion. The settlement terms, while not all stated, involved Salbia and Lerner resigning their positions in the Foundation. (more…)
The investigation into a stolen Gustav Klimt painting nearly 17 years ago has been reopened, with authorities using sophisticated DNA testing technology to try and find a match with evidence found on the work’s frame. Portrait of a Woman was stolen in 1997 from the Ricci-Oddi Gallery in Piacenza, with police unable to find any prior evidence able to track down a suspect. (more…)
The Museum of Contemporary Art has announced that artists Catherine Opie, John Baldessari and Barbara Kruger are all returning to their positions on the museum’s Board of Trustees. The artists had previously left their posts over friction with then-director Jeffrey Deitch’s vision for MOCA. Painter Mark Grotjahn has also been elected to a fourth artist seat on the board, previously occupied by Ed Ruscha. “I’m very excited about the prospects for MOCA with Philippe leading us and I want to be supportive,” John Baldessari said in a statement. (more…)
Doug Wheeler at David Zwirner, via Art Observed
The new installation by Doug Wheeler, currently on view at David Zwirner’s 20th Street gallery, cites itself as an exploration of the horizon, a delicately shifting light installation inside an enormous ellipsoidal room. Painted a harsh white, the floor and ceiling reflect the subtly changing neons running just out of site underneath the floorboards of the work. Comparable to the work of James Turrell, Wheeler’s pieces make much of the illusory capabilities of light acting on space. His 2012 installation at Zwirner, a massively lit wall giving the impression of an infinite color scape in front of the viewer, bears resemblance to a number of Turrell’s infinite lightscapes, allowing the viewer to slowly gain an awareness of their own act of seeing, and the behavior of their eyes in space.
Doug Wheeler, LC 71 NY DZ 13 DW (2013), Photo by Tim Nighswander, Imaging4Art © 2014 Doug Wheeler; courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London (more…)
Artist Richard Prince and photographer Patrick Cariou have reportedly settled their case over Prince’s alleged copyright infringement, The New York Times reports. Prince, who had won a landmark “fair-use” ruling on a majority of the works in question (his Canal Zone series) last year, has settled the case in undisclosed terms, but court documents have indicated that he will not be forced to destroy the works in question. (more…)
