Cosmopolitan Casino in Las Vegas will be showing a selection of LED installations by Tracey Emin, featuring animated versions of the artist’s illuminated text works scrawling themselves across the building’s enormous screens. “It’s fantastic that the hotel wants to do this,” Emin says. “It’s not about selling things. It’s about love.” (more…)
Following the resolution of his court case against photographer Patrick Cariou, Richard Prince’s Canal Series will return to Gagosian Gallery this May. The last showing of the works, in 2008, generated more than $10 million in sales, and Larry Gagosian will look to achieve high sales again. “Because of the litigation, everything was frozen,” Gagosian said in a telephone interview. “The art had to be put in storage. We couldn’t sell the catalog. But now that the air has cleared, it seemed like a good moment to take another look at the work.” (more…)
Angolan millionaire Rui Costa Reis has reportedly made a offer to purchase the nation of Portugal’s collection of works by Joan Miró, making a 44 million euro offer for the collection of 85 paintings. The works were previously made for sale in February, but the offering was canceled after strong protests in Portugal. Barring a sale, the works will reportedly be on the auction block at Christie’s in London this June. (more…)
Amalia Ulman, Used & New (Installation View), via LTD Gallery
Used & New, the Argentinian-born Amalia Ulman’s current solo show at Los Angeles gallery LTD, explores the slippery relations between consumerism, gender and class. A participant in Hans Ulrich Obrist’s and Simon Castets’ 89plus initiative, the young artist has quickly become known for an art practice that, with a deceptive slightness, investigates the way in which objects are mobilized towards shaping and maintaining social status. By paying close attention to the aesthetic patterns of consumer stratification from the vantage point of economic lack, Ulman’s work proposes a way of looking at the impact that the design, contour and flow of cheap, globalized production have on the gendered construction of the self.
Amalia Ulman, Accepting Donations (Thank you) (2014), via LTD Gallery (more…)
The Guardian has published an in-depth look at the early work of Thierry Noir, one of the first graffiti artists to paint on the Berlin Wall during the 1980’s. In the profile, Noir recounts his taunting of West German guards, his developing style, and his meeting with Keith Haring, who painted over one of Noir’s works. “I talked to Keith and he was embarrassed and apologized,” Noir writes. “He said: ‘In New York you can get killed for that’. He was invited over and the section of Wall had been pre-prepared for him. The yellow was very transparent so you could see my statues through it. I was angry, but it was not his fault.” (more…)
Robert Longo is profiled in the Wall Street Journal this week, in advance of the artist’s pair of upcoming shows in New York, on view at Petzel and Metro Pictures. “The shows are interconnected in lots of personal ways—and lots of socially and politically relevant ways,” he says. “They’re more about drawing than anything else. In the past, many of my drawings were displayed behind glass, so a lot of people think they’re just photographs. This time, without the plexiglass, you can see the drawing more.” (more…)
Walead Beshty, Selected Bodies of Work (Installation View), all photos by Brian Forrest, all images Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Currently on view at Regen Projects in Los Angeles is an exhibition of new work by L.A.-based English photographer, writer and sculptor Walead Beshty, featuring photographs, sculptures, ceramics, and collages surrounding a theme of bodies and labor, specifically in relation to the physical process of art making.
A new lawsuit in the ongoing Knoedler Gallery investigation has drawn Swiss art historian and curator Oliver Wick of the Kunsthaus Zurich into the fray, holding him allegedly responsible for the sale of a $7.2 million forged Rothko to casino owner Frank J. Fertitta III. Wick was paid a $300,000 consulting fee by the Gallery for his opinion that the work was original, and also showed the piece at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, where he was working at the time. (more…)
Matthew Barney is in the Spring issue of BOMB Magazine, speaking with Director Gaspar Noé about the pair’s shared love of Kubrick, comparisons between past work and their latest projects, and their interests in realism versus spontaneity. “The aspect of filmmaking that I’m most interested in has to do with creating a live condition,” Barney says, “where something is actually happening in real time, and then filming in response to that… It’s not a very economical way of making a film—to set those situations up and shoot them in real time and then edit it all down.” (more…)
The plans seem to be moving forward for the Helsinki branch of the Guggenheim Museum, as the institution is reportedly launching an open competition to design the new space, co-organized with the Finnish Association of Architects. (more…)
Bond insurer Syncora, one of the creditors in Detroit’s bankruptcy case, has filed a massive subpoena against the Detroit Intitute of Arts, calling for a selection of documents including ownership records, documents regarding donations, and tax records, among other records. The move is the latest in an increasingly fraught debate over whether credtiors will push DIA to sell off its works for Detroit’s debts. (more…)
The lawsuit by Daniel Loeb against Sotheby’s, filed over its attempts to prevent him from taking over 10% ownership in the company, has been fast-tracked by a Delaware judge. “Here we have an uncommon rights plan that on its face discriminates between activist and passive investors,” says Vice Chancellor Donald Parsons, who presided over the telephone hearing. “It is sufficiently possible that the board is attempting to tilt the playing field for proxy contest in its favor and make for an unfair fight.” (more…)
A pair of paintings by Gaugin and Bonnard, stolen from a London collector in 1970, have resurfaced in the home of an Italian autoworker, the Guardian reports. The pieces were purchased at auction in 1975 for a sum of 45,000 lira (€39 or £32, equal to £300 today), and sat in the kitchen of his home for many years, before the owner’s son noticed a similarity between the works and other Impressionist masterpieces. “The worker, it seems clear, didn’t know what they were,” says Mariano Mossa, commander of the Italian heritage police. (more…)
Jorge Pardo at Petzel Gallery, via Art Observed
Through April 4th, the work of artist Jorge Pardo will be on view at the Petzel Gallery, stretching the space into a bizarrely disorienting collection of objects and installations. This is the Los Angeles-based artist’s eighth exhibition at this gallery, and continues Pardo’s investigation of architectural and non-specific spaces that interrogate the limits of the gallery-space, as well as the way the viewer is conditioned into looking at art.
Jorge Pardo, Spare Bedroom (2014), All images courtesy Friedrich Petzel Gallery (more…)
Artist Xavier Veilhan and dealer Emmanuel Perrotin have lost a court case asserting Veilhan’s work was copied by artist Richard Orlinski, whose installation of several works in the French alps bear a strong similarity to Veilhan’s previous work. “The court has rightly recognised the originality of Orlinski’s work,” said Orlinski’s lawyer, Julie Jacob. Regardless, Perrotin and Veilhan have stated that they may appeal the decision. (more…)
An ongoing art research project is working to identify air pollution in past centuries, using landscapes and other paintings for clues as to the era’s atmospheric makeup. In one case, the eruption of the Tambora Volcano in Indonesia caused several years of bright red and oranges sunsets around the world, most notably documented in the paintings of J.M.W. Turner. “From Turner you see that in this specific year he starts painting sunsets a little more reddish, compared to two or three years before,” says lead researcher Dr. Andreas Kazantzidis. (more…)
Rankin, A. Galerie, Paris, all photos by Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed
Launched in 1998, the Art Paris fair has charted a course of its own through the increasingly glutted calendar of sales events internationally, sitting squarely between the behemoth proceedings of New York’s Armory Show and the bustle of Hong Kong’s recent Art Basel edition. This past weekend saw the 2014 edition of the Art Paris Art Fair come and go, as 140 galleries set up shop in the Grand Palais for several days of strong sales, and an impressive attendance count of 58,387, up 10% from last year. (more…)
In collaboration with the City of New York, Fabergé is launching a large-scale egg hunt this Easter season, placing 22 artist-designed eggs around the city, for participants to track down. The selection of eggs are specially designed by artists Jeff Koons, Julian Schnabel, and Bruce Weber, among others. (more…)
The Financial Times writes on trends towards collectives, collaboration and cooperation in the contemporary art world, examining the practice of the Triangle Network, White Columns and How to Work Together, a recent project which challenges various fine artists to work in collaboration to respond in ways as to how artists may operate collectively. “We have been very open that this has been a challenging process,” says Polly Staple of Chisenhale Gallery, who helped earn funding for the new project. “It took us six months just to come up with a Memorandum of Understanding.” (more…)
James Turrell, Sensing Thought (2005), via Pace
Following his massive, three-museum retrospective last summer, artist James Turrell returns to the gallery circuit this spring, with a selection of recent works on view at Pace Gallery’s London location in Burlington Gardens. The show offers a continuation of Turrell’s interest in light as a mediator of space, using LED lights to create shifting, intriguing alterations of depth in a closed room.
James Turrell, Recent Works (Installation View), via Pace (more…)
The Wall Street Journal has published a memorial to sculptor Anthony Caro written by Karen Wilkin, a curator and former assistant who spoke at a memorial service for the artist last year, remembering the artist’s demanding nature and quick intuition. “While Tony was invariably pleased when you were excited and enthusiastic about particular works, she writes, “he was far more interested in the problematic, recalcitrant ones. And he was always eager to respond to suggestions from fresh eyes—respond immediately, that is, by working on the sculpture.” (more…)
The New York Times reports on Christie’s auctioneer Loic Gouzer’s new evening auction event, focusing on contemporary and emerging artists. Gouzer’s first auction of the project, to be held on May 12th in New York, will compete with Phillips Auction House’s contemporary sale on the same night, and features work from Richard Prince, Wade Guyton and Cady Noland. “When I look at the quality and the buzz,” Gouzer says, “I think people will want to be there.” (more…)
Three Pieces from Mira Schendel’s Spray Series, via Art Observed
Late last year, when Hauser and Wirth opened its show of Brazilian Neo-Constructivist, Concrete and Neo-Concrete works, the few works on view by Mira Schendel immediately stood out. Light, effortless prices of rice paper printed with China ink and left hanging encased in glass, the works sat somewhere between linguistic deconstruction, minimalism and light art, tracing slight reflections of light over the multi-surface piece. Among a show of boldly colored works and large, impressive sculptures, Schendel’s work stood out for its soft focus and minimal exertions of color.
Mira Schendel, Untitled (from series Discos) (1971-73), via Hauser and Wirth (more…)
