A coalition of Detroit Automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler) has announced plans to donate about $10 million each over the next decades in order to aid the city’s bankruptcy exit while protecting its art collection at Detroit Institute of Arts.  The museum will also be soliciting donations from other corporations.  “For this to work, the Legislature has to be in and part of it,” says an unnamed CEO considering a donation. “Business groups are encouraging the Legislature to make it happen.” (more…)

Sterling Ruby is interviewed in the New York Times this week, following the opening of the artist’s new show at Hauser and Wirth.  “When you look at what I do,” he says, “it’s schizophrenic to the point where it should never have a market. With my work, you can’t be like, “Well, we can plug this into what’s happening in the market because it looks like the last series.” (more…)

The High Line will open its third and final section of park this fall, which will prominently feature sculptural work by Adrian Vilar Rojas, designed to deteriorate and shift over time, in parallel with the industrial spaces surrounding the work.  “If you stop to think about it,” the artist says, “it’s the most contradictory thing: You’re in relaxed, dreamy space, and then all around you is like a battle zone. People are taking pictures of construction sites.” (more…)

Andy Warhol sells at Christie’s, via Art Observed

The results are in on an auction that exceeded any and all expectations tonight at Christie’s, and a new world auction record has been set for auctions overall.  Despite early calls that the auction would be marked by excessive guarantors and limited betting, all expectations were broken.  Christie’s surged past the previous high it set late last year, arriving at a final sales record of $744 million for the 68 lot auction, with only four works going unsold, bringing down a number of world auction records with it on the way.  The sale was also defined by an impressively deep level of wealth over the highest priced works.  63 of the lots managed to sell for over $1 million, and 4 surged past the $50 million mark, eliciting astonishment by many on hand.

Barnett Newman, Black Fire I (1961) which sold for a record $84.165 million, via Christie’s

(more…)

Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled (Woman and daughter with makeup) from Kitchen Table Series(1990), all images courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim

Documenting the landmark work of video maker, photographer, spoken word poet and textile artist Carrie Mae Weems, The Guggenheim is currently presenting a body of work spanning over thirty years in the artist’s career, including a number of the artist’s most significant and iconic works.

Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography (Installation View) (more…)

Andy Warhol sells at Christie’s, via Art Observed

The contemporary art auctions this week were set off on a bounding start last night, as Christie’s opened its new auction event “If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday” to thunderous results, capping a 35 lot auction that sold all but one work, and achieved a final sales tally of $134 million, as well as a number of world auction records for the artists on sale.

Martin Kippenberger, Untitled (1988), via Christie’s (more…)

Artist Mark Grotjahn is profiled in the New York Times this week, reviewing some of his recent works, and his recently opened show of Butterfly paintings on view at Blum and Poe’s New York space, and a larger show of masks, sculptures and other works at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.  “I think the masks are fascinating objects and also important as painting surfaces that allow for tremendous freedom and experimentation,” says Nasher director Jeremy Strick. “You could see it as a way for Mark to give himself license to do things he wouldn’t ordinarily do, to paint in different ways.” (more…)

The Financial Times takes an inside look at the recently opened second location of the Long Museum in Shanghai, operated by Director Wang Wei and her husband Liu Yiqian.  “Our idea initially was to have only one museum,” Wang says, “but the government came to us, encouraged us to open another and gave us a discount on the land, on condition that we make a cultural project. I probably would have been happy with one.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper takes a look at Bill de Blasio’s record in the past with the arts, and speculates where on his list of priorities the arts will fall during his time as Mayor, noting his record of support for smaller public institutions.  “Under Bloomberg, well-established institutions tended to be favored,” consultant Adrian Ellis says. Now, “those smaller organizations further from Manhattan may see an increase in their funding and their priority.” (more…)

Artist Marina Abramovic is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing her upcoming retrospective at The Serpentine, where the artist will freely wander the space of the gallery, and will allow visitors to come in and watch her.  “It’s the public and me and nothing else,” she says. “I took the objects away. But the encounter, I’ve never done anything as radical as this. This is as immaterial as you can go.” (more…)

A lost Van Gogh has been discovered by tax collectors in Spain, hidden away in a bank deposit box.  The work, Cypress, Sky and Country, is dated 1889, and has three seals of authenticity.  It was last on view at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum over 50 years ago, and an investigation is underway as to how the work may have found its way into deposit box. (more…)

An article in The Guardian notes the growing popularity for online auctions as a means of discovering young artists, and offering an entryway for new collectors to first experience the art market.  “The idea is to make great art available to a far broader audience,” says Joshua Blackburn, founder of online gallery Artful. (more…)

A rendering for Carsten Nicolai’s Alpha Pulse, via Wall Street Journal

Coming hot off the heels of Frieze New York, Art Basel’s growing Hong Kong fair opens this week, shifting the art market’s attention halfway around the globe for the newest entry in the Basel fair franchise as it prepares for its second year. (more…)

A Mondrian held in private hands for over 50 years will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s New York this week, estimated at about $30 million, and anticipated to potentially break the artist’s record at auction.  “It’s from what is considered to be Mondrian’s best period, in the 20s,” says Helena Newman, co-head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s.  “By which time he has developed this very iconic and unique style which is so beautifully epitomised in this work. (more…)

Andy Warhol, Race Riot (1964), via Christie’

With the clamor of Frieze Week subsiding, the last big sales for New York’s spring art calendar are set to take place this week, as the major auction houses gear up for their Contemporary and Post-War Auctions.  True to form, the combination of ample buyers and a thriving market has brought forth a series of strong works at all houses, with a number of impressive works on-sale that could challenge some long-held auction records. (more…)

The New York Times takes a look at the lunch habits of various artists in their studios, examining the communal eating time for artists and their assistants, particularly those of Urs Fischer, Cai Guo-Qiang and Marianne Vitale.  “What makes me sad,” Fischer says, “is when people have these lunches where they all go out individually, and then have plastic containers of salads, and sit in front of computers.” (more…)

The Guardian profiles downtown art icon Dan Colen, in the run-up to the artist’s retrospective at The Brant Foundation, which opens this week, reappraising the artist’s career in terms of his material and technical concerns.  “I’m trying to equalise the world to say there is no high and low,” Colen says.  “People have often thought I was fucking with them when really I was just trying to share that sentiment.” (more…)

The Guardian has published a list of the most powerful people in the art world, noting the top “movers and makers” in the current market, among them Jeff Koons, Agnes Gund, Victor Pinchuk, Dasha Zhukova, and Emmanuel Perrotin. (more…)

Nada Entrance, all photos via Patrick Jaojoco for Art Observed

Returning to the southern tip of Manhattan, and the fittingly loose confines of the Basketball City sports complex, the NADA New York fair caused quite a stir this year, bringing a high quality fleet of exhibitors and artists to the space for a free fair that did away with much of the high profile glitz of Frieze up the East River, without sacrificing on quality works.  Welcoming a number of small regional galleries alongside a strong count of downtown mainstays, the 80-gallery fair presented a compelling alternative to Frieze’s big ticket names and prices, while keeping a strong focus on size and selection. (more…)

Frieze Art Fair, via Art Observed

Following Thursday’s preview event and Friday’s initial day of public entry, Frieze Art Fair is up and running, opening the doors on a revamped fair that has already drawn considerable praise for its strong, diverse selection of galleries and artists, mounting a combination of impressive works alongside more challenging, unique installations that offer a fitting cross-section of the contemporary field.

William Kentridge at Goodman Gallery, via Art Observed (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing the expanse of his career, his approach to photography, and his taste for viewing other artist’s work, including that of artists from many centuries earlier.  “I’ve always understood looking at other and older art as looking at friends’ work,” Tillmans says. “We’re separated through time, but we’re all dealing with ultimately similar questions.” (more…)

Antony Gormley’s Event Horizon, the iconic sculpture project that places life-size casts of the artist’s body atop various buildings in an area, has been cancelled in Hong Kong following the pullout of sponsor J.P. Morgan.  The bank pulled its sponsorship after one of its employees leapt from the top of its office building in the Chinese city. (more…)

In the notoriously opaque art market, the auction house is the only space where the business of buying and selling art has remained relatively transparent and public. As Christie’s and Sotheby’s compete to attract sellers with the most valuable collections, both auction houses are increasingly offering private guaranteed bids, a practice that some worry can distort auction results.  (more…)

Robert Longo, Untitled (The Pequod) (2014) all images courtesy Petzel Gallery and Metro Pictures

On view concurrently at Petzel Gallery and Metro Pictures in New York are two exhibitions of works by Brooklyn native painter and sculptor Robert Longo. Gang of Cosmos at Metro Pictures is composed of twelve charcoal drawings of well-known Abstract Expressionist paintings, while Strike the Sun at Petzel Gallery focuses on images of patriotism in America, specifically the U.S. Capitol and the American flag as symbols of both nationalism and protest.

(more…)