An article in the Wall Street Journal takes a closer look at how auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s vigorously recruit new collectors. Seeking fortunes large enough to sustain multi-million dollar sales, these auction houses keep a close eye on a new crop of billionaires that has been springing up over the past few years in areas like the Balkans and Central Asia. The courting ritual employed by the houses includes children’s parties, personalized tours, VIP passes, and, in one case, a hand-crafted needle-point pillow. (more…)

A Bloomberg article investigates the lack of transparency in online auctions. The impetus for the report is a recent Paddle8 online auction, which featured 20 works of money-themed art, including a piece by Andy Warhol. After the auction was over and  65 percent of the lots were left unsold, Paddle8 pulled the estimates and bids from the website, opening up the possibility to put the artworks into another auction with no record of their failure to sell. This opacity has become common as more websites and auction houses engage in online auctions, a possible indication that these progressive methods are less than successful. (more…)

Former Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have announced that they will be suing the Russian government on the grounds that their prosecution violated international standards for civil rights.  The lawsuit will look for €120,000 each in compensation, as well as €10,000 to cover court fees. (more…)

“Born in the Bronx”, Installation View. All photos Anna Corrigan for Art Observed.

Now through August 1, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise is presenting a trio of diverse works by Oliver Payne & Nick Relph, a video piece by the gallerist himself, and an exhibit of Afrika Bambaataa’s record collection surveying of the roots of hip-hop in the Bronx.  The exhibits speak to the process of emptying shelves and opening closets, placing the material details that one collects over a lifetime on view. In equal measure, the works illustrate a history, at once intimately personal and indicative of the larger movement of time and material legacy.

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Kazimir Malevich, Self Portrait (1908-1910), State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

In 1915, Kazimir Malevich first exhibited his Black Square, a simple, powerful statement on the possibilities for painting in the face of contemporaries still bound up in the exploration of figurative painting and impressionist tropes.  The piece marked a bounding leap forward for modernist practice, or rather, a point of entry in its own right to the early concepts of abstraction.

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Painting (with Black Trapezium and Red Square) (1915), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (more…)