Space Group, an iconic building in downtown Seoul, has been converted into an art museum. The Ariano Museum, opened by collectoer Kim Chang-il opened this month with a show of works from Mr. Kim’s collection, over 200 pieces by 43 international artists, including notable pieces by Subodh Gupta and Marc Quinn. (more…)
Tony Smith, Smog (1969-70), all images courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery
On view at Timothy Taylor Gallery is artist Tony Smith’s first solo exhibition in the UK. The American artist and architect was a driving force in post-war art, anticipating the rise of minimalism while working alongside Jackson Pollock, Barnet Newman, and Mark Rothko.
Bradford Young, Bynum Cutler (2014), via Art Observed
Founded in 1838, the Brooklyn community of Weeksville was a landmark moment in the history of African-American self-determination. Just 11 years after the abolition of slavery in New York, Weeksville was founded by free Black landowners, a venture that grew to over 500 households and earned its citizens the right to vote. As a social project, Weeksville’s impact is vastly significant, allowing a supportive, radical structure for its citizens to define and build their own system of economic and cultural stability. Weeksville’s powerful history that sits at the center of Creative Time’s newest project, Funk, God, Jazz & Medicine, a series of collaborative on-site projects and initiatives incorporating the communal, radical mission of Weeksville and examining its presence in the contemporary landscape of Central Brooklyn. (more…)
New York duo Assume Vivid Astro Focus have been recruited by the Faena Arts Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina to create a special roller disco installation for the museum’s 10th Anniversary Celebration this October 11th-13th. The installation will feature music by French comedienne, drag artist, and celebrity DJ, Lady Bunny. “We want you, the music, the neons, the masks, to all become one,” AVAF says in the press release. (more…)
The ADAA Art Show has announced the 72-gallery list for the 2015 edition of its fair, the longest running in the United States, running March 4 through March 8, 2015. Exhibitions include a special booth dedicated to Nam June Paik at Carl Solway, and one for Wade Guyton at Petzel. “The ADAA broke new ground when it created The Art Show in New York City 27 years ago,” adds Chairman, Adam Sheffer. “Visitors from around the world are able to connect with our esteemed members, view extraordinary presentations and acquire exceptional works of art.” (more…)
Sotheby’s has unveiled a new plan to appeal to collectors and institutions on the West Coast, announcing a new plan that will bring $200 million worth of art on a tour of California, Oregon and Washington. The tour of events will include an exhibition of Jasper Johns’s 1983 work Flag, which is a highlight of the auction house’s November sale in New York, estimated to sell for $15 to $20 million. “Our focus is on the next generation of collectors, the new buyers who will become futures sellers,” says Sotheby’s West Coast head Andrea Fiuczynski. (more…)
Monika Sosnowska, Tower (2014), via Art Observed
Following the gallery’s exhibition of Sterling Ruby’s slurred, industrial run-off and massive assemblages earlier this summer, Hauser and Wirth New York returns for the first show of its fall season with a similarly inclined, yet considerably more restrained take on architectural and industrial forms. This time, the work is Monika Sosnowska’s, and the subject is that of high architectural modernism, reinterpreting the forms and elements of “International Style” as developed and professed by landmark German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Monika Sosnowska, Tower (2014), via Henry Murphy for Art Observed
Ai Weiwei is preparing to open his newest exhibition of work at the former Alcatraz Prison this week, made possible through the efforts of dealer Cheryl Haines and her For-Site Foundation, a project that seeks to install specially focused works in unique environments. “We are addressing issues of human rights, freedom of expression, the role of creative individuals in addressing these issues, and the role that communication plays in creating a just society,” Haines says. (more…)
The Guardian joins Frank Auerbach for a tour of the V&A’s John Constable show this week, as the artist reviews Constable’s longstanding influence on his work. “With the passage of time,” he says, “Constable has meant more and more and more to me. It is not so much about the more well-known qualities – the clouds and the freshness and the light. It is more that I can’t think of another painter who has invested quite so much in every single image.” (more…)
Artist Glenn Ligon has created a specially-designed tote bag, for sale to benefit Harlem’s Studio Museum. Based on the artist’s work Untitled (I am Somebody), the bag is co-designed with MZ Wallace, and is available for $225. “It’s always been a favorite text of mine,” Ligon sayws. “When I was approached about an image for this project, I thought the message of that image and its history, and also how it works on the bag when I saw the sketches, that this is a perfect marriage of these two things.” (more…)
The New York Times reports on the opening of the third and final section of the High Line Park renovation, stretching a loop from 30th to 34th Street and looking out on to the Hudson River. The $35 million renovation was recently the site of an expansive installation by artist Carol Bove, with more projects planned for the future. (more…)
Christopher Williams, Cutaway model Nikon EM. Shutter:/Electronically governed Seiko metal blade shutter vertical travel with speeds from 1/1000 to 1 second with a manual speed of 1/90th./Meter: Center-weighted Silicon Photo Diode, ASA 25-1600/EV2-18 (with ASA film and 1.8 lens)/Aperture Priority automatic exposure/Lens Mount: Nikon F mount, AI coupling (and later) only/Flash: Synchronization at 1/90 via hot shoe/Flash automation with Nikon SB-E or SB-10 flash units/Focusing: K type focusing screen, not user interchangeable, with 3mm diagonal split image rangefinder/Batteries: Two PX-76 or equivalent/Dimensions: 5.3 × 3.38 × 2.13 in. (135 × 86 × 54 mm), 16.2 oz (460g)/Photography by the Douglas M. Parker Studio, Glendale, California/September 9, 2007– September 13, 2007. via The Museum of Modern Art, 2014.
Now at the Museum of Modern Art through November 2nd, 2014, Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness serves as a comprehensive overview of the 35-year-long career of the influential artist. Part of the first wave of West Coast Conceptual artists, Christopher Williams graduated from the California Institute of the Arts and went on to become a preeminent conceptual artist and art professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. His artistic legacy has fervently pursued notions of commercialism, production, capitalism, and process, and the execution of this retrospective very clearly outlines those themes.
Absolut Vodka has rolled out a new marketing campaign heavily indebted to Andy Warhol’s own designs for the brand in the 1980’s, inscribing a limited edition bottle with a design the artist created for an Absolut print ad in 1985/86. “Warhol is an icon and Absolut has a fantastic heritage of collaborating with him,” said Dan Brooks, creative director at the Sid Lee New York, the firm that created the campaign: “This is not about being back in the past, rummaging in the past. It’s about looking forward, reinventing.” (more…)
The Financial Times interviews painter Anselm Kiefer in his studio this week, discussing his ongoing approach to Germany’s turbulent history, his upcoming show at the Royal Academy in London, and his own relationship to his work. “You cannot avoid beauty in a work of art,” he says. “You can take the most terrible subject and automatically it becomes beautiful. What is sure is that I could never do art about Auschwitz. It is impossible because the subject is too big.” (more…)
The Financial Times analyzes the current protest fervor over the presence of sponsorship and advertising dollars currently at play in the contemporary art world, noting major disputes at the São Paolo and Gwangju Biennials, as well as the ongoing protests over BP’s sponsorship of the Tate. “Creativity has become . . .instrumentalized both by capitalism and the nation state,” says São Paulo curator Charles Esche. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal interviews Jessica Morgan this week, the newly appointed director of New York’s Dia Foundation. Morgan, who takes over for Philippe Vergne, recounts her earliest memories of art in her home, and some of her first ambitious projects, including a 2003 show at the Tate Modern. “It was a bit of a grand failure, but we tried valiantly to make an exhibition that responded to the particular circumstances of Tate Modern and the notion of the museum as a public space.” (more…)
London’s Herald Street Gallery has announced plans to open a temporary space in Golden Square, the Soho area that has received notable attention from a number of galleries in the past several months. Sadie Coles and Marian Goodman have both open spaces nearby in recent months, and this new exhibition space seems to have intentions on staying for some time. “Programming will run into 2015,” says a gallery spokesman.
Lehmann Maupin New York has filed a $10 million Wrongful Eviction lawsuit against its Chelsea landlord, 293 Tenth Ave. Corp., run by Michael Silvermintz. The suit claims that Silvermintz’s firm sent an eviction notice late last year, but failed to produce the demolition permit required by the lease. Since then, the gallery claims that the landlord has “engaged in a systematic pattern of conduct that unreasonably interferes with and obstructs plaintiff’s use and occupancy of the subject premises.” (more…)
James Bishop, Slate (1972), All images courtesy David Zwirner Gallery
Now through October 25th, David Zwirner’s 537 West 20th Street location is showing a selection of both recent and historically significant work by James Bishop, an American artist who, through the characteristic opacity and ethereality of his work, has come to be known for the delicate language of abstraction his compositions reveal. Bishop, working since the early 1960s, has forged a strongly individualistic language of space and form in his work, utilizing careful layerings of paint into geometric patterns in large-scale, shown here alongside small-scale works on paper, which Bishop has produced since 1986.
Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Slim (2014), all images courtesy Pace London
Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn presents his first major solo exhibition this month, on view at Pace Gallery’s London location. The artist’s works, large-scale abstract figurative works, are piecemeal constructions, representative of Quinn’s own identity and influenced by an enormously challenging upbringing.
Frieze has announced the list of 20 artists who will be included in this year’s outdoor sculpture park, accompanying the fair proceedings in London’s Regent’s Park, among them Yayoi Kusama, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Martin Creed, and Thomas Schütte. “Unique in the world’s art fairs, this year’s Frieze Sculpture Park is an intriguing and delightful breath of fresh air featuring artists from across three generations,” Curator Clare Lilley said in a statement. (more…)
MoMA has announced details of There Will Never Be Silence, an album paying tribute to John Cage’s monumental work 4’33”, and examining the intersections of silence, sound, and the principles of modern recording. The record, which will be available at MoMA PS1’s ArtBook Fair later this month, includes pieces by Gang Gang Dance, Kevin Beasley and Yasunao Tone. (more…)
An anti-drug trade law blocking anonymous cash purchases and requiring more federal oversight on high-worth transactions in Mexico has had a stifling effect on the country’s art galleries, preventing the anonymous purchases that are often the norm at the high end of the market. “This has obviously affected the sales. Because there are people who are afraid, and they say, ‘I’m going to wait,’ or, ‘I don’t want to buy,’ ” says auction house director, Luis C. Lopez Morton. “They feel uncomfortable. They feel that the government is watching them.” (more…)
Richard Prince’s recently executed series of prints, created using the actual photos of celebrities’ Instagram accounts, have been selling strongly in a private sale through Gagosian, the New York Post reports. An unconfirmed report has priced the works at up to $100,000. (more…)
