A group of protestors, working under the name Liberate Tate, showered the Tate Britain with fake pound notes this weekend, continuing the series of protests over the museum’s British Petroleum sponsorship. “It’s time for the arts to draw a line,” says one protestor. “Oil companies are a whole category of unacceptable partners for public arts, like tobacco and arms companies.” (more…)
Claude Monet, Le Grand Canal (1908), via Sotheby’s
The Impressionist and Modern Auction week has begun in London, as Sotheby’s closes its doors on a strong set of evening sales. It was the first sale since the auction house announced its increase in rates for 2015, but buyers seemed undeterred by the price increases, bring the final sales tally for the 54 lot sale to an impressive £170,274,000. (more…)
Rineke Dijkstra, Selected Works (Installation View), all images courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery Paris
On view at Marian Goodman’s Paris exhibition space is the third exhibition from Dutch photographer and filmmaker Rineke Dijkstra, composed of of two new videos filmed in Russia. Dijkstra became internationally known for her beach portraits of teenagers on the beaches of South Carolina, Poland, and Ukraine during the 1990’s, but she has also been producing lesser-known video portraits since 1996. The videos on display here, focusing on young ballerinas, were commissioned by Manifesta (European Biennial of Contemporary Art) for its most recent edition in 2014.
Paramount Ranch 2, via Art Observed
Tucked away in the mountain ranges outside of Santa Monica, the Paramount Ranch is a relic of the Golden Age of the Hollywood studio system, a massive film set and town used to shoot Westerns. It’s just this history that makes the landscape a fittingly Californian location to stage an art fair. Now in its sophomore year, Paramount Ranch offers a unique take on the fair experience: galleries and artists are invited to participate, steering away from any formal application process, and the selection of works often leans towards the more imaginative and immediate.
Haciencda at Paramount Ranch 2, via Art Observed (more…)
Claude Monet, Le Grand Canal (1908), via Sotheby’s
Picking up where last week’s Old Masters auctions in New York City left off, the art market’s attention turns to London this week, as Christie’s and Sotheby’s prepare a set of Impressionist and Modern auctions. (more…)
Artist Andres Serrano, whose notorious work Piss Christ was removed from the Associated Press image archives after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, speaks out in Creative Time Reports this week, defending unconditional free expression in the arts and in contemporary political discourse. “Unfortunately, times like these show us the true limits of people’s taste for debate, even in an ostensibly free society,” he writes. “We have only to look to our shared human history to find that the artists and thinkers who have most advanced civilization in the direction of freedom and equality were often unpopular in their day. They questioned, they analyzed, they regularly offended. Without them we would surely be lost.” (more…)
In the run-up to this week’s Impressionist and Modern auctions in London, The Guardian looks at the current state of the market, and how works like Claude Monet’s Le Grand Canal (est. £20 milltion – £30 million), have come to be valued so highly in the growing market. “There is such intense demand for the very best and the rarest,” says Jay Vincze, the international director and head of impressionist art at Christie’s, “This is the kind of painting that will appeal to a masterpiece buyer. Someone who wants the best of everything.” (more…)
A major ring of forgers focused on Old Masters works has been uncovered in Spain, with over 27 pieces priced to sell for over €1.2 million confiscated in the city of Castellón. The works varied widely in quality, including a number of Goya etchings which were, in fact, photocopies of the artist’s work. (more…)
The New York Times profiles Dick Polich, the foundry owner and metalworker who has worked closely with some of the world’s most ambitious contemporary artists, including Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, and Frank Stella. “He told me, ‘You’re trying to push the envelope, and I’ll go there with you,’” says sculptor Rona Pondick. “And then he said, ‘And while I’m going there with you, can I show you a few things I’m playing around with?’ ” (more…)
John Waters, Beverly Hills John (2012)
Marianne Boesky Gallery is hosting its third collaboration with John Waters, a pioneer of American camp and “trash culture” since the 1970’s, particularly through his feature breakthrough Pink Flamingos in 1972. Throughout his career, Waters has constantly redefined the elements that constitute American culture, at a time when the nation was premature to notions such as homosexuality or kitsch, and used these often marginalized cultures within a studied cinematic and artistic framework.
John Waters, Still from Kiddie Flamingos (2014) (more…)
Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait Of A Young Man With A Book, Via Christie’s
Old Masters Week has concluded in New York, following a set of auctions over the past few days that saw mixed results at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s. (more…)
Polly Apfelbaum, HWP 10-20 (2014), via Art Observed
The White Columns Annual offers a particularly resonant opening note for New York’s art world each year. Refusing an overly objective approach to the curation of a “year in review” style group show, the event encourages, and even emphasizes subjectivity, turning the keys over to one group or person each year. This year, the all-female art collective Cleopatra’s has been handed the reigns for the Annual’s 9th Edition, with the end result being a colorful, expansive show that is at turns somber, wry and compelling. (more…)
The U.S. Army is searching for a new group of cultural affairs officers to supervise the securing and preservation of important cultural monuments, property and locations in conflicted areas. The Army had long taken a more lax, reactive approach to cultural preservation, but is looking to strengthen its methods. “The civil affairs units have always had ‘functional specialists’, but the individuals were often not qualified in any meaningful way,”said Brigadier General Hugh Van Roosen, the director of the Institute for Military Support to Governance (IMSG) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. “At the same time, if you have one person who was just the right fit, you probably didn’t have two of them. It was just a broken system.” (more…)
Artist Kehinde Wiley is profiled in the New York Times this week, discussing his early life in Los Angeles, and his responses to the outrage over police violence in Ferguson, MO. “I know how young black men are seen,” the artist says in his Williamsburg studio. “They’re boys, scared little boys oftentimes. I was one of them. I was completely afraid of the Los Angeles Police Department.” (more…)
Employees at The National Gallery in London have planned a five day strike in response to the museum’s privatization of their positions, which union general secretary Mark Serwotka claims “risks damaging the worldwide reputation of what is one of the U.K.’s greatest cultural assets.” (more…)
The BBC looks at the early career of Vincent Van Gogh, and the artist’s decision to enter divinity school in his mid-20’s. It was during this time that the artist visited the depressed Borinage region, and where his work among the laypeople inspired him to draw and paint. “The people were poor and illiterate, and their work was hard and dangerous,” says curator Sjraar Van Heugten. “Yet for Van Gogh, there was some kind of bigger truth in their simple way of life. After he became an artist, he chose to find his subject matter there. Like artists that he admired, such as Jean-François Millet, he wanted to portray the life of working-class people, and he remained interested in doing so certainly for the first half of his career.” (more…)
Hauser and Wirth has announced that it will serve globally as the representative for the Mike Kelley Foundation. Established by the artist in 2007, the organization issues grants to artists working on challenging projects among Kelley’s preferred mediums. (more…)
French filmmaker Pierre Bismuth is going in search of a long-forgotten sculpture by Ed Ruscha, a fake rock that was created and then abandoned in the Mojave desert. The work, titled Rocky II, does not have a confirmed location, but Bismuth is determined to locate it, and has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund the completion of the film. “We will answer the questions ‘Where is this rock?’ ‘Why is it hidden?’ and ‘What is there to hide?'” says Bismuth. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal profiles collectors Aaron and Barbara Levine, whose focus on collecting conceptual art has led to an impressive collections of 20th century art focused around works by On Kawara and Marcel Duchamp, among many others. “The first time I saw the early 20th-century abstractions of Kazimir Malevich, I was in tears,” Ms. Levine says. (more…)
As Sotheby’s prepares a new round of auctions in the upcoming weeks, the company has announced a series of increases in its sales percentages. Buyers at upcoming auctions will now pay 25 percent on the first $200,000 of a work’s hammer price, 20 percent on the value between $200,000 and $3 million, and 12 percent on any amount remaining above $3 million, up from the previous upper threshold of $2 million. “This will improve Sotheby’s revenue, strengthen the company’s profit margins,” says current CEO Bill Ruprecht. (more…)
The recent arrest of artist Tania Bruguera after her performance in Cuba has raised a number of questions regarding the freedom of artists in the country, the New York Times reports. “You never know how far you can go,” says well-known novelist Leonardo Padura. “Sometimes it seems as if spaces open and then close again.” (more…)
Pointing to concerns over security, the Victoria and Albert Museum has attempted to withhold information on its ownership of a devotional image of Muhammad following the terrorist attacks in Paris earlier this month. “Unfortunately we were incorrect to say there were no works depicting the prophet Muhammad in the V&A’s collection,” said spokeswoman Olivia Colling. “As the museum is a high-profile public building already on a severe security alert, our security team made the decision that it was best to remove the image from our online database (it remains within the collection).” (more…)
Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait Of A Young Man With A Book, via Christie’s
The auction calendar kicks off with its first major sales of 2015 this week, as collectors of Renaissance and Classic works flock to New York City for Sotheby’s and Christie’s Old Masters week sales. With a group of sales lined up for each auction house in the coming days, and a number of impressive works available, the auctions should mark a strong start to the auction season. (more…)
Claude Monet’s L’Embarcadère will hit the auction block next week during Sotheby’s auction of Impressionist and Modern works next week in London. The “museum-quality” work featuring the landscapes of Zaandam in the Netherlands, is estimated to sell for between £7,500,000 and £10,000,000. “Monet captures the Dutchness, not merely externally…but also the delicate enveloping light and atmosphere, subtly different from the Ile de France,” writes art historian Ronald Pickvance. “The superb manner in which he registers the immense and often changing Dutch skies is sufficient proof of this.” (more…)