Sotheby’s has announced a partnership with Drake, welcoming the rapper to partner with the auction house during an exhibition and private sale of works by black artists in the coming months. The artist will select music to play during the exhibition, part of Sotheby’s increased focus on private sales. (more…)
Following up on the claims for serious market contention made by new chief Edward Dolman, Phillips has landed a major private collection for sale in the coming months, valued at nearly $35 million. The works, which include a Brice Marden estimated at $8 million to $12 million, and a Ed Ruscha valued at $2 to $3 million, will be sold at the auction house’s Contemporary Evening sale in May, with some others being reserved for a special photography sale. “They were interested in art of their time,” says advisor Allan Schwartzman, who helped build the collection. “There is a lot of abstract work and work where the imaging is involved with the natural world.” (more…)
A recent 13D filing from Mark McGwire’s Marcato Capital in the past week states that the hedge fund now holds stocks in three Sotheby’s funds amounting to about 9.5%, equivalent to Daniel Loeb’s Third Point, and requests that the company release previously withheld information around the company’s recent dealings. “The redacted material goes to the very heart of the parties’ dispute in this litigation – the conduct and competence of Sotheby’s board of directors in adopting a poison pill,” Marcato states in its filing. (more…)
Daniel Keller, Stack 1 (2014), via Max Hetzler
Presenting a selection of artists working at the bleeding edge of social and economic critique, Max Hetzler’s exhibition Open Source: Art at the Eclipse of Capitalism easily clocks in as one of the season’s most unexpectedly energetic exhibitions. Curated by Lisa Schiff, Leslie Fritz and Eugenio Re Rebaudengo, and spread between the gallery’s Paris and Berlin locations, the show places post-capitalist theory and economic transition as its central conceit, examining the material and social costs of contemporary life within systems of capital exchange. Pulling from the works of writer Jeremy Rifkin, the exhibition explores a historical juncture at which the traditional modes of national economic and political systems are slowly giving way, and a new, digitally-accelerated model of consumption and distribution is swiftly establishing itself.
Open Source: Art at the Eclipse of Capitalism (Installation View – Paris), via Max Hetzler (more…)
Tomi Ungerer, All in One (Installation View)
The Drawing Center is currently honoring pioneer illustrator Tomi Ungerer, with an ambitious look at his expansive career of diverse themes and motifs. Born in Alsace shortly before World War II tore through Europe, Ungerer moved to New York in 1956, where he published his first series of works. Although his divergent artistic interests led him to compile a comprehensive oeuvre from advertisement campaigns for publications including the New York Times to graphically striking illustrations criticizing the politics of his time, Ungerer came to prominence in the U.S. as a children’s books author. His objection to this type of categorization eventually led him to move to Nova Scotia with his wife, later followed by another relocation to Ireland, where he currently resides. (more…)
Pierre Le Guennec, the electrician accused of stealing over 200 Picasso pieces from the artist years ago, has been handed a suspended two year sentence for his possession of the works, and has been ordered to return the works by a Parisian court. (more…)
303 Gallery has announced plans for its own publishing imprint, appointing former Fulton Ryder director Fabiola Alondra as the head of the wing. which will feature “limited edition artist’s books, ephemera, and all manner of printed materials in collaboration with gallery artists,” according to the gallery. (more…)
The art collection of late film executive Samuel Goldwyn will go to auction at Sotheby’s in the next few months, spread across nine sales in New York (including May’s Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale) and estimated at a total value of $25 million to $30 million. “To me, these film pioneers and these artists had the same spirit and energy,” says Sotheby’s Simon Shaw. “The art had to be bold, I suppose, to hold its own in that house.” (more…)
A number of works which were damaged during a massive fire in Berlin’s Friedrichshain bunker, including pieces by Caravaggio, Rubens and Donatello, are on view at the Bode Museum in Berlin, showcasing the immense restorations done on some works while exploring the ethical and historical implications of their damage. “We will be showing a number of horrendous-looking pieces—works that are so badly damaged that they haven’t been displayed in generations,” says Julien Chapuis, the museum’s deputy director and show curator. “We want to be brutally honest about the condition of these works so that we can start a dialogue as to how they can be presented in the future.” (more…)
LACMA has published an editorial on its blog this week, calling for renewed efforts in preserving the Nevada region of desert called Basin and Range, where artist Michael Heizer is working to complete his monumental City project. “As the possibility for protecting Basin and Range comes close to a reality, LACMA and other museums around the country are hoping to bring attention to the positive cultural impact protecting this land would have,” the article states. (more…)
Paul Chan, Sock N Tease (2013), via Art Observed
For a semi-retired artist, Paul Chan has been busy in past years. Following his step back from creating video and installation work in 2010, the artist dove headfirst into the world of publishing with Badlands Unlimited, an imprint responsible for a broad variety of works that have included Saddam Hussein’s On Democracy, and even a recent series of erotic works inspired by Olympia Press, the Paris-based smut peddlers that also published some of the Twentieth century’s most significant works of literature (Lolita and Henry Miller’s Rosy Crucifiction Trilogy).
This diversity of practice was what earned him the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize, one of the U.S.’s top honors, and an exhibition at The Guggenheim. Given his output over the past decade, the artist is presenting a new series of sculptures that combine his recent publishing ventures with his particular approach to ready-made, object-focused sculpture. (more…)
Gabriele Finaldi, the deputy director of the Prado museum in Madrid, will take over for Nicholas Penny as the head of the UK’s National Gallery this August. “I feel deeply honored to take on the directorship of the National Gallery after Nicholas Penny,” Finaldi, who formerly worked as a curator at the museum from 1992 to 2002, says. “This is a world-class collection in a world-class city and I eagerly look forward to working with trustees and the staff to strengthen the gallery’s bond with the public and its international standing.” (more…)
Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sales in New York this May will be lead by a series of works from the art collection of the late John Whitehead, former chairman of Goldman Sachs. Whitehead built a museum-quality collection over the course of his career, and will offer works from Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Amedeo Modigliani and Pierre Bonnard, among others, anticipated to bring over $40 million. “I remained enough of a financier that I took an interest in the prices, and I tried to predict what price an individual piece would go for at auction,” he wrote in his biography. (more…)
The annual study by The UK’s Association of Leading Visitor Attractions shows a 7% increase in museum visits by the British in 2014, topped by The British Museum (6.7 million visitors) and National Gallery (6.4 million). The news comes in the middle of an election season in which many have called for an end to austerity measures affecting British arts institutions. (more…)
The New York Post details the intrigue and deception surrounding dealer Yves Bouvier’s arrest this past month in Monaco. Bouvier recently sold an Amedeo Modigliani, Nude on a Blue Cushion, for hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen to Dmitry Rybolovlev, allegedly charging the Russian $118 million when Cohen had only received $93.5 million from the sale, sparking an investigation that ultimately led to his arrest. (more…)
MoMA has acquired the iconic Jasper Johns’s work Painted Bronze, a work that has sat in the Philadelphia Museum of Art for three decades, and which was purchased recently by collectors Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis. Kravis, who serves as MoMA’s Board President, gifted the work shortly after purchase directly from the artist’s personal collection. “It’s not easy to convince someone who’s kept something for himself for more than 50 years,” says dealer Matthew Marks. “It’s a big deal for him, emotionally. And one can imagine all the people over all the years who have asked, all the institutions, all the collectors who have been told no, since I was a kid.”
Sotheby’s has named Tad Smith as its new company CEO, taking over from William Ruprecht. Smith, formerly the CEO of Madison Square Garden and a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, will look to calm some of the turbulence at the company between stockholders and its board. (more…)
Gabriel Orozco, Cats and Watermelons (1992), all images courtesy MoCA Tokyo
Inner Cycles is an exhibition of new works and historically significant pieces by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, who has been an influential figure in the international contemporary art community since the early 90’s. Composed of found objects, photographs, and sculptures, the exhibition is meant to show a “universe in flux” as objects are constantly appropriated and re-appropriated for new uses.
Prominent German dealer Helge Achenbach has been sentenced to 6 years behind bars for his role in 20 counts of art fraud, allegedly overcharging clients on a number of sales. The dealer also currently owes over €20 million to the Albrecht family in damages, but is unlikely to pay after his companies insolvency. (more…)
Ebay has launched a new section of its website this week, making good on its long-hinted-at art sales collaboration between the auction giant and Sotheby’s. The site will stream all sales from the auction house save its major biannual sales. Early highlights include an offering modern and contemporary photographs by Man Ray, Paul Strand and László Moholy-Nagy on April 1st. (more…)
Daniel Arsham at Galerie Perrotin, via Art Basel
Following a hectic weekend of events and openings, today caps the final day of Art Basel Hong Kong, bringing strong sales and attendance at the sixth edition of the massive Asian market event. (more…)
Philip Taaffe, Choir (2014-2015), all photographs by Farzad Owrang, © Philip Taaffe; Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York
In his large-scale paintings on display at Luhring Augustine’s Bushwick Gallery, Philip Taaffe blends historical and cultural motifs in dizzying collages full of color and life. His exploration of shapes and designs spanning space and time draw on historical narratives to bring overlapping cultural archetypes into view.
Louise Bourgeois, Anatomy (1998), all images courtesy Galerie Lelong
On view at Galerie Lelong is an exhibition featuring graphic works, sketches and drawings made early the career of the late French-American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), whose work often incorporated autobiographical elements.
Brad Troemel, Wall Mount for Vintage Furby Collection (2015), via Art Observed
For the past several years, The Jogging co-founder Brad Troemel has been pushing his focus on commodity consumption, appropriation and use to new highs. There were his works during a residency The Still House Group, vacuum-sealed fish and wild grasses on canvas that pushed notions of the still-life to a shockingly immediate result, not to mention his first show with Zach Feuer last year, when the artist showed a series of Semiotext(e) publications combined with organic raw beans and fake dreadlocks. For his second exhibition with the gallery, Troemel drives his work forward yet again, examining the palimpsestic ideologies of the art world from both inside and out. (more…)