The heirs of Peggy Guggenheim have lost their case against the Guggenheim Foundation, seeking to prevent the organization from changing how works are hung at its Venice exhibition space.  The Foundation issued a statement claiming it was “proud to have faithfully carried out the wishes of Peggy Guggenheim for more than 30 years by preserving her collection intact in the Palazzo, restoring and maintaining the Palazzo as a public museum.” (more…)

The ongoing conflict between Dmitriy Rybolovlev and Yves Bouvier takes a new twist this week, as Rybolovlev prepares to return a pair of Picassos he purchased from the dealer in 2013, but which have since been disputed at the property of Catherine Hutin-Blay, the artist’s step-daughter.  Hutin-Bly had been storing the works in one of Bouvier’s warehouses, a move critiqued by Larry Gagosian.  “I’d consider it a terrible conflict of interest and would never keep art long term in the warehouse of a dealer,” he says. (more…)

Anish Kapoor has covered the graffiti on his work Dirty Corner with strips of gold leaf, refusing to remove the graffiti as a French court had ordered, while still concealing it.  The artist noted that the new action turned the piece into “something else, a room still with a painful past, but a piece that first claims the beauty of art”. (more…)

Ron Nagle, Skin Grift (2013), via Art Observed

The walls of Matthew Marks Gallery are dotted with miniature vitrines for the gallery’s most recent show, a combination of new and historical work by Californian artist Ron Nagle that embraces the material and structural execution of sculpture at its most scaled-down.

Following up on its impressive summer exhibition, What Nerve!, the gallery pushes deeper into the roots of one of the show’s subjects, the San Francisco bay’s iconic “Funk” movement, and the sculptural lineage that artist and California College of the Arts professor Peter Voulkos left in his wake.  Having taught both Nagle and Ken Price (both represented by the gallery), the artist’s impact was instrumental in helping to shape some of the tenants that would define Californian sculpture over the next decades.  Yet where Voulkos’s work often used size in conjunction with his vivid shapes and colors, Nagle’s work turns towards carefully shaped interactions in micro.

Ron Nagle, Untitled (2015), via Art Observed

The artist’s miniature sculptures are evocative in their minimal elements and carefully considered choices, teetering between pure abstraction and impressively subtle tableau that carry a wealth of narrative potential.  In some works, the forms call to mind beds, trees or busts, always twisted towards the surreal by the artist’s careful tweaks to the lines and curves of his pieces. Yet as much as the artist’s figurative experiments carry the works, they equally stand on their own for their masterful use of color, particularly in his most recent works; vividly colored and masterfully shaped pieces that make the most out of their material grounding.  In Handsome Drifter, for instance, Nagle’s resin-soaked glaze smolders with a gentle variation in reds and yellows, offset by the single dollop of twisted black ceramic that sits atop it.  A masterful study in balance and counterpoint, the viewer may find themselves floating in and out of a perception of the concrete in these pieces.

Ron Nagle, The Temperamentalist (2015), via Art Observed

The exhibition also includes a series of Nagle’s bronze works from the early 1990’s, exercises in the interplay of material and utility that define the cup as a tool of modern life.  Pushing his works towards jagged, almost fragmented surfaces, Nagle places his pieces in this series as a continuum of early tool construction, while emphasizing the surface of each piece, not least due to its preservation under a glass vitrine.  Joining these are some of the artist’s recent drawings, playing on the materiality of lined paper or surface texture to explore the act of drawing at a nearly atomic level.

Ron Nagle, Mutha Fakir (2015), via Art Observed

Nagle’s work seems obsessed with this brief moments of encounter between his work and the materials he executes them in, and the pared-down scale of the pieces seems to focus these moments at single points.  Always focusing themselves around balance and restraint, the artist underscores his aesthetic interests in conjunction with his own economies of form.

Offering a studious counterpoint to the Funk works explored in the gallery’s previous exhibition, Nagle’s exhibition is a striking look at the possibilities for ceramics on a micro-scale, one where strength of message is rarely sacrificed for delicacy of execution.

Ron Nagle, Lotta Wattage (2015), via Art Observed

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Ron Nagle: “Five O’Clock Shadow” [Matthew Marks]

Frieze London has announced its series of artist commissions for the 2015 edition of the fair next month in Regent’s Park, including Brazilian artist Tunga’s recreation of a 1987 work, Siamese Hair Twins, featuring a pair of young girls joined together by their hair.  “It is quite extraordinary, a sight to behold,” says Victoria Siddall, the director of the fair. “There is something ethereal and wonderful about it. People who have seen it when it was originally created say it was something special.” (more…)

The Detroit News has a story on Geoff George this week, the owner of the building Shepard Fairey’s offending artwork appeared on earlier this year, noting the problems of fines and unwanted public attention that the art has brought to his real estate.  “The artist in me was just thrilled. But, almost immediately the building owner side of me kicked in,” George says. “I started to worry … is the city going to hit me with a blight violation? How badly is my building going to be targeted?” (more…)

The Musée D’Orsay closed today following a worker strike, protesting a proposal to keep the museum open to the public seven days a week, beginning this coming November.  A decision will be reached in the coming day whether or not the strike will continue. (more…)

An oil painting on a wooden board is suspected to be an early work by Rembrandt, after it sold for $870,000 in a New Jersey auction, estimated originally at $500-$800.  The painting is suspected to be part of the artist’s early Five Senses series, his first painted works, possibly executed while studying under Pieter Lastman. (more…)

Dan Flavin, untitled (to Sonja) (1969), via Art Observed

An idea that began with a single light was the generative force for New York minimalist Dan Flavin‘s ongoing interests in light and space. Starting in 1963 with the creation of diagonal of May 25th, 1963, a fluorescent lamp installed diagonally on a wall, Flavin quickly adopted light as his central aesthetic focus, and his journey through the environmental capacities of  light can now be seen in Corners, Barriers and Corridors at David Zwirner.

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Gilbert & George, To Be With Art is All We Ask (1970), all photos via Art Observed

The artist duo Gilbert Prousch and George Passmore, better-known by just Gilbert & George, the self-proclaimed “Two People but One Artist,” first met in 1967 studying sculpture in London.  As the story goes, the two were taking photographs of one another holding their sculptural works, when it struck them that their own corporeal presence in the images was far more interesting than the sculptures.  As a result the pair deemed themselves “living sculptures,” and following the line of this ideology, have since considered their partnership, their artistic work (in all mediums), and even the mundane operations undertaken in their everyday lives, to be “Sculpture.”  For this reason, Gilbert & George made their mantra “Art for All,” endeavoring to make sculpture and sculptural practice accessible and liberated from the discriminatory elitism of the art world at large, instead focusing on the idea that accessible art derives from life itself. (more…)

Luxembourg’s Le Freeport is the subject of a profile in the Wall Street Journal this week, noting the site’s susceptibility to illicit activity and renewed attention on its activities following the arrest of Yves Bouvier.  “I can’t see any better way for people to launder money than to go through a freeport,” says James Palmer, founder of Mondex Corp., which aids in recovering looted art. (more…)

The Tate Modern has set June of 2016 as the opening date for its massive expansion project, and will embark on a massive rehang of the museum collection.  “There will be old friends and new friends – Pablo Picasso, Joseph Beuys and Mark Rothko will be joined by artists introduced to the public by Tate Modern in recent years,” says Nicholas Serota, “including Saloua Raouda Choucair, Meschac Gaba, Daidō Moriyama and Cildo Meireles.”  (more…)

The Dutch government has pledged €80 million in order to purchase a prime pair of Rembrandt paintings, sold from the collection of Éric de Rothschild.  “Rembrandts like these, I mean they just don’t happen,” says Taco Dibbits, director of collections at the Rijksmuseum.” (more…)

Tom Finkelpearl, NYC’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs, is taking a leave of absence to treat a health issue, the New York Times reports.  “As some of you know,” Finkelpearl wrote later in the day, “I have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphoma. Serious, indeed, but I am expecting to recover and be back at my job after several courses of Chemo over a number of months.” (more…)

Concerns over shipping and insurance have delayed the opening of a Titian exhibition in Prague, the Art Newspaper reports, following concerns that the exhibition space at Prague Castle’s Imperial Stables were unsafe for the works.  “We decided to postpone the opening as we were not sure the Castle would be ready,” says organizer Monika Burian Jourdan, the president of Art for the Public. “From our side, we had everything set, including all export and shipping permits, and the paperwork from the Italian Minister of Culture.” (more…)

Over £7 million in funding has been earmarked by the UK as part of a drive to exhibit British art in China, including a series of exhibitions and programs in Beijing presented by a coalition including the British Library, the Southbank Centre and Shakespeare’s Globe.  “I think the British people are fascinated by China; they have a combination of curiosity about this great force in the world and frankly a bit of anxiety,” says Chancellor George Osborne.   “And one of the best ways people’s cultures express themselves is through their theatre and their paintings and their art… and what better way to explain to many, many Chinese people about Britain than letting them hear a Shakespeare play in Mandarin or see a David Hockney picture…there in China?”

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One of the sculptures from Antony Gormley’s Land installation at Clavell Tower, Kimmeridge Bay in the UK has been toppled by a storm, the BBC reports.  “We are aware that the “Land” sculpture has come down in the storm at Kimmeridge Bay and we are taking steps to deal with it asap,” says the UK building conservation charity Landmark Trust. (more…)

Brian Sewell, the London Evening Standard’s art critic, has passed away at the age of 84.  “Simply, Brian was the nation’s best art critic, best columnist and the most brilliant and sharpest writer in recent times,” the newspaper said in a statement. (more…)

The Guardian notes the convoluted history of a John Constable painting in the collection of the Tate, as a recent export license raises questions as to whether or not the work should be classified as Nazi loot.  “The Spoliation Advisory Panel have reviewed the new information which came to light in 2014 regarding John Constable’s Beaching a Boat, Brighton, 1824,” the Tate said in a statement.  “They have made a recommendation, which will be taken to Tate’s Board of Trustees at their next meeting.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor has been ordered by a French court to repair the damage to his Dirty Corner sculpture at Versailles, after the work was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.  “From my perspective, this is a triumph for the racists. The right thing is to carry on,” Kapoor says. “We will start working on Monday; this will be an act of transformation which turns the nastiness into something else. I want something active, not reactive.” (more…)

Sterling Ruby at the Gagosian booth, all photos via Art Observed

Returning to its annual haunt at MoMA PS1, the Printed Matter New York Art Book Fair has concluded, bringing countless rare, collectible and artist-authored books to Long Island City. (more…)

An exhibition at La Monnaie de Paris, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Christian Boltanski, will allow users to take away the works.  “Just like currency, the works are destined to be dispersed. This is what is suggested by the title of Christian Boltanski’s piece Dispersion, which encourages the public to leave the exhibition with a bag filled with clothes,” says Chiara Parisi, the director of cultural programmes at La Monnaie de Paris. (more…)

Matthew Barney is interviewed in the New York Times this week, as the artist prepares to open an exhibition of River of Fundament and its surrounding works at MOCA.  “In many ways, the real leads the artificial in ‘River of Fundament,’ ” he says. “I’ve always had an interest in colliding the natural and artificial, but I think what makes this work different from what I’ve done before is that the natural is foregrounded.” (more…)

CNN notes the growing popularity of African contemporary art on the market today, noting major increases in prices for African artists in the past several years.  “I’ve studied the movement of the prices of artwork sold in auctions in Nigeria since 1999,” says Prince Yemisi Shyllon, one of Nigeria’s largest art collectors. “And I can tell you how much the artworks have grown over time, of different artists — if we draw a correlation analysis we come up with a positive graph about the growth, and therefore it can form a solid basis for investment.” (more…)