The New York Times notes the current tax status for art in Delaware, and the investors setting up art storage ventures in the state to take advantage. “Delaware has a lot of trust and tax advantages,” says Derek Jones, executive director of Atelier, a new storage company operating in the state. (more…)
Billy Childish, birch wood (2015), all photos by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed
Lehmann Maupin’s new 22nd street location is currently hosting flowers, nudes and birch trees: New Paintings 2015, the gallery’s fourth exhibition of work by British poet, musician, author and artist Billy Childish. Carrying a certain anticipatory note towards the coming fall weather, Childish’s exhibition manifests a dense feeling of autumn and its occasionally melancholy aura through his distinct painting style. (more…)
A historic deal between Germany and Iran will lead to an exhibition of contemporary art works from the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin. “That a succession of Iranian museum curators and administrators have worked to put together the collection and maintain it over decades is a testament to a fundamental respect for the arts,” says Shiva Balaghi, a visiting scholar at Brown University. “That this collection now serves as a foundation for greater collaboration between Iranian art institutions and those abroad is another indication of art’s ability to create alternative contexts for mutual understanding and appreciation.” (more…)
The shortlist for the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize has been announced, with Tania Bruguera, Mark Leckey, Ralph Lemon, Laura Owens, Wael Shawky and Anicka Yi making the list of honorees. The winner announcement and ceremony will take place in October of 2016, and will give the winning artist an exhibition at the Guggenheim. (more…)
Loic Gouzer has been promoted as Christie’s Deputy Chairman, Post-War and Contemporary at Christie’s, Art News reports. “I’m not really impressed by people’s titles, I’m impressed by what they do. I guess in Europe there isn’t really the culture of titles,” Gouzer says, ”but it is in America, so I’m happy.” (more…)
Bank of America has given 13 Conservation Grants to Museums and Institutions around the globe, giving more than $1 million in funding to museums including the Guggenheim in New York, the British Museum, the OCA Museum in Sao Paulo, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. The Guggenheim will use the funds to restore Manet’s “Woman in Evening Dress.” “We hope to remove a discolored varnish that is obscuring the brushwork and flattening the painting and really not presenting Manet in his best light,” said Carol Stringari, the museum’s deputy director and chief conservator. (more…)
Martin Creed, Work No. 2209, Woman with a dog at a table (2015), Photo: Todd White © Martin Creed Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth London
Martin Creed is the subject of a solo exhibition of recent work at Hauser & Wirth Zurich this month, once again delving into his signature, multimedia-based interdisciplinary practice. Among the most controversial contemporary British artists, Creed came into global recognition with his 2001 Turner Prize winning installation Work No. 227: The lights going on and off, presenting, as its self-descriptive title suggests, a vacant room in which the lights go on and off in five second breaks. Like much of the artist’s work, the minimal gesture drew staunch criticism due to Creed’s endorsement of such a simple act in endless repetition. (more…)
PAVILLON DE L’ESPRIT NOUVEAU: A 21st Century Show Home (2015), all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
The interior of Swiss Institute is coated in Chroma key green this month, as the gallery opens the 2nd Edition of its Annual Architecture and Design Series entitled PAVILLON DE L’ESPRIT NOUVEAU: A 21st Century Show Home, curated by Felix Burrichter, the editor and creative director of architecture and design magazine PIN–UP. Taking a hearty investment both in design and its correlative practices in contemporary art, the exhibition plays on the ever-increasing slippage between delineations of interior design, environmental assemblage and pure installation. (more…)
Ugo Rondinone, clouds + mountains + waterfalls at Sadie Coles HQ (Installation View), via Art Observed
Sadie Coles HQ is currently presenting a vibrantly colorful exhibition, clouds + mountains + waterfalls, by Swiss born artist Ugo Rondinone, an artist already recognized by his idiosyncratic and often whimsical works in a wide range of media. Rondinone, whose oeuvre has been subject to numerous exhibitions and national museum shows globally since the mid ‘80s, here presents three independent yet narrative-driven and interconnected series of pieces, following the artist’s signature bright color palette and fascination with natural landscapes and materials.
Ugo Rondinone, clouds + mountains + waterfalls at Sadie Coles HQ (Installation View), via Art Observed
Idris Khan, Displacement (2015)
Artist Idris Khan is presenting his exhibition, titled Overture, in New York this month, marking his first show in the city since 2010, and his first show with Sean Kelly, adorning the gallery’s two floors with intricate and spectral works stemming from his interdisciplinary approach. Known for a meticulous aesthetic that draws inspiration from both Eastern and Western cultures, Khan executes a mosaic of various histories, narratives and disciplines in his expansive practice, while primarily leaning towards his work in digital photography. (more…)
FIAC 2015, all photos by Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed
Having established itself as the second leg of Europe’s fall tour of art fairs, following hot on the feels of Frieze London, Paris’s FIAC fair has built itself into one of the art calendar’s more impressive exhibitions, and is now expanding even further, pushing for a place as one of the market’s premier selling events. Boasting an attendance list of 175 galleries from 23 countries, the 42nd edition of the fair continues Paris’s push for a place in the international fair circuit that matches its century long prominence in the modern and contemporary avant-garde.
FIAC 2015 (more…)
Ryan Gander, Night and Day (2015), via Lisson Gallery
Artist Ryan Gander has returned to Lisson Gallery in London for his third show with the gallery this month, furthering his uniquely witty work with conventional art materials, and their intersections with the objects of the everyday, compounded by the artist’s often ingenious mechanical and technological interjections.
Ryan Gander, Fieldwork (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery (more…)
Dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth have topped ArtReview’s annual power rankings as the most powerful figures in the art world, primarily for “what they have done to change the model of selling and promoting art.” “The Wirths’ increased influence stems in part from what they have done to change the model of selling and promoting art,” the website reads. “As big art dealers are becoming ever better at selling art for high prices, and as collectors want to see themselves as more than just anonymous purchasers, the husband-and-wife-team understand that selling art objects isn’t the whole story – the well-off want to be sold a lifestyle.” (more…)
Artist Christo has unveiled his newest project, and the first piece conceived after the death of his longtime partner, Jeanne-Claude, a series of floating walkways at Lake Iseo in Northern Italy, which will allow viewers to walk out over the water on tightly woven nylon panels. “They will feel the movement of the water under foot,” Christo said. “It will be very sexy, a bit like walking on a water bed.” (more…)
Billionaire Steve Wynn has taken out a loan against his massive art collection, which helped the casino mogul to secure an interest rate of less than 1%. “This is a great time to be poised with ample cash,” Wynn said. (more…)
Arts Council England is warning against a “severe and imminent” threat of attack on UK museums, the Art Newspaper reports. Additional information has been provided by the Scottish Council on Archives: “The National Crime Agency are aware of an imminent threat of theft of collections across the UK. They are aware of a group who has made reconnaissance visits to a number of museums and other venues across the UK. It is thought that smaller, more portable items will be targeted rather than items such as large paintings.” (more…)
Former fashion marketing executive Giorgio Pace has been appointed as commercial adviser for Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, and publisher at large for Garage magazine, which will see him planning new ventures and projects to finance both institutions. “I am looking forward to creating some fantastic new partnerships and raising funds to enhance the unique programs each venture has already established,” Pace says. (more…)
Gardar Eide Einarsson, Utah to Resume Use of Firing Squads for Executions (2015), all photos by Elene Damenia for Art Observed
Returning to the United States for his first solo exhibition since leaving the country for Tokyo, Gardar Eide Einarsson has once again brought his particular brand of appropriation-based practice to Team Gallery for a solo exhibition of new work, taking aim this time at the United States’ often twisted ideological rhetoric, and the iconography that often carries it. (more…)
Jamie Kenyon, formerly of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, is joining 47 Canal as that gallery director. “My move to 47 Canal feels very natural, having grown friends with both Margaret and Oliver, and many of the artists since moving to New York three years ago,” Kenyon says. (more…)
The New York Times profiles ColorSearch, a new application developed by former Gavin Brown’s staffer and founder of ArtBinder Alexandra Chemla, which is developed to archive and catalog works based on color. “It prioritizes based on proximity to the actual shade of that color you’ve chosen and the percentage of the piece that’s made up of that color,” Chemla says. “You can highlight as many colors as you want, and then ColorSearch prioritizes those that have, say, four of the four, three of the four and so on.” (more…)
The Picasso Museum in Paris has opened the doors on a major rehang, with announced plans to begin working with contemporary artists alongside its historical mission, and a new space that seeks to recreate the artist’s working methods. “We want to have the audience enter his studio and glimpse his intimacy, his daily life,” President Laurent Le Bon says. (more…)
Artist and architect Maya Lin is profiled in the Wall Street Journal this week, as she prepares to complete a series of projects, and reflects on her work over the past several decades. “There’s a very strong environmental aspect to all my structures,” she says, and notes her work in both architecture and fine art, comparing architecture to writing a novel, while comparing a piece of art to a poem. “They’re both incredibly difficult and challenging, but sometimes that poem is harder…because I’m stripping it bare.” (more…)
Adam Lindemann is reportedly in contract to buy a Montauk estate formerly owned by Andy Warhol. “I knew Andy in the early 1980s as a very young man, and I’m a collector of his work . . . I’m very lucky to have this opportunity to live out this dream. It’s a work of art.” (more…)