Camille Henrot (Installation Pictures), via Art Observed

Camille Henrot’s first solo show with Metro Pictures is something of a story in three parts, bringing the artist’s loosely flowing, cartoonish drawings to bear against her interests in environmental installation, digital artifacts and an interest in the modes and experiences of banality to bear across a broad selection of pieces. The artist’s work, presented here, offers a considered, meandering pathway through the iconography and subtle psychologies of modern life. (more…)

Robert Gober, Untitled (1997), all photos via Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

Taking the fraught emotional landscape of early childhood as its central focus, Skarstedt Gallery’s London location is currently presenting a subdued but emotionally poignant group show, exploring the use and manipulation of the objects, scenarios and symbolism of youth as a productive force for a group of the gallery’s artist.  Exhibiting work from Robert Gober, the late Mike Kelley and Vija Celmins, the stripped-down exhibition carries an impressive punch. (more…)

Rineke Dijkstra, The Gymschool, St. Petersburg (2014)

Rineke Dijkstra’s new three channel video, The Gymschool, St. Petersburg, is currently on view at Marian Goodman Gallery. Originally commissioned for Manifesta in 2014, this 15-minute video was shot at an acclaimed gymnastic school in St. Petersburg, Russia, utilizing the minimal, pale atmosphere of the rehearsal studio.  (more…)

CNBC takes a brief look at the underground arts scene in Singapore, where artists have been developing a fertile community off the beaten path of the city-state’s art scene.  “The scene has grown and diversified while maintaining its spirit of mutual respect and collaboration. It’s exciting times for art and music lovers in Singapore,” says Sideshow Collective member Tom Kelly. (more…)

A recent report by Citi has noted an impressive rate of growth for the art market in the past 15 years, when sales totaled about $3 billion.  “Since then, global auction turnover has grown at an average annual compound rate of 13%, reaching $16.1 billion in 2014,” says JPMorgan Asset Management’s Benjamin Mandel.  “Not bad considering that the period was punctuated by the deepest global recession in almost a century.” (more…)

CNN looks at the crop of collectors and investors driving prices up in the market, as fine art becomes one of the most popular categories for the wealthy to put their money.  “No matter what’s happening in the economy you’re always going to have art sales,” says Lamar Villere, portfolio manager at Villere & Co. (more…)

An article in The Guardian explores the recent lawsuit filed against Marina Abramovic by her former partner and collaborator Ulay, who claims she has not paid him for the proceeds of their collaborative work over the past several decades, nor has she credited him in writing for their shared pieces.  “The points I’m asking of her are: every six months, a statement on sales and my royalties. And I’m asking for absolute proper mentioning of my name,” he says. “She has deliberately misinterpreted things, or left my name out.” (more…)

The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is preparing a massive exhibition of Western works from the past century, showing off a collection valued at $3 billion that has remained largely unseen in country since the 1979 revolution.  “There’s been kind of a myth about this collection,” says Germano Celant who organized the show with Iranian curator, architect, and filmmaker Faryar Javaherian. “Everybody was talking, and it disappeared after 1978 or 1979. There was a lot of work that I had only seen in pictures. It was this kind of secret, underground situation, where the work is so precious but has been in storage for so long.” (more…)

Graffiti artist NECKFACE has announced a new online store for periodic releases of one-off artworks and merchandise, launched today.  The works are produced from a series of thrift-store sourced objects and clothing the artist purchased while traveling the West Coast.   (more…)

The New York Times profiles editor, curator, writer and downtown mainstay Glenn O’Brien, as he takes up his new position as top editor for Maxim, charting out his vision for the magazine, and his memories of New York during the 1970’s and 80’s, including time spent with Jean-Michel Basquiat.  “He would drop in, and I always had a big stack of paper by my typewriter,” he says. “He would just make drawings and give them to me.”

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René Magritte’s Miroir Universel sells over estimate for$6,661,000, via Rae Wang for Art Observed

The November auctions are over, as Christie’s capped its final major evening sale of the year to strong results, with 13 lots going unsold out of the 62 offered, tallying a final of $145,545,000. (more…)

Rachel Whiteread, Looking Out (Installation View), via Jessica Holburn

Ambient and solitary, Rachel Whiteread continues her distinct vocabulary, where the intangible and tangible trace a point of convergence. Renowned for imbuing commonplace or discarded objects with nuanced significance, self-described as an “authority to forgotten things,” the artist has opened a show of historical work at Luhring Augustine’s Bushwick location.  Informed by Bruce Nauman’s casting of negative space, Eva Hesse’s uncanny use of materials and Marcel Duchamp’s ready-made, Whiteread casts overlooked objects to evoke a paradoxical amalgamation of space. Concepts of memory and abandonment are investigated through a kind of cyclical, self-perpetuating visual language where drawing and sculpture function in parallel. (more…)

Cy Twombly, Untitled (New York City) (1968), via Sotheby’s

Tonight Sotheby’s has logged its response to Christie’s moderate outing last evening, as the auction house’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale saw steady, albeit occasionally slow proceedings, bringing a final sales tally of $294,850,000 with 13 of the 57 lots offered going unsold. (more…)

The New York Post reports on the story of Tracey Hejailan-Amon, who recently filed a lawsuit against estranged husband Maurice Alain Amon, claiming that her husband removed a $25 million collection of artworks from their home shortly before beginning divorce proceedings, including pieces by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.  “These illegal and unlawful removals of the works of art is and was a strategic predicate for the service of a divorce action by Amon,” Hejailan claims. (more…)

Sotheby’s announcement that its quarterly loss narrowed 35 per cent in the third quarter has resulted in a 6.1% drop in share value as the auction house prepares its Contemporary Evening sale tonight.  “The buyers are getting more discerning,” says CEO Tad Smith.  “That is emblematic of a market that is solid. It creates buyers that are discerning, quality-oriented, but careful.”  (more…)

Hours after her appointment, Mélanie Joly, Justin Trudeau’s new minister of Canadian heritage, has pledged to double the annual federal contribution to the Canada Council of the Arts from $180 million to $360 million.  “I like to think that the Ministry of Canadian Heritage is the ministry of symbols, and after a Harper government of nine years, which was a Conservative government, it’s time to have a government that shows symbols of progressiveness,” she said. (more…)

James Turrell is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing his recent work, and the legion of people who have recently discovered his work thanks to Drake’s “Hotline Bling” music video.  “I’m sort of astonished by it, I have to say. It’s humbling that more people have probably heard about me through this than anything else,” he says. (more…)

The Independent art fair has announced its dates and gallery list for the 2016 New York edition of the fair, its first in Tribeca, as well as plans for another edition of Independent Project in November of next year.  The fair includes a number of frequent attendees, including The Modern Institute and David Kordansky, but has also added some considerably larger spaces this year, including Mitchell-Innes & Nash and Maccarone. (more…)

Louise Bourgeois, Spider (1997), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Christie’s continued its impressive run of record-setting sales last night, with a steady, competitive sale tonight that ultimately brought a final tally of $331,809,000, with 13 of the 70 lots offered passing (barring several withdrawn, high-priced lots).  (more…)

BHQF Presents Arcadia, via Art Observed

Last week, the ever-shifting collective Bruce High Quality Foundation kicked off its annual fall fundraiser in style, opening the doors at Industry City in South Brooklyn for an evening of performances, music, and art, including a new show of works by the artists who have long remained focused expressly on the Bruce High-Quality Foundation University, a free, experimental art school in the East Village. (more…)

Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché sells at Christie’s, via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Dashing through a 34-lot auction in style, Christie’s has entered the November auction week in impressive style, bringing a flurry of sales during its curated “The Artist’s Muse” auction tonight that saw several world records fall, and achieved an impressive tally of over $491 million for the evening, especially considering the 10 lots that failed to sell.

Amedeo Modigliani, Nu Couché (1917-18), via Christie’s (more…)

Ellsworth Kelly is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as the artist reflects on his long career and his desire to continue working, even at age 92.  “I give what I’ve got. It’s harder. I can’t work on really big pictures any more, so the ideas are blocked a bit,” he says. “But then, the visions were always too much.  I feel like the world is over there, and it keeps coming at me, and I want to do it, respond to it.” (more…)

French-born, Shanghai-based Alexandre Ouairy has stepped forward after more than a decade making and exhibiting work under the name Tao Hongjing, although the “conceptual project” of the artist had long been acknowledged by both artist and gallery.  “At the beginning, the first year or two, only the gallery and myself knew that I was Tao Hongjing,” Mr. Ouairy says, “but after that, it was always revealed that this was a project by a French artist.” (more…)

A series of works attributed to Jackson Pollock are being contested, after an analysis of the work uncovered paints not commercially available until after the artist’s death.  “The earliest forms of this class of pigment appeared on the commercial market in 1910 (PY1), with others following in the 1920s (such as PY4-6),” the report reads.  “However, the date of introduction of PY74 is commonly given in the literature as 1957. This consequently raises a number of issues.” (more…)