An article in the Telegraph this week continues the tale of differing positions on the health of the Contemporary market, emphasizing that while auction prices are in adjustment, private sales are still booming, often obscured by alarmist headlines.  “Yes, the auctions were not the same as last year,” says dealer Thaddaeus Ropac. “But I had a sense the market was ok. I can’t understand why the press has been discussing a crash in the art market. I’ve had the best January ever in my galleries.”  (more…)

LAABF, via Thisbe Gensler for Art Observed

This weekend, MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary space in Little Tokyo opened its doors again for the West Coast edition of the rabidly popular Printed Matter Art Book Fair.  The fourth iteration of the fair in the sunny metropolis, this year’s event saw strong attendance, and benefitted from a staggered scheduling that avoided the bustle of Los Angeles Art Week this past month.   (more…)

Judith Bernstein, Cockman Always Rises Gray (2015)

Seminal New York painter Judith Bernstein is the subject of a solo exhibition, titled Dicks of Death, currently on at Mary Boone Gallery, shortly after her 2015 exhibition Voyeur at the gallery’s midtown location.  Subverting the fixations of male chauvinism and patriarchal discourse that have deep-seated roots in public realm, including an art community that ostensibly has an equitable façade, Bernstein emerged in the late ‘60s alongside a group of female artists who raised their defiant voices against subtly pervasive misogyny. (more…)

Marc Quinn is parting ways with White Cube Gallery after more than 20 years.  Quinn was the first artist Jay Jopling worked with at the gallery, and just recently closed an exhibition late last year with the space.  “We are not representing him anymore,” says a gallery spokeswoman.  “We wish him every continued success with his future projects.” (more…)

The New York Times notes the thriving scene in Downtown Los Angeles, where a number of galleries and spaces have seen success in cultivated a connected community of talented young artists.  “It’s very similar to what I was doing at my spaces in New York,” Jeffrey Deitch says. “The social aspect is essential for artistic innovation. Artists working in isolation rarely have the same achievement.” (more…)

Zhu Jinshi, Ten Object 2 (1990), all photos via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Culling together a body of work spread over the past 25 years of the artist’s practice, Blum & Poe’s 66th Street New York location is currently presenting a show by Zhu Jinshi, offering an intriguing and wide-ranging perspective on the artist’s historical development. (more…)

Brian Belott, Baarpyp (2015), via Art Observed

Walking into the doors of Moran Bondaroff in LA, the viewer is immediately greeted with a swarm of colors, massive chunks of colorful canvas often swelling into distended forms that only hint at their original, rectangular shape.  These pieces, the work of Brooklyn-based painter Brian Belott, make up his first exhibition in Los Angeles, as well as his first with the gallery.   (more…)

The New York Times reports that Sotheby’s is quite eager to hire top talent from Christie’s, noting that the auction house has offered waive standing noncompete obligations for former employees in order to hire former executives from Christie’s.  The proposal centered around former Christie’s America head Marc Porter, whom Sotheby’s had recruited as chairman of its new Fine Arts Division. (more…)

Creative Time has appointed Katie Hollander, longtime deputy head of the organization, to take over for Anne Pasternak as its director.  “The thing I’m most committed to,” Hollander syas, “is thinking about new platforms to help amplify artists’ voices.” (more…)

The New Yorker looks inside the personal art log of Hermann Göring, which catalogs many of the actions in seizing Nazi war loot, and the collectors they were taken from.  “For many people, wartime looting is a rather abstract concept,” says archivist Isabelle Richefort. “Here we can see how it happened, day by day.” (more…)

Park Seo-Bo, Ecriture (描法) No. 15-76 (1976) photo courtesy White Cube (George Darrell)

Considered one of the leading figures in contemporary Korean art, White Cube’s Mason’s Yard is currently presenting the work of Park Seo-Bo in his first solo show in the UK.  Best known for his Ecriture series of paintings, which he began in the late 1960s, the artist’s work in the series has allowed for his body, mind and creative process to merge together to form works that fully breathe out into space and time.  This exhibition traces the origins of these works, featuring 16 paintings made between 1967–81. (more…)

The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam is planning a public art storage service for itself, which will allow the museum to rent space to collectors for storing works, while making the pieces available for public viewing.  “For the museum, this concept kills many birds with one stone. It provides private funding for a public initiative, it allows it to share the costs of its collection management services, and it brings private collectors closer to the museum,” says collector Alain Servais, “which should encourage donations. Storage is becoming a serious problem for collectors, with no easy or reasonably priced solutions.”    (more…)

An entry in Wall Street Journal’s technology blog notes the success Pace Gallery has had in selling works to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, often by telling them that the works are not available.   Its recent show of works by Japanese collective TeamLab, which had a series of works listed as “not for sale,” have already sold a selection of works for up to $450,000. (more…)

The UK is initiating a project in which art films and experimental will run before films at mainstream movie theatres, often without the audience’s prior knowledge.  The project launched this week, headed by the Independent Cinema Office and Lux, and funded by Arts Council England.  “I’m excited to share the work with wider audiences. It’s a wonderful opportunity to, however briefly, stimulate a dialogue about cinematic devices—camera, edit, sound, narration—and to both celebrate and deconstruct the ways in which we engage with and depict wild spaces and subjects in film,” says Margaret Salmon, one of the selected artists. (more…)

Bjarke Ingels has been announced as the commissioned architect for the 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, but the star Danish architect is also joined by an additional four designers this year, each of whom will initiate a design in a different location around the Kensington Gardens lawns.   (more…)

Following Ann Freedman’s settlement with the De Sole family earlier this week, the Knoedler Gallery itself has also settled its case for $8.4 million, bringing the collector’s claims against the gallery and its team to a close.  “I think our clients are extremely satisfied by this settlement,” says Gregory Clarick, a lawyer for the De Soles. “And they are also satisfied to get the truth out and tell their story.” (more…)

The Broad Museum has announced a major exhibition on Cindy Sherman, drawing heavily from the museum’s own collection of the artist’s works (Eli Broad was one of her early collectors).  The show is curated by Philipp Kaiser, formerly of LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art and a guest curator at Cologne’s Museum Ludwig. (more…)

The Grand Palais will close for an ambitious two-year renovation project, the Art Newspaper reports, which will cost upwards of â‚¬393 million, and which will also enable the institution to more effectively manage multiple exhibitions and projects at the same time.  “Today, to use a gallery, you must choose a time when the nave is not taken up with an event. Most of the increase in turnover will come from the management of separate spaces, optimizing the occupancy rate,” says former Grand Palais head Jean-Paul Cluzel. (more…)

Despite what many are calling a “reassuring” sale last evening, the Art Market Monitor notes a 13% drop in stock price for Sotheby’s this morning, a point that notes increased pessimism from investors.  “It showed the contemporary market is in rude health in spite of the economy,” the article quotes from advisor Rory Howard. (more…)

Cindy Sherman is featured in an expansive profile in Harper’s Bazaar this month, featuring a selection of new works by the artist in which she takes on the persona of a street style fashionista, and reflects on her career and focus on the future.  “I want to continue to be happy with what I’m working on because that’s the biggest challenge. I’m hard on myself, but everyone is always waiting for someone to fall. That’s a common problem for artists,” she says.  “They fall into a mold of their greatest hits and just repeat it. When I feel that I’m repeating myself, or about to, it’s time to move.” (more…)

Peter Doig, The Architect’s Home in the Ravine (1991), via Christie’s

The first week of 2016’s Contemporary Art auctions concluded this evening, as Christie’s capped a solid sale of works that further disrupted any easy conclusions on a widely rumored market adjustment.  All in all, the sale saw a strong sell-through rate, as only 7 of the sale’s 61 lots did not find a buyer, bringing in a final tally of £58,099,000.  Buyers seemed particularly eager over the course of the night, clamoring for a sizable portion of the work on competitive bids and rapid back and forth between buyers and Jussi Pylkkanen (cheerfully referred to as “good-old-days” bidding by WSJ’s Kelly Crow), pushing the sale quickly through its procession of works. (more…)

Lucian Freud, Pregnant Girl (1960-61), via Sotheby’s

The London Contemporary Auctions continued its mixed run this week, as Sotheby’s concludes this evening’s entry to mixed results.  The 59-lot sale saw 11 works go unsold,not to mention a number of high-profile withdrawn lots, bringing a final tally of £69,461,000, a figure that sat squarely within the auction house’s presale estimates.  Of particular note in the early moments of the sale was the withdrawal of the evening’s star Gerhard Richter lot, a move that left the auction house with a considerable gap in its initial estimates.  Even so, the auction room was practically buzzing as the sale got underway.

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Former Museum Director Michael Shapiro has published a book of interviews with top ranking museum professionals in the U.S., with advice for many interested in the field of museum work, curatorial work, or preservation.  “The quest is to become a great art historian, and if you have the right temperament [and] skill set, maybe you get drawn into museum work, you get drawn into institutional leadership, but I would never recommend beginning by thinking you want to be a museum director,” says MoMA’s Glenn Lowry. (more…)

Piero Manzoni, Achrome (1958), via Phillips

The week of Contemporary Sales is now underway in London, after Phillips concluded its first major auction of 2016, its “20th Century and Contemporary Art,” to uneven results this past evening, seeing 9 of 43 lots going unsold, and a final total of £24,590,500.  Sales were decidedly reluctant this evening, despite the sale’s strong sell through this evening.  Many works lingered at low estimate, or only achieved the low with the added premium and fees, a note that underscores realistic estimates set by Phillips, but perhaps a far less rabid buying market.

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