Painter Zeng Fanzhi is profiled in the New York Times this week, as he reflects back on his career, and his growth alongside China’s art market. “You might say I am very cunning,” he says. “I only sell my paintings to those who really like them. Then those people will help me promote my works.” (more…)
Germany’s Cultural Property Protection Law is preventing the conversion of a 1,000 year old castle, Schloss Derneburg, in Hannover, which was purchased from painter Georg Baselitz, and was intended to become a museum. “We continue to review the situation. We plan to show art at Derneburg — but it could well be work that is not from the Hall or Hall Art Foundation collections because of the new law,” says Maryse Brand, director of the Hall Art Foundation, which was also founded by owners Andrew and Christine Hall. (more…)
Installation view. All images via David Zwirner gallery.
Recently closed on November 12, David Zwirner (London) presents Let us compare mythologies, a show by Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon. Both artists have been represented by the gallery since the mid-1990s, but their collaboration began only in the summer of 2015. At this time, the artists swapped a series of paintings to complete for each other. They developed each other’s work with illustration, collage and writing, in a variation on the “exquisite corpse” method (in which partners collaborate on a single concealed drawing). This collaborative technique or game was used by the Surrealists to produce works in the early twentieth century. In this exhibition, it is nearly impossible to tell where one artist’s portion ends and the other’s begins—indicating how both strove to create a single coherent piece together. (more…)
Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXV (1977), via Christie’s
As the fall season moves towards December, the last major auction week of the year is set to kick off in New York, with a series of sales set to take place that will offer the last major barometer for the auction market’s health in a turbulent, and often unpredictable, year. Beginning Monday, a series of both Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary Evening auctions will bring the last set of major works to the auction block in the U.S. before the market prepares for the holiday months.
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait (Fright-Wig) (1986), via Sotheby’s
Kerry James Marshall, Better Homes, Better Gardens (1994), all photos via Katerina Paitazoglu for Art Observed
The long-anticipated retrospective of the work of Kerry James Marshall has come to New York, opening its doors this week on an expansive and impressively selected body of works that spans the painter’s wide creative output and varied adventures in the painted form. Ranging from cogently political abstraction and surrealist figuration through to studied depictions of everyday life or quietly executed self-portraits, the exhibition is a fascinating introduction and elaboration on Marshall’s artistic perspective.
Following months of setbacks and hardships, Cairo’s Townhouse Gallery has reopened in a converted paper factory in the city. The gallery was closed late last year by authorities, and dealt with problems this year after part of the gallery collapsed. “Almost every work, exhibition, music performance, theatre or film presentation needs to have permission from the appropriate syndicate or censors,” says William Wells, the director of the gallery. (more…)
A Caravaggio painting found in a French attic has gone on view in Milan at the Pinacoteca di Brera. Judith Beheading Holofernes was found in Toulouse, and is being shown alongside one of the museum’s own Caravaggio piece to allow visitors to view and compare the works. “It is not the job of a museum to confirm the attribution of the paintings it borrows, only to decide firstly if the painting is necessary for the thesis of its exhibition, in this case ‘A question of attribution’ and secondly if it is of a quality that warrants being shown in a museum, which in this case—whether it is a Caravaggio or not—it certainly is,” says director James Bradburne. (more…)
The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is continuing to expand its collection as its March 2017 opening date nears, even as its curatorial team continues to shrink, the Art Newspaper reports. Two top members of the museum’s curatorial department recently left the museum, but construction continues to push forward, with officials claiming it will meet that date. (more…)
A series of highlights from the art collection of David Bowie sold last night at Sotheby’s in London, bringing a total of £24 million, including a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting that brought a total of $7 million. “David’s art collection was fueled by personal interest and compiled out of passion. He always sought and encouraged loans from the collection and enjoyed sharing the works in his custody,” a spokesperson for the artist’s estate said. “Though his family are keeping certain pieces of particular personal significance, it is now time to give others the opportunity to appreciate – and acquire – the art and objects he so admired.” (more…)
Gabriel Orozco , Untitled (2016), all images courtesy Aspen Art Museum
Maneuvering between various genres and mediums since he began his practice during the 1990’s, Gabriel Orozco has been returning frequently to strategies in blurring and abstracting distinctions between art and reality. The Mexican artist’s current exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum signals his departure from recent experiments with the breadth of photography and sculpture, while charting a renewed interest in geometric abstraction, drawing particular strength from operations with the color green, a hue the artist has rarely explored since the beginning of his career. (more…)
Takashi Murakami, title to be determined (2016), via Art Observed
Continuing a body of work that has dominated his focus over the past several years, Takashi Murakami returns to Galerie Perrotin’s Paris location for an exhibition of new work that delves deeper into is fascination with Japanese spiritualism, while pushing its engagement with the history of contemporary art ever further. Drawing influence, and often direct subject matter, from masters of 20th painting, including Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, and others from the canon of Western art history.
Takashi Murakami, Murakami Arhat Robot (title to be determined) (2016), via Art Observed
The New Yorker spotlights the efforts of Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian to build and maintain several private museums in his home country, including the massive Long Museum West in Shanghai. “It might not have a long history, this city, but it is a place made by immigrants, for immigrants. We are exposed to so much from everywhere that people here have to adapt,” he says. (more…)
Lawrence Weiner, NAU EM I ART BILONG YUMI (The art of today belongs to us) (1988–2016), via Art Observed
Originally on view at the Monnaie de Paris, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jens Hoffmann’s curatorial project Take Me I’m Yours has touched down at the Jewish Museum. Bringing together a body of works centered around portability, consumption and distribution, everything on the show can be interacted with or taken by the viewer in some way, allowing the viewer to build up a collection of small-scale works and pieces from a single show.
Yoko Ono, Air Dispenser (1971), via Art Observed
The Art Market Monitor has a short analysis on the potential impacts of a Trump presidency on the art market, speculating how continued investment in “alternative stores of value” and broader economic trends could be disrupted by the new president’s administration. (more…)
Adrian Ghenie’s ascendancy as an auction mainstay is covered in the New York Times this week, as the artist’s prices continue to skyrocket, even to the point of earning concern from his dealers. “The market is overreacting,” says Thaddaeus Ropac. “We would be happy if everything were strong but not crazy.” (more…)
Forbes writes on the continued growth in popularity of fine art as an asset class for wealthy families this week, noting the ongoing growth rate of 212% for the field, even as the act of collecting itself remains somewhat less predictable. “Art collecting should be a joy,” says adviser Warren Winegar. (more…)
CBS Philadelphia takes a look inside the city’s FBI Art Crimes division, as the organization prepares to return a multi-million dollar collection to its rightful owner. “Every day we get to come in and we get to work these matters and try to get this stuff back for people to see,” FBI Special Agent Jake Archer says. (more…)
Carrie Mae Weems, Work from the Scenes and Take Series (2016), via Art Observed
Returning to New York City for her major solo exhibition in the city since her 2014 retrospective at the Guggenheim, artist Carrie Mae Weems has brought a series of new works, spread across a broad range of media and techniques, to both of Jack Shainman’s Chelsea exhibition spaces. Addressing both the ongoing violence against African-Americans at the hands of the police, as well as threads of cultural peripheries, power and representation in relation to concepts of the image and its performance. Drawing on diverse threads and themes, Weems’s series of works is a striking orchestration of ongoing themes and thematics in the modern discourse of race in America.
Carrie Mae Weems, All the Boys (2016), via Art Observed
The renovation of Berlin’s Pergamon Museum will be delayed a full four years, and is set to go 100% over budget, after a large pumping station designed to keep water out during the building’s initial construction was discovered under its foundations. The station must be removed for the foundations to be reinforced. (more…)
Sotheby’s is showing a loss $54.5 million for the third quarter, the New York Times reports, as the art market’s slump continues to affect sales, and changed scheduling saw fewer major auctions during the quarter. “The third-quarter results were not expected to be good,” Tad Smith, Sotheby’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “Underneath our seasonally low level of sales, there were encouraging but tentative indicators that the market could be looking for a rallying point.” (more…)
A recently rediscovered piece by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Wedding Dance in the Open Air, will go on public view in Bath, the Guardian reports. The piece was discovered by Jennifer Scott, director of the city’s Holburne Museum, while she was reviewing the institution’s archives. “The more I looked at the panel, the better it seemed,” she says. “Even under the grime the detail and the color seemed fantastic, far too good for a mere copy.” (more…)
A group of authors, librarians, gallery attendants and museum workers marched on Trafalgar Square this week, protesting widespread cuts to the UK’s cultural services. “Given the clear benefits arts and culture bring to our society and our economy, cuts to libraries, museums and galleries represent everything wrong with the Tories’ approach to public spending,” says Public and Commercial Services general secretary Mark Serwotka. (more…)
The Art Market Monitor has some interesting perspectives on the ongoing market push towards online sales, emphasizing the notably small percentage of sales that take place online, and the complexity of market transactions that will likely continue to serve as a barrier for those looking to sell more expensive works. “The absolute numbers are still a tiny fraction of Sotheby’s actual revenue,” Marion Maneker writes. “That may explain why Sotheby’s release takes pains to illustrate other benefits to the firm.” (more…)