Pace Gallery has announced that it now represents Leo Villareal, marking the announcement with a show of his recent pieces at Frieze London. Villareal will also be involved with Future/Pace, a public arts partnership that the gallery is currently undertaking with the Futurecity group to examine approaches to urban planning, art and architecture. (more…)
Ugo Rondinone, the sun at 4pm (Installation View), via Art Observed
Ugo Rondinone returns to Gladstone Gallery this fall for an exhibition of recent works, culling together a body of works that mark the artist’s engagement with the natural world through four separate series of work. Bearing the names of various natural forces, Rondinone’s mountain, sun, waterfall, and cloud pieces capture a particular vantage point in modern humanity’s engagement with the world around it.
Ugo Rondinone, the sun at 4pm (Installation View), via Art Observed
The Guardian looks at the recent investigation of a series of Renaissance works sold in London as possible fakes, and questions whether the National Gallery was in fact duped by a forger. One work currently under investigation currently sits in the museum collection, and has been shown in a number of exhibitions. (more…)
The Met is facing a lawsuit over The Actor, one of its star Picasso works, from the estate of a German Jewish businessman who was forced to sell the work while fleeing Europe. “The Leffmanns would not have disposed of this seminal work at that time, but for the Nazi and Fascist persecution to which they had been, and without doubt would continue to be, subjected,” the estate’s lawyer, Lawrence M. Kaye, said in court papers. (more…)
Richard Serra is interviewed in The Guardian this week, speaking with longtime friend and colleague Michael Craig-Martin about their early years in school, and their perspectives on their work. “I think I’m a transitional figure,” Serra says. “If anything, I would call myself a post-structuralist, not a postmodernist. I’m involved with evolution of form, the connection where space and matter meet. One of the things that form constantly has to do is reach a point where it pushes back against content.” (more…)
Philippe Parreno’s Turbine Hall commission at the Tate Modern has opened, a swirling multi-media install featuring snippets of video and music, floating mylar fish, and a carpet for viewers to lie down and view the full range of pieces floating through the space. “We have a lot of stuff,” Parreno says. “There may be a pattern after some time, but at the moment it is quite random.” (more…)
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hannibal (1982), via Sotheby’s
With the opening days of Frieze London also come the opening forays into the secondary market for the fall calendar for the British capital, with Phillips, Sotheby’s and Christie’s each trying their hand at a market that has seen distinctly turbulent, albeit occasionally impressive results for what many are calling a sales slump. Coming off a sluggish summer with an above expectations at Phillips’ New, Now, Next sale of young artists in the past weeks, market spectators and the odd speculator are watching the Contemporary Evening Sales closely this week.
Rudolf Stingel, Untitled (2007), via Phillips
Hauser and Wirth will represent the estate of Arshile Gorky, the FT reports, with a show planned for the artist in 2017. “He was one of the giants, but a quiet giant,” says Iwan Wirth. “We want to make his influence even clearer.” (more…)
The Tate Modern is set for a major retrospective of Bruce Nauman at its museum in 2019, following similar shows at the Schaulager in Basel and MoMA in New York. “So far I have tried to avoid thinking about the retrospective projects,” Nauman says. (more…)
Mona Hatoum, Electrified (variable II) (2014), via White Cube
Drawing gallerists, collectors and artists from the UK, Europe, and even further afield, Frieze London is set to open its doors this week for the fourteenth edition of the market calendar staple, and the first since the summer’s Brexit vote drew a line in the sand between the UK and the rest of Europe. Considering early assurances by gallerists, many seem to think that the UK’s pending break may not bode as poorly for the country’s role as an international market capital as initially thought, but the proof will be in the pudding at Frieze, where the number eager buyers will serve as the real bellwether for a market that has already seen its share of struggles this year.
Martin Soto Clemente, Frenetic Gossamer (2016), via Frieze
Ai Weiwei, Iron Tree Trunk (2015), via Max Hetzler
Bringing a body of less frequently seen works from the past several years to Paris for his first solo exhibition in the city, Ai Weiwei continues his global tour de force after regaining his passport last year, opening a show at Max Hetzler this month. Capturing the artist’s continued engagement with both the material and socio-political histories of China, the show features a carefully selected, yet broadly applicable series of pieces that offer a fitting counterpoint to the artist’s major museum exhibition currently on view in Athens.
Ai Weiwei (Installation View), via Max Hetzler
Sara VanDerBeek, Labryinth (2016), via Art Observed
Sara VanDerBeek’s work has long operated at the intersections of process and practice, history and modernity, as the artist allows her investigation of chosen images and art forms to bleed into the image itself. This mode of practice, pulling diverse material interests into a linear mode of production, welcomes a nuanced and often multifaceted approach to the cultural and historical contexts of her subject matter, a focus that sits at the center of the artist’s current solo show at Metro Pictures.
Sara VanDerBeek, Pieced Quilts, Wrapped Forms (Installation View), via Art Observed
The Art Market Monitor notes Sotheby’s choice to sell a recent David Hockney Woldgate landscape in its upcoming November sales in New York, and notes a series of interesting choices made by the auction in its selection. “It has an eye-opening estimate of $9-12m for a body of work that has not seen action on the public market; and, Sotheby’s seems to be banking on the success of February’s big Tate retrospective which isn’t always a slam-dunk,” Marion Maneker writes. (more…)
A pair of Van Gogh works stolen from the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam in 2002 have been recovered in Italy, the New York Times reports, found during an investigation into Mafia clans in the country. “In this case, they were most likely used in what we call ‘art-napping’ — the Mafia often steals work of art and uses them as a kind of payment within their own families,” says art crimes expert Arthur Brand. “Or if a boss is caught, he can sometimes make a deal for a lesser sentence in exchange for offering to help find stolen works of art.” (more…)
Ryan Gander, I Be… (x) (2016), via Art Observed
Ryan Gander has opened his first exhibition at Lisson Gallery’s new New York City outpost, spreading his work through a small but tightly selected body of pieces underlining the artist’s enigmatic material interests in play with his uniquely British sense of humor. In one corner, a piece called I’m never coming back to New York shows a £20 note slowly twisting and pushing its way out of a hole in the wall, playing on dual jokes about fleshing out new coats of plaster with crumpled paper and the commercial core of the gallery environment.
Ryan Gander, Mr. Modern Classical Conceptualist (Dramaturgical framework for structure and stability) (2016), via Art Observed
Curator Nicole Berry has been appointed deputy director of The Armory Show, where she will head up VIP and visitor relations alongside new curatorial projects. “We are thrilled to welcome Nicole to our expanding team,” executive director Benjamin Genocchio says. “She brings a wealth of talent and experience that will further develop The Armory Show as a powerful platform for leading international galleries and collectors alike, further cementing our place as America’s preeminent art fair.” (more…)
The Guardian dives into Pablo Picasso’s current portrait show in London, and offers a lengthy background on the history and relationships between the artist and his sitters. “There are so many realities that in trying to encompass them all one ends in darkness,” the artist is quoted as saying. “That is why, when one paints a portrait, one must stop somewhere, in a sort of caricature.” (more…)
David Shrigley’s installation for the fourth plinth at London’s Trafalgar Square goes on view today, a massive hand giving a comically extended thumbs up. “It is such an ambiguous thing which you can quite easily project your own meaning on to, it could endorse something I didn’t want to endorse,” Shrigley says. “My line is that it means whatever you want it to mean, but it doesn’t mean ‘that’.” (more…)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has laid off 34 employees, continuing its attempts to cut overhead amidst a budget shortfall. “These are difficult decisions — we’re disappointed to be losing good colleagues — but we’re making very good progress on the process we put in motion,” Daniel H. Weiss, the Met’s president told the NYT. “Our goal was to meet the budget objectives that we have without in any way diminishing the core mission of the museum.” (more…)
Donald Moffett, Lot 040616 (cobalt and pecans) (2016)
Spanning Marianne Boesky Gallery’s two adjacent Chelsea locations, including the recently-opened space at 507 W. 24th Street, any fallow field, a show of recent work by seminal New York artist Donald Moffett’s investigates some of the reoccurring themes in his multi-media practice. Moffett’s work emerged in the midst of a New York art scene that, during the ‘80s, was dealing with the debilitating impact of AIDS, a point that made tremendous impact on his complex practice. Moffet’s work sees gender and identity politics explored through oblique, yet elegant, gestures, while remaining heavily invested in representation of form, texture and paint. (more…)
Takashi Murakami is interviewed in Complex this week, as the artist opens his most recent exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, and reflects on his multifaceted career, including his work as a designer and curator. “I don’t always enjoy curating, but I do believe it’s part of my job,” Murakami says. “It’s a good exercise for my brain, like warming up. Just focusing on my work would be so depressing! For me, curating is necessary—it’s like physical training.” (more…)
Arts patron Diane Wilsey has maintained a position at the head of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco board, despite mounting pressure to push her out of the position. Wilsey has come under increased scrutiny last year after making a $457,000 payment to a close acquaintance from museum funds. (more…)
The Neue Galerie has reached an agreement with heirs of a Jewish shoe manufacturer and art collector over a Karl Schmidt-Rottluff piece seized by the Nazi’s before WWII. The museum has returned the work to the family of Alfred and Tekla Hess, and then promptly bought it back at its current fair market value. “This case is an example of how provenance research has evolved and how much more we know today than we knew 20 years ago,” says Agnes Peresztegi, a lawyer and expert on Holocaust-era property claims. (more…)