The Kunstmuseum Stuttgart Foundation has awarded Tino Sehgal the 2016 Hans Molfenter Prize, an $18,000 award that recognizes artists with connections to southwest Germany, and which will include a commission for a project in Stuttgart. (more…)
Dolores (Installation View), via Art Observed
The current exhibition at Team Gallery, Dolores, captures a series of disjointed, often confounding narrative arcs, and places them into close conversation through each piece’s respective architectural and spatial implications. Drawing on the various trappings and appointments of modern domesticity, the show, curated by Todd von Ammon, twists familiar forms and functions through a variety of technical and visual alterations.
Max Hooper Schneider, Dielectrix I: Division Electrophorus (2016), via Art Observed
After only a few months, former Rijksmuseum head Wim Pijbes is stepping down as the Director of the Museum Voorlinden, following differences of opinion with founder Joop van Caldenborgh. “We had different ideas on the museum after it opened,” Pijbes. “It’s about expectations and reality. We had a good conversation, and we both agreed that we were both not happy with how it was going. I offered to step aside.” (more…)
The Art Newspaper reports on Anish Kapoor’s repeated assertion that the vandalism of his work at Versailles last summer was perpetrated by someone close to the local government, after seeing what he called a “pathetic” attempt to address the issue. “I’d made three reports to the police [about vandalism] and to this day have had no response from them,” Kapoor says. “The councillor [Fabien Bouglé] managed to get a court hearing within hours. I’ll say it again—it was an inside job.” (more…)
NASA has relaunched its artist residency program, naming photographer Justin Guariglia as a collaborator in the presentation of climate change to the public. “We’re not used to computing the scale of a 100,000-year-old piece of ice the size of California that’s going to break off from an ice sheet,” Guariglia says of the project, and NASA’s work more broadly. (more…)
A Paris judge has requested a second attempt by the Wildenstein family to stay the criminal trial for tax evasion until the civil trial had been resolved. The request was denied on the grounds that it may take several years to reach a decision on the civil case. (more…)
Paul Chan’s Badlands Unlimited Publishing House has released a series of artist-made digital files, including works from Cory Arcangel, Martine Syms and others, and featuring a variety of incomplete, unrealized or proposed projects. “A file is the work before the work. It is the “score” that directs the printer, video projector, or speaker to create the expression that is experienced,” a press release reads. “And as such, artist files hold considerable value and potential in contemporary culture.” (more…)
The Art Newspaper reports that Nicholas Serota will seek to continue curating shows with the Tate Modern as he starts his role as the head of Arts Council UK. The longtime head of the Tate is focused on putting together a show for a living artist that has yet to be named. (more…)
The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has awarded Pierre Huyghe with the second annual edition of its $100,000 prize. “At this moment, when the environment and culture are so under threat, Huyghe’s imaginative, uncanny approach to the serious ecological and social issues facing our planet tie his oeuvre to the ancient purposes of sculpture: they possess a shamanistic quality which tips the mimetic into life,” says Jeremy Strick, the Nasher’s director. (more…)
The New York Times previews the upcoming TEFAF Fair edition in New York, the first for the fair brand in the U.S., and questions how successful the fair may be outside of the Dutch city of Maastricht. “Maastricht is a great fair because people go for a few days and there is nothing else to do, except restaurants,” says George Wachter, chairman of Sotheby’s North America and South America. “They go with buying in mind.” (more…)
Crain’s looks at the growing number of artists decamping to the Bronx, and the current real estate trends that are facilitating the growth of a new arts district in New York’s northernmost borough. “It’s becoming hard for artists to be in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and we’re always looking for spaces that are affordable,” artist Ivan Gaete said. “The Bronx has gotten a lot of attention in the last year.” (more…)
Cardi Gallery has announced plans for a new exhibition space in London, and will open its doors at 22 Grafton Street in the city’s Mayfair district this Friday. “We are very happy for this ambitious achievement, which bears the results of the great efforts by the entire gallery staff,” says director and owner Nicolo Cardi. “Opening a venue in London with a severe and solid program is a necessity, and will be followed by other international endeavors. Being Italian, we are proud to represent, promote and protect the legacy of Italian art from the 1960s and the ’70s that has been, and still is, a great source of inspiration for young talents all over the world.” (more…)
The 2016 Turner Prize exhibition has opened at the Tate Britain in London, bringing together a unique series of works that include an immense buttocks sculpture by Anthea Hamilton, and a selection of twisted and repurposed objects by Michael Dean. (more…)
David Hockney sits down with the Guardian’s Martin Gayford this week, to discuss the process of painting, and talk about some of his most beloved artworks. “The moment you put down two or three marks on a piece of paper, you get relationships. They’ll start to look like something,” Hockney says. “If you draw two little lines they might look like two figures or two trees. One was made first, one second. We read all kinds of things into marks. You can suggest landscape, people and faces with extremely little. It all depends on the human ability to see a mark as a depiction.” (more…)
The BBC’s Bendor Grosvenor has uncovered a work by Jacob Jordaens in the Swansea Museum’s storage warehouse. Previously attributed as a copy, Grosvenor found the work in an online database and did further research on its origins for BBC1’s Fake or Fortune program. “I’m bit of a nerd when it comes to looking through websites and catalogues,” he said. “I saw this one and had strong suspicions.” (more…)
Andrea Zittel (Installation View), via Art Observed
Taking over Andrea Rosen’s main Chelsea exhibition space on 24th Street, artist Andrea Zittel is showing a body of new works exploring not only the intertwined concepts of abstracted sculpture and utilitarian object that informs her object-based practice, but equally delving into the experience of space in relation to each piece. Showing a series of works on view in multiple places simultaneously, Zittel’s practice realizes a distinctly indeterminate space between landscapes and contexts of use. (more…)
The Guardian looks at Anish Kapoor’s work with the developers of Vantablack, and the artist’s attempts to utilize the occasionally difficult material in the creation of new work. “[Vantablack] is very technical. It needs like a furnace – pressure and heat – before this material can do what it does, [which is] become super black,” Kapoor says. “It’s necessarily a collaboration between them and me. I say, ‘C’mon guys – we can make it bigger and we can make it applicable in others ways.’” (more…)
The Guardian sits down with Simon de Pury this week to share his views on the market, working a crowd from the rostrum, and the future of online art sales. “Information once only accessible to insiders is now accessible to everybody. It has helped the market become easier to navigate,” he says. “Art sold online will increase a lot over the next few years, especially if you are selling art between $10,000 and $2m – that segment of the market can be sold more effectively through the internet. At the top end, auctioning will continue in the bricks and mortar way.” (more…)
Martos Gallery has moved its project gallery, Shoot the Lobster, into its Los Angeles exhibition space, changing its function from a Martos outpost to a permanent home for Shoot the Lobster. “After two years of many memorable exhibitions and events, Martos Gallery LA has closed its doors to make way for the second STL project space,” the gallery said. “This space, like its East Coast accomplice, will feature a mix of exhibitions, performances, concerts, pop-ups, and more.” (more…)
The New York Times profiles the work of the K11 Art Foundation this week, and its work in supporting the careers of young Chinese artists both home and abroad. “The reason so many curators listen to us is because we are not a gallery, we are not dealers, and we do not represent artists — our list is more academic,” says founder Adrian Cheng.
The French government has pledged $100 million to fund cultural heritage protection in the Middle East, providing resources for preservation, restoration and storage to threatened cultural sites and institutions. “This mission began a month ago,” says Benoit Paumier, a former official of the Ministry of Culture. “The point of departure, which shocked the French population, was the destruction of Palmyra by the terrorists. At that point, the president of the republic asked the president of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, to prepare a report on how the international community could respond to preserve the cultural heritage of humanity.” (more…)
The British Museum has made a landmark purchase of a group of mint-condition prints by Pablo Picasso, a selection that fills in a gap in the museum’s collection of the artist’s work in the medium. “This is the last important gap to be filled in the British Museum’s representation of Picasso’s print work,” says Stephen Coppell, curator of the museum’s modern prints and drawings collection. “It is very important that we were able to acquire this work. It is one of the greatest achievements in graphic art.” (more…)
Madeline Hollander, Drill (2016), via Art Observed
Signal Gallery kicks off its fall season this month with a pair of exhibitions by artist Madeline Hollander and Aidan Koch, an enigmatic combination of formal interests and performative translations of material split between two rooms in the gallery’s Bushwick exhibition space. Drawing from varied takes on illustration, movement and conveyance of information, the show’s connecting threads are distinctly understated, welcoming the viewer to consider each show’s work in its relation to material, cultural moorings, and each show’s internal systems of objects and actors.
Aidan Koch, Iris (Installation View), via Art Observed
Guy Wildenstein’s tax evasion trial has begun in Paris, following several delays in the proceedings. “At that time, there was no law” against the tax havens Wildenstein allegedly used, his lawyer, Herve Temime said in court. “There is therefore an absolute doubt on the very existence of unpaid taxes.” (more…)