The Untitled Art Fair is expanding to San Francisco, announcing plans for a January 2017 exhibition with 40 to 60 in the city’s Pier 70 space. “We want to make it manageable, we want to focus on quality, we want to make a very strong program,” says spokesman Jeffrey Walkowiak added. “This will be an opportunity for us to work with galleries we haven’t been able to work with before because of Art Basel in Miami.” (more…)
Renowned architect Dame Zaha Hadid has passed away at the age of 65. Hadid has been a foundational voice of contemporary architecture over the course of the early 21st Century, including London’s Olympic Aquatic Centre, the Guangzhou Opera House, and the MAXXI in Rome. (more…)
Carroll Dunham, Mound A (1991-1992), via Art Observed
Flexing his curatorial muscle at both Skarstedt Gallery locations in New York, David Salle has compiled an intriguing collection of recent paintings by a vastly diverse group of artists, and examines their shared interests in the grounds of abstract painting: formal concerns of size, scale and focus, in combination with the compositional elements of color, contrast and hue. (more…)
Vincent Van Gogh’s Night Cafe will remain hanging at Yale University, after the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal over its ownership by Pierre Konowaloff, who claims the work was stolen from his family during the Russian Revolution. “This is the end of the road,”Konowaloff’s lawyer, Allan Gerson says. “There is not much I or anyone can do except respect the rulings of the court, but I do believe there has been a miscarriage of justice.” (more…)
The WSJ notes the increased use of irrevocable trusts as a way for art collectors to transfer their holdings while still maintaining them in their personal collection. “Basically, you are sheltering the appreciation,” says Michael Kosnitzky, a tax lawyer at Boies, Schiller & Flexner. (more…)
Sherrie Levine, Pink SMEG Refrigerator and Renoir Nudes (2016), via Art Observed
Opening her first exhibition with David Zwirner in New York City, Sherrie Levine has taken over the 2nd floor of the gallery’s 20th Street Flagship, bringing a body of works that feels like a fitting first entry in her collaboration with Zwirner, while signaling new steps forward in her challenging and cerebral practice.
Asad Raza, who previously hosted the Home Show in his Manhattan apartment late last year, has announced a selection of exhibitions at Brussels’s Boghossian Foundation that will negotiate and “an analogous dialogue between the intimacy of the private home and the democratic spirit of the public space.” One highlight is Répétition, a “choreographed” exhibition featuring works by Shannon Ebner, Robert Rauschenberg, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and many others. (more…)
Alex Da Corte is interviewed in the New York Times this week, as the artist opens a major exhibition at Mass MOCA. “If taste is the thing that guides you, then how can you step outside that and try to look at everything every day as if it’s new? To live somewhere up here?” he says. “I always like to hope that I have no taste, which is not the same thing as tastelessness.”
Tony Cragg, Untitled (2015), all photos via Quincy Childs for Art Observed
The opening hours of Art Basel Hong Kong have come and gone at the Hong Kong Convention Center this week, as the Asian art world descending on South China’s bustling metropolis for the first hours of high-profile sales. The fair saw strong international attendance during the VIP Vernissage, with Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak, Tracey Emin, Cai Guo Qiang, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones all spotted walking the aisles of the fair during its opening day, as were Mariko Mori, Hernan Bas, and Owen Wilson. (more…)
Continued Protests have led The Frick Collection to reconsider its approach to a renovation project that would have destroyed its garden space. “We’re looking at existing subterranean spaces and nonpublic spaces that could be utilized,” says director Ian Wardropper. “We’re at the point now where we want a fresh approach.” (more…)
Anri Sala is interviewed in the New York Times this week, where he discusses Hu his exhibition at the New Museum, and his relationship to both classical and pop music. “The detachment from today’s culture is something that interests me. We love many classical pieces, but they are far enough away that they have become like archaeological objects we can approach with some form of objectivity,” he says. “That wouldn’t be the case with pop music. It’s too recent, and manipulates us in ways that we have not yet completely decoded.” (more…)
Christie’s is preparing for an evening sale this coming May featuring a series of unconventional and peculiar works that would normally not appear in a large-scale auction, with a piece by Bruce Nauman as the centerpiece, and a theme of failure as its unifying concept. “It’s a season where there’s not going to be many estates or collections,” says organizer Loic Gouzer. “We’ve entered this different era — you can feel an undertone of schadenfreude that the market may be slowing down. I like pursuing the idea that this whole sale is bound to fail.” (more…)
An article in Barron’s reports from Art Basel Hong Kong, noting that while auction bids from Asia may have declined, collectors seem more intent on developing relationships with galleries and young artists. “They were looking at it as an investment just to turn around and make quick money. They didn’t have any education in art.” dealer Fred Scholle says. “They’re learning the market. But now we see collectors buying because they appreciate the work.” (more…)
Michael Riedel, Untitled (Art Material_Lycaenops 90) (2015), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed
Entering Michael Riedel’s current exhibition at David Zwirner, visitors encounter an intriguing spatial arrangement, composed of abstract patterns blanketing gallery walls. Pulled from art material supplier BLICK’s website, the text, distorted to illegibility, is abstracted from its informative ends and transformed into purely graphical patterns. Barely comprehensible through a closer inspection, words listing different dimensions for canvases, or describing various color charts are no longer usable. Distortion of this conversation between information and its raison d’être commonly emerges in Riedel’s practice, bringing this dialogue into a reversed cycle, in which function becomes infertile and surplus conveys aesthetic. (more…)
Taryn Simon, Bratislava Declaration, Bratislava, Slovakia, August 3, 1968, Paperwork and the Will of Capital (2015) © Taryn Simon. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Last year at the Venice Biennale, Taryn Simon unveiled a body of new work under the title Paperwork and the Will of Capital, a selection of new photographs and assemblages documenting and photographing a series of bouquets that sat as centerpieces during the signing of various accords, treaties, and decrees worldwide. Taking a subdued path through corporate and pop gestures, the work’s simple presentation and concept carries a strong conceptual punch, deconstructing the political grandeur of often oppressive regime decisions. These works are now on view in New York, presented at Gagosian’s 24th Street Chelsea location.
Taryn Simon, Paperwork and the Will of Capital (Installation View), © Taryn Simon. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever
Dealer Yvon Lambert is profiled in W Magazine this week, as he opens a show of his collection at a new exhibition space in Avignon, a gift to the French nation. “Often, the collection of an art dealer is mostly the pieces he wasn’t able to place,” he says. “But I chose these works from the beginning. It was very easy to say to a client, ‘That one’s already taken,’ without mentioning that it was sold to me.” (more…)
Copenhagen research group Freemuse has found an increase in the rate and degree of art censorship around the globe, the Art Newspaper reports. “Artistic creativity demands an environment free from fear and insecurity,” says Freemuse researcher Magnus Ag. “I think we should learn from journalists and make sure any artist facing hardship around the world knows that, if she is being silenced by censorship, threats or imprisonments, the international arts community will stand behind her and fight those who fear the power of creative expressions.” (more…)
Ellsworth Kelly and Yo-Yo Ma have been awarded the J. Paul Getty Medal for their contributions to the arts. “With this medal we honor two of our nation’s greatest artists: Yo-Yo Ma for his distinguished contributions to the conservation and understanding of the world’s many and diverse cultures, and Ellsworth Kelly for his mastery in paintings and sculptures of the highest quality and originality,” says board of trustees chair Maria Hummer-Tuttle. (more…)
The Park Avenue Armory will play host to Martin Creed’s first U.S. retrospective this June, titled The Back Door. The planned installation will take up both the Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall, as well as a number of other spaces in the building. Creed will also be presenting an installation of his Work No. 2630, UNDERSTANDING concurrently at Brooklyn Bridge Park. A collaboration with Public Art Fund, the massive red neon piece will be viewable from both sides of the river. (more…)
Art Basel has announced a new initiative, titled Art Basel Cities, which is targeted towards developing connections with local artistic communities worldwide, forging links between regional events and the flagship Art Basel fair events. We are excited to bring our expertise and network to new partner cities, and to work with them to amplify their commitment to arts and culture,” says Patrick Foret, Director of Business Initiatives with Art Basel. (more…)
Sterling Ruby, Work Wear: Garment and Textile Archive 2008 – 2016 (Installation View), via Sprüth Magers
In 2008, Sterling Ruby designed his own work shirt and pants, a uniform of sorts, which he would wear over the course of each body of work that he created. At the conclusion of each project, Ruby’s leftover materials are saved and incorporated into a new series of clothing pieces, ultimately reproducing the chemical treatments and techniques of each project as its own series of clothing pieces. These works are currently on view for the first time at Sprüth Magers in London, part of his exhibition Work Wear.
Damien Hirst is curating an exhibition of Jeff Koons works at his Newport Street Gallery, featuring more than 30 works from the range of the artist’s career. “I believe art should be experienced by as many people as possible and I’ve felt guilty owning work that is stored away in boxes where no one can see it, so having a space where I can put on shows from the collection is a dream come true,” Hirst has said of his gallery. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal profiles a recent growth of San Francisco’s arts scene, charting a number of important projects that are cultivating a new generation of artists in the city. Performance art space The Lab and Jessica Silverman Gallery are listed among the chief players. (more…)
CNN looks at the recent crop of new, private Chinese art museums, and the motivations behind the sudden explosion in construction. “In a culture that has been suppressed for so long, when things start opening up, you’re liable to get a sort of burst of energy and momentum. This generation of private collectors in China, the big ones at least, they’ve had a couple of decades to make their fortunes and it’s natural they’re now spending it on artists and art collections,” says Aric Chen of the M+ Museum. (more…)