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 (æ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 €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.
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.
Lisson Gallery has announced its plans to open a gallery in New York this May, presenting a body of paintings by Cuban-born painter Carmen Herrera. The gallery will bring its roster of artists, primarily those without prior U.S. reputation, to show in New York. “This offers an opportunity for audiences here to become better acquainted with our international artists and bring their work into an American curatorial dialogue,” the gallery told Art Observed. The space will be located at 504 West 24th Street. (more…)
One of the few surviving Merzbau by Kurt Schwitters is set for installation at The Romsdal Museum in Molde, Norway. The work was transferred from its location in a barn in Hjerteoya, several miles south of the city. “It was a very complicated process,” says art historian Karin Hellandsjo. “Only one photograph from Schwitters’s time exists, depicting a corner of the barn.” (more…)
Art critic and television host Waldemar Januszczak has taken the BBC to task for making fine art seem like “homework,” as he prepares a new miniseries on the Renaissance for the station. “If everybody made art films like me there wouldn’t be a problem,” the critic says. “How can it not be fascinating – this endless, bottomless pit of great visual excitement out there?” (more…)
Catherine Opie, Cecilia, 2013 © Catherine Opie. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong
Two discernible genres in photography, portrait and documentation determine Catherine Opie’s current dual-gallery exhibition at Lehmann Maupin in New York. In her inaugural exhibition at the gallery, Opie comes in full throttle, presenting her well-regarded photo-portraits alongside a group of abstracted landscapes in Chelsea, as well as her documentation of the late Elizabeth Taylor’s L.A. mansion in the gallery’s Lower East Side location. (more…)
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (1990), via Sotheby’s
Taking up the second week of London’s early-year, marquee auctions, the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sales are set to get underway this week with a trio of offerings that will again test the health and enthusiasm of the market in the face of what many have called a “cooling off.” (more…)
The LA Times takes a tour of the soon to open Hauser Wirth and Schimmel Gallery in the former downtown Los Angeles Pillsbury flour mill complex. “I would say that the model is in some way the Kunsthalle — the noncollecting art museum,” says partner Paul Schimmel. “But also foundations, who are really at the boundaries of what they do: commissioning works, creating group shows, doing education work.” (more…)
Maya Widmaier Picasso has spoken out on the dispute over the sale of a bust created by her father, Pablo Picasso, saying she sold the work herself to Larry Gagosian and dismissing other claims to the piece as “baseless.” The dispute seems to stem from a disagreement between Widmaier Picasso’s daughter and son, who respectively sought to sell the work to Gagosian and the Qatari Royal Family. Widmaier Picasso says she decided to side with her daughter, who she said “cannot be faulted for reminding her mother of the sculpture’s true value.” (more…)
–>The Miami Herald takes a look at the last several years at The Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, which has seen a turbulent past few years, and which is currently trying to chart its path in the city’s changing art scene. “We’ve been through hell with it and we recognize the important role the museum plays in the community,” says North Miami council member Scott Galvin. “From a reputation standpoint and an economic standpoint, MoCA is what North Miami is known for.” (more…)
An exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris this year will reunite a collection of Modernist masterpieces compiled by Sergei Shchukin. The collection includes landmark works by Matisse and Picasso, and were split by the Soviet regime between various museums. The works will travel to Paris this fall in a joint effort by the State Hermitage Museum and the Pushkin Museum, which hold the works in their respective collections. “We are planning everything together and taking a number of steps together, and this is understandable, because we can’t live without the Hermitage, without its collection and our common historical past connected with this collection,” Marina Loshak, the director of the Pushkin says. “There are many projects that we are planning to do together outside of our museums.” (more…)
