Former Queens Musuem head Laura Raicovich has left the museum following a dispute over a privately hosted event at the museum, sponsored by the State of Israel. Raicovich’s opposition to the event led to fierce protest, and an investigation that ultimately saw her resign, as did her inclusion in a book supporting the B.D.S. (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement. (more…)
Catherine Opie, Sheats-Goldstein #3 (2016), via Art Observed
Currently on view at Regen Projects in Los Angeles, Catherine Opie returns to her home city for a show of new works that present the city in all of its fascinating, and occasionally frightening nuances. Continuing her photographic practice through a wide range of images and iconographies, the current show, The Modernist also features the artist’s debut filmic project.
Catherine Opie, The Modernist (Installation View), via Art Observed
A lost Gustav Klimt drawing of two reclining women has been found in a former secretary’s home in the Austrian city of Linz, after details in the woman’s will gave hints at the work’s location. “We were very surprised at this discovery,” said Julius Stieber, the director of culture and education for the City of Linz. “We’d received a letter, but no one expected the drawing to be returned.” (more…)
SculptureCenter has named Sohrab Mohebbi, the associate curator of REDCAT in Los Angeles, as its new curator. “I also really like the idea of having a mandate, looking at art through the lens of sculpture,” he says. “We’re experiencing this moment of complete dematerialization. Everything is going to the cloud. So it’s interesting to have an encounter with an object.” (more…)
Agnes Gund is interviewed in the Art Newspaper this week, as she reflects on the sale of a Roy Lichtenstein work from her collection to fund efforts towards prison reform. “I didn’t used to sell anything, but then I was interested in doing philanthropic things,” she says. (more…)
Bloomberg Philanthropies has initiated a 2018 Public Art Challenge for proposals of temporary projects that address civic issues and demonstrate an ability to “generate public-private collaborations, celebrate creativity and urban identity, and strengthen local economies,” according to a statement. “There’s a virtuous cycle that public art tends to trigger,” says Kate D. Levin, head of the arts program for Bloomberg Philanthropies. “It’s not always acknowledged, because people tend to focus on the art—which is appropriate—but part of the reason Michael Bloomberg is funding this initiative is because he wants to help catalyze a greater appreciation of the impact that art can have in cities and the ways in which projects, however different they may be, tend to spark beneficial cross-sector dialogue and work that wouldn’t happen in other ways.” (more…)
Investor Aaron Fleischman has endowed The Met with resources for a new Curatorship in Modern and Contemporary Art, which will be taken up by Ian Alteveer. “We are immensely grateful for the funding of this vital position in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art,” said Met President Daniel Weiss. “The endowment of curatorial positions is one of the Museum’s top priorities. With this gift, Mr. Fleischman will enable The Met to continue our momentum on presenting and studying art of the 20th and 21st centuries, and, importantly, he joins a group of donors who are ensuring the future of the institution through their thoughtful philanthropy.” (more…)
Former Interscope Records CEO and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine has donated a massive Mark Bradford painting, 150 Portrait Tone, to LACMA. The work features text sourced from the Facebook video depicting the police shooting of Philando Castile in 2016. “It’s Mark Bradford’s Guernica. I don’t think it’s crazy to compare it to a work like that,” Iovine says. “There’s a frustration and intensity about Guernica, which is about a war and an unfair bombing and you feel the screams of pain. In Mark’s painting, you also feel the screams of pain.” (more…)
Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (7-10) (1992), via Art Observed
“I like paintings that balance contradictions. I like paintings that look clear and simple at first glance and then sort of crumble under your gaze,” says painter, Thomas Nozkowski, the American painter whose work over the past several decades has spanned a range of styles and techniques, approaches and modes of seeing throughout his career. “And it’s even better if further looking enables you to put it together again, understand it in a new way.” Such modes of seeing and making pictures is presented this month at Pace Gallery in New York, running throughout the artist’s 50+ year career as a striking, and refreshing survey of his practice. (more…)
NADA has added a group of 16 new galleries to its roster, including 56 Henry and Denny Gallery in New York, as well as Ghebaly and AA|LA Gallery in Los Angeles. (more…)
Frida Escobedo for the Serpentine, via Serpentine
As February rolls along, thoughts turn to spring, and to the annual string of special projects, installations and architectural projects across the globe. This week, art and architecture lovers got one peak at the year’s entries of projects, as the Serpentine Galleries announced it had tapped Mexican architect Frida Escobedo to design its annual pavilion project.
Frida Escobedo, via Serpentine
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. has unveiled its commissioned paintings of Barack and Michelle Obama by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, respectively, Art News reports. (more…)
Germany is setting up resources to help professionals in creative fields with reporting and dealing with sexual harassment and assault. “Those affected need a protected space where they can speak openly and seek advice anonymously, without needing to worry about negative consequences,”German Culture Minister Monika Grütters says. “An initiative like this shouldn’t fail because of a lack of funds.” (more…)
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Andrea Holding her daughter Nephratitioustide the Social Network Banquet Hall (2016 / 2017), all images via Gavin Brown’s
In her self-titled solo debut at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, artist LaToya Ruby Frazier illustrates an American landscape where dualities intertwine, marring the boundaries separating joy from despair or abundance from nothingness. Her depictions of secluded interiors, occupied by domestic clutters and family histories translate into stories of struggle, while barren deserts under the California sun encapsulate human ardor. Spanning her two decade photographic practice, Frazier’s three-floor presentation at the gallery’s spacious Harlem location introduces one series on each floor. Complimented by the accents of the building’s previous life as a brewery, the photographer’s black and white gelatin silver prints explore dichotomies of public and private, meditating on the role of the camera lens as a witness of our profound and collective moments, be those experienced firsthand or communally mediated. (more…)
Christie’s is selling a Jackson Pollock drip painting in its London sale of Contemporary art, estimated to sell for around $18.2m. “With its opulent, marbled galaxy of dripped, splashed and spattered paint, Number 21, 1950 is a beautiful and important work from the peak of Jackson Pollock’s iconic ‘drip period’,” the company said in a statement. (more…)
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation is funding the replacement of all 309 incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs in Chris Burden’s iconic Urban Light at LACMA, retrofitting it to make the installation more energy efficient. “The switch from incandescent light bulbs to LED bulbs in Urban Light will save approximately 3,173,047 kilowatt hours of electricity over the next 10 years, which is enough to power about 295 average American homes in a year,” the foundation says. (more…)
Louise Nevelson, Dawn’s Presence – Three (1975), via Art Observed
Spread across the rooms of Pace Gallery’s West 24th Street location, Louise Nevelson’s iconic wood sculptures draw the viewer through various geometric planes, familiar cultural forms and intriguing variations on a theme. The artist’s work has hung in the walls of Pace over 20 times in the past 50 years, and returns here with a particular focus on her pieces from the late 1950’s onwards, a point where her particular artistic voice was beginning to fully develop. (more…)
A new study by Amy Whitaker, an assistant professor in visual arts management at New York University, states that artists should begin investing in their own work, and fighting for equity in their pieces. “Our analysis shows that the people most rewarded by a system like this one are those who are the earliest to take a bet on the art,” Whitaker says. “What’s exciting is that this is an idea which arises from within the arts, as opposed to being imposed on the arts by financial actors.” (more…)
Robert Irwin is profiled in the LA Times this week, as the 89 year-old artist reflects on his career and describes his worldview. “Beauty is all around you,” he says. “You open your eyes in the morning, the world is totally formed. You haven’t done anything other than be. It’s all around you. The whole idea is being able to recognize it, and pay attention to it, articulate it.” (more…)
A piece in Barron’s this week looks at the current global economy, and speculates that the art market could continue to boom in 2018, especially following the new tax laws passed by the Trump administration. “The wealth effect is a huge driver” says Evan Beard, National Art Services Executive at U.S. Trust. (more…)
Developer Aby Rosen is featuring a series of new “skyscraper lofts” in his 100 East Third Street location, which will be targeted towards art collectors. The building features open-plan layouts and customizable lighting structures to show work in each home. (more…)
Zach Bruder, Edening On (2017), courtesy Magenta Plains.
There is little doubt that Zach Bruder is seriously invested in space; both the tangible area delimited by the stretcher and the real and imagined places rendered on the canvas are of utmost importance to the Cleveland-born painter. The eight works included in Edening On, Bruder’s first solo exhibition at Magenta Plains in New York, flaunt the artist’s ability to render different spatial dimensions, finding a humorous irony and cohesive unity in their discordance. (more…)
Rita Ackermann, Hip Shot (2016-2017), via Marlborough Contemporary
Body Matters, currently on view at Marlborough Contemporary is a two piece art exhibition featuring the work of Rita Ackermann and Carol Rama. The juxtaposition of each artist’s works, which mine brusque gestures and varied approaches to the construction of the art object, creates a dialogue between the two artists, and an almost maniac motion of ideas and eras. The composition of each work inhabits a space amid the figurative and the abstract, where human form disappears and reappears with flashes of color and movement. The concordance of imagery of psychosexual fantasies, dark distortions and transgressive glitches initiates a conversation that honors and liberates the beauty of the female form. (more…)
Thrush Holmes at Beers London, via Art Observed
For early entries in the art world’s annual calendar of art fairs, exhibitions and selling events, few can compare with the proceedings of Zona Maco during Mexico City’s annual art week. Now in its 15th year, the landmark fair for much of Latin American has grown even larger, expanding to host 170 galleries from around the globe within the confines of the Centro Banamex in the city, offering a program of conferences with international guests, a section with specialized publications and editorials, and the widest program of parallel activities with exhibitions at the most outstanding galleries and museums in the country.
Marco Maggi at Pierro Achtugarry, via Art Observed