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Max Ernst, The Stolen Mirror, 1941 (est. $4-6 million, realized $16.3 million), via Christies.com

Christie’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art on Tuesday night brought in $140 million against presale estimates of $210-300 million. Four of the top 5 most valuable lots failed to sell, including the auction’s cover lot – a Degas ballerina sculpture with a presale estimate of $25-35 million. The Degas had been shopped around privately with no luck and carried what many believed to be a very aggressive estimate. The auction house cited those two facts to explain that lot’s failure, as well as the overall performance of the sale. In general, fresh to market material faired best, and hefty presale estimates deterred bidding on the priciest works. What turned out to be the evening’s top lot – Max Ernest‘s The Stolen Mirror – was both fresh to market and carried an estimate in line with the artist’s records and with heightened interest in Surrealist material over the past few auction cycles. The canvas set the record for the artist at auction when it sold for $16.3 million against a high estimate of $6 million. The previous record was set this past June at Christie’s London with a 1923 work that brought $4.4 million.

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Installation view, Eva Hesse “Spectres 1960” at Brooklyn Museum. All images on site for Art Observed by Jen Lindblad unless otherwise noted.

Currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum are nineteen small scale paintings by Eva Hesse. Completed at the age of twenty-four, the early figurative works are rendered in haunting golds and pale, muddled greens. The artist is best known for her fiberglass and polyester resin sculptures, but the paintings assembled for this exhibition shed new light on her work. Deeply personal, they offer a glimpse at the psychology of the tormented artist as she struggled to gain recognition in the New York City art scene of the 1960s before her untimely death at the age of thirty-four.

Eva Hesse, No Title, 1960, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in. Image via Brooklyn Museum.

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Edgar Degas, Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, executed in wax c. 1879-1881 and cast later (est. $25-35 million), via Christies.com

The November sales will be inaugurated at Christie’s on Tuesday night with a 75-lot Impressionist & Modern auction at their Rockefeller Center location in New York. Seventy-one lots will be offered at Sotheby’s New York on Wednesday evening, and the two sales are expected to fetch close to $400 million. This round of auctions follows closely on the heels of the Frieze Art Fair and the concurrent and comparatively smaller sales of Contemporary art in mid-October. Little has changed between then and now to make buyer’s less anxious about the financial markets, but the auction houses managed to secure a handful of top-tier consignments that may bolster the results of their sales.

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Curtis Kulig, Love Me (Steel) (2011). All photos on site for Art Observed by Daniel Creahan.

Over and over again, the two words, “Love Me,” are repeatedly scrawled on the canvasses of Curtis Kulig, the street artist best known for emblazoning this simple cursive ‘throw-up’ all over New York City. Viewed next to the faux-LED crosses and blatant consumerist imagery of his long-time friend and supporter Skullphone, they begin to take on a hint of desperation, a plaintive plea in a world inundated with brand-names and electronic simulacra. While the two artists have supported each other for over 7 years, Scripture, now showing at the Mallick Williams and Co. Gallery in Chelsea, is the first documented collaboration between the two artists. Regardless of the precedent, however, the installation sees Kulig and Skullphone pursuing techniques that the artists have explored in past work.
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Frank Stella, Double Mitered Maze (1967). All images on site for Art Observed by Ana Marjanovic.

Paul Kasmin gallery hosts Geometric Variations, an exhibition assembling Frank Stella’s square-shaped canvases from the 1960s and ’70s, including Concentric Square, Mitered Mazes and the Benjamin Moore series. According to the press release, the exhibition explores the “historical importance” of Stella’s canvases. Contextualizing them within Western art history discourse, H.H. Arnason pointed out that Stella’s art represents a median between the “modernism advocated by Greenberg, and Minimalism.”

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Sliding down with canvas mat in Carsten Höller’s Untitled (Slide), 2011. All photos on site for Art Observed by Nicholas Wirth.

Carsten Höller‘s 40-foot-high, 102-foot-long transparent metal slide—a “pneumatic mailing system”—awaits the daring visitor at the top floor of the New Museum. Surveying eighteen years of the artist’s work, The Experience exhibition is organized “experientially,” as opposed to chronologically, moving from a low-speed mirrored carousel down the slide to realistic albeit neon animal sculptures, disorienting architectural interventions, a sensory deprivation pool, and the artist’s simple yet highly effective upside-down goggles. The series of interactive environments function like science experiments, designed “to explore the limits of human sensorial perception and logic through carefully controlled participatory experiences,” as the exhibition’s press release explains.

Installation view, fourth floor.

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Installation view of George Segal’s Woman on a Park Bench (1998) and Roger Hiorns’ Untitled (2008) in September 11, MoMA PS1, 2011. Photo: Matthew Septimus.

For an exhibition dedicated to the memory of September 11, 2001, September 11 at MoMA PS1 is conspicuously void of images from the tragedy 10 years ago. There are no day-after headlines, no lists of missing persons, no photos of crumbling towers filled with smoke and terror. Instead, curator Peter Eleey approaches 9/11 with more than 70 works by 41 different artists, the works created for reasons wholly separate from, and many before, 9/11/01—only 1 piece was made as a direct response to the tragedy. “Horrific, yet familiar, images of the attacks and their aftermath are embedded in our memories,” says the press release. “This exhibition considers the ways in which 9/11 has altered how we see and experience the world in its wake.”

Installation view of Jeremy Deller’s Unrealized Project for the Exterior of the Carnegie Museum (2004-2011) and Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled” (The End) (1990) in September 11, MoMA PS1, 2011. Photo: Matthew Septimus.

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Mircea Cantor’s work in FIAC 2011, image by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed, all photos by Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

By the close of FIAC on Sunday evening, some 68,000+ visitors had come through the fair.  These attendance figures represent a 6% increase from the previous year, reports the New York Times.  Housed this year in the exuberant Grand Palais, the fair showed strong sales from the get go. Despite the global economic downtown of recent years, the atmosphere was effervescent. French, American, and German galleries dominated the space (55, 26, and 21, respectively), but participants from Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa showed a strong presence at the fair for the first time. New York newcomers Matthew Marks, Eleven Rivington, Andrew Kreps, Michele Maccarone and Friedrich Petzel did well, and Pace Gallery made a comeback after a long absence. Compared to Frieze the week before in London, many fair-goers felt that the Parisian fair was riskier in content, creating a more exciting and eclectic display of artworks.

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Antoine Dorotte’s Una Misteriosa Bola (2011). All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

Just a stone’s throw from the Grand Palais, the host site of FIAC 2011, sculptures abound at the Jardin des Tuileries. Works include those by Urs Fischer, Antony Gormley, and Navid Nuur.

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Vincent Mauger, La somme des hypothèses (2011)

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Musicians play in front of a work by Alex Katz at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, where the painter’s show Face The Music runs through November 19th, 2011. All Photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

Thursday evening, October 20th, Parisian galleries across the city participated in what is called Nocturne des Galeries (Galleries Night Out). Hosted by FIAC, the event is an opportunity to survey the French art scene, as well as to “step up the commitment and increase the visibility of galleries focused on 20th century furniture conceived by architects and and contemporary design work.” The galleries are divided into five different sections: Louvre/Saint Germain, Champ Élysées, Eastern Paris, Louise Weiss, and Marias, which boasts the largest number of galleries. Art Observed was on site for openings at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Galerie Chantal Crousel and Emmanuel Perrotin.

Xavier Veilhan, opening of Orchestra at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin through November 12.

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Crowds outside the Grand Palais on the public opening of FIAC, October 21, 2011. All photographs for Art Observed on site by Caroline Claisse.

After two days of previews, FIAC opened its doors to the Paris public on Friday, October 21st. Jill Silverman, Director of Paris/Salzburg-based gallery Thaddaeus Ropac, tells Art Observed that the fair presents “a very good cross section of European collectors.” FIAC is one of the most nationally-focused art fairs, boasting a solid 32% of French exhibitors, whereas last week’s Frieze in London had only 25% British galleries. American presence increased this year with several New York galleries making their debut at the fair: Matthew Marks, Eleven Rivington, Andrew Kreps, Michele Maccarone and Friedrich Petzel. After a 30+year absence, Pace Gallery made a comeback to the fair. Works by seasoned veteran Damien Hirst are exhibited at both White Cube and Gagosian. Anish Kapoor also has work spread across the fair, whose gargantuan installation Leviathan filled the entire interior of the Grand Palais earlier this year. Lisson is showing one of his signature colored concave mirrors in fire-engine red; Kamel Mennour has wine-red, Galeria Continua has green, and Kukje/Tina Kim has purple; all have different price tags. Sales have been strong thusfar; Pace Gallery’s Arne Glimcher told Artinfo, “We had sales right off the bat, it was really fascinating. I hadn’t anticipated this kind of rush, especially in this economy, where Europe is not in as good of shape as America. But I think we have the right artists.” He added, “FIAC is certainly an enormous cut above Frieze.”

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Two Less One (2011) at Galleria Continua

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The Mound (2011), left. Triptych (2011), right.

Lisa Yuskavage is currently showing her third solo exhibition at David Zwirner Gallery. In a mix of early French Impressionism (a la Manet) and Dali-esque Surrealism, Yuskavage captures the languid, voluptuous figures of the female body through a feminist lens. The artist also takes on themes of landscape, time, and plot, in a way that extends her visual resonance.

Art Observed on site for the opening

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FIAC 2011 at the Grand Palais in Paris. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

FIAC 2011 (The Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) opens this weekend in Paris for its 38th year. The international art fair, which boasts an impressive array of 168 galleries from 21 countries, will show the work of some 2,800+ artists. Running October 20–23rd, the exposition comes at the tail end of Frieze Art Fair, drawing artists, collectors, gallerists, and enthusiasts eastward from London. While the focus of Frieze leans toward contemporary, FIAC includes both contemporary and modern, including works from Picasso, Calder, and Matisse. The fair has been building momentum since 2006; Jennifer Flay, appointed general director in 2010, credits this boost to the fair’s move to the Grand Palais, one of the city’s most cherished architectural gems. The fair also expands this year to the Jardin des Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, the Museum of Natural History, and other venues around the city. Another innovation, a mobile application (in French) is available through Windows Phone which enables visitors to book tickets directly from their phone, as well as receive realtime news updates from the fair, find exhibitors and artists, and access videos and photos of the show.

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Jay Jopling of White Cube, which is exhibiting Damien Hirst’s Where Will It End.

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All images for Art Observed on site by Guillaume Vandame.

The Andrea Rosen Gallery currently presents its first exhibition of Sterling Ruby and Lucio Fontana, an adventurous juxtaposition of the hip contemporary Californian with the radical and aggressive 20th Century artist. Ms. Andrea Rosen, who kindly answered questions on the show, described how the inspiration for the exhibition came as a conversation with Ruby when Rosen was doing a group show of De Kooning, Fontana, and Eva Hesse in the fall of 2008. “We were talking about contextualizing Sterling’s work and Sterling had very much liked that show, in particular my relationship to those particular ceramics which hadn’t been shown very much,” Rosen said. “So we started with a discussion and it sort of evolved in a year long conversation about what we wanted to accomplish juxtaposing Sterling and Fontana.”

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Sotheby’s Take Home a Nude annual auction. All photos on site for Art Observed by Nicholas Wirth.

Monday night on the seventh floor of Sotheby’s, art enthusiasts took in a variety of works—many of them nudes or variations thereof—at the 20th annual Take Home a Nude benefit by the New York Academy of Art. A 6 o’clock cocktail hour loosened up bidders for the concurrent silent auction, closing at 8:30 with a live auction, followed by dinner downstairs at 9:00. The night honored artist Jenny Saville and critic John Richardson, with artists Jeff Koons (in attendance further down town at the National Arts Awards) and Nan Goldin up for bid at the live auction, while artist Dustin Yellin—whose work caught the eye of Mary-Kate Olsen—fetched the highest bid at the silent auction at $9,500. However, Alyssa Monk’s Soft went to live auction after fierce bidding during the silent auction, fetching a final $12,000, and the evening’s overall highest piece was Joseph Kosuth‘s ‘Texts (Waiting for-) for Nothing’, Samuel Beckett, in play, 2011 at $37,500.

Work by Dustin Yellin

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Jenny Holzer accepts the Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award.  All photos on site for Art Observed by Nicholas Wirth.

Americans for the Arts held their 2011 National Arts Awards at the grand Cipriani 42nd Street venue on Monday night, honoring “artists and art leaders who exhibit exemplary national leadership and whose work demonstrates extraordinary artistic achievement.” Awards were bestowed upon artists Frank Stella and Jenny Holzer, as well as Beverley Taylor Sorenson, President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Gabourey Sidibe, and Wells Fargo & Company.  The annual gala dinner named Sol Lewitt the featured artist, showcasing his work throughout the space, while guests such as Richard Phillips, Will Cotton, and Jeff Koons mingled in black-tie.

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Ryan Gander’s Locked Room Scenario. All pictures for Art Observed on site by Caroline Claisse.

British artist Ryan Gander‘s Locked Room Scenario is set in the mysterious Londonnewcastle Depot in north London. Every detail, from postcards and notes left throughout the scene, to teenage actors sitting on the stoop, create an intriguing, paranoia-inducing installation. Walking past locked rooms and peering through windows of a seemingly closed exhibition, the viewer is frustrated, left wanting more. Indeed, “the crime scene” reaches an intolerable suspense as the public must decipher the art within and the possible meaning thereof. Gander’s game plays with imagination and paranoia, creating an experience of total immersion, leaving the viewer second-guessing everything and everyone involved.

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Photos for Art Observed on site by Samuel Sveen.

Art Observed was on site for the Whitney Studio Party, the after-party of the Whitney Museum‘s annual gala. In honor of Calvin Tomkins—the New Yorker writer and profiler of 95 artists—dinner was followed by a dance party down the hall in the larger warehouse space at Pier 57 on the west side. As ?uestlove spun all night, guests danced and drank among various socialites and artists, including Nate Lowman and Ryan McNamara.

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?uestlove

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ASCO artists, self-portrait series

“ASCO: Elite of the Obscure” comes highly recommended as a way of experiencing a movement that is often neglected within a larger art history context. As noted within the Los Angeles exhibition’s literature, ASCO takes its name from “the forceful Spanish word for disgust and nausea,” and was a movement primarily active from 1972 to 1987. Much of the work featured describes both the joys and hardships of being Latino in a Hollywood culture, a traditionally Caucasian experience. The work—a combination of sketches, collaged photos, graffiti, and even costumes—falls in the tradition of Dadaism and Surrealist art of the 1920s and 1930s, but with a particular Chicano psyche.

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Jen Lindblad, unless otherwise noted.

Twenty-five tons of copper, bronze, iron, and lead cover the floors of Barbara Gladstone Gallery, enveloping visitors in an industrial post-apocalyptic landscape. The subject is ancient Egyptian mythology, by way of Detroit, and it is Matthew Barney‘s new endeavor. Manifested in the form of large scale sculptures and accompanying preparatory drawings, the exhibition, DJED, is part of the artist’s new project Ancient Evenings, in progress since 2007. It marks a departure from Barney’s usually gelatinous media—thermoplastic, tapioca, and petroleum jelly—in favor of traditional industrial metals. On the opening night, visitors flocked to the gallery to see the artist’s newest spectacle, forming a queue that reached halfway down the block.

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Video on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

A glowing sky over Greenpoint in Brooklyn drew several thousand art and light enthusiasts for the Bring To Light | Nuit Blanche New York 2011 light festival, a one-night event on October 1st. Wandering a playground and weaving through dark warehouse alleys, even out onto the India Street Pier, visitors could see over 50 installations—depending on how hard they looked—including sculptures, light projections, interactive installations, and live music and performances by both established and emerging artists. ‘Nuit Blanche’ translates to ‘white night’ or ‘all-nighter,’ a European tradition turned art festival ten years ago in Paris. New York’s second annual installment was joined by not only Paris, but also Brussels and Toronto in a simultaneous night of light, an effort to “re-imagine public space and civic life.”

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KAWS, Untitled (HTLD2) (2011). All images on site for Art Observed by Megan Hoetger.

Amid a crowded fall season in Los Angeles, Honor Fraser hosts “Hold the Line,” the newest show of works by New-York based media and urban culture phenomenon KAWS. Dubbed an “art entrepreneur,” Brian Donnelly, a.k.a. KAWS, has created an industry around his troupe of animated characters.

KAWS, Companion (2011).

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Performance view. All photos for Art Observed on site by Zachary Concepcion

Tuesday night, Haunch of Venison‘s new Chelsea gallery co-hosted a Kreëmart one-night-only performance with The American Patrons of Tate. Kreëmart is an artist collective that often collaborates with well known contemporary artists to produce performances and installations that use the medium of food, generally confectionery, to reposition one’s perspective and  interaction with such sweets.  Cake sculptures and banana ice cream (served by monkeys), along with two candy-obsessed women, kept visitors high on sugar whilst speculating the powdery white substance of Terence Koh‘s Untitled on the floor.  The evening teamed up seven artists with pastry chefs to indulge the senses in art, all works interactive and made specifically for the 2011 show.

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Terence Koh, Untitled.

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Artist Zhang Enli with A Bunch of Balls (2009-2011). All photos on site for Art Observed by Jen Lindblad, unless otherwise noted.

Currently showing at Hauser & Wirth in New York is a new body of work by celebrated Chinese artist Zhang Enli. Comprised of twenty new paintings and one sculptural group, the story he tells is one of cultural relocation—namely, the artist’s move twenty years ago from a small provincial town in northern China to Shanghai, where he now lives and works. Wherever we go we carry objects—ordinary objects that remain present and constant in our lives. All of the objects Zhang depicts are real, found in and around his studio: empty cans, a carpet, an umbrella, pipes, metal and rope netting. Familiar enough to be accessible but reduced enough to be seductive, Zhang considers the objects carefully, stripping them to their essence. His quiet, subtle paintings bear almost no resemblance to the bold, political work of his Chinese contemporaries. “I want to strip the object to the bone,” he says, “just leave what it actually is. If you leave a glass on a table, it leaves a watermark. That mark is what I want to express.”

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