Marina Abramovic and Igor Levit, Goldberg (2015), photo by Marco Anelli

Over the course of the past two years, Marina Abramovic’s work has shifted towards the meditative, and the participatory simultaneously, a seemingly dissonant set of parameters that have resulted in a range of peculiar performances experimenting with sensory deprivation, mediated experiences of space, and gentle brushes with the artist’s person, as she acts as a guide through her own created environments.  Her practice continues this month at the Park Avenue Armory, where the the artist has partnered with pianist Igor Levit for Goldberg, a meditative concert of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. (more…)

Nari Ward, We the People (2011), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Positioned just off the MacArthur Causeway in downtown Miami, the Perez Art Museum stands as a striking icon of Miami’s new art world caché, and seems to be a favorite auxiliary stop among Art Basel fairgoers each December.  Its lush, airy Herzog de Meuron design and expansive gallery spaces host one of Art Week Miami’s more popular evening events with its annual commission performance.  This year, the museum has opened its doors to a series of impressive exhibitions during Miami Art Week, including a group exhibition titled Global Positioning Systems, and a retrospective dedicated to Jamaican-born artist Nari Ward.

Nari Ward, We the People (2011), detail, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Artist Cynthia Daignault burned one of her own paintings during the Art Basel proceedings last week, initiating a new series of works which are intended to be destroyed.  “The idea was that all pieces will eventually be destroyed,” Daignault says.  “Everything will die eventually. These just announce the date of their destruction, which in some ways is a proactive role on the painting’s part by choosing the date that it will leave the world.”  (more…)

Both Almine Rech and White Cube Gallery are planning on opening New York outposts, the Art News reports.  Almine Rech is eyeing a “project space” proposal on the Upper East Side, while White Cube is still looking for space. (more…)

The New York Review of Books has published an essay by writer Colm Tóibín on the late work of Francis Bacon, taken from the artist’s catalog for his exhibition at Gagosian in New York this fall.  “There is a restlessness here that we also find in Beethoven’s late chamber music—a feeling that Bacon might begin again, that he is searching for some way to make images that he knows will only be possible for artists of the future, if they are even possible at all,” Tóibín writes. (more…)

The New York Times Style section has an article this week on the fashionable, yet functional, footwear choices of gallerists at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach.  “A few years ago, there was this thing that everyone was wearing sneakers to try to look cool,” dealer Sean Kelly recalls.  “I think sneakers are fine for installation, but British men pay a lot of attention to footwear; and I think when you are trying to stand on a booth for hours and look elegant for clients, you need a shoe. Sneakers don’t cut it.” (more…)

An article penned by NASDAQ staff this week warns of increasing speculation in the current art market, and points to signs that a cool-off is on the way.  “The art market has grown dramatically in the past decade. It’s great for artists and museums. But tastes change and the market changes. [Art] valuations right now are very high. We are going to see a cooling-off period,” says Dan Desmond, head of the Blue Rider Group of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. (more…)

Thelma Golden is interviewed in Artsy this week, reflecting on her early life in Queens, and her work on some of The Whitney’s major exhibitions during the early 1990’s.  “What I did know,” she says, “was that I was existing in a very singular position. I knew who I was; I knew who I was in that place; I knew what that meant. I felt a great sense of responsibility because I was there.  I knew what it meant to be in the room, and I also knew what it meant to have my shot at something.” (more…)

A French court has reversed a decision against Max Ernst scholar Werner Spies, who was previously fined for authenticating what was ultimately proven to be a fake by art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi.  “The author of a catalogue raisonné who expresses an opinion outside of a determined transaction cannot be charged with a responsibility equivalent to that of an expert consulted in the context of a sale,” the court stated in its decision. (more…)

Claes Oldenburg is in Interview Magazine this month, sitting down with Barbara Rose to discuss his practice, and his early creative years as a child.  “As a child, I started my own country, which was called Neubern. It was located in the South Atlantic. I did the documentation of Neubern in great detail,” he says.  “I drew everything that was there, all the houses and all the cars and all the people. We even had a navy and an air force. I spent a lot of time drawing.” (more…)

Amar’e Stoudemire is interviewed in Bloomberg this week, as the NBA Star makes a push to consult and advise fellow players on how to begin collecting art.  “We’re going to educate the rest of the sports world how important it is to collect art, and how important it is to connect with emerging artists who are going to be great, but no one knows they’re going to be great yet,” he says. “Five years from now, it becomes triple the amount, and now you have a gold mine on your hands.” (more…)

Jerry Saltz writes on the Jim Shaw exhibition this week, putting the artist’s work in the context of the generation of painters that followed him, and emphasizing his impact on the work of the early 1990’s.  “Even if he wasn’t able to make it to the blue-chip promised land that awaited many of these other artists, Shaw blew open the doors of painting. And the New Museum has made it even easier to see how pivotal Shaw is by going the extra mile,” he writes. (more…)

Ai Weiwei, Free Speech Puzzle (2014), via Art Observed

It’s been a whirlwind year for Ai Weiwei, as the artist’s staunch opposition and fierce criticism to government censorship of his work and life brought both new challenges (the alleged bugging of his studio and the arrest of his lawyer and friend Pu Zhiqiang) and new victories, including relaxed limits on his ability to show in China, and ultimately, the return of his passport, allowing the artist to leave the country for the first time since his arrest in 2011.  This last event underscores the artist’s triumphant exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, where he has mounted an expanded version of his traveling solo exhibition, including a series of new works for the show. (more…)

Knoedler Gallery and former director Anne Freedman has settled one of the lawsuits over its sale of a false Willem de Kooning for $4 million, the Art Newspaper reports.  “We are pleased to have resolved the case with Howard, and we feel very good about the upcoming De Sole trial,” says Freedman’s lawyer Luke Nikas. (more…)

Artnet joined Trevor Paglen last week in Miami, as the artist took a group of collectors and art world insiders on a deep sea dive off the coast of Florida to see the massive Internet cables running across the Atlantic Ocean.  “’When we talk about ‘the Internet,’ we talk in abstract terms like “the cloud” and “cyberspace,”‘ Paglen says to the group, all in wet suits, before we strap on our air tanks. The Internet is not just in the air, he says, but rather travels along the cables we’re headed to see,” writes Artnet’s Brian Boucher. (more…)

Camille Henrot at Johann Konig, photos via Sophie Kitching, Andrea Nguyen and Rae Wang for Art Observed

The doors closed Sunday on the last hours of the Art Basel Miami Beach fair, bringing the season’s international calendar of fairs to a close after a long week of focused sales and openings in the sweltering, rain-soaked locales of Miami Beach.

Tracy Emin at Lehmann Maupin (more…)

Tony Tasset, Deer (2015)

Positioned outside of the Bass Museum of Art on Collins Ave between 21st and 22nd Street, Collins Park’s wide sidewalks and meandering pathways make for the perfect centralized location for Art Basel Miami Beach’s annual sculpture park, positioning a selection of 24 works across the park grounds for interested viewers and visitors.  This year’s selection continued the event’s annual public outreach with a group of works that included scrolling video pieces (Rikrit Tiravanija’s confounding traffic notifications screen) and massive neons (courtesy of Sylvie Fleury), positioned against hyperrealist sculpture (Tony Tasset’s massive Deer) and other minimalist pieces.

AO was on site at the park, and captured this photoset from the install.

Athena Papadopoulos, Two Serious(ly) (young) Women, (Hubba Hubba Trouba and Ouchy Waa Waa Mama) (2015) (more…)

A group of 29 U.S. Congressmen have signed a letter demanding that German officials accelerate the restitution process on Nazi-looted art, underscoring U.S. opinions that the nation may be dragging its feet.  “The importance of these issues to Holocaust survivors and their families worldwide cannot be overstated,” the letter says. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal profiles artist Robert Ryman and his family, including his three sons, all of whom are artists, as he prepares to open his retrospective exhibition at Dia:Chelsea.  “I don’t think a family of artists like this exists anywhere else in history,” says Arne Glimcher. (more…)

Andrea Rosen is now representing Simon Fujiwara, following the artist’s first one-person exhibition in New York at the gallery in 2013.  “I am always impressed by the way his work is able to simultaneously hold both content and mystery,” Rosen says. (more…)

Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills will launch an exhibition by Alex Israel and Brett Easton Ellis as part of the gallery’s Oscar-week exhibition early next year, featuring large-scale paintings by the artist adorned with text by Ellis.   (more…)

The reinstated Edvard Munch Award was given to Camille Henrot this week during a presentation event in Miami Beach, giving the artist a prize of nearly $59,000 and a solo exhibition at the Munch museum.  “There is always some dimension of challenge in the work that I do, which sometimes I regret because it is really difficult,” she says. “But, I’m more interested in the experience of making work than the final object, and I would like to continue experimenting and challenging myself.” (more…)

Collector Martin Margulies is profiled in the New York Times this week, as he opens a new show of works at his museum, and reflects back on his long work as a collector.  “He lives and breathes art,” says David Leiber, a director at the David Zwirner Gallery.  “From Pop through to the present, he’s put together a kind of unrivaled collection.” (more…)

The Granby Four Estates, via Assemble

The 2015 Turner Prize has been announced, with the 18-member London-based architectural collective Assemble taking home the £25,000 prize for its ambitious redesign and assistance in socially re-engineering a series of derelict residences in the Liverpool neighborhood of Toxteth.  The award was presented this evening at the Tramway in Glasgow. (more…)