Artist Marina Abramovic is interviewed in the New York Observer this week, offering additional insight into her new exhibition Generator at Sean Kelly.  “If you deprive two senses, you achieve this kind of experience of the world,” she says. “If you don’t see and don’t hear but you can feel and touch, you achieve this consciousness. We have to develop this—I know that every human being has the potential to develop it. If you change the consciousness, you can change the world.” (more…)

Artist Olafur Eliasson has unveiled a new project in Copenhagen, Denmark, an immense installation featuring 112 tons of ice.  Ice Watch, created in conjunction with geologist Minik Rosing, to commemorate the Fifth Assessment Report on the Climate, a drastic report on the rapidly changing state of the global atmosphere. “I hope that people will touch the inland ice on City Hall Square and be touched by it,” said Eliasson. (more…)

Hans Haacke, the conceptually elusive artist who has for years defied many of the commercial practices of the contemporary art world, is opening a new show at Paula Cooper this month, allowing viewers a look at the artist’s challenging work and personal politics, including a maquette design for the artist’s upcoming Fourth Plinth Commission next year in London. “I’ve always been interested in systems and how they work, and at a certain point you understand that political and social systems are part of that, too, that they can’t be escaped,” he says.  (more…)

The New York Times reports on the recent increase in attempts by museums around New York to increase its focus on digital elements in the presentation of exhibitions and installations, fusing strong curatorship with immersive digital engagement projects.   “You want the way people live their lives to happen in the museum,” says Carrie Rebora Barratt, the Met’s deputy director for collections and administration. (more…)

The New York Post reports on a recent suit filed against former Andy Warhol bodyguard Agusto Bugarin, accusing him of stealing of painting from the artist, and hiding it away for 30 years before trying to sell it in the past year.  “There is no indication that Warhol did or would have given his bodyguard a painting valued at the time in the hundreds of thousands of dollars — several multiples of Bugarin’s annual salary,” the Manhattan Supreme Court filing by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts says. (more…)

The New York Times profiles the increased efforts by Christie’s to build its online sales platform, including a new focus on online only auctions.  “The main objective here is the acquisition of new clients,” said Steven P. Murphy, Christie’s Chief Executive. “We’re building our online business the old-fashioned way, brick by brick.” (more…)

E.V. Day, CatFight (2011-2014) via E.V. Day Studio

On view now at Mary Boone’s uptown gallery is the haunting sculpture series Semi-Feral by artist E.V. Day. The show centers around a large, site-specific sculptural piece comprised of multiple casts of saber-tooth tiger skeletons floating above the floor of the gallery space.  Day’s work, often concerning sexuality and femininity, takes its point of departure here from the slang term “cat fight.”  A phrase that typically robs a fight from any viciousness, Day returns the notion to its original, ferociously natural element.

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A new conservation approach is being used to return Mark Rothko’s badly damaged Harvard Murals series to public view, works that have sat in storage for years to avoid any additional damage to their already badly faded surfaces.  Using a series of colored light projections, the works will restore portions of the surface that had faded from view.  “Where’s the line between what is Rothko and what is the projection?” says Mary Schneider Enriquez, the museum’s associate curator of modern and contemporary art. “What is the original work of art when you project light on it? Is it the same work of art? As a teaching museum within Harvard, that’s the kind of discussion we want to generate.”  (more…)

Jeff Koons is interviewed this week in The Independent, as the artist concludes his monumental retrospective at the Whitney Museum.  In the interivew, Koons discusses his work with Lady Gaga, and his take on the nature of his work.  “I like to smile, I think that my works have aspects to them which are very, very cheerful, that bring about a smile, but at the same time they have the aspect of tragedy,” he says. “So they are not just free of this other side. They want really to be balanced, to be full and rounded.” (more…)

Jenny Holzer, Presently in the United States (2014) via Emily Heinz for Art Observed

On view now at Cheim & Read through October 25th, 2014, Dust Paintings is a series of recent paintings by Jenny Holzer, an artist known primarily for her use of language and political investigation. Culled from the ongoing use of political documents from 2004, months after the United States and United Kingdom instigated the invasion of Iraq, Holzer makes a comprehensive “map”, of sorts, from linguistics to action; from intention to execution, stressing importance and the power of language, while providing a kind of physical and aesthetic proof of this idea.

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Outside the Grand Palais for FIAC, all photos via Art Observed

As the doors to one fair close, another set has opened on the opposite side of the English channel.  Paris’s FIAC is now in full swing after opening its VIP preview yesterday at the Grand Palais, packing in guests to view the fair’s deep selection of works from Europe and abroad.  (more…)

Jim Shaw, The Deluge (2014), all images via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

With a humorous wit and sarcastic tone, Jim Shaw has been mining the deep archive of Americana for decades, uniting the supposedly separated elements of high and low culture into comic pieces that carry a deeply caustic undertone. The artist’s newest show at Metro Pictures, I Only Wanted You to Love Me, continues this trend, featuring acrylic on muslin works that pull from expansive investigations of visual representation through strong symbolism and appropriation. (more…)

Richard Prince, Untitled (Portrait) (2014), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph By Robert Mckeever.

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s smaller galleries at 976 Madison, Richard Prince’s new set of Instagram-culled pieces are nearly as potent in exposition as they are in person, a series of images pulled directly from the social media app’s user accounts, and blown up to immense scales, full-sized canvases that command the attention of viewers passing by on the street outside. (more…)

The annual Art Review Power 100 Ranking has been published, with Tate Director Nicholas Serota topping the list.  Serota is followed close behind by David Zwirner (who maintains his number two ranking from last year) and Iwan Wirth.  Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, last year’s number 1 entry, has been placed this year at 13th. (more…)

In another sign of increased confidence in new Director Philip Vergne, MOCA has added 4 new seats to its board of trustees, among them artist Mark Bradford, public policy strategist Heather Podesta, and art collector Cathy Vedovi.  “I don’t get the feeling that this is the new MOCA, and we don’t want to talk about the old MOCA,” says Bradford.  “It feels like we’re here now, and we’re moving forward, and we have a history.” (more…)

W Magazine has published a profile on artist Marina Abramovic, as the artist prepares to open her newest exhibition Generator at Sean Kelly in New York, focused on depriving visitors of any sensory input.  “Ten years ago, this kind of project is not possible,” Abramović says. “Now it is, because human beings need so much to be with themselves, especially in New York, where everything is so much about audio and visual consumption.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles Leto Gallery, an upstart Polish exhibition space run by Marta Kolakowska, which is committed to challenging projects and a committed interest in social themes.  “I think it is important what Marta is doing in terms of Polish art but it is also a bit of fun,” says artist Konrad Smolenski, who works with the gallery and represented Poland at last year’s Biennale.  “With her, it is not about selling but building strong connections to people and being honest with what we are doing. That is something that I really appreciate and I cannot imagine a different kind of relationship with a gallerist.” (more…)

Detail from one of Rob Pruitt’s Furniture Pieces, via Art Observed

Rob Pruitt is back at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise this month, bringing a diverse and somewhat scrambled show of new works to the New York gallery, including a set of graffitied furniture pieces, a set of enormous minimalist prints, and as well as sculptural and painted works that deliver Pruitt’s iconic, tongue-in-cheek renegade style through a broad scope of material form. (more…)

Marcel Dzama, Une Danse des Bouffons (still) (2013), via Art Observed

Marcel Dzama’s latest film, Une Danse des Bouffons (A Jester’s Dance) (2013), is on view now at David Zwirner’s 525 and 533 West 19th Street spaces, marking the premier showing of the film in the United States.  The exhibition, featuring a number of collaborations and multi-media projects, includes a 7-inch vinyl release of the film’s soundtrack, with haunting, largely instrumental music by members of the band Arcade Fire.

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Richard Nonas (Installation View), via Art Observed

Richard Nonas’s newest series of sculptures, currently on view at Fergus McCaffrey’s 26th Street Chelsea location, are an interesting take on the minimalist object. Folded, twisted metal and wood forms stand in stark opposition, with sharp angles drawing lines of interaction and interrelation from work to work, subsequently toying with notions of space between a cohesive environment and a series of isolated, complexly rendered objects. (more…)

Paul Sietsema, Red painting (detail) (2014), all images courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

On view at Matthew Marks is an exhibition of new work from LA-based artist Paul Sietsema. The exhibition includes new paintings and drawings, in addition to Sietsema’s two most recent films, all focusing on varying themes of production, consumption, proliferation of cultural objects and the systems in which these objects circulate.

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Sterling Ruby, SP288 (2014), Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio and Gagosian Gallery.

Declared ‘one of the most interesting artists to emerge in this century’ by Roberta Smith, Sterling Ruby has become one of the major fixtures among West Coast artists after leaving the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 2005. The L.A. based artist, who is known for his large scale ceramic or bronze sculptures and ambitious installations challenging the limits of artistic production (his first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth was on view in Chelsea this spring after the artist joined the gallery roster), is presenting VIVIDS, his spray paint works on canvas at Gagosian Hong Kong.  This exhibition is another addition to Ruby’s recent series of projects in Asia, which started with an exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo, and will continue with the Gwangju and Taipei biennials, alongside an upcoming exhibition at the Ullens Center in Beijing. (more…)

Genieve Figgis, Our First Party (2014), All images via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.

Following her American debut at Harper’s Books in East Hampton this past summer, Genieve Figgis moves to the Upper East Side for her first New York City show at Half Gallery. One of the recent rising stars of the art world, the Dublin native received major international attention with her unearthly depictions of aristocracy’s heydays, maneuvering between an impressionistic figurativeness and bold abstraction. In Good Morning, Midnight, the artist continues her ambitiously exhilarated portrayals of joyous escapism. (more…)

Sotheby’s Impressionist sale in New York this November is anticipating record numbers for a 1881 Claude Monet painting, already estimated to achieve $35 million on the auction block.  “It truly is the ultimate trophy painting: dappled sunshine, lovely garden and a pretty woman in a white dress, it’s got everything you would want in a Monet,” says Sotheby’s Impressionist expert Peter Hook. (more…)