Alex Prager, Crowd # 9 (Sunset), Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin

With a double show at Lehmann Maupin’s New York galleries, entitled Face in the Crowd, and another exhibition in Corcoran’s DC gallery, photographer Alex Prager has emerged from Los Angeles to take up major art world real estate this winter. Prager’s work is instantly recognizable, a savvy blend of mid-century nostalgia repackaged for our current moment, and it seems the rest of the fashion and art world have finally caught up with her. (more…)

The Whitney Museum has loaned a pair of Cape Cod landscapes by Edward Hopper to the White House, where they have been installed in the Oval Office.  “We are pleased and honored to lend two paintings by Edward Hopper—the artist with whom the Whitney Museum of American Art is most closely identified—to The White House for display in the Oval Office,” said Director Adam D. Weinberg. “We hope these beautiful Cape Cod landscapes will give great pleasure to President Obama and to all who see them.”  (more…)

A selection of masterpieces from the Frick Collection are set to tour outside of the United States for the first time ever, showing in The Hague’s Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery.  The works will include some of The Frick’s most notable pieces, including John Constable’s spectacular The White Horse, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres‘ portrait of the Comtesse d’Haussonville. (more…)

Cornelius Gurlitt, the German man at the center of the controversy over thousands of Nazi-looted artworks found in his Munich apartment, has launched a website in an attempt to tell his side of the story.  “Some of what has been reported about my collection and myself is not correct or not quite correct,” Gurlitt says on the site. “Consequently my lawyers, my legal caretaker and I want to make available information to objectify the discussion about my collection and my person.” (more…)

Actor George Clooney has chimed in on the growing debates over repatriation, calling for Great Britain to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece, and subsequently drawing strong response from British citizens and officials.  “He’s an American,” says John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.  “I suspect he doesn’t know why it is that Britain came to acquire the Elgin Marbles. There’s a very strong view in this country that they should stay in the UK.” (more…)

Alex Katz / Dara Friedman (Installation View), all images courtesy Gavin Brown’s enterprise

On view at Gavin Brown’s enterprise from January 11th through February 22nd is an exhibition of cutout works from American Pop artist Alex Katz, paired with a new Super 8 and High Definition film by Dara Friedman entitled PLAY, (Part 1&2).

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Marianne Boesky is profiled in the WSJ this week, spotlighting her reputation for risk-taking, including showing a never-before-seen South African artist in her booth at the Armory Fair next month, Serge Alain Nitegeka, and her early gamble on Japanese art-star Takeshi Murakami. “I couldn’t even give his work away,” she says. “I could even go so far as to say I was mocked for showing it.”
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Larry Gagosian is featured in the Financial Times’ How to Spend It section this week, recounting his personal style inspirations, and his current reading list.  “I tend to mix it up, so I might read a biography and then follow it up with a page-turner,” he says. “I used to read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, but now I stick to contemporary fiction and books related to current events.”  (more…)

The New York Times profiles Anthony Elms this week, the co-curator of this year’s Whitney Biennial, set to open March 7th in New York, discussing the exhibition’s monumental reputation, and the almost equally considerable criticism it draws each outing.  “I know someone’s not going to like the show, so I might as well just go forward and try to do it the way that seems right,” Elms says.  “Anything I can do to put more artists in more people’s faces is something I’ll say yes to.” (more…)

Oldenburg and van Bruggen, Study, Soft Shuttlecock (1994). All Images Courtesy The Pace Gallery.

Now through February 22, Pace Gallery‘s 534 W. 25^th Street location is hosting “Grounded”, an exhibition featuring floor-based sculpture by major figures in contemporary art. The show contains work produced from 1967 to 2013 that invite the viewers to experience a new perspective on sculptural forms. The artists that contribute to this show include works by Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Tara Donovan, Tom Friedman, Tim Hawkinson, Maya Lin and others, focusing on the spatial interactions between art, the ground, and the viewer’s perception. (more…)

Sue Williams, Philip Zelikow, Historian (2013) All photos courtesy of 303 Gallery

303 Gallery presents Sue Williams WTC, WWIII, Couch Size, on view through February 22nd, 2014. Williams’ ninth solo exhibition with the gallery, this show features six new large-scale paintings, of ‘couch-sized’ proportion.  This titular reference to the commercial appraisal of artworks marks the comic butt of a seemingly sinister thematic program, which proclaims the World Trade Center and World War III as its subject. Williams’ nominal list introduces the ironic tone that colors her paintings, their dark subject matter bursting with chromatic brilliance and her signature comic levity.

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The German government has announced plans to search its public museums through an independent center, the Wall Street Journal reports.  The news follows the ongoing outcry over the seized collection of Cornelius Gurlitt, and the attempted claims laid by families from whom the art was looted during WWII.  “These are delicate matters to articulate,” says German Culture Minister Monika Grütters. “It’s a matter of earning back trust.” (more…)

Fashion line and retailer Opening Ceremony has announced that it will present a collection of ready to wear clothing inspired by Magritte next week at London’s fashion week, including a capsule footwear collection in collaboration with Manolo Blahnik, Birkenstocks, and Vans.  “We really wanted to think about this triptych of footwear, and think about different types of people,” said creative director Humberto Leon. “Everyone in the office wants it.” (more…)

Artist Eric Fischl is profiled in the Financial Times, and speaks about his current retrospective at the Albertina, his life and career, and the reception of his work by both collectors and museums.  “I very naively thought as a young artist that the work I was doing was not suited for individuals to live with because it had such harsh content, Fischl says, “but I thought museums would want it because it is about the truth of life. Turned out to be the opposite. Museums are afraid of sexual content.” (more…)

In another example of celebrities attempting the conceptual in a gallery setting, actor Shia Labouf has installed himself at Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles, welcoming attendees to sit across from him as he cries.  The piece bears resemblance to Marina Abramovic’s The Artist is Present, but centers around LaBouf’s ongoing apologies and accusations of plagiarism. (more…)

Former Harper’s Bazaar and V Magazine Editor Derek Blasberg has reportedly joined on with Gagosian Gallery in an unspecified position.  “Derek brings a new perspective to the gallery, and as one of the leading media voices in fashion and the creative arts, I think he will make a valuable contribution,” Larry Gagosian said in a statement. “Our aim is to create a diverse program, to inspire our audience and promote our artists. I look forward to working with Derek to broaden our reach.” (more…)

Francis Bacon, Portrait of George Dyer Talking (1966), via Christie’s

Another week of contemporary art auctions have come and gone, with a number of high-profile works changing hands in London this week, and a number of new records being for artists across the board.  All auction houses boasted strong sales results, with Christie’s once again taking the lead.

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild 776-1 (1992), via Phillips (more…)

Looking Back / The 8th White Columns Annual (Installation View)

The White Columns Annual is open again this year, presenting a series of works centered around the title Looking Back.  This year, curator Pati Hertling has been invited to select works based on her “personal experience of looking at art in New York” over the past year.

Lucy Dodd and Sergei Tcherepnin at The White Columns Annual, All Images via White Columns

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Vasily Kandinsky, Circles within a Circle (1923), Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
Photo Credit: The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Compiling one of the more ambitious exhibitions of work recently shown on the Russian avant-garde, the recently closed exhibition on the work of Vasily Kandinsky offered perhaps one of the best perspectives on the developing voice of one of the 20th century’s most vital painters.  Charting his move from early impressionist works to the conceptually rigorous formalism that he developed as a consequence of his broader exposure to the European art world after his move to Germany, From Blaue Reiter to the Bauhaus, 1910-1925 is a fitting origins story for this influential artist.

Vasily Kandinsky (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

In partnership with Creative Time Reports, Trevor Paglen and The Intercept have embarked on a project to illustrate and visualize the various surveillance structures and institutions currently active in the United States.  Providing images of the headquarters for the largest organizations in the U.S. surveillance network, Paglen is seeking to provide a tangible visual signature for these often abstracted institutions.  “I hope these images first of all will be helpful for people to wrap their heads around what some of these agencies are, to point to them and acknowledge that they exist, that they’re doing work,” Paglen says.  “Beyond that I hope that they can contribute to a wider cultural vocabulary that we can use to try and see these institutions, to understand them and the effect they have on the society around them.” (more…)

A cache of 60 artworks have been removed from the Salzburg home of Cornelius Gurlitt, the elderly son of a Nazi-era dealer whose trove of over 1,000 works was seized late last year from his Munich flat.  The new set of works features paintings by Renoir and Picasso, among many others.  “Cornelius Gurlitt has ordered experts to examine these works on suspicion of having been looted,” says spokesman, Stephan Holzinger. (more…)

A new venture by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is looking to launch a new examination of conservation in technology, part of a Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded project called The Artist’s Initative.  Examining technological leaps in design, tech and the work of various artists that drive these media forward, the project will embrace a broad series of concerns facing the modern museum.  (more…)

Andisheh Avini, Untitled (2013), Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York © Andisheh Avini, photo credit: Jason Wyche

For his first solo exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery since joining in 2012, artist Andisheh Avini presents a refined selection of recent works, informed by the artist’s own personal experience of his Iranian heritage, a subjective approach that he ultimately uses to explore broader and more collective notions regarding the relevance of both memory and imagery.

Andisheh Avini (Installation View), Courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York © Andisheh Avini, photo credit: Jason Wyche (more…)

The Musée Marmottan-Monet, the private museum holding the largest collection ofClaude Monet paintings in the world, will look to relaunch itself this week alongside its more well-recognized Parisian contemporaries.  “Many of our paintings are well known but the museum is less well known,” says museum director Patrick de Carolis. “We have to change that. We are private and entirely funded by the money we earn for ourselves. We hope that the exhibition, which starts this week will encourage people to come to the Marmottan.” (more…)