Wade Guyton, (Installation View), via Art Observed

Seven years have passed since Wade Guyton exhibited a solo show at New York’s Petzel Gallery, an expanse of time that has seen the artist capping a mid-career retrospective at The Whitney Museum, and entering the upper echelons of the American art canon.  Whether intentionally or not, Guyton’s exhibition of new works manages to address the passage of time and his increased status in the international art world through a minimalist series of linen prints, created using the same files from his last show at the gallery.

Wade Guyton (detail), via Art Observed (more…)

Ai Weiwei, Stacked (2002), Installation view Pérez Art Museum Miami Photo credit: Daniel Azoulay photography

The doors of Miami’s newly completed Perez Art Museum opened this past December with a landmark exhibition of works by Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, the first major international retrospective of the artist’s work.  Charting the artist’s signature blend of irreverence, scale, architectural techniques and sculptural conceptualism, the exhibition is a remarkable introduction to Ai’s challenging and oftentimes difficult work, drawing on political aggression and irony to open dialogues on contemporary politics around the world.

An Ai Weiwei Zodiac Head outside the PAMM, via Art Observed

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A federal bankruptcy court judge has ruled that the Detroit Institute of Arts cannot be forced to undergo a full valuation of its collection, following pressure from city creditors for a second estimate.  The collection, valued between $452 million and $866 million, seems to have some space to maneuver moving forward, especially given judge Steven W. Rhodes’s statement that he took quite seriously the opinion of Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s when he said that the “art collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts is held by the City of Detroit in charitable trust for the people of Michigan, and no piece in the collection may thus be sold, conveyed, or transferred to satisfy city debts or obligations.”

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A recent article in the Wall Street Journal points to the immense influence currently held by hedge fund managers in the global art market.  With managers like Daniel Loeb shaking up the corporate structure at Sotheby’s, and a growing number of hedge-fund billionaires entering the auction market, the high-price works of the art world have become something of bargaining chips in a major equity game.  “The rest of us are just sitting on the sidelines,” says Len Riggio, founder of Barnes & Noble. “I go to auctions now and feel like a witness—I watch, shake my head, and go home.” (more…)

Stan Douglas, Luanda-Kinshasa (Installation view), all images courtesy David Zwirmer

Currently on view at David Zwirmer’s 533 West 19th Street location is the debut of a new film by Stan Douglas entitled Luanda-Kinhshasa, featuring a reconstruction of the famed Columbia 30th Street studio, where some of the most iconic recordings of the twentieth century were originally produced. The film will be on view at the gallery through February 22, 2014.

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A Sotheby’s New York auction this coming Thursday will feature three works recovered by the famous “Monuments Men” after Nazi confiscation during World War II.  The works by Apollonio di Giovanni, Jean-Baptiste Pater and Francesco Guardi are expected to sell between $150,000 and $500,000, and bear rare markings from their Nazi owners.  “The front is an artwork, and the back is an artifact,” says Lucian Simmons, of Sotheby’s restitution department. (more…)

Artist Martin Creed is profiled in the New York Times, previewing the artist’s upcoming career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London, and discussing his unique take on conceptions of the word “art.”  “I would not disagree with me not being an artist, because I don’t know what art is,” Creed states. “I’m just making a painting or a sculpture or whatever it may be. I’m not making art, because art would seem to me to be in the eye of the beholder.” (more…)

Olympia Scarry and Neville Wakefield, the artist and curator currently presenting the well-received Elevation 1049 show in Gstaad, Switzerland are featured in the Wall Street Journal, showcasing a few of their favorite objects and pieces of art, including an enormous hunk of gum Scarry made several years ago for a piece, and a concrete-filled whoopee cushion made by Dan Colen.  “It’s actually filled with concrete, so it’s a joke that never lands.” Wakefield says. (more…)

Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto’s budding practice as an architect is profiled in a recent article by The Wall Street Journal, noting the artist’s published guide to museum architecture, his work renovating and constructing spaces, and his newly conceived Odawara Art Foundation museum, part of which juts out from a cliff to view the Pacific Ocean, and tactfully incorporates its surroundings into its design.  “This is related to memories of ancient culture of the human civilization,” says Sugimoto. (more…)

Björn and Dieter Roth, Selbstturm (1994-2013), via HangarBiocca

HangarBicocca, Milan’s 12,000 square meter former industrial space turned gallery, is the perfect place for Björn and Dieter Roth’s Islands exhibition. The huge interactive installation, curated by HangarBicocca’s Artistic Advisor Vicente Todolí (the former Director of the Tate Modern in London), interacts with the space beautifully, creating a unique environment defined by the artists. Visitors are drawn into the artwork as they walk through the several “islands” created by groupings of work: walls of paintings and prints, sculptures, an installation of repurposed materials, musical instruments, furniture, screens and household items that visitors are encouraged to interact with, including the 131 screens of Dieter Roth’s well-known video diary, the floors from the artists’ studio, and their sculptures: Zuckerturm (Sugar Tower), 1994-2013 and Selbstturm (Self Tower), 1994-2013. (more…)

Jill Kroesen, The Original Lou and Walter Story, performance at The Kitchen, December 21—23, 1978. Courtesy the artist. Photograph by Robert Alexander

Currently on view at The Whitney Museum of American Art is Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama — Manhattan, 1970-1980, an ambitiously titled exhibition that focuses on the underground performance art circuits that made New York City a founding ground for the medium.  Looking at a broad range of performers, exhibition spaces, practices and historical contexts, the exhibition is an intriguing look at the early days of performance, and its impacts on contemporary art. (more…)

Hong Kong’s M+ Museum has received a major gift of 37 contemporary Chinese works from the collection of Guan Yi, one of the nation’s most significant collectors.  The donation includes a number of important works, most notably the entire checklist from the 2003 Venice Biennale Exhibition Canton Express.  “Guan Yi’s generous donation is a marker of the trust and respect that M+, Hong Kong’s future museum for visual culture, already holds within the international artistic community, and signals building global anticipation for the first museum of its kind in Asia – already housing one of the most important collections of Hong Kong and Chinese contemporary art worldwide,” says Michael Lynch, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority’s Chief Executive Officer.  (more…)

As violent protests continue to rock the city of Kiev in the Ukraine, the country’s National Art Museum has issued a statement asking both police and protestors to spare the museum’s cultural heritage.  The statement comes after city police lit a bonfire on the steps of the Museum to stay warm during violent clashes with protestors, and asks protestors and police to “remember their responsibility in preserving the cultural heritage of the state [and] refrain from deliberate or accidental actions that may damage the museum and the surrounding territory”. (more…)

Christie’s has announced its final sales figures for 2013, and the auction house is claiming a world record for sales during 2013, with a $7.13 billion final tally.  The final total is a 14% increase on last year’s numbers, and sees a $5.9 billion of the sales coming from auctions, beating out competitor Sotheby’s, which achieved a sales total of $5.1 billion at auction.  The auction house also boasted considerable increases in sales for each region worldwide. (more…)

 Martha Beck, New York curator and founder of the Drawing Center, has passed away at the age of 75.  Ms. Beck, a champion of  both emerging artists and the more rugged, experimental drawing works of masters like Michelangelo and architect Antonio Gaudi, established the Drawing Center in the late 1970’s, using a small, publicly-funded budget to put on world-class shows of drawings and works on paper that earned her museum a reputation of quality and adventurousness.  “Amazingly, she would ask the most important museums all over the world to lend their precious rare old master drawings to this funky warehouse space in Lower Manhattan — and they would — because its reputation for innovation, connoisseurship and excellence preceded it,” says Ann Philbin, a former director of the museum. (more…)

The criminal proceedings against a Long Island City foundry owner over the purported sale of a fake Jasper Johns sculpture will see the artist taking the stand to testify.  Johns will testify that he did not give foundry owner Brian Ramnarine a version of his sculpture Flag in 1990, but that he used a mold that the artist contracted him to create in order to create an unauthorized copy, which he then attempted to sell for $11 million.  Ramnarine is also accused of selling copies of works by Robert Indiana and Saint Clair Cemin, the latter of whom has also testified in the case.  Cemin, in fact, claims that he found an illegally duplicated version of one of his works, and confronted Ramnarine at his studio.  “I smashed [the sculpture] to the floor, breaking it, and I left,” Cemin testified. (more…)

Roxy Paine, Carcass (2013), via Kavi Gupta

Chicago’s Kavi Gupta Gallery is currently showcasing an immense sculptural project by New York-based artist Roxy Paine, a series of sizable wooden dioramas, carved into uncanny models of an unnamed fast-food restaurant, and a control room, filled with switches, faders and television screens.

Roxy Paine, Control Room (2013), via Kavi Gupta (more…)

The LA Times has published an in-depth profile of newly announced MOCA Director Philippe Vergne, examining his “collegial” arts background, and his vision for a new, “Artist Enabling” Museum.  Particularly of note is Vergne’s plans to refraine from curating shows himself.  “My role as a director is to enable curators to be what they are at the highest level. By doing that, you enable the artist,” he says. (more…)

A number of iconic works from the early years of the YBAs will go on sale at Christie’s in London next month.  Offered by commodities trader Frank Gallipoli, the works were all part of Charles Saatchi’s iconic Sensation show in 1997, including pieces by Tracey Emin and Jenny Saville, and are being cited as a test of the market for works from the 1990’s British movement, which some believe may have passed their market peak. (more…)

Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic, (Installation View), all images courtesy LACMA

Currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a landmark exhibition of from American sculptor Alexander Calder, including his iconic series of mobiles, as well as his later stabiles. Titled Calder and Abstraction: From Avant Garde to Iconic, the exhibition will remain on view at LACMA for over half a year, from November 24, 2013 through July 27, 2014.

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Responding to a number of articles and analyses of the Chinese contemporary art market, Forbes has published a list of myths about the nation’s ever-burgeoning sales of contemporary art.  Noting a number of overly negative, pessimistic claims over forgeries, lack of collectors and a dearth of interest in international artists, the list sets straight a number of commonly held beliefs about contemporary art in China today. (more…)

The Guggenheim Museum’s upcoming show on Futurist art will feature a number of rarely seen murals, on loan from the central post office of Palermo, Sicily.  Created by Benedetta, the works have never left Italy, and have hung in the same place since they were commissioned in the 1930’s.  “It’s the grand finale of our exhibition,” says curator Vivien Greene. “It’s such a beautiful way to end the show. It ends it on a really positive note. Instead of lingering more on the end of the war, when poor Italy is so beat up it’s so depressing, I thought, ‘Let’s have a finale that shows you at your best.’ ” (more…)

The Delfina Foundation has reopened its doors after a ten-month. £1.4 million renovation, making it London’s largest artist residency program.  The foundation’s gallery space opens today with an exhibition titled The Politics of Food.  “It’s great to be in a place that takes food as seriously as I do,” joked UK Culture Minister Ed Vaizey. “I expect hundreds of MPs will be beating a path to the door, especially when they hear how tidy it’s kept and that there is food here.”  (more…)

Isa Genzken, World Receiver (2012), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

Open since November, Isa Genzken’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art is a colorful affair, combining the artist’s playful manipulation of consumer objects, every day materials and multiple media forms with a studied historical perspective that underlines her architectural and structural interests.

Isa Genzken. Rot-gelb-schwarzes Doppelellipsoid ‘Zwilling’ (Red-Yellow-Black Double Ellipsoid “Twin”), 1982. Lacquered wood, two parts. Overall: 9 7/16 x 8 1/16 x 473 1/4″ (24 x 33.5 x 1202.1 cm) Part one: 5 1/8 x 8 1/16 x 236 1/4″ (13 x 20.5 x 600 cm) Part two: 4 5/16 x 5 1/2 x 237″ (11 x 14 x 602 cm). Collection of the artist. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin. © Isa Genzken (more…)