Distributed Arts Publishers has released a new monograph of polaroids by Dash Snow, titled Dash Snow: I Love You, Stupid. Featuring over 400 of the artist’s photos, the book documents the globe-trotting hedonism and early 2000’s art world he once noted that he “wouldn’t remember otherwise,” alongside his friends and fellow artists Dan Colen and Ryan McGinley.
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A report on behavioral economics in art, as summarized in The Economist, examines the link between the experience of viewing art, and its effects on the viewer’s desire to see more art. Through repeated exposure in a blind study, subjects were found to grow more partial to works they had repeated experience with, particularly with works that were considered high quality versus works that are generally regarded as trite or “poor” (in this case, Thomas Kinkade). (more…)
KAWS, Wooden Companion (2013), via More Gallery
Opened during Basel Week Switzerland, More Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition by American artist KAWS, entitled “GISWIL,” composed of paintings and two large-scale wooden sculptures culled from the artist’s recent output.
Despite the city’s economic woes, The New York Times reports that Detroit’s art scene is thriving, with a number of galleries returning to locations within city limits, and a number of arts hubs have already developed, alongside a popular art open with over 60 participating galleries. “I think we’ll have a little cloud for a while, but I don’t think it’s going to be long-lasting,” said George N’Namdi, founder of the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art. (more…)
The ambitious Art Everywhere initiative, a UK project that places classic works and contemporary art selected by the country’s population on public billboards and signage, has launched this week, with the unveiling of large-scale reproductions of works by Peter Blake and David Hockney in London. The project will continue to expand across the country, covering advertising spaces and public spaces donated by various companies and corporations, with expenses estimated at £3 million. “Art is for everyone, and everyone who has access to it will benefit from it. This project is amazing and gives the public a voice and an opportunity to choose what they want to see on their streets.” Said participant and supporter Damien Hirst. (more…)
Sotheby’s has posted its earnings for the first half of 2013, with profits up to $91.7 million, over last year’s $85.4 million in the same period. Revenues also saw a 0.3% increase, likely from the increased commissions that the auction house announced earlier this year. In addition, the auction house noted that the global bidding activity of Asian collectors at Sotheby’s in the first half of 2013 has exceeded the total for all of 2012, an impressive feat that once again trumpets the importance of the Asian market. (more…)
The Museum of Modern Art has announced a new initiative, in conjunction with blogging platform Tumblr, to engage younger internet users and introduce them to art through education and exposure. The project, titled MoMA Teens, was launched on Monday after nine months of work. “Museums can be very intimidating at times,” Says MoMA’s associate educator Calder Zwicky said. “The idea was to meet teens where they already are, and it seemed like Tumblr was the platform to use.” (more…)
A group of friends in the Canadian province of Ontario are convinced that a painting they purchased on eBay for $585 is actually a work by American master Edward Hopper. The group of Canadians, who had previously made money buying and reselling paintings online, have spent over six years and $40,000 to try and authenticate the work, and are currently waiting for approval from a leading Hopper expert. The work is of particular note, as it bears a strong resemblance to Hopper’s High Noon, questioning whether this disputed piece may have been a study or forgery. (more…)
David Bowie, Original Photography for the Earthling Album Cover (1997), via Victoria and Albert Museum
Perhaps one of the most widely talked about (and best attended) exhibitions this summer, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is currently showing a comprehensive exhibition of materials from the David Bowie Archive, marking the first time a museum has had access to this collection. As holders of the national collection of live performance material in the UK, this opportunity is a chance for the museum to showcase one of the UK’s most important artists. Compiling costumes, programs, documents, instruments and even a film specially made for the exhibition (including exclusive interviews with Jeremy Deller, Daphne Guiness, and Thurston Moore), the exhibition is an exhaustive look at the work of one of the UK’s greatest rock stars and artists.
David Bowie Is (Installation View), via Victoria and Albert Museum (more…)
After the monumental damages to New York’s art world caused last year by Superstorm Sandy, which some estimate between $200 and $300 million, Art Insurance firms are feeling the pressure to adjust their policies. Many firms are subtly adjusting their underwriting agreements, taking into account newly redrawn flood maps and the risks of subterranean storage as part of policy coverage as factors in the coverage of high-value artworks. “Sandy was a wake-up call,” says Christiane Fischer, president and CEO of AXA Art Insurance. “People are much more aware of how much New York is in the path of hurricanes.” (more…)
A 1903 portrait painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, stolen from a Tokyo home last decade, was reportedly sold at Sotheby’s this past February, Japan Times reports. The portrait, titled Madame Valtat, had disappeared from its original owner’s home along with works by Marc Chagall and Ikuo Hirayama in 2000. Sotheby’s has stated that the work had been legally acquired by the seller, and that it will continue to investigate the sale, but the case may prove difficult to fully resolve, as the auction house keeps the names of its sellers confidential. (more…)
Taking a cue from the community sponsored agriculture programs, a number of U.S. cities are embracing a similar approach to contemporary art, enabling residents to purchase shares in contemporary artists as a way to encourage arts patronage. “I think it has worked in part because lots of places are already familiar with farm C.S.A.’s,” said Dennis Scholl, who oversees the national arts program for the Knight Foundation, an early supporter. “Here, instead of getting a basket of carrots or zucchini, you get a basket of artworks.” (more…)
This September, Dominique Lévy will open her new gallery at 909 Madison Street with a performance of artist Yves Klein’s sole sound composition, Monotone-Silence. Consisting, appropriately, of a single chord played for twenty minutes, followed by twenty minutes of silence, the piece has only been performed once before, for its 1960 premiere. “Yves Klein is such a pillar, and yet he’s not well enough known here.” Lévy said. (more…)
Signaling a potential sea-change in the landscape of contemporary sound art, a number of major museums are dedicating space in their fall schedule to the medium, including a major survey of the field at the MoMA, opening this Saturday. “For the public, sound art it still a fairly new and also a very, very accessible medium,” says curator Tom Eccles, who has commissioned a new work by sound artist Susan Philipsz in New York. “On a very basic, basic level, sound is one of our first experiences — in the uterus, in fact.”
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The Detroit Free Press reports that city emergency manager Kevyn Orr has contracted Christie’s to appraise a portion of the Detroit Institute of Arts‘ city-owned collection. While some have taken this as a further step in the potential selloff of much of the DIA’s collection, Orr himself spoke out on the contrary: “There has never been, nor is there now, any plan to sell art. This valuation, as well as the valuation of other City assets, is an integral part of the restructuring process. It is a step the city must take to reach resolutions with its creditors and secure a viable, strong future for Detroit and its residents.” (more…)
The New Yorker has published a story on the relationship between Bill Arnett, a white art dealer and archivist of black vernacular art, and Thornton Dial, an 84-year old, self-trained black artist who has had his highly praised work included in major exhibitions and events, including the 2000 Whitney Biennial. Facing Dial’s facile categorization as an “outsider artist,” Arnett is currently pushing for mainstream acceptance, not only of his work, but of 20th century African-American Art in general. “I’m trying to create some documents to leave behind, so that when the system changes, just a little bit, somebody would say, ‘Wow, you mean we had this going on in America in the twentieth century?’ That’s all.” (more…)
The Unicorn in Captivity (1495-1505), Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The word Manhattan conjures images of glass and concrete skyscrapers, bustling streets, and the sounds of honking cars, but a trip to the Cloisters, the evocatively monastic outpost of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located on the Hudson river vallery, truly transports visitors away from the urban metropolis. Visitors enter a space of leafy pathways, stone arches, stained glass, hushed hallways, and intricate courtyards. seemingly more at home in the serene South of France than cacophonous Manhattan.
Unicorn Aquamanile from Germany (1425–50), via The Metropolitan Museum of Art (more…)
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013, Designed by Sou Fujimoto, © Sou Fujimoto Architects, Image © 2013 Iwan Baan
Each year, the Serpentine Gallery commissions an outstanding architect who has yet to build on British soil to design a Pavilion in the yards of the gallery in Hyde Park. This year’s pavilion, an impressive cloud of white steel built upon a three-dimensional grid, was conceived by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. (more…)
In the buildup to his upcoming show at the Scottish National Galleries, Peter Doig recently sat down with The Telegraph to discuss his work, his high prices at auction, and the multifaceted appearance of much of his work. “You try to create scenarios and atmospheres in your paintings,” Doig says. “I don’t set out to be deliberately sinister, but I always wanted to make paintings that told stories and suggested things.” (more…)
Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the first planned location for a traveling retrospective of the work of Jeff Koons, has announced that it will no longer be hosting the show. The news comes in the wake of Director Jeffrey Deitch’s resignation from his position. The exhibition will now open in New York at The Whitney Museum in June of next year. “It was decided by MOCA and the Whitney that it would be better for an exhibition as complex and ambitious at this one to be developed over a longer period of time,” said Whitney spokesman Stephen Soba. “And that the show should open in June in New York.” (more…)
Gilbert & George, We Are (1985), courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac
On view at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in both of its Salzburg locations (Villa Kast and Halle) is “30 Years,” an exhibition of works intended to be both “retrospective and prospective” of the gallery’s own history and future. Presenting a series of works by artists who have passed through the lens of Ropac’s thorough gallery practice, the show is at turns a celebration and forecast of what’s to come for the expanding gallery brand.
The recent exhibition of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Hollyroodhouse in Edinburgh has underlined the works’ ownership by the Royal Family, keeping them out of public ownership and exhibition in some of Britain’s largest museums. Despite the availability of the works for viewing at the current time, The Guardian points out that the current ownership status of the works occasionally places them into competition with larger retrospectives, with the broader public often missing out. (more…)
Robert Irwin, Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³ III, all images courtesy Pace London
Currently, Pace London‘s 6 Burlington Gardens location is presenting the gallery’s first exhibition of works by American artist Robert Irwin. The new work springs from the artist’s pioneering practice during the West Coast’s monumental Light and Space movement. Born in 1928, Irwin has been exploring the concepts of perception and space for over sixty years. Beginning as a painter, he was a foundational member of the Light and Space movement in the 1960s, helping to develop a concept of art as a response to specific life experiences in equal measure with the work’s surrounding environmental conditions.
Ken Price, Big Load (1988), via The Met
Ken Price Sculpture: A Retrospective, currently on view at the Met, marks the first major exhibition of work the late Ken Price in New York. Throughout his career, the Los Angeles-based Price, who passed away last year at the age of 77, challenged the traditional limitations of clay as a sculpting medium, rejecting the narrow-mindedness that often pigeonholed the medium as a lesser form. Through his whimsical, elaborate forms, Price returned emphasis to clay, answering its detractors with a resoundingly intriguing body of work.
Ken Price, Balls Congo (2003), via Architectural Digest (more…)
