Richard Serra’s Shift, a series of zigzagging wall structures built along the changing elevations of the field it moves through, has been designated as a cultural heritage site in North Toronto.  Voted through by the township council of King City, Ontario, the work was the subject of fierce and ongoing debate, finally pushed through by a group of concerned citizens called “Friends of Shift.”  “It is especially gratifying that it was the result of the initiative of a group of private citizens who care about art.”  Mr. Serra commented. (more…)

Tino Sehgal with his Golden Lion for best artist at the Venice Biennale, via The Guardian

At a press conference this morning, the officials for the 55th Venice Biennale announced the winners of this year’s event’s Golden Lion awards.  British artist Tino Seghal took home the Best Artist in the International Exhibition award for his bizarre, kinetic performance piece at The Encyclopedic Palace, while first-time Biennale attendee Angola was given the award for best national participation.  A full account of awards is listed below:

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Ai Weiwei, S.A.C.R.E.D. (Installation View inside steel diorama) (2013)

Since his 2011 detention for alleged tax evasion by the Chinese government, artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei has taken the world by storm, with exhibitions and retrospectives around the world, alongside documentary profiles, constant press coverage, and a notably enigmatic heavy metal album.  His ubiquity in the artworld, set in contrast to his physical restriction from leaving China, is clear, and consistent at the 55th Venice Biennale, where the artist is holding two separate solo installations.

Ai Weiwei, S.A.C.R.E.D. (Installation View) (2013)

Ai Weiwei, Straight (Installation View) (2008-2012) (more…)

Mika Rottenberg, Still from Sneeze (2008), via Magasin 3

Sneeze to Squeeze is the first solo exhibition of work by New York-based video artist Mika Rottenberg in Sweden. Exploring the themes of labor, production and contemporary body-image, this major exhibition captures the spirit of the artist’s broad range of filmic work, while also offering a thorough, studied look at her work in installation and photography.

Mika Rottenberg, Still from Squeeze (2010), via Magasin 3 (more…)

The British Council, which is overseeing Jeremy Deller’s Great Britain pavilion at the Venice Biennale, has removed a banner from the exhibition, which reads “Prince Harry Kills Me,” after concerns that the message may provoke attacks on British troops in the Middle East.  “We asked Jeremy to reconsider the banner and poster … on the grounds that it could potentially be misconstrued in environments where the British army is currently deployed and perceived to be disrespectful of those who had lost their lives,” a British Council spokesman said. (more…)

Marc Quinn, Breath (2013)

Time and again, Artist Marc Quinn has defined himself as an artist of grand statements.  Utilizing imagery and materials from his surroundings, often cast on symbolically enormous scale, the artist has created a body of work that digs at the complex interrelations of art and science, life and meaning, process and creation.  The act of viewing seems central to Quinn’s body of work, collected for a major solo exhibition in Venice this summer, and running concurrently with the Venice Biennale at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.  Scale and image converge to create a striking and powerful impression of the human condition for viewers who find themselves in front of his work.

Marc Quinn, Self (2011)

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Richard Serra, Double Rift #9 (2013), ©Richard Serra Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery

On view at Gagosian Beverly Hills through June 1 is Richard Serra’s Double Rifts series. Known for his immense sculptures, Double Rifts showcases a selection of recent drawings that are clearly related to, yet remarkably independent from Serra’s sculptural practice, welcoming new insights into the artist’s creative worldview.

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Outside the 55th Venice Biennale

The press preview for the 55th edition of the Venice Biennale, the international art world’s largest stage, kicked off this week, sprawling across the narrow alleyways and watery causeways of the Italian city.  Art Observed was on site to cover the opening ceremonies, and has this selection of pictures documenting the first day of the fair.

The Opening Reception, with Paolo Barata and Massimo Gioni (more…)

Ellsworth Kelly, Singular Forms (Installation View), courtesy of Mnuchin Gallery

From Sculpture on the Wall at the Barnes Foundation to the Museum of Modern Art’s Chatham Series, the work of artist Ellsworth Kelly is being celebrated across the East Coast this spring. Until June 1, the Mnuchin Gallery in New York will join in on the event, hosting Kelly’s ongoing Singular Forms series, which has spanned most of hist career, from 1966-2009.  A retrospective of Kelly’s emblematic abstract paintings, the show is curated by the artist himself, presenting his personal take on this broad body of work.

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A drawing stored in a locked cupboard at the University of Reading has been rediscovered as an original work by 17th century artist Peter Paul Rubens.  The work, a depiction of Queen Marie de’ Medici of France, was originally thought to have been made by a follower of Rubens, until a conservation effort revealed telltale signs that the work was made by the Renaissance master.  “It was bought as a so-called Rubens, attributed to Rubens,” said Reading professor Anna Gruetzner Robins. “But we didn’t take it seriously.” (more…)

The late Chinese artist Zhang Daiqian saw impressive auction results this week during both Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions of contemporary Asian art in Hong Kong.  Daiqian’s Lotus work, consisting of four painted scrolls more than five feet high, sold for five times its estimate at $10.4 million during Christie’s auction yesterday.  In addition, an auction dedicated solely to works by Daiqian reached $42 Million in sales at Sotheby’s on Monday.  Zhang currently stands as one of the top-selling artists at auction worldwide. (more…)

Noted Max Ernst scholar Werner Spies has been ordered to pay half of the â‚¬652,883 owed to collector Louis Reijtenbagh for the purchase of a falsely attributed work.  This is not the first time Spies has had issues over his authentication; he was fooled by noted forger Wolfgang Beltracchi in 2011 over several works he authenticated as Ernsts. (more…)

A recently completed, ten month study of Jackson Pollock’s One: Number 31, 1950, has revealed new insights into the the artist’s work and practice, as well as a number of layers of paint that had been added to the work after Pollock had died.  Evidence points to new areas of paint added by Pollock’s friend and dealer Ben Heller, perhaps in an attempt to improve the presentation of the work.  The restoration, done by the Museum of Modern Art, also uncovered that Pollock had added final elements to the work after he had completed the initial painting, showing that they were not in fact grand exercises of impulsive action, but rather “really carefully conceived compositions.” As conservator James Coddington says, “(he) looked at these paintings with a level of detail that was so great even we can’t understand it.”
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Uriel Landeros, the University of Houston student who spray-painted over Picasso’s Woman in a Red Armchair at Houston’s Menil Collection, has been sentenced to two years behind bars for vandalism.  Landeros was facing up to 10 years in prison for felony vandalism, but pleaded guilty for a reduced sentence.  “We are heartened and grateful that the judicial process has come to completion,” said Menil spokesperson Gretchen Bock Sammons. “As for the Picasso, the restoration is complete and successful and the painting will eventually go on view — as works from the collection do, in rotation.” (more…)

In an effort to increase public engagement with their collections, a number of museums are now offering free, high-quality images of their works for download and open use. In one such example, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has begun allowing visitors to reproduce images of its collection anywhere.“We’re a public institution, and so the art and objects we have are, in a way, everyone’s property.” Says collections director Taco Dibbets. (more…)

Capitalizing on the platform of the Venice Biennale, artist Ai Weiwei has created six dioramas depicting the events of his 81 day detention under the Chinese communist state, which will be on view at Zuecca Project Space, running concurrently with the festival.  The half-scale works were created in Beijing, and secretly transported to Venice, showing the psychological torment of confinement and constant surveillance.  “Can political art still be good art?” Ai says.  “Those questions have been around for too long. People are not used to connecting art to daily struggle, but rather use high aesthetics, or so-called high aesthetics, to try to separate or purify humans’ emotions from the real world.” (more…)

A scheduled Kanye West video projection at Houston’s Rothko Chapel was shut down last week by police, closing down the event before it started.  Another screening was also closed down by police after technical difficulties later that night.  The video projections, done by West for his new single “New Slaves,” is part of a worldwide series of projections to promote his new album, Yeezus. (more…)

Hong Kong Convention Center, site of the Art Basel Hong Kong Art Fair, via Forbes

With the closing of the doors at the Hong Kong Convention Center this past Sunday, the first edition of Art Basel Hong Kong was brought to a conclusion after a flourish of strong sales, critical praise, and notable attention for the art fair giant’s first foray into the Asian continent.

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Stuart Davis, Egg Beater No. 1 (1927), via The Whitney Museum of Art

On view currently at the Whitney Museum is a showcase of some of the museum’s deeper holdings of American artwork from the first half of the twentieth century, exploring the years before the mid-century advent of Abstract Expressionism. This part of the rotating exhibition, which began in December 2012, will continue through May 2013 before moving on to a new selection of works.

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The Venice Biennale

Every two years, the floating city of Venice floods with with the multitudes of art visitors, customers, gallerists and exhibitions that are all a part of the Venice Biennale. This year, marking the 55^th edition of the world’s largest art fair, sees the continuation of an event that first began in 1896. Between June 1^st and November 24^th over 300,000 visitors will travel to Venice for the expansive installations of exhibitions of work from artists in 88 nations, at both official and fringe sites. Art Observed will be on-site this week, with photos from variety of events around the city.

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“Francis Bacon in Raincoat,” 1967, photo by John Deakin, (c) The Estate of Francis Bacon, all images courtesy the National Museum of Art Tokyo and The Estate of Francis Bacon

Recently concluded at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo is a solo exhibition of works by Francis Bacon. Marking the first viewing of Bacon’s work in Japan in 30 years the exhibit is a retrospective focusing on the theme of the body, as well as the first exhibition of the artist’s work since his death in 1983.

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Marianne Vitale, Diamond Crossing (2013), courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery

Marianne Vitale (b. 1973, East Rockaway, N.Y.) works across various medias; drawing, sculpture, video and performance.  Her art is versatile, often large-scale and ambitious, playing with intonations of humor and aggression in equal measure.  Part of the collaborative performance piece Invasionistas (2006) with artists David Adamo, Agathe Snow, Rita Ackerman, and Michael Portnoy in which they  “invaded” Reykjavik, Iceland; Vitale was in charge of propaganda, reading an original World War II evacuation plan as she and Portnoy evacuated a group of kindergarten students out of the city.  Throughout her work, Vitale uses her art as an inquiry into the fundamentals of society. (more…)

Artist James Turrell recently spoke with the Financial Times as he prepares for his three museum retrospective at LACMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as a solo show at LA’s Kayne Griffin Corcoran space. The artist is still vigorously involved in his Roden Crater Project, as well as his early career in Los Angeles. “I would describe Los Angeles as actually not having taste. In New York there’s taste. But you have to remember that taste is censorship. It’s a form of restriction.” In Los Angeles, he said, “there wasn’t any party line so you could do what you wanted.”

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In response to a city proposal to sell off work from the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection to cover a city debt of $15 billion, the Detroit Institute’s director has stated that the work is held “in the public trust,” and cannot be bought or sold. “They’re interested in making a healthy and viable Detroit,” the director, Graham W. J. Beal, said on Friday in a telephone interview. “We believe that that kind of action — diminishing our collection, the cultural value — would not be in the long-term interest.”

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