Art insurance claim totals from Hurricane Sandy are estimated to climb to $500 million, $300 million of which are claims by the artist Peter Max. The number is much higher than initially estimated — AXA, one of the largest insurers, had initially estimated that it would pay out $40 million in losses. The total number includes damage to artwork as well as to gallery structures. (more…)
Rosemarie Trockel: A Cosmos, all images courtesy New Museum
The New Museum, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, presents the illuminating and expansive world of Rosemarie Trockel. Lynn Cooke, former deputy director and chief curator at Reina Sofia, worked with Trockel to imagine a world that is very much Trockel’s without being Trockel-centric: her lumpy sculptures and smooth, linear woolworks are shown with a massive preserved lobster and other natural artifacts; her videos and installations abide just a level above the orangutan Tilda’s three paintings; 18th century naturalist Maria Sybilla Merian‘s precise watercolors hang near the self-taught Judith Scott‘s frenetically wrapped yarn sculptures. (more…)
“The Clock”, Christian Marclay’s 24-hour long video montage, has been acquired by the MoMA and will be on view this month including a special New Year’s eve showing. The film won the Golden Lion at the 2011 Venice Biennale and will be on view at MoMA during public hours. (more…)
The WSJ examines current exhibitions and works that blur the line between — and explore the intricate relationship of — painting and photography; among them is the Whitney’s popular Wade Guyton midcareer retrospective, where the artist prints images directly onto canvas using an inkjet printer; as well as Gerhard Richter’s strip pieces, “paintings” made with machines . (more…)
Isa Genzken, Installation View (2012), courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Hauser & Wirth is currently showing Isa Genzken’s mixed media readymade assemblages, a variety of figural sculptures. Isa Genzken was born in 1948 and currently resides and works in Berlin. She was previously married to Gerhard Richter, with whom she has collaborated over the years. Genzken is a mixed media sculptor whose work draws on aspects of constructivism and minimalism, also taking inspiration from architecture. Her work is often compromised of media associated with building materials, used in conjunction with readymades.
Glenn Ligon, “Untitled (If I Can’t Have Love, I’ll Take Sunshine),” 2006, Neon and paint, Courtesy of Luhring Augustine
Currently on display at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea is Glenn Ligon: Neon, his first solo exhibition at the gallery. Over the past seven years, Ligon has created these neons, which relate to his famous text paintings that he created back in the 1980s. The pieces address a variety of historical, social and political issues, all with the underpinning of the use and re-use of language.
Glenn Ligon, “Palindrome #1”, 2007, Neon, Courtesy of Luhring Augustine (more…)
Workers renovating the former residence of Otto Dix have uncovered six murals by the artist. The home is being turned into a museum, to be run by the Stuttgart Kuntmuseum. The Carneval-themed pieces, most likely from 1966, were behind a bookcase in the cellar library and are incredibly well-preserved. The museum will open in June 2013. (more…)
The Vatican Museum has announced that tourists who visit the Sistine Chapel must be suction-cleaned and chilled before entering. The five million tourists who visit the Sistine Chapel yearly are causing Michelangelo’s frescoes to degrade via the introduction of sweat, dust, skin flakes and hair, in addition to high temperatures from 20,000 tourists daily. “We will cover the 100 meters before the entrance with a carpet that cleans shoes; we will install suction vents on the sides to suck dust from clothes and we will lower temperatures to reduce the heat and humidity of bodies,” said the director of the Museums, “Dust, temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide are the great enemies of the paintings.”
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Antony Gormley, Installation View (2012), Courtesy of the White Cube Gallery
With scatterings of futuristic beings juxtaposed against white walls walls and the faded grey floor of White Cube’s Bermondsey space is Antony Gormley’s new exhibition, Model. Darkened figures lurk in the shadows, emerging from the concrete; domineering inhabitants shun away the seemingly unwelcome spectators. Occupying the South Gallery is the massive work, itself entitled Model, which allows visitors to walk into its complete darkness and allow anything to happen.
Antony Gormley, Model (2012), Courtesy of the White Cube Gallery
With unconditional free reign, Playboy Magazine asked seven artists, among them Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman Will Cotton, Jill Magid, and Tracey Emin, to each contribute a centerfold image for their January-February 2013 issue. Chrissie Iles, senior curator of the Whitney Musuem, said, “The work is incisive in its poetic questioning of the ethics of human behavior and the hidden political structures of society”. Richard Prince’s piece is a photograph called Untitled Girlfriend 2012. Cindy Sherman contributed explicit photographs taken in 1992. (more…)
Kehinde Wiley, The Three Graces, all images courtesy Galerie Daniel Templon
Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris is presenting Kehinde Wiley’s first solo show in France, entitled The World Stage: France, 1880-1960. Wiley’s portraits feature mostly black and brown men on elaborate, baroque backgrounds, their natural stances modified by Wiley to echo the Napoleonic, kingly gestures of traditional portraits like those of Anthony van Dyck.
Kehinde Wiley, Bonaparte in the Great Mosque of Cairo
Christie’s will offer Sandro Botticelli’s “Madonna and Child With the Young Saint John the Baptist” in Hong Kong next month. The work has a presale estimate of $5 million and should be an indicator of interest in a non-Christian Eastern market. The auction house is hoping that the subject matter could translate as a emotional scene between mother and son. Ken Yeh of Christie’s Asia stated that “When you spend that kind of money, you have to think about resale value,” he said. “It’s no longer just to decorate your house.” (more…)
Pieter Schoolwerth, After Troy 6 (2012), courtesy Miguel Abreu
The paintings of Pieter Schoolwerth sit at a peculiar intersection of homage and irreverence, combining classic painting techniques with a uniquely surreal vision of contemporary society, exploring the act of representation in painting, and continually playing with the nature of the human body as depicted in the fine arts. (more…)
Bloomberg calculates that $594.6 million was achieved for the top ten lots in Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art categories in 2012. This is a 44% increase from 2011. An uncertain global economic climate, the European debt crisis and impending US tax code changes all likely impacted the increase in sales. The top lot was Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, which sold for $119.9 million, the highest price paid for a work at auction. (more…)
Pace Gallery is in lease negotiation with Related Companies for more office space at 511-541 West 25th St. The gallery already occupies exhibition spaces at 508, 510 and 534 West 25th St, as well as its 57th Street headquarters. (more…)
Richard Artschwager, Horizon 2011. All images courtesy David Nolan Gallery
Richard Artschwager’s desert landscapes are the subject of an exhibition at the David Nolan Gallery in New York. Throughout Artschwager’s career, he has been known for his use of non-traditional materials in both sculpture and painting, such as wood, formica and Celotex(a fiberboard used for ceiling panels). He is also recognized for his large grisaille paintings, based on grid structures. These desert landscapes are a clear departure, and emit an emotional sensibility that Artschwager rarely lets us get a glimpse of — only recently has he employed such a vivid exploration of color.
The Armory Show, in the centennial year of its namesake exhibition, announced its list of new and returning visitors for 2013. It will present over 200 galleries from 30 countries at its fifteenth edition from March 7-10th, 2013. The Contemporary section on Pier 94 will house both blue-chip exhibitors and younger galleries, and Pier 92 will again be a showcase for Modern work. Liz Magic Laser has been named the Armory Artist Commission, and Eric Shiner, Director of the Warhol Museum, will curate Armory Focus: USA. (more…)
“Daniele Barbaro” of 1545 has been part of the National Gallery of Canada’s holdings since the museum acquired it in 1928. At that time, the msueum believed it was in fact by Titian himelf because of correspondence between the subject and the Bishop. However, another painting of Daniele Barbaro is in the Prado, and a comparison of the two in the 1990s resulted in the determination that the NGC’s was a copy. A recent restoration has revealed that it is in fact by the Venetian master, and has been confirmed by Prado experts.
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“Everything about my work is driven by my learning disabilities”, said Chuck Close as he gave a private tour of his current exhibition at Pace Gallery to a group of schoolchildren from a poverty-stricken community in Bridgeport, CT. It is part of Turnaround Arts, a federally-funded public-private partnership with a focus on arts using a mentorship program. The artist has faced numerous challenges in his life, from neurological and learning disabilities at a young age, to prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces), to his paralysis from a spinal artery collapse. (more…)
A deceased Metropolitan Museum trustee, Stephen Clark, had donated Cézanne’s “Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory”, which he purchased in 1933. Title was contested by Pierre Konowaloff, who was the sole heir of a collector whose assets were confiscated by the state during the Russian Revolution. Konowaloff argued that there was no legal process in the seizure and that the painting was unduly exported as a result. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that legal doctrine precludes U.S. courts from inquiring into the validity of decisions by recognized foreign sovereign governments within their own territory. (more…)
Sotheby’s total sales for art and antiques appear to be down by 10% this year, according to the figures on Sotheby’s website, says the Telegraph. The auction house realized $4.4 billion in auction sales this year; however that figure does not include private sales, which increased significantly this year. Last year the auction house realized $5.8 billion in total sales, with around $800 million of that from private sales. (more…)
Installation view, Cellblock I, Andrea Rosen Gallery. All photos on site by Erica Simone for Art Observed
The Andrea Rosen Gallery opened Cellblock I at its main space on December 1st, 2012, and simultaneously inaugurated its new, second location–just down the street at 544 West 24th Street–with Cellblock II. Both shows, held together under the theme (and anti-theme) of imprisonment, were curated by the prominent scholar and curator Robert Hobbs.
Robert Motherwell’s Dover Beach III at Cellblock II, Andrea Rosen Gallery
Hobbs is well-known for his work as an art historian and writer. He has been the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair at Virginia Commonwealth University since 1991, and a visiting professor at Yale University for eight years. He is known as the definitive Robert Smithson scholar, and has contributed seminal writings on many of the artists he selected to show, including Alice Aycock, Beverly Pepper, and Kelley Walker. (more…)
After twelve successful years as director of the Louvre, Henri Loyrette has announced that he will be leaving his post in April. Under his leadership the museum broadened its cultural outreach. Loyrette engaged in planning for the Louvre Abu Dhabi and opening the Islamic Galleries and raising tens of millions of euros in funds from several middle eastern countries. He established a contemporary art program with major installations and expects to nearly double the number of visitors to the museum since 2001. (more…)
