Image: Christian Jankowski, Monument to the Bourgeois Working Class, 2012

All images courtesy Klosterfelde Gallery

Now on view at Berlin’s Klosterfelde Gallery is German contemporary multimedia artist Christian Jankowski‘s  Monument to the Bourgeois Working Class: a video projection, photo series, and large-scale sculpture, which explore tensions between social classes and the use of mass media as a political instrument. Though, while political on the surface, the works are also said to represent the struggles of the individual artist.

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Matthew Barney‘s nearly four story replica of Norman Mailer’s home  is floating down the East River for a project called “River of Fundament”.  The artist is working on a film that takes Mailer’s 1983 novel “Ancient Evenings,” as its departure on a floating monument.  The cast includes Paul Giamatti, Maggie Gyllenhaal and scenes include gold-streaked zombies, Mailer’s son slicing open a cow carcass to find a surprise fetus, and a gold 1979 Trans Am disinterred from Newton Creek. (more…)

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Exhibition view, 2012 courtesy Linnea West

Michelangelo Pistoletto invites us to complete his latest artworks in the Simon Lee Gallery with images of ourselves. This is his second exhibition in the gallery (entitled Lavoro), of his ‘mirror works’, which are constructed of reflected stainless steel so the final product is forced to change every time someone enters into close proximity of the work.

Lavoro is Italian for ‘work’ ; the mirror medium is superimposed with silk screened prints of construction materials and elements of a building site. The entire gallery floor is interspersed with thematic elements such as erratically placed ladders and stacks of crates which, in turn, interact with the mirrored images exhibited around the room, changing what can be viewed while the spectator is in motion.

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American critic Dave Hickey announces that he “quits” the art world, citing too much emphasis on money and lack of seriousness.  Hickey says the straw that broke the camel’s back was when he was required to sign a 10 page contract before sitting on a panel discussion at the Guggenheim. “What can I tell you? It’s nasty and it’s stupid. I’m an intellectual and I don’t care if I’m not invited to the party. I quit.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on how artists are increasingly making large scale work, galvanizing a trend in commercial galleries in London, Los Angeles and New York to provide massive spaces in which to show it, formerly the role of the museum.  With the increase in not only monumental sculpture and installation, video pieces also require large amounts of space, often incorporating multi-channel projections. (more…)

Marc Spiegler will now head the four-person Art Basel team under a restructuring of management. The fair has grown immensely since 2007, when one person, Sam Keller, (now head of The Beyeler Foundation), was responsible for the management of the fair.  Annette Schönholzer, Magnus Renfrew and a new director of resources and finance (to be appointed next year), will serve under Spiegler as chairman. (more…)

The WSJ Magazine profiles Theaster Gates, a sculptor, performance artist and urban planner from Grand Crossing, a mostly-black neighborhood south of downtown Chicago, and his work, which goes further than social commentary.  Gates focuses on rebuilding and re-contextualizing spaces, not only as part of his artistic practice- but also in a real and effective way that transforms lower income communities. (more…)

Luc Tuymans, Allo!-Technicolor (2012), Courtesy David Zwirner

A show of Luc Tuymans featuring his latest series entitled Allo!, inaugurated the new David Zwirner Gallery in Mayfair on October 4th. To further heighten the significance of such an occasion, this is Tuymans’ first London show since 2004 at the Tate Modern.

Luc Tuymans, Allo!, peaches– (2012)  Courtesy David Zwirner

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Sean Kelly, who just inaugurated his new space at 10th avenue and 36th Street, posits that galleries may migrate north from Chelsea as the Hudson Yards development is completed. The neighborhood formerly known as Hell’s Kitchen, from 28th to 43rd Street and west of Eighth Avenue will have access to the No. 7 subway in 2014, as well as the the High Line extension and new residential investment. Rents are less expensive than in Chelsea and offer large warehouse-style exhibition spaces. (more…)

Image: Doug Aitken, Tilda Swinton in The Source, 2012, via Sky Arts Ignition

American artist Doug Aitken has his first public installation in the UK entitled The Source, which asks a variety of leading arts practitioners questions about where their creative ideas come from. Viewers can watch video conversations with artists such as Tilda Swinton, Jack Pierson, Jack White, and Mike Kelley, projected inside a temporary structure on Liverpool’s historic Albert Dock built in collaboration with renowned British architect David Adjaye.

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The Art Newspaper reports on rumors that publisher Louise Blouin (Art+Auction, Modern Painters, Gallery Guide) is in talks with Merchandise Mart Properties (MMPI) to acquire its art fairs, including the Armory Show, Art Platform Los Angeles and Volta. Another buyer, Next Editions Partners, an art media company based in Vienna, is ready to negotiate but has said that MMPI has designed the deal around their first bidder. A spokeswoman for Blouin said, “Louise Blouin Media is a privately-held company, and we do not comment on speculation in the media about the company’s business activities.” MMPI also declined to comment. (more…)

Performance artist Joey Arias with 60th gala cake

Tuesday night marked Aperture Foundation’s Sixtieth Anniversary Gala Dinner & Photography Auction. The live auction featured an incredible selection of 60+ works up for grabs by such notables as: Diane Arbus, Chuck Close, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Vik Muniz, Hank Willis Thomas and William Wegman. (more…)

Tino Sehgal, Installation view, 2012, courtesy Tate Modern

The Turbine hall has been home to the Unilever series and currently welcomes its thirteenth commission in the form of These Associations by Tino Sehgal. Despite Sehgal being the thirteenth artist to exhibit as part of the series, he far from blends into the crowd of his predecessors. Sehgal gives the inaugural ‘Live Art’ performance of Unilever coinciding with the Olympics as part of London 2012.

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Walead Beshty, Installation View, 2012, courtesy Roldophe Janssen

Walead Beshty’s second solo show with Gaelerie Roldophe Janssen is entitled Diapositives, after the medium he used to construct his images.  Since 2006 Beshty’s work has been comprised of experimental photography whereby he explores different effects on underdeveloped film.

Diapositives is an installation that takes the form of what appears to be a futuristic office space. Desks and other seemingly aesthetic furnishings are replaced with copper surrogates that have had the developed film experiments printed on them; their purpose however is not to serve as a visual element, but to be a fully-functioning room component within the space (i.e. a table that is fit for purpose). The interaction with the visitors and the works within the exhibit is implicit to the work itself – in fact Beshty does not acknowledge his works as art forms until this interaction takes place.

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Edvard Munch’s The Scream goes on view today at MoMA with extra security measures. Ann Temkin, the chief curator of painting and sculpture, is expecting huge crowds. “The Scream is really a household word, a household image, and from the time it was made, that was true,” Temkin said. “It’s somehow so startling and so odd that it caught people’s imagination”. Of the four versions made, two have been stolen and recovered. (more…)

Liz Magic Laser has been chosen as the commissioned artist for the 2013 edition of The Armory Show, which celebrates the centennial year of its namesake exhibition of 1913. Laser’s performance and theatrical work has been presented at the Malmö Konsthall, the Performa 11 Biennial, The Kitchen and MoMA PS1. Laser will help create the visual identity of the 2013 fair, which takes place from March 7–10th, 2013. (more…)

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation We The People via Art Observed

Curator Alison Gingeras and artist Jonathan Horowitz have teamed up to organize an exhibition at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s new project space in Chelsea which coincides with the upcoming election. Using the famous opening words of the constitution as a framework, We the People explores identity politics and creates a vision of the American demographic that both embodies and contests the categories that politicians and pollsters have used to divvy up the American population in recent years.

Norman Rockwell, courtesy Norman Rockwell Museum Collection ©1943 SEPS

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Leo Villareal is installing his BUCKYBALL light sculpture (an homage to Buckminster Fuller) in Madison Square Park. The piece is a honeycomb-shaped, 20-foot-tall interactive structure with changing colors. The work will be on view from October 25, 2012 through February 2013. (more…)

The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum will open on November 10th, 2012 at Michigan State University, of which Mr. Broad is an alumnus. The Broads donated $26 million to the school in 2007 to build the museum, which has been designed by Zaha Hadid. The Broads also donated 19 works to the museum from their private collection. (more…)

Vanity Fair profiles Nate Lowman as he prepares for his new show at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, opening on November 11th. The exhibition will house 10 gas-pump panels, large-scale air fresheners, paintings on studio drop cloths, a tow-truck boom in the shape of a cross, “Trash Landing Marilyn” paintings and digital prints of oil rigs named after stars from the TV show Dynasty.
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More information about the quantity of purportedly fake paintings sold by Knoedler has surfaced. The recent filings outline that Knoedler earned approximately $60 million in revenue from artwork it took on consignment from Glafira Rosales, clearing about $40 million in profit. Many of the works lacked full provenance records and were offered at below-market prices to the gallery. (more…)

Disaronno liquers is launching limited edition bottle designs in collaboration with Galeries Lafayette and Toilet Paper magazine. The magazine is a collaboration between Maurizio Cattelan and the photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. Both based in Milan and New York, the publication is both magazine and artistic book, combining photographs and texts. (more…)

FIAC crowds, photo by Tiphaine Popesco for Art Observed

FIAC closed today, Sunday October 21st, with dealers reporting strong sales and a collective sigh of relief that the proposed inclusion of artwork over €50,000 to France’s wealth tax had not passed.  The fair was, by all accounts, well-organized and exhibited an impressive program of young galleries alongside work by established blue-chip artists. This year the fair added exhibition space in the Salon d’Honneur, the newly-renovated upper floor of the historic Grand Palais.  In past years the fair has seen more European collectors, but this year dealers reported sales to many collectors from Asia, Russia and the Middle East as well. The fair was directed by Jennifer Flay.

Marc Quinn, The Origin of the World, 2012, photo by Tiphaine Popesco for Art Observed

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New York’s November auctions will offer several Warhol works, among them Christie’s $100 million sale of works in three separate sales from the Warhol Foundation, and at Sotheby’s two “A-plus” paintings from the “Death and Disaster” series. Concerns that an influx of Warhols on the market have lowered demand stem from weak London sales for the artist earlier this month. (more…)