Magnus af Petersens will take the post of chief curator of Whitechapel Gallery. Petersens has served as head of exhibitions at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm for the past 6 years. He also notably curated the Nordic Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Petersens will replace Achim Borchardt-Hume, who will take on the role of head of exhibitions at the Tate Modern. (more…)
Restoration has been scheduled to begin on the Carracci Gallery in the Palazzo Farnese, a Baroque masterpiece primarily executed by Annibale Carracci. The monumental frescos and stucco frames date to the early 17th century. Restorers are now bidding on the project, which is scheduled to start in January and take one year to complete. The joint Italian-French project, expected to cost about $1.5 million, was funded by the World Monuments Fund and other arts patrons. (more…)
One of Monet‘s Waterlilies paintings from 1905 will be auctioned at Christie’s on November 7th, with a presale estimate of $30 – $50 million. The piece is being auctioned by the Hackley School, in Tarrytown, NY with the help of Herb Allen, whose father had donated the piece to the school (his alma mater). The school will also consign paintings by Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley, bequeathed to it by the Allen family. Christie’s expects to bring in at least $2.5 million each for the Pissarro and Sisley pictures. (more…)
Julian Weissman, who settled a lawsuit for selling a fake Motherwell last year is once again being sued for a sale of another allegedly fake painting by the same artist from the same consignor – Glafira Rosales. Weissman sold the piece in 2004 to Sheikha Paula Al-Sabah of Kuwait, who claims that Weissman told her the previous owner was an anonymous Swiss-Jewish collector. The sheikha paid $350,000 for the painting and is seeking $3 million in compensatory damages and have not specified the amount in punitive damages. (more…)
Image: Installation shot, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, “Wild Mood Swings,” 2009-10 – Nihilistic Optimistic, all images courtesy of the artists and Blain|Southern, Photographer: Peter Mallet
After the private viewing this evening in London, Nihilistic Optimistic, a sculptural illustration of oppositional and complementary forces by Tim Noble & Sue Webster – their first major solo exhibition in London since 2006 – will open to the public on October 10th at Blain Southern Gallery in London’s Hanover Square. Six large-scale sculptures constructed from wood scraps and other discarded materials, “fracturing things up – splintering things. So the mind has to wander in a different way…” continues the artists’ “investigation of self-portraiture.”
Sotheby’s Hong Kong autumn sales saw a 37% decline from the same period last year as the Chinese economy slows. 27% of lots in the Contemporary sale went unsold. China accounted for almost 44% of global auction revenue last year, as both Christie’s and Sotheby’s have heated up the market in Hong Kong. Sotheby’s recently announced that it was given the green light to open on the mainland in partnership with a Chinese auction house. Bejing had higher total revenue than London or New York for art and collectibles last year with sales volume of 6.4 billion euros ($8.30 billion).
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The Wall Street Journal provides a comprehensive outlook on the state of the art market, from Old Masters to Contemporary as dealers head into Frieze and auction week in London. There is a certain polarization with multi-million dollar pieces in high demand and emerging work less so. The article discusses how the most speculative sector of the art market is work from 1945-onward, which saw a 66% drop during the recession but has rebounded, especially in the case of artists like Gerhard Richter. (more…)
Ukranian billionaire steel magnate and art collector Victor Pinchuk has commissioned a permanent installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson in the city where Pinchuk was raised. The work will be installed in his Interpipe Steel Mill in Dnepropetrovsk, and will include a 60 meter high artificial sun, which will dominate the skyline of the city. Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, was previously a manufacturing center for ballistic missiles and only in 1991 opened to foreign visitors. (more…)
Image: Ai Weiwei: According to What? Installation View: Coca Cola Vase, New York Photographs, Moon Chest, Courtesy The Hirshhorn
The first U.S. survey of the work of Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. Beijing, 1957) opened on October 7th at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. It takes its inspiration from a 2009 exhibition at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, but has been adapted for U.S. audiences incorporating the artist’s re-examination of the work in the context of his personal experiences over the past few years.
Image: Ai Weiwei Courtesy The Washington Post
Mr. Ai, 55, has personally experienced many changes since 2009: he was detained for 81 days last year and was found guilty of tax evasion in China, owing $2.4 million in fines. The Chinese government shut down his business and has not allowed him to leave the country, which prevented him from attending the opening for his retrospective in Washington.
Creative Time will launch its online news magazine this month called Creative Time Reports. With a focus on artist-written articles from global sources, the nonprofit says that “whether addressing elections or climate change, censorship or immigration, Creative Time Reports believes artists have the power to inspire and encourage a more engaged and informed public”. (more…)
A Damien Hirst sculpture called Verity may not be universally well-received in a seaside town in Devon, The Telegraph reports. The sculpture is a 70-foot tall bronze statue of a nude pregnant woman with a sword. The work, loaned by Hirst, is due to be installed permanently on Oct 17-18th, although the city council has received over 100 complaints from residents, saying it is “obscene and disgusting.” (more…)
Image: Frieze London Courtesy Frieze
Exhibitors are gearing up for the tenth edition of Frieze London, which takes place in London’s Regent’s Park from October 11–14th. The fair kicks off with a vernissage on the evening of Wednesday, October 10th, once again housed in a temporary structure designed by architects Carmody Groarke.
Although mostly composed of UK and US galleries (almost exclusively from London and New York) account for 45% of the main fair, fair organizers are broadening the scope this year, with new sections and exhibitors from 35 countries, making it the most international event to date organized by Frieze.
Image: Mona Hatoum, KAPANCIK, 2012 Courtesy White Cube Gallery
Private Equity billionaire Leon Black has acquired publisher Phaidon from Richard Schlagman for an undisclosed sum. Black is chief executive of Apollo Global Management, an art collector and philanthropist. He paid $120 million for Edvard Munch’s The Scream at auction earlier this year. He also contributed $48 million to Dartmouth College, his alma mater, for the creation of the Black Family Visual Arts Center. (more…)
Image: A gallery worker walks past Seagram murals by Mark Rothko in London via Reuters
Following the incident of the Rothko painting that was defaced yesterday, the estate of Mark Rothko expressed its confidence in the Tate. Reuters spoke to the suspect, providing additional details on possible motive:
Image: Vladimir Umanets via The Times of London
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Image: The vandalized section of a Mark Rothko Seagram mural painting at The Tate Modern
A Mark Rothko painting was vandalized at the Tate Modern on October 7th, said the museum. The piece in question was a Seagram mural, one of a series of works commissioned by New York’s Four Seasons restaurant in 1958-9; the series was one of Rothko’s most important and meaningful projects.
Image: The painting that was defaced – Mark Rothko, Black on Maroon © Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko/DACS 1998
Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art will open to the public tomorrow with exhibitions of the work of David Altmejd, David Hammons, Katherina Grosse and Gordon Matta-Clark. The director of the museum is Jill Snyder. The architect, Farshid Moussavi, designed the building to change depending on conditions of light and atmosphere. “MOCA Cleveland isn’t a grand museum with a historical collection; it’s all about temporary exhibitions, which change constantly—so does contemporary art, and so should the architecture.” (more…)
Lehmann Maupin Gallery has announced that it will open in Hong Kong’s Pedder Building in early spring 2013. Although the gallery has a strong stable of Asian artists, it plans to show work by Western artists in the new location as well. The gallery has hired Rem Koolhaas’ OMA team to do the renovations. (more…)
Sotheby’s has several high-profile works being offered in its November sales. Works from the Embiricos estate are expected to bring $30 million; among them Francis Bacon‘s “Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne” has a presale estimate of $9 – $12 million. Picasso‘s “Nature Morte aux Tulipes” from 1932 is being offered from a separate unidentified “important private collection” at $35-50 million, under an irrevocable bid. (more…)
Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Pablo Picasso’s grandson, announced that the Picasso heirs have consolidated authentication efforts in the formation of an organization under the direction of Claude Ruiz-Picasso. Previously, due to the large number of Picasso’s heirs, authentication was difficult. The Picasso Administration is based in Paris. (more…)
Image: Eleanor Antin – 100 Boots Facing the Sea, Del Mar, California. February 9, 1971, 2:00 p.m. (1971-1973), via Brooklyn Museum
In 1973, art critic and curator Lucy R. Lippard published Six Years, a defining book that catalogued and described the emerging field of conceptual art during the years 1967-1972. Widely read and referenced as a fundamental exploration into Conceptual Art and the new aesthetic vocabulary that it contributed to the artistic lexicon, Lippard’s book has become an iconic document in the shifting artistic focuses of the 20th and 21st century.
The Brooklyn Museum has opened the door for a new reading of Lippard’s fundamental text, assembling a a vast array of artists championed in her writing. The exhibition provides a vantage point for understanding how Lippard’s perceptive thesis opened the door to new approaches in curating, engagement and criticism.
Austrian art dealer Thaddaeus Ropac is interviewed in the Financial Times, and speaks of his new 4,700 sq meter space in Pantin, Northeast Paris. “You have to create the market for monumental works but that gives me a kick. Today you are defined by your square-footage”. Anselm Kiefer, ‘Die Ungeborenen’ (The Unborn) will open at the space on October 14th. (more…)
Image: Alex Katz, White Roses I, 2011, courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery
Now in its final week at Timothy Taylor Gallery in London is a new series of portraits and still lifes by 84-year-old American artist Alex Katz. The exhibition is comprised of large-scale portraits of family and friends and still lifes of flowers that he bought from street vendors near his New York studio.
Image: Installation view, courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery
The now-defunct Knoedler & Co. gallery agreed to settle the lawsuit over an allegedly fake $17 million Jackson Pollock. The terms of the settlement are undisclosed. Pierre Lagrange, co-owner of London-based GLG Partners Inc., sued in 2011 over a the painting, Untitled 1950, because neither Sotheby’s or Christie’s would consign the work without its prior inclusion in the catalogue raisonné. The gallery, which had been in business since 1846, closed the day after the lawsuit was filed. (more…)
White Cube announced that it will close its East London Hoxton location (established 2000) at the end of 2012. The gallery plans to focus on the Mason’s Yard, Mayfair and the Bermondsey Street locations. The gallery says that “no decision had been taken on the future of the former industrial building.” (more…)