Matthew Barney interviewed at his studio in Long Island City on the eve of his first solo exhibition in New York in 5 years, opening on September 17th at Gladstone Gallery [AO Newslink]

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Josh Tonsfeldt, Untitled (2011), via Harris Lieberman

Bodies and their attendant messes, the connection between the artist and the viewer, and the complicated processes of making and looking at art are all covered in this wide-ranging exhibition which was organized by West Street Gallery but is hosted by Harris Lieberman in Chelsea. The press release tells us that the show was was inspired by William Wegman‘s videos from the 1970s, four of which play in a loop on a television in the installation. One of these, Milk/Floor (1970-78), shows the artist dribbling milk from his mouth and his iconic dog lapping it up, setting the tone for the show by poking fun at the often absurd relationship between the artist (dribbling the milk) and the public (lapping it up). The rest of the works further probe this moment of connection.

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Gallery in Berlin discovers four paintings by Otto Dix worth over $1 million [AO Newslink]

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Gustav Klimt’s previously unknown “Seeufer mit Birken” (lakeside with birch trees), discovered in private home in Netherlands [AO Newslink]

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Anish Kapoor to design a mobile, 700 person capacity, inflatable “pneumatic structure” concert hall for Northern Japan to bring music and performing arts to the areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami [AO Newslink]

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Detail of Dog head from Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2011) All photos by Megan Hoetger for Art Observed.

The installation of the first major public sculpture work by well-known Chinese artist Ai Weiwei opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on August 20th, its West Coast stop on a global tour. Encircling the elevator up from the parking structure in the North Piazza of LACMA’s sprawling campus, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads functions as a marker of a heavily trafficked threshold. Its position outside the parking is particularly suited to the car-dominated geography of Los Angeles, but it also allows multiple points of approach for those visitors ambling between the Ahmanson and Broad buildings, or just arriving through the Chris Burden street lamps.

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Neo Rauch, Unter Feuer, 2010. Via Museum Frieder Burda

The Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, Germany is hosting a large-scale retrospective of Leipzig-based artist Neo Rauch (born 1960). Showing about forty paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, the exhibition covers the past twenty years of Rauch’s career. Currently an honorary professor at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, Rauch is the representative of the New Leipzig School of painting distinguished by the figurative visual language, narrative content, and technical perfection.

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Wealthy private families reportedly realizing current gains in their gold holdings and moving the proceeds into Art as an alternative asset class [AO Newslink]

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MoMA PS1 Curator Peter Eleey on the upcoming ‘September 11’ exhibition at PS1: “Probably the biggest difficulty that 9/11 poses to art, at least to visual art, is contained in the ‘spectacularity’ of the attacks themselves.” [AO Newslink]

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Is this £1,500, internet purchased drawing a lost portrait of Vincent Van Gogh? [AO Newslink]

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Ai WeiWei pens an editorial on Beijing that is, considering his recent incarceration, strikingly direct, yet also somehow resigned: “you truly believe they can do anything to you. There’s no way to even question it. You’re not protected by anything” [AO Newslink]

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Blood Orange during a set, all photos for Art Observed by Gautier Pellegrin

As New York City and the rest of the the Eastern Seaboard hunker down for a storm here is a photoset of last week’s balmy “warm up” at MoMA’s PS1 in Long Island City, New York which featured The Juan Maclean, DFA, Blood Orange, Solange, Pictureplane and others.

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Jeanette Ingberman, a founder of 3-decade strong Exit Art in New York, died at age 59 on Wednesday in Manhattan [AO Newslink]

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The story of the global powerhouse Pace gallery and the family behind it [AO Newslink]

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East Coast Collectors scramble to fortify artwork from expected impact of Hurricane Irene [AO Newslink]

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The Wall Street Journal interviews Mark di Suvero, “America’s greatest living Constructivist sculptor”
at his studio in Long Island City, New York [AO Newslink]

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Dasha Zhukova launches Garage magazine with fashion/art collaborations from Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, John Baldessari, Raymond Pettibon, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Paul McCarthy and Richard Prince [AO Newslink]

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Tracey Emin surreptitiously installs a neon work at David Cameron’s headquarters at No. 10 Downing Street, London [AO Newslink]

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The New York Times surveys this summer’s selection of outdoor sculpture in New York City [AO Newslink]

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Judge dismisses photographer Janine “Jah Jah” Gordon’s copyright infringement case against Ryan McGinley citing “Such a conception of copyright law has no basis in statute, case law, or common sense” [AO Newslink]

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Ai WeiWei interview with LATimes regarding his Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads at LACMA; preoccupation with missing cat [AO Newslink]

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Larry Gagosian buys $36.5 million , 20,000 sf, 50-foot wide Harkness Mansion at 4 E.75th St.; roughly 200 meters from his Upper East Side Gallery on Madison Avenue [AO Newslink]

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Trailer released for Anselm Kiefer: Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow by Sophie Fiennes [AO Newslink]

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Assume Vivid Astro Focus and Lady Gaga to collaborate on a holiday window at Barney’s New York [AO Newslink]

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