Yue Minjun, The Crowing with Thorns, 2009 via Pace Beijing

The Road, an exhibition of recent paintings by Chinese artist Yue Minjun (born 1962) is on view at the Pace Gallery, Beijing from June 6th to July 16th, 2011.  Minjun gained international recognition in the 1990’s for his political allegories, epitomized by rows of figures with grotesque smiles, commenting on Chinese communist ideology. The Road features Minjun’s signature grinning characters with strong reference to Christian iconography.

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Image via New York Times.

Celebrated painter Cy Twombly died today at the age of 83.  Twombly passed away from cancer in Rome, where he has been living since 1957.  Known as somewhat of a recluse, Twombly usually did not write about his work or give interviews.  One of the exceptions to this was made in 2008 when Twombly spoke to Nick Serota, director of the Tate. “I had my freedom and that was nice,” he said.

Born Edwin Parker Twombly, Jr.  in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia, and nicknamed “Cy” by his father, the artist was known for his calligraphic style. Writer, critic and assistant professor at the San Francisco Art Institute Claire Daigle writes, “Twombly arrived in Manhattan in 1950 while the New York School painting of Pollock and de Kooning was in full swing. Upon Robert Rauschenberg’s encouragement, Twombly joined him for the 1951–1952 sessions at Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina – a liberal refuge [staffed by] influential teachers present at this time [such as] Charles Olson, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and John Cage.” In 2001, Twombly won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, (Peony Blossom Painting), 2007. Image courtesy Gagosian Gallery.

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Francis Bacon, Study for a Portrait, 1953 (est. unpublished, realized $28.6 million), via Christies.com

Christie’s sale of Contemporary art on Tuesday night realized $127 million for 53 lots sold. The total, which fell just above the high estimate of $125 million once fees were added, is the highest for any sale at Christie’s in Europe since the boom of June 2008. The top lot was a Francis Bacon self portrait that shows a man sitting in a throne-like chair wearing a suit and glasses. The painting sold for $28.6 million against an unpublished estimate rumored to be about $17 million. A self portrait by the artist sold for $25 million at Christie’s spring sale in New York .

Andy Warhol, Mao, 1973 (est. $9.6-12.8 million, realized $11.1 million), via Christies.com

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Jean-Michel Basquiat, Self-Portrait, 1985 (est. $3.2-4.8 million), via Phillipsdepury.com

The summer sales continue in London this week as the major auction houses host their Contemporary art auctions. Phillips will offer 32-lots on Monday evening, followed by Christie’s 67-lot sale on Tuesday and capped with an 88-lot sale at Sotheby’s on Wednesday. The Phillips sale will take place at the company’s new exhibition space at Claridge’s London. Like the auction house’s move uptown to 450 Park Ave in New York last year, the new London location is closer than their Howick Place headquarters to competitors Sotheby’s and Christie’s. The night’s 32 lots are expected to fetch $16-23 million and are headlined by a Basquiat self portrait that is estimated to bring as much as $4.8 million.

Damien Hirst, Confession, 2008 (est. $958,000-1.3 million), via Phillipsdepury.com

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Rickshaw-style pedicabs parked on Orchard street. All photos by L. Streeter for Art Observed

In his latest endeavor, maverick graffiti artist Kenny Scharf has launched a project entitled “The Gates Project” produced in part by Anonymous Gallery.  In the project Scharf will paint roughly 100 roll-down storefront gates focused in the burgeoning Lower East Side.  Boldy painting in the middle of daylight, Scharf has already completed murals at 2 Delancey street, 132 Orchard street and most recently, a massive mural stretching for blocks on the Bowery. Scharf is teaming up with Anonymous Gallery for the project, and getting permits for each of the spaces he paints on. Art Observed was lucky enough to have the chance to take a pedi-cab tour of the lower east side visiting each location of Scarf’s work, led by Anonymous director Joseph Ian Henrikson.

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Kenny Scharf and friend at his Cosmic Cavern a Go Go

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Kalup Linzy performs at the event (All photos by B. Pinell, Art Observed unless otherwise noted)

Monday night’s StandART Video Art Series Launch, curated by Anne Pasternak’s CreativeTime, showcased seven short films at the Standard Hotel, NYC. To date, CreativeTime has worked with over 2,000 artists to produce more than 335 at projects, the latest of which is bringing acclaimed contemporary works to each and every room within the Standard.

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Holland Festival and the Stedelijk Museum presents Your Name In Lights; a public installation on Amsterdam’s Museumplein by renown conceptualist and multimedia artist John Baldessari. A 30 meters long L.E.D. sign is set up 15 meters above the Museumplein from June 1st to 26nd, giving people the opportunity to briefly experience the sensation of being a celebrity.

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Ai Weiwei after being released from detention on Wednesday, via New York Times

Ai Weiwei, who has been detained by the Chinese authorities since April on charges of tax evasion declared in May, was released today. “I’m released, I’m home, I’m fine,” he told the media in English. “In legal terms, I’m — how do you say — on bail. So I cannot give any interviews. But I’m fine.” According to a report by Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, the artist was released on bail because of his “good attitude in confessing his crimes,” and because he was willing to pay the taxes he allegedly evaded. The same report claimed that Ai Weiwei’s company, the Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., destroyed accounting records which showed the evasion of “a huge amount of taxes.”

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Pablo Picasso, Femme Assise, Robe Bleue, 1939 (est. $6.4-13 million, realized $29 million), via Christies.com

Christie’s marathon evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art in London on Tuesday evening realized $227 million for 80 lots sold. The sum fell comfortably within presale estimates of $186-265 million despite the fact that the top lot, Monet’s Nymphéas, failed to sell against a high estimate $40 million. The auction included several lots from the estate of Ernst Beyeler, the late Swiss dealer and co-founder of Art Basel. The sale began with Mr. Beyeler’s 17th century walnut & fruitwood desk, which sold for nearly half a million dollars against a high estimate of $20,000. The evening’s top lot did not come directly from the Beyeler estate, though its provenance includes a pass through the Galerie Beyeler. Picasso‘s Femme Assise, Robe Bleue carried a high estimate of $13 million but sold for $29 million, allegedly to Greek financier Dimitri Mavrommatis. The painting of Picasso’s lover, Dora Maar, belonged to renowned art dealer Paul Rosenberg and was confiscated by the Nazis in 1940. It was eventually seized by the French Resistance and restituted by the Commission de Récuperation. Pittsburgh collector G. David Thompson acquired the work from Rosenberg and sold it to the Galerie Beyeler at a 1966 sale at Sotheby’s Parke Bernet. Tuesday night’s selling party bought the painting from the Galerie Beyeler two years later.

Pablo Picasso, Jeune Fille Endormie, 1935 (est. $14.5-19.3 million, realized $21 million), via Christies.com

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Claude Monet, Nymphéas, c. 1914-1917 (est. $27.4-39.7 million), via Christies.com

If collectors failed to find anything that struck their fancy at Art Basel they’ll have more opportunities to buy during the summer lineup of sales at the three big auction houses in London over the next two weeks. On Tuesday Christie’s will inaugurate with an immense 92-lot auction of Impressionist & Modern Art, followed by Sotheby’s comparatively petit 35-lot sale on Wednesday evening. Next week Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury will hold Contemporary Art sales.

Pablo Picasso, Jeune Fille Endormie, 1935 (est. $14.5-19.3 million), via Christies.com

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Alexander Ponomarev, Baffin Figure, 2006, Performance, Baffin Sea.

Currently on view at the Arsenale Novissima in Venice, Italy is “One of a Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy.” Organized by the Courtauld Institute of Art, in collaboration with AVC Charity Foundation, the exhibition is one of the official collateral programs of the 54th Venice Biennale. Curated by Alexander Ponomarev and Nadim Samman, the exhibition comprises of  four contemporary artists have been commissioned to create a site-specific work engaging with the theme of entropy: Adrian Ghenie (London/Berlin), Hans Op de Beeck (Brussels), Ryoichi Kurokawa (Osaka/Berlin), and Ponomarev himself (Moscow).

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KAWS “Companion (Passing Through)” 2011  – All photos by ArtObserved

Aptly titled “Companion (Passing Through)”, the sixteen feet tall sculpture by KAWS  has relocated from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut to the front plaza of the Standard Hotel in New York City.  Originally commissioned for the expansive Harbour Mall in Hong Kong, “Companion” is a hybrid of KAWS’s signature skull head and the body of Mickey Mouse in grayscale.  With both hands covering his face, the cartoonish figure in repose appears to be experiencing a range of negative emotions induced by his surroundings.  The specific conditions are ambiguous yet the pose speaks to the viewer with its instant familiarity and universal language of shame, humiliation, and social withdrawal.

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Eric Fischl, Barbeque (1982)

Skarstedt Gallery presents “Eric Fischl: Early Paintings”, on view through June 18th. Known for his postmodern style, this exhibition focuses on nine of Eric Fischl‘s early works that helped introduce his style. Dating from 1979 to 1989, the paintings depict everyday life in the suburbs—tan bodies by the poolside, family barbecues, and children and adults playing their expected roles.  Through these selected glimpses Fischl reveals more serious themes upon a closer look.

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Inside the Greek Pavilion – all photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

“The Biennale is like a wind machine,” Biennale President Paolo Baratta eccentrically stated at the festival’s opening. Whether he was referring to the Biennale’s power to stir things up, or to fuel the art world through another two years, the metaphor felt apt. Early last week, the 54th Venice Biennale opened to press and professionals. Although the usual vaporetto strike caused momentary chaos, determined art world people made their way around the city in water taxis, iPhone/iPad apps in hand. The exhibition opened to the public on Saturday, June 4th and runs through November 27th, 2011.

Artist Kwok Mang-ho (a.k.a Frog King), who represented Hong Kong.

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Move over vaporetti — there’s a new barge in town. Slated to gracing the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice over the past five days was a project by The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, entitled “Commercial Break.” The exhibition is organized by Neville Wakefield, a contemporary art writer prolific curator globally. Powered by POST Magazine, “Commercial Break” considers itself to be a provocative architectural intervention in a city where no advertising is traditionally displayed. Unfortunately, as Artinfo reported, the city pulled permits a few days before and the videos were instead screened at the project’s Bauer Hotel party. The woman behind the “GCCC” is Dasha Zukhova, girlfriend of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich; it is the institution’s second project in Venice.  All videos are now viewable on the exhibition’s website.

Among videos featured is one by  Richard Phillips, starring Lindsey Lohan.

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All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

Art Observed was on site for “The Heard and the Unheard,” a project by Soundscape Taiwan.  The installation, housed in the Taiwan Pavilion (in the Palazzo delle Prigioni), was curated by Amy Cheng with artists Hong-Kai Wu and Yu-Hsien Yu, in collaboration with the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. The inauguration of the installation kicked off with a party entitled “Sounds Edgy!” with performances by Fujui Wang and DJ @llen. In the background, the Sound Library/Bar provides a backdrop of Taiwan’s socio-historical context and the current impetus for change.

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All photos by Caroline Claisse.

Andrea Thal and Thomas Hirschhorn represent Switzerland in the 2011 Venice Biennale.  Previous representatives have included Silvia Bächli and Fabrice Gygi (2009), Ugo Rondinone (2007), and Pipilotti Rist (2005) whose work is visible in the Arsenale.

Hirschhorn is a Bern-born, Paris-based artist best known for large-scale “DIY” style installations using duct tape and tinfoil.  Thal’s practice is based in music and performance; she runs an artist-run gallery space in Zurich, Les Complices.* Hirschhorn has also created a special website for the project, which provides insight into his working process: Crystals of Resistance.

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Aerial short of Randall’s Island, via The Art Newspaper

Frieze, the hallmark London contemporary art fair which has steadily built itself up since 2003, today announced its expansion to New York where it will host a fair in Randall’s Island Park.  Frieze Art Fair will open on May 2nd for VIPs, with the public gaining access between May 3rd and 6th.

The fair will coincide with the city’s 2012 contemporary art auctions and will be around the same size as its London counterpart, with roughly170 galleries from 33 countries participating.  Notably, the fair fall outside of the traditional art fair week in March, anchored by the Armory Show.  This may prompt some galleries to re-evaluate which fairs they will participate in. Similarly, the timing of Frieze’s New York fair may affect galleries who may have opted for Art Basel in June.

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Image courtesy The Guardian.

After 43 days of detention, reports broke earlier today that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was allowed a visit from his wife Lu Qing on Sunday. A friend of Weiwei’s, rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan, confirmed that the artist had not been tortured or ill-handled, and that he was receiving medication for his diabetes and high blood pressure.

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All photos by Lily Streeter for Art Observed

Last night, White Columns hosted their annual Benefit auction and exhibition at their space on 320 west 13th street. White Columns, founded by Jefferey Lew and art interventionist Gordon Matta-Clark, remains recognized as one of New York’s oldest non-profit art spaces, founded originally in Soho in 1970. It relocated four times before arriving upon the building it inhabits now, continously serving as a multi-purpose space for artists to exhibit, screen and present their work. White Columns upholds a tradition of showing new artists, and supporting artists in various experimental projects. The annual fundraiser auction gives artists a chance to return this support by contributing selected works to the silent auction. Various commissioned works were held at live auction this year as well; artists such as Peter Doig, Cecily Brown and Huma Bhabha created works in a series inspired by found vinyl record sleeves.

Peter Doig, Wishing It Would Rain (2011) being sold at live auction

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Cyprien Gaillard The Recovery of Discovery (2011), via KW Berlin.

French artist Cyprien Gaillard’s “The Recovery of Discovery” is currently on view at KW Berlin.  The work consists of cardboard boxes of beer that form the shape of a pyramid, which are available to the public to open and drink, after signing a waiver.  The show opened on March 27th, and is in a continuing state of destruction until May 22nd.

Cyprien Gaillard’s beer pyramid opening night, via KW Berlin. More text and images after the jump…

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Anna Betbeze, Oasis 2011 (2011), via Kate Werble Gallery

Luxembourg & Dayan’s “Unpainted Paintings” is an international survey of Modern artworks from 1950 to today. Organized by Alison Gingeras, chief curator of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy, “Unpainted Paintings” runs through May 27^th.  The show asks viewers to contemplate what makes a painting a painting, displaying works that confound conventional definitions of the medium.

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Andy Warhol, Liz #5, 1963 (est. unpublished, realized $26.9 million). All images via Phillipsdepury.com.

The week’s Contemporary art sales ended Thursday night with a fifty lot auction at Phillips de Pury & Co. The sale just missed its low presale estimate of $84.5 million before fees were added. Thirty-eight lots sold for a total of $82.7 million, or $94.8 million with fees. For the third time this week a Warhol canvas was the top lot. Liz #5, rumored to be sold by hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen, sold for $26.9 million against an unpublished presale estimate of $20-30 million. Unlike Warhol’s photo-booth self portrait on offer Wednesday night at Christie’s, Liz #5‘s trip to the auction block was brief. Bidding opened at $18 million and rose to $24 million before contenders called it quits.

Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat, Third Eye, 1985 (est. $2-3 million, realized $7 million)

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Ai Weiwei, Colored Vases (2009), all images by Soraya Gilanni for Art Observed

AO was on site for the preview of Lisson Gallery‘s major survey show of work by Ai Weiwei. Any reading of the exhibition cannot help but be inflected, if not radically transformed, by the knowledge that the artist’s whereabouts and condition are still unknown after being detained by authorities in Beijing on April 3rd, 2011. The exhibition, which will open to the public on May 13th, coincides with the London display of Ai Weiwei’s Animal/Zodiac heads at Somerset House.

Lisson director Greg Hilty and founder Nicholas Logsdail began the day by addressing the absence of the artist directly. They explained that Lisson Gallery had considered canceling the show, but that the “general consensus” among all involved was that it should “absolutely go ahead” despite the fact that Logsdail described the opening day without the presence of the artist as “mortifying.”

Ai Weiwei, Surveillance Camera (2010)

Weiwei often pushes the boundaries of institutions that exhibit his work, therefore the difficulty of putting on a survey show lies in that the nature of his practice is hard to define. The selection is curtailed to video and sculptural works in a kind of redress of the attention attracted by works like his famous Sunflower Seeds and Template.

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