Pierre Bonnard, Terrasse à Vernon, 1923 (est. £3–4 million, realized £7.2 million ), via Christies.com

Christie’s London hosted two back-to-back sales on Wednesday evening that brought in a combined total of £84.9 million. The forty-five lot Impressionist and Modern sale realized £61.9 million for thirty-five lots sold. The estimate of £54-80 million for that auction included a Franz Marc painting that was withdrawn from the sale (it carried an estimate of £900,000-1.4 million). Thirty-one lots at the “Art of the Surreal” sale that immediately followed realized £23 million for twenty-five lots sold. Including a withdrawn De Chirico, the Surreal sale carried a presale estimate of £19-28 million. Bidding stopped at £5.8 million for a featured Gauguin painting (est. £7-10 million) that carried the highest presale estimate of any work offered at both sales. Instead, the evening’s top lot was a fresh-to-market Bonnard painting that broke the auction record for the artist when it sold for £7.2 million against a high presale estimate of £4 million. At the press conference the auction house revealed that the seller of the painting intended to use the proceeds to purchase land in France in order to “save horses.”

The sale room at Christie’s London on Wednesday evening, via Art Observed

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Alberto Giacometti, Grand Buste de Diego Avec Bras, executed 1957, cast 1958 (est. £3.5–5 million, bought in), via Sothebys.com

Tuesday evening’s forty-two lot sale of Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s London brought in £68.8 million (or $111 million) for thirty-two lots sold. The auction house reports being “very pleased” with the total, which is the fourth highest ever in the department at the London location. The featured lot, Picasso’s La Lecture, exceeded its presale estimate after slow, thoughtful bidding by at least seven interested parties that increased in increments of £500,000. It sold to a telephone bidder for £25.2 million against a presale estimate of £12-18 million (estimates do not include the buyers premium, prices realized do). The real surprise, though, came when both Giacometti lots which carried the second and third highest presale estimates failed to sell. Bidding for an oil on canvas portrait of the artist’s brother ended at £2.7 million and a bronze sculpture of the same subject passed at £3.2 million.

The sale room at Sotheby’s London on Tuesday, via Art Observed

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Mona Hatoum. Via Art Daily

Palestinian-British artist Mona Hatoum has just been announced the 2011 winner of the Joan Miró Prize. This prestigious €70,000 award is granted biennially, with the ceremony taking place at the Fundació Joan Miró auditorium in Barcelona on April 7 this year, with the artist’s following exhibition taking place there in June 2012. The jury made the decision unanimously, stating that Hatoum “has pioneered in opening up art practices to non-Western realities while showing the connections between Western high culture and transnational political and cultural events. After Hatoum, the art world has become a far more open and less self-centred arena, a process that is still in expansion and consolidation. Hatoum’s commitment to human values of concern to all cultures and societies is similar to Miró’s view of mankind after his experience of three devastating wars,” according to Art Daily.

Andre Ricard, Joan Miró Trophy (2007). Via Fundació Joan Miró

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Pablo Picasso, La Lecture, 1932 (est. £12–18 million), via Sothebys.com

February’s round of major art auctions begins in London next week with Impressionist & Modern sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s.  On Tuesday evening Sotheby’s will offer forty-two lots estimated to bring between £55-79 million. Sotheby’s will also hold a 60-lot sale of Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary works titled “Looking Closely: A Private Collection” on Thursday, February 10th that is expected to fetch up to £54 million.  All the works in that sale are from the collection of George Kostalitz, a Geneva-based collector who died last year. Christie’s forty-six lot evening sale on Wednesday is estimated to bring £54-80 million and, as was the case last year, will be immediately followed by a thirty-one lot auction of Surrealist works estimated to fetch an additional £19-28 million. While it is uncertain whether these auctions will produce a buzz-worthy sale on par with last year’s £65 million paid for Giacometti’s L’Homme Qui Marche I, both houses are offering a number of strong works led by canvases by Picasso and Gauguin.

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Alberto Giacometti, Diego, 1958 (est. £3–5 million), via Sothebys.com

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Ai Weiwei So Sorry Exhibition Poster. Via Aiweiweifilm.

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY, a documentary to be released in spring of 2011, portrays a close-up of the internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei.  Alison Klayman, Beijing based journalist and filmmaker, provides viewers an insight of contemporary China by focusing on the artist’s artistic process and constant public confrontations with the Chinese government.

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Home Now. All photos via A Love Letter For You, 2010

Steve Powers, the Philadelphian street artist—a.k.a. ESPO—has released a trailer for his upcoming documentary on a 50 mural public art project, A Love Letter For You. Art Observed interviewed the artist in August, when the action took place.

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Screen shot, Palace of Versailles, via Google Art Project

Over 1,000 works from 17 museums are now available to view online in high-resolution, thanks to today’s launch of Google Art Project. Founded and headed by Amit Sood, the new site combines several Google applications to provide virtual tours similar to Google Street View, with a zoom-in feature and information on each work. Most noted is the the project’s use of gigapixel resolution—7 billion pixels—rendering a virtual view magnified greater than the naked eye could achieve; at this stage the extra gigapixel technology has only been employed on one work per musuem.

Screen shot, max zoom of Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Ambassadors (1533), via Google Art Project

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Egyptian special forces on Monday secured the main floor inside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Via NY Times

The National Egyptian Museum is currently guarded by tanks, having been looted Friday night. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities—and a member of the current administration—claims over 1,000 protesters stole from the gift shop, with ten making it into the galleries and smashing glass vitrines and antique statues, including one of King Tutankhamen, as well as beheading two mummies. Wafaa El-Saddik, former director of the Egyptian Museum (until just a month ago), believes the museum’s own guards did the looting, who are hugely underpaid despite El-Saddik’s previous efforts.

Next door, buildings of the National Democratic Party and the Press Club were in flames over the weekend; efforts lacked to save the structures, though the museum was kept safe. In Tahrir Square—Arabic for Liberation—protesters scorn current leader Hosni Mubarak with chants and clever graffiti and signs, speaking English in an appeal to the West.

Protestor, with National Egyptian Museum in the background, via Economist

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Christian Marclay, The Clock (still), 2010. Via River00000

Debuting at White Cube this past October (and already covered by AO), Christian Marclay‘s The Clock has been warmly accepted in New York at the Paula Cooper Gallery, with several 24-hour screenings throughout the exhibition, through February 19th. Splicing together a day’s worth of found film, the artist and six assistants spent two years on the project, drawing from classics like “Great Expectations” and “Mary Poppins,” to more recent films like “Tomb Raider.” Every single clip makes reference to the time—moving in realtime—with clocks synced to the actual time of New York (or wherever it’s showing). The highly acclaimed work is to be included in the British Art Show 7, a group exhibition ran only every five years, touring to the Hayward Gallery, Tramway-Glasgow, and Plymouth Art Centre later this year.

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Tiziano Vecellio (Titian), A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1560 (est. $15-20 million, realized $16.9 million), via Sothebys.com

Sotheby’s 378-lot Old Master Sale in New York today realized a total of $90.6 million and set a record for a Titian painting at auction. The painting generated only one bid from an unidentified European collector and sold for its low estimate of $15 million. Still, the sale broke the previous record for a painting by the artist at auction that was set 20 years ago with the sale of Venus and Adonis for $13.6 million at Christie’s in London. The new record-holding painting is a late work and, according to the auction house’s research, has changed hands only six times since its creation around 1560.

-J. Mizrachi

At Sotheby’s Sale, Titian Draws One Bidder [New York Times]
Titian Painting Fetches Auction Record [ABC News]
Titian’s Madonna Fetches Record $16.9 Million at Sotheby’s Old Master Sale [Bloomberg]

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Still, Waste Land, via Oscar

Documentary films by Vik Muniz and Banksy have both been nominated for an Academy Award in the same category of Best Documentary Feature. Muniz’s stirring Waste Land and Banksy’s clever Exit through the Gift Shop will face off at the Oscars in Hollywood on February 27, with hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco. The question of Banksy’s presence is especially hyped as the artist’s true identity is entirely secretive—as dictated by his edgy work and persona, he appears only in silhouette throughout his own film.

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Still, Exit through the Gift Shop, via Oscar

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Will Ryman, The Roses (2011). All photos via Paul Kasmin Gallery unless otherwise noted.

Along Park Avenue, from 57th to 67th Streets, New Yorkers can enjoy an early spring thanks to Will Ryman‘s steel and fiberglass installation, The Roses. Towering up to 25 feet high, the works brighten up the wintry uptown grayness, breaking down the elitism of gallery-laden art and offering a different experience from each point of view—below, above, in a cab passing by. From a family of artists, and a background in theatre, Ryman capitalizes on the public placement, relying on the viewers to “complete my piece,”according to NY Times. Working with City Hall, the Borough Hall Commissioners Office, and the Park Avenue Sculpture Committee, Ryman had his trash vetoed—matches and a Doritos bag—but a variety of dog-sized bugs survive, as well as 20 scattered rose petals, six of which double as lawn chairs.

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Richard Armstrong, director of Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, via ArtDaily

Helsinki, Finland’s largest city and the Nordic nation’s cultural center, may be home to the sixth museum under the Guggenheim banner. On Tuesday Mayor Jussi Pajunen and the Director of Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Richard Armstrong announced that a $2.5 million study will be conducted over the course of 2011 to determine the appropriateness of building a museum in the city. Adding to an already vibrant Helsinki art scene, growing steadily since the 1990s, a Guggenheim endorsement could vastly improve the city’s economic development and infrastructure; the Guggenheim Bilbao paid for itself ten fold in only five years.

Helsinki waterfront, via Viking River

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Mike Kelley, Still from Extracurricular Projective Reconstruction #34 (The King and Us/The Queens and Me) (2010). Via Gagosian

Mike Kelley rages ahead at the Gagosian, expanding on projects from his infamous show at the gallery’s New York hub, titled Day is Done, in 2005. Exhibiting for the first time at the L.A. Gagosian, Kelley presents Kandor 10/Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction, #34 Kandor 12/Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #35, a combination of two earlier works, Kandors (1999) and Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction (EAPR) (2006). Recently known for exemplifying what art critic Jerry Saltz coined as “clusterfuck aesthetics,” Kelley continues his explorations of the grotesque pop cultural diaspora. The titling of this new show alone indicates Kelley’s continued interest in clusterfuck art: the scrambled code of his earlier works, barely intelligible key words that read like an internet pop up.

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Mike Kelley, Kandor 18 B (2010). Via Gagosian

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Via Telegraph

In the center of London, Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth will display sculptures of a bronze boy on a rocking horse in 2012, and a bright blue rooster in 2013. Danish artist Michael Elmgreen and Norwegian artist Ingar Dragset created Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 to playfully contrast the ‘ordinary’ and a hope for peace against the other plinths’ weathered war heroes. Hahn/Cock, by German artist Katharina Fritsch is a colorful 14 foot tall addition to the square, representing regeneration and awakening, as well as male domination (with no specific nationality).

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All photos via Duyanpili. All rights reserved.

Two years ago Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei was asked by Shanghai government officials to build a studio in a grape field outside the city. An entire artists’ complex, worth $1 million, it was meant to attract other important artists and culture to Shanghai. As Ai Weiwei was set to open the space this summer, officials claimed that it in fact did not follow land use regulations, ultimately demolishing the structure Tuesday. Ai is quite skeptical of such an excuse, suspecting that his political activism has much more to do with the situation.

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Banksy, Save or Delete Jungle Book, 2001 (est. £60,000-80,000, realized £78,000), via Bonhams

Tuesday night’s auction of Urban Art at Bonhams in London – the fourth auction of its kind the house has mounted – realized just over £455,000 for 51 of 67 lots sold. Attesting to interest in the artist following the release of his film Exit Through the Gift Shop, ten Banksy lots offered at the sale accounted for approximately half of the evening’s earnings. The top lot was Banksy’s Save or Delete Jungle Book, which sold for £78,000 against presale estimates of £60,000-80,000. The image was created for a poster campaign about deforestation but was never circulated due to copyright issues with Disney.

Shepard Fairey, Peace Goddess on Wood, 2008 (est. £8,000-12,000, realized £27,600), via Bonhams

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Chuck Close, mustache close-up of Lucas (1987-88), via ShowMedia

Throughout January, artwork by Chuck Close and Kehinde Wiley will travel New York City atop 500 taxi cabs, thanks to art enthusiast and ShowMedia president John Amato. With an estimated value of $100,000, Amato said, “I can do this as my annual holiday gift not just to myself, but to everyone who enjoys seeing the art as it travels around New York City’s streets.” ‘Art Adds’ is the second annual collaboration between ShowMedia and the Art Production Fund, a campaign bringing art to the streets for all to enjoy. The inaugural year featured Alex Katz, Shirin Neshat, and Yoko Ono.

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Kehinde Wiley, The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia (2008), via ShowMedia

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‘The Broad’ rendering, all photos via Los Angeles Times

77 year-old LA based billionaire art collector Eli Broad has unveiled the design for his new museum in downtown Los Angeles. Officially named The Broad Foundation, it will be known as the Broad.  Designed by New Yorked-based architects Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, the museum’s three stories will house Broad’s collection of over 2000 contemporary works, including Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Cindy Sherman. The sunny top floor will be known as the ‘gallery’, while the 1st and 2nd floors have been dubbed the ‘vault.’  Estimated at $130 million, completion is scheduled for 2013.

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Via SteveMartin.com

Steve Martin’s An Object of Beauty is a well-paced, entertaining novel about the inner workings of the blue-chip art world. The main character Lacey viciously climbs the New York art scene’s social ladder, as Martin attempts to criticize the superfluity of such major collectors, dealers, and artists. Sharing his own experience and expertise in the scene, Martin offers an insider’s perspective with real people and places–and the occasional sexual favor–with a spin of wit, informative and accessible.

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Turbine Hall, Tate Modern. Via ArtInfo

Tacita Dean will take over Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall on October 11, 2011. As the 12th artist in the Unilever-sponsored series, she will replace Ai Weiwei‘s floor of Sunflower Seeds. Though she is best known for her work with 16mm film, she uses other mediums as well, including found objects, photography, drawing, and sound. Tate Modern’s chief curator, Sheena Wagstaff, has expressed excitement over the commissioned work’s outcome; in regards to Dean, “Her interest in light, space and history, as well as her keen sense of the cinematic and the sublime, make her a perfect choice.”

Tacita Dean. Via Bloomberg

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Salad Days at The Journal Gallery, courtesy the journal

Michael Nevin‘s the journal is akin to an unfolding art project, a published collaborative diary of art, photography, fashion, music, zines and pop culture that converge and merge in a mix of commercial, art, and DIY creatives. While a range of art-historical precedents—of multi-disciplinary explorations by artists working in print, fashion, music, and collaborating with photographers and contemporary dance—are increasingly visible today, the journal stands out with its 10+ year history, adding to New York City’s fine tradition of artist-run projects of magazines, printed matter, and periodicals: Interview, Index, Zing, et al.

AO on site: Interview with Michael Nevin

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Anish Kapoor, Shooting Into the Corner, via The Telegraph–>

Last week brought the grand opening of Anish Kapoor‘s latest exhibition, his first ever in his native India. Kapoor claims to embrace his Indian heritage but believes that an artist’s identity should be based on their creativity, not nationality. He has in fact been looking for a suitable exhibition space in India for nearly a decade, finally deciding on the National Gallery of Modern Art and the Mehboob Film Studios.

National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, via Flickr–>

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Inside the Bermondsey Street warehouse, via NovaLoca

London art dealer Jay Jopling has just announced that the former Recall warehouse in Bermondsey Street will soon be converted to a gallery under his White Cube umbrella.  Jopling, through White Cube, represents such artists as Jake & Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Marc Quinn and his former wife Sam Taylor-Wood, among others.
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Jay Jopling, via The Rich Life

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