Museum of Islamic Art, via slickrockfilms

The 337,000 sq ft Museum of Islamic Art is designed by renowned architect I.M. Pei and is reportedly his last project at the age of 91. The “MIA” will open November 22 in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Surrounding the tiny country is Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, UAE commerce hub Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, where branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim will open in 2013. The Museum of Islamic Art is to preserve, study, and exhibit masterpieces spanning three continents and 13 centuries.

I.M. Pei designed Islamic Museum of Art opens; run by 25 year old Qatar royalty [Wmagazine]
In separate events, Qatar’s ruling family buys 72.8M Rothko, $52.7M Bacon, $19M Hirst [ArtObserved]
Art and Architecture in the Middle East [TimesUK]
Middle East museum a tasteful alternative to flashy development [SmartBrief]
Museum of Islamic Art: an international centre for dialogue [MuslimNews]

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Photomontage of Lobster, Jeff Koons, set in “Salon de Mars” at Versailles via MSNBC

In September, one of the worlds highest-paid living artist, Jeff Koons, will invade the Palace of Versaille and (controversially) install up some of his best-known works around the chateau and gardens. The 52-year-old artist will exhibit 12 to 15 of his works, including Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold), which sold in 2007 for $23.7 million, his highly recognizable Balloon Dog (Magenta), and his 1986 chrome steel Rabbit. Versaille’s President Jean-Jacques Aillagon, who previously managed the Palazzo Grassi, Pinault’s contemporary-art museum in Venice, has announced that the show will go from September 10 until December 14.

Koons Goes to Versailles [Artinfo]
Koons brings kitsch to Versailles [Guardian]
Jeff Koons to Exhibit at Palace of Versailles Next September [Bloomberg]

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Sotheby’s, the global auction house, showed a decline in profit by 11% in the second-quarter: net income marked $95.3 million ($1.49 per share). This is a drop from $107.3 million ($1.64 per share) versus the same time last year, however it is a net profit versus a net loss from last quarter. According to Sotheby’s, the decline is due to recent change to auction schedule. Chief Executive William Ruprecht assured that while wealthy customers with continues to drive the business, Sotheby’s is less likely to be affected by economic woes. Despite the profit drop the news was seen by some analysts as positive in its show of resilience. According to one analyst quoted by Bloomberg: “The demand side is very strong. It’s driven by commodity wealth, particularly in oil.”

Sotheby’s corporate site
Sotheby’s Says Rich Still Buying [Forbes]
Sotheby’s second-quarter profit falls [Reuters UK]
Sotheby’s Profit Falls 11 Percent After Sale Change [Bloomberg]

Untitled, Yue Minjun (2005) via Saatchi Gallery

The Saatchi Gallery will open its new London site on October 9th in the Duke of York’s Headquarters building on King’s Road. The gallery, founded by advertising executive Charles Saatchi, will feature contemporary Chinese artists in its inaugural exhibition: “The Revolution Continues: New Art from China.” According to the gallery’s publicists, Freud Communications, the show will feature works from 30 leading painters, sculptors, and installation artists, such as Yue Minjun, Feng Zhengjie, Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Dali, Zhang Haiying, Qiu Jie, and many more.

Saatchi’s pledge for new art gallery [Guardian]
The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art [Saatchi Gallery]
Saatchi Gallery to Open at New London Site With Chinese Artists [Bloomberg]
Saatchi Gallery to Open at New London Site With Chinese Artists [GG-Art]
View a virtual tour of the gallery here [Saatchi Gallery]

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Tracey Emin in front of Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez’s sculptures via Guardian

After a slew of traffic-heavy evenings at the Tracy Emin curated “Summer Exhibition 2008” at the Royal Academy of Art, it was on an uneventful Saturday afternoon that a visitor knocked over “Christina”, a 9 ft tall sculpture by Costa Rican artist, Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez. Though the piece wasn’t of major magnitude in cost and is valued at $12K it was described by Tracey Emin as the star of the show.

Art: Smashed sculpture proves show-stopper [Guardian]
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Visitor shatters £6,000 art work [BBC]
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Summer Exhibition 2008 [The Royal Academy]

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Louvre’s glass-roofed Islamic wing via Guardian

The Louvre Museum in Paris has commenced the construction of its new Islamic art wing with plans to finish it in 2010. The new wing, which is being called “The Veil”, has been described by its Italian architect, Mario Bellini, as a Muslim “headscarf blown in the wind.” The $100 to $135 million project will provide 33,000 square feet of space to exhibit the Louvre expansive Islamic Art collection. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has claimed that the wing is more than a space to exhibit Islamic art but also a symbol of the friendship that exists between France and the Arab world. The Saudi prince, Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world’s wealthiest men, is contributing $20.5 million to the project, other funding is coming from oil giant Total and Lafarge, as well as the French government.

Louvre draws a veil over artistic neglect with bold new Islamic wing [Guardian]
Prince funds Louvre Islamic wing [BBC]
First stone laid for Louvre’s Islamic art gallery [Associated Press]
Sarkozy lauds Islam at Louvre ceremony with Saudi prince [AFP]
Islamic Art [The Louvre]

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Drawing of Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ, Lucas van Leyden (c.1520) via NYTimes

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has recently acquired a rare drawing from Netherlandish artist Lucas van Leyden. It is one of only 28 existing drawings from the artist, and is the sole Lucas van Leyden drawing to reside in the United States. The sixteenth century drawing depicts the Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ, and will be apart of the fall exhibit honoring Met director Philippe de Montebello’s tenure at the museum. The drawing was discovered by a lucky collector, who found it unreferenced and tucked into the back of an auction catalogue.

Angels Appear, and Museums Rejoice [NYTimes]
Met Acquires Rare Lucas Van Leyden Drawing [Artinfo]
Metropolitan Museum Acquires Lucas van Leyden Drawing [Artdaily]
Overlooked at Christie’s [NYSun]
Press Release: Metropolitan Museum Acquires Lucas van Leyden Drawing [Designtaxi]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met]

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Hume, Four Doors I, (1989-90) via ArtBistro

Almost two decades after Gary Hume emerged onto the British art scene with his famous “Door Paintings”, the Modern Art Oxford will present the first survey of his work. The exhibition will go through August 31 and was curated by Suzanne Cotter. The first of his “Door Paintings” was inspired by an ad for a British private health insurance company, which featured an image of waiting in a dismal hospital waiting area. Since then, the style of his doors have evolved and the series has provided Hume with great success. His works are large scale, monochrome, painted with household gloss paint.

Garry Hume: Door Paintings [Modern Art Oxford]
Gary Hume at Modern Art Oxford [Artbistro]
Gary Hume: the doors that unhinged the establishment [Telegraph]
Gary Hume: Door Paintings [Artrabbit] (more…)

Hirst and McLaren via the Daily News

Damien Hirst buys vintage clothing by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, which turns out to be fake and more here [NY Daily News] [Vogue]
Parisian show of works without owners, once collected for Hitler’s super-museum [Bloomberg]
Beijing’s Dashanzi arts district is booming [NYTimes]
Review of Harvard economist-written “best book on the economics of the contemporary art market” [Portfolio]
Jackie Wullschlager on Communist artist Fernand Léger: Picasso’s “tubist” [Financial Times]

The Taking of Christ (Or, The Kiss of Judas), Caravaggio, 1573-1602 via Coxsoft

A painting by the master artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ (Or, The Kiss of Judas) was reported stolen from the Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art in the Ukraine. Thieves were able to sidestep the outdated alarm system, and escape through the museum’s roof. Originally purchased by a Russian ambassador, the painting had come into the museum’s hands last century. More details after the jump.

Caravaggio Stolen From Odessa Museum [Artinfo]
Caravaggio’s Christ Painting Stolen [Abc News]
Ukraine Laments Theft of a Caravaggio from museum [Reuters]
Caravaggio Work Stolen from Ukranian Museum (IHT)

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Keith Haring Mural

A week ago, Angel Ortiz, an artist known as LA II added his own touches to the Keith Haring tribute mural, covered in April by AO here, that has stood at Bowery and Houston streets since April. With the help of artist and gallerist, Clayton Patterson, Mr. Ortiz filled in blank spaces on the public mural, which he deemed fair game. It is yet another chapter in a 20 year long legal dispute with The Haring Foundation. He claims the Foundation has failed to credit collaborative work he did as an underage teenager with Haring in the early to mid eighties.

Haring’s ‘Silent Partner’ Speaks [NYsun]
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Keith Haring’s Silent Partner [VillageVoice]
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Arts Brief: Writing on the Wall [NYpress]
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Little Angel Was Here: A Keith Haring Collaborator Makes His Mark [NYTimes]
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Keith Haring’s mural in the East Village [Art Observed]

Installation View via Matthew Marks Gallery

Painting: Now and Forever, Part II remains on view through August 15 as a joint exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery, 522 West 22nd Street and Greene Naftali Gallery, 508 West 26th Street. The show is a reprisal of one held ten years ago, but from a different angle. The artists in the current show are Kai Althoff, Cosima von Bonin, Merlin Carpenter, Mathew Cerletty, Wojciech Fangor, Katharina Fritsch, Gelitin, Isa Genzken, Poul Gernes, Daan van Golden, Jack Goldstein, Rodney Graham, Wade Guyton, Richard Hawkins, Mary Heilmann, Sophie von Hellermann, Charline von Heyl, Ull Hohn, Sergej Jensen, Mike Kelley, Ellsworth Kelly, Karen Kilimnik, Martin Kippenberger, Michael Krebber, William Leavitt, Michel Majerus, Bjarne Melgaard, Laura Owens, Blinky Palermo, Stephen Prina, R.H. Quaytman, Ugo Rondinone, Paul Sharits, Josh Smith, Reena Spaulings, Lily van der Stokker, Atsuko Tanaka, Paul Thek, Anne Truitt, Kelley Walker, Christopher Wool, and Katharina Wulff.

Painting: Now and Forever, Part II [Artcal]
Painting Now and Forever, Part II at Green Naftali [Flavorpill]
Painting: Now and Forever, Part II at Green Naftali and Matthew Marks [Design Boom]
Painting: Now and Forever, Part II, in collaboration with Green Naftali Gallery [Matthew Marks]
Painting: Now and Forever, Part II [Village Voice]

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Andy Warhol’s Muhammed Ali Print via Artinfo

Warhol’s $28m “Athletes” series in Beijing for the Olympics [Macau Art]
Armed thieves steal 15 Antonio Berni works worth $2.2m in Buenos Aires [Art Daily]
New niche for ‘functional sculpture’ or art-as-furniture, among the big art buyers [Independent]
An increase in collectors wanting liquidity in their art by borrowing against it [NYSun]
Western art galleries in Beijing work quickly to cater to new wealthy Asian buyers [Telegraph]
Pretty Ugly at Gavin Brown and Maccarone reviewed the Times, previously covered by AO here [NYTimes]

Damien Hirst at the White Cube Gallery via Museum Lab

As previously covered by AO here Damien Hirst, is preparing for his Sotheby’s auction this September and has come out with a new formaldehyde suspended tiger shark, a cow with golden horns and hooves, a unicorn, in addition to spot paintings, and butterfly collages, among many other newly created works made specifically for the all-Hirst auction. The sale, entitled Beautiful in My Mind Forever, will be comprised of 223 lots, and is expected to raise somewhere between $100 million and $150 million over the two-day sale that takes place on September 15th and 16th. The Golden Calf alone is expected to sell at a high of $25 million. The sale is extremely notable as Hirst is circumventing his main dealers Larry Gagosian in New York and Jay Jopling of White Cube in London and going directly to auction. Though Jopling and Gagosian have ostensibly given their blessing, the auction reflects a potentially new paradigm in the the way art is sold.

Golden calf, bull’s heart, a new shark: Hirst’s latest works may fetch £65m [Guardian]
Damien Hirst brings £65m of his wares to market [Times Online]
Artist Hirst Jumps the Shark, Cuts Out [NYPost]
Hirst auction expected to raise £65m [Financial Times]
Hirst Still Playing Elaborate Joke On Hedge Fund Community [Dealbreaker]
Damien Hirst auction expected to fetch £65 million and Art sales: Bullish Hirst Rattles the Market [Telegraph]
Damien Hirst is Rewriting the Rules of the Market [The Art Newspaper]
Damien Hirst: Beautiful Inside My Head Forever [Sotheby’s]
Hirst auction expected to fetch 65 million pounds [APF]
Hirst’s ‘Golden Calf’ could sell for $16-$24 million at Sotheby’s London [ArtObserved]

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Chanel’s Mobile Art pavilion via NYTimes

Karl Lagerfeld, Artistic Director of CHANEL, Maureen Chiquet, Global CEO of CHANEL, and Bruno Pavlovsky, CHANEL Fashion President, along with Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of the Department of Parks & Recreation for the City of New York, and Douglas Blonsky, President of the Central Park Conservancy and Central Park Administrator, have announced that the Mobile Art Pavilion will touch ground in Central Park on October 20th and will stay through November 9th. The spacecraft-looking pavilion will sit in the Rumsey Playfield, around the center of the park at 5th Ave and 69th Street. Mobile Art is a 7,500-square-foot traveling art gallery that exhibits changing installations created by some of the leading international contemporary artists, such as Nobuyoshi Araki, the Blue Noses, Daniel Buren, Sophie Calle, Wim Delvoye, Sylvie Fleury, Yang Fudong, Subodh Gupta, Y.Z. Kami, Yoko Ono and Pierre & Gilles.

Central Park to Host Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid [Dexigner]
Chanel Rents Central Park for Tacky Art Pavilion [Artnet]
Central Park To Host a Chanel Commission [NYSun]
Central Park to Host Exhibition Pavilion by Zaha Hadid [Contract Magazine]
A 7,500-Square-Foot Ad for Chanel, With an Artistic Mission [NYTimes]
Central Park to Host Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container By Zaha Hadid [Artdaily]
Chanel Brings Giant Ad/Art to Central Park [Gothamist]
More on Mobile Art covered by Art Observed here

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P.F.1 in the P.S.1 courtyard via NYSun

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art, has its summer courtyard installation up and running. This year, the ninth annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program selected WORK Architecture Company, from New York, to transform the outdoor courtyard into a fully functional urban farm, called Public Farm One, or P.F.1. The farm will stay at P.S.1 through the month of September.

Farming at the Museum [NYSun]
Works Like a Farm and Celebrating P.F.1 [Men’s Vogue]
Summer Farming at P.S.1 [Artnet]
Amale Andraos on the MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program [Artinfo]
In Farm’s Way: PS1’s Hipster Farm [NYPress]
Going Farming at P.S.1’s Warm-Up Parties [VillageVoice]
P.F.1 (Public Farm One) by Work Architecture Company in P.S.1’s courtyard [PS1]

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New extension to Tate Modern, designed by Herzog & de Meuron via Tate

The Tate Modern has announced a new development in the plan for it’s new wing. World-renowned Swiss Architectural firm, Herzog & de Meuron, has designed the new plan for the extension, called Tate Modern 2 (TM2). The extension was originally designed as a cubic glass-cast pyramid shaped structure, but has been redesigned to better complement the structure of the existing Tate Modern and be more sustainable. The project has a $429 million budget, and has so far received $100 million from the government, $14 million from the London Development Agency, and $26 million from private donors for the project. Work on the site will ensue in 2009, and is projected to be finished by 2012, but if the budget is not met, this could cause a delay in its completion.

New twist to the rise of Tate Modern [Financial Times]
Tate Goes Green with New Plans [Artforum]
Transforming Tate Modern: Green Scheme for Tate Modern’s New Building [Artdaily]
Tate revises £215m extension plan [BBC]
Tate Modern Redesigns New Wing; May Not Open in 2012 [Bloomberg]
£100m new wing plan for Tate Modern [Telegraph]
New Tate Modern design [Wallpaper]

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Moses Contra Freud, RB Kitaj (2005) via Royal Academy of Arts

Recently appointed Royal Academician, artist Tracey Emin has curated a gallery at the current Royal Academy Summer Exhibition which is the institution’s 240th event of this kind. The exhibition, whose theme this year is ‘Man Made’, is a well-recognized annual event in the contemporary art world and includes works from approximately 1,200 artists, both established and emerging.

Emin brings sex, death to UK Royal Academy show [Reuters]
Tracey Emin at the Royal Academy summer show [TimesOnline]
Row erupts over Tracey Emin’s ‘offensive’ selections for Royal Academy exhibition [DailyMail]
Tracey Emin at Royal Academy [ViewLondon]
Tracey Emin RA on curating Gallery 8 of the Summer Exhibition [RA Magazine]
The Summer Exhibition: A Culture Show Special [RoyalAcademy]
Newslinks: Tracey Emin’s controversial selections for Royal Academy [Art Observed]

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Jeff Koons at the Met via Artfagcity

NYMag explores how the art of Jeff Koons somehow stands above the other “razzmatazz” [NYMag]
Profile of collector Eli Broad and his “oversize ego and unstoppable ambition” [Metropolis]
The art services market grows in lockstep with art prices [NYTimes]
Edvard Munch prices seem to be rising in direct correlation to recent art thefts of his work [The Art Newspaper]
Bloomberg posits that Banksy’s possible middle class private school background may affect his notoriety [Bloomberg]

The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City via Guardian

The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York announced yesterday, July 15, that they are starting a new international triennial art exhibition in the spring of 2009. The triennial, entitled Younger than Jesus, will showcase young emerging artists from Generation Y, born circa 1980. A curatorial team led by the director of special exhibitions Massimiliano Gioni, senior curator Laura Hoptman, and Rhizome.org director and adjunct curator Lauren Cornell, along with a network of ten international correspondents and over 150 “informers” are organizing the triennial and scouting the young artists.

New Museum Plans Triennial, Seeks Young Artists for 2009 Debut [Bloomberg]
New Museum Launches Triennial [Artinfo]
New Museum Plans Emerging Artist Triennial [NYSun]
New Triennial from New Museum [Artnet]
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This photograph taken in Jamaica four years ago, is believed to be Banksy via Daily Mail

After a year long investigation, Graffiti artist Banksy revealed? More here, and here [Daily Mail], [NYTimes], [Supertouchart]
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Ad agencies reverse the long-evident trend of artists poaching from popular ads by creating popular ads that poach from artists [NYTimes]
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A profile of Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Daria “Dasha” Zhukova, a new player on the art scene [TimesUK]
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Previously thought ‘fake’ is a Rembrandt, but not a self-portrait [The Art Newspaper]
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The Sun reviews Art Market tome ‘The $12 Million Stuffed Shark’ previously covered by AO here [NYSun]
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On Page Six: 303 Gallery employee fired for mistaking Marc Jacobs for a homeless man and Andres Serrano keeps it gritty in his new Chelsea show [NYPost]
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MoMA assembles modern prefab houses in adjacent vacant lot [NYTimesMag]

Running in the Tate via Bloomberg

Head’s up to visitors of the Tate Britain: from now until November 16, every thirty seconds from 10am – 6pm, an athlete will make a fast 85 meter dash from one end of Duveen Hall to the other. While running is not normally encouraged at the Tate, this particular athletic display is actually a commissioned artwork entitled Work No. 850 by British artist Martin Creed. Creed has instructed the runners, who he recruited from athletic magazines and are being paid an hourly wage, to “run like their life depended on it.” The artwork is part of an ongoing series of commissioned contemporary sculpture in the Duveen Galleries of Tate Britain, sponsored by Sotheby’s.

Tate Britain [Tate]
Martin Creed [Martin Creed]experience of life. The runners i
Dashing Through the Tate Britain [NY Sun]
Interview with Martin Creed [Bloomberg]
Duveen Commission 2008 [ArtDaily]
An Idea with Legs [Guardian UK]
Sprinting Runners by Martin Creed [Telegraph UK]
View video of the exhibit at Artreview.com

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Snow Scene at Argenteuil 1875 by Claude Monet (1840-1926) via Guardian

On view at Tate Britain: 18 masterpieces recently bequeathed to British National Gallery, including works by Degas, Freud, Monet, worth roughly $200,000,000 [GuardianUK]
The art/fashion, Vuitton/Richard Prince link in London [Bloomberg]
Mutualart.com’s Top Art Exhibitions for 2008 [Businessweek]
French art thief pleads guilty in botched $4.7M masterworks sale, indictment covered by AO here [NYSun] [AO]
2009 Turner Prize judges announced [TheArtNewspaper]
MOMA buys 3 Jasper Johns works for undisclosed sum (note: 2 years ago a Johns sold for $80M) [NYTimes]

Portrait of Willem van Heythuysen, Seated on a Chair and Holding a Hunting Crop, Frans Hals (circa 1630) via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Old Master Paintings in London on Wednesday attracted an international client base and managed to raise $101.5 million in overall sales, which is the second highest amount in the company’s history for an auction of this genre.

The sale included not only pieces of exceptional quality, but also a number of works which had previously been held in private collections and therefore had not been on the market for some time. A re-discovered painting by Frans Hals (Pictured above), which was heretofore believed to be a copy, sold for $13,995,067 which not only exceeded its pre-sale estimate of $6.0-$10.0 million, but which also was the second highest price ever paid for a work by the artist at auction.

There were numerous other auction records set that evening, including record sales by artists including Guido Reni, Jacobo Tintoretto, Taddeo di Bartolo, Frans van Mieris the Elder and Jan Brueghel the Elder. An impressive 58% of lots sold at the auction garnered bids in excess of their estimates, contributing to the sale’s success as a whole.

Sotheby’s Auction Results: Old Master Paintings Evening Sale [Sotheby’s]
Old Masters Perform at Sotheby’s London [NYSun]
Old Master Paintings Soar at Sotheby’s Realizing $101.5 Million [Artdaily]
At Sotheby’s, Exceptional Old Master Offerings Lead to Six Records [International Herald Tribune]
Old Master Paintings Soar at Sotheby’s Auction in London [News-Antique]
Old Master Paintings Realize $101.5 Million at Sotheby’s [AuctionPublicity]
Sotheby’s Week of Old Masters Realizes GBP45.2 Million [SGallery]

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