A Van Gogh expert is claiming that she has found a collection of 65 previously unseen drawings by Vincent Van Gogh, sparking a fierce dispute over its authenticity.  “The Van Gogh Museum has been aware for some time of the album of drawings that is now being presented as a lost Arles sketchbook by Vincent van Gogh,” the The Van Gogh Museum said in a statement.  “Our researchers and curators are happy about every new work that can correctly be attributed to Van Gogh, but on the basis of high-quality photographs sent to them of 56 drawings – out of 65 in total – they were of the opinion that these could not be attributed to Vincent van Gogh.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports on the ongoing plans for the LACMA expansion, as Peter Zumthor plans the $600 million project.  Construction is set to begin in 2018, and will feature a series of low, snaking buildings that will contrast with the landscape of Wilshire Boulevard around it. (more…)

Artist Gavin Turk sits down with psychoanalyst Darren Leader for an interview in the Guardian. The shape-shifting artist discusses his early work and the subject of his practice.  “I wanted to be able to sustain a critical distance from my art,” Turk says of his early practice.  “I would look at other artists and see that here was the work and here was the artist and there was sometimes not an obvious correlation. I realized that there was a separation between the person who’s making the art and the art itself. But I was interested in putting the artist’s name or signature or brand into the actual place of the artwork.” (more…)

Gerhard Richter is featured in an interview with Huffington Post this week. The artist discusses his view on the state of art, and how the art world will continue to change over the next decades.  “Art will shed all of its gravity and transform into something merry and democratic,” he says, referencing Thomas Mann. “It’s now more than merry. There has never been so much art … We don’t need it. We need entertainment. Sensations.” (more…)

Anne Barlow, the current head of New York’s Art in General, will head up the Tate St. Ives when the institution re-opens in 2017.  Barlow previously served as curator of education and media programs at the New Museum. (more…)

Tetsumi Kudo (Installation View), All images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.

Following three group exhibitions, contextualizing artist Tetsumi Kudo’s oeuvre in conversation with peers such as Paul Thek, Hannah Wilke, and Alina Szapocznikow, Andrea Rosen Gallery is currently presenting the third solo exhibition dedicated to the late Japanese artist.  Bridging his hometown and Europe through the course of his career, Kudo demonstrated a rare artistic vision and intellectual perspective that led his work to be regarded alongside that of Joseph Beuys, Yayoi Kusama, and Mike Kelley, one of the artist’s foremost admirers and an avid supporter of his work in the West.

Tetsumi Kudo, Portrait D’Artiste dans la Crise (1977)

Kudo, heavily influenced by the political turmoil and commercialist phenomena during the post-war era in both the East and the West, began his bird cage sculptures during the mid 1960’s, shortly after moving to Paris, and continued the series until the beginning of the ‘80’s.  Store-bought bird cages, in various sizes and colors, house an ample span of mundane and extraordinary objects and artifacts, each twisted through Kudoo’s uniquely enigmatic perspective and consumed by the intersection of narratives that take place within its barred confines.

Tetsumi Kudo (Installation View)

While Japan’s “anti-art” movement in the 1950’s ushered the artist to rebuff dominant art practicism and to experiment with banal and everyday materials, his tenure in Paris immersed his work in a conversation with the avant-garde experimentalism of the neo-Dada circles, in which he organized and performed happenings that blurred the separation between art and reality.

Tetsumi Kudo, Portrait of Artist in the Crisis (1978)

This same sense of attenuated reality persists here, as his sculptures, meticulously installed on pedestals throughout the exhibition space, pushes an engagement with consumer-grade objects en route to portrayal of socio-political and ideological milestones that shaped our understanding of the 20th century.  Western consumerism collides with perceptions of the body, while the historical introduction of such commercial goods to Japanese society remains a dominant narrative point on the surface in these multi-faceted sculptures.

Nevertheless, the scrutiny of European humanism and its impact on colonialism, war, and social alienation also present themselves, woven through the installation by inclusions of phalluses, bodily decay, and images of degradation, references to the cultural impact of the Vietnam War and a future governed by technological mastery.  These sculptures interpret the past and narrate the future through Kudo’s nuanced scope, encapsulating the dichotomies embedded in the human condition.

Tetsumi Kudo (Installation View)

Tetsumi Kudo is on view at Andrea Rosen Gallery through November 16, 2016.

— O.C. Yerebakan

Related Link:
Andrea Rosen Gallery [Exhibition Page]

Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXV (1977), which sets a new world record at $66,327,500  via Art Observed

New York City’s week of marquee auctions, and its seemingly unpredictable results, continued tonight, as Christie’s concluded its offering in the Post-War and Contemporary markets, an impressively strong and consistent sale that saw 7 of 61 lots going unsold to reach a final tally of $276,972,500. (more…)

Albanian president and artist Edi Rama is profiled in The Guardian this week, as he prepares to open an exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery.  “If art cannot make politics more sane,” he says, “politics, with its insanity, can sometimes make art even better.” (more…)

Collector and co-chair of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Elaine Wynn is interviewed in Forbes this week, discussing her motivations behind collecting art, and her decision to purchase Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud for $142 million.  “First I was worried I’d want to buy it,” she says. “Then I was worried I might not get it.” (more…)

The MFA Boston is planning a $24 million renovation project, including a 22,000-square-foot conservation center that will expand the institution’s capabilities.  “It’s a very positive moment for us,” says MFA director Matthew Teitelbaum. “I think people will see it as a real affirmation of our core responsibilities, and I feel very good about that.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper profiles the ongoing struggles of digital art startups to effectively capture large portions of target markets, particularly given resistance from the tech-savvy under-35 demographic.  “True disruption doesn’t come from entrepreneurs. In the art world, it has always come from the artists. Anyone waiting for the internet to disrupt can keep waiting,” says Pace head Marc Glimcher. (more…)

Edvard Munch, Girls on the Bridge (1902), via Art Observed

The packed week of New York auctions began uptown tonight, as Sotheby’s capped its Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale this evening to unexpectedly energetic results, reaching a final tally of $157,714,75o, with 9 of the night’s 42 lots offered going unsold.  Auctioneer Helena Newman led a brisk sale over the course of the evening, coordinating quick back and forth bids that kept prices rising and works moving quickly, a performance that earned a number of strong sales in the early lots, and kept momentum high until the last lots of the sale, when enthusiasm seemed to peter out. (more…)

Artist Richard Prince was commissioned to design the cover for the final A Tribe Called Quest record, out this month.  The artist’s design incorporates his own rugged hand into the group’s signature red, black and green color scheme.   (more…)

The Art Market Monitor analyzes the current market for Gerhard Richter, noting the artist’s recent decline in market prices, and the inclination for both buyers and sellers to avoid recent Richter pieces on offer.   (more…)

The Financial Times profiles dealer John Kasmin this week, as the British dealer reflects back on the course of his career, and the impact he made on the Post-War art world.  “I said all artists do is produce the work, the dealer has to create its allure,” he says.  “Rather a silly remark, but it’s not completely untrue.” (more…)

The New York Times previews the week of auctions in the wake of the U.S. elections, and questions how the art market may be affected.  “There has been a lot of insecurity and it’s hard to say exactly what will happen,” says Jay Gorney, a collector and curator. (more…)

The WSJ offers its perspective on the week’s auctions, exploring the offerings across each auction house through a selection of top paintings, including works by Gerhard Richter and Willem de Kooning in its forecast. (more…)

David Hockney is interviewed in The Guardian this week, as the artist offers his perspectives on the U.S. election, and his take on politics in general.  “I’ve only lived in England, France and the United States, and in each of these countries you’re very free,” he says.  “So I just let the politics do what it’s doing. I’m not interested enough. I’m interested in other things.” (more…)

Painter Zeng Fanzhi is profiled in the New York Times this week, as he reflects back on his career, and his growth alongside China’s art market.  “You might say I am very cunning,” he says. “I only sell my paintings to those who really like them. Then those people will help me promote my works.” (more…)

Germany’s Cultural Property Protection Law is preventing the conversion of a 1,000 year old castle, Schloss Derneburg, in Hannover, which was purchased from painter Georg Baselitz, and was intended to become a museum.  “We continue to review the situation. We plan to show art at Derneburg — but it could well be work that is not from the Hall or Hall Art Foundation collections because of the new law,” says Maryse Brand, director of the Hall Art Foundation, which was also founded by owners Andrew and Christine Hall.   (more…)

Installation view. All images via David Zwirner gallery.

Recently closed on November 12, David Zwirner (London) presents Let us compare mythologies, a show by Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon. Both artists have been represented by the gallery since the mid-1990s, but their collaboration began only in the summer of 2015. At this time, the artists swapped a series of paintings to complete for each other. They developed each other’s work with illustration, collage and writing, in a variation on the “exquisite corpse” method (in which partners collaborate on a single concealed drawing). This collaborative technique or game was used by the Surrealists to produce works in the early twentieth century. In this exhibition, it is nearly impossible to tell where one artist’s portion ends and the other’s begins—indicating how both strove to create a single coherent piece together. (more…)

Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXV (1977), via Christie’s

As the fall season moves towards December, the last major auction week of the year is set to kick off in New York, with a series of sales set to take place that will offer the last major barometer for the auction market’s health in a turbulent, and often unpredictable, year.  Beginning Monday, a series of both Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary Evening auctions will bring the last set of major works to the auction block in the U.S. before the market prepares for the holiday months.

Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait (Fright-Wig) (1986), via Sotheby’s

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Kerry James Marshall, Better Homes, Better Gardens (1994), all photos via Katerina Paitazoglu for Art Observed

The long-anticipated retrospective of the work of Kerry James Marshall has come to New York, opening its doors this week on an expansive and impressively selected body of works that spans the painter’s wide creative output and varied adventures in the painted form.  Ranging from cogently political abstraction and surrealist figuration through to studied depictions of everyday life or quietly executed self-portraits, the exhibition is a fascinating introduction and elaboration on Marshall’s artistic perspective.

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Following months of setbacks and hardships, Cairo’s Townhouse Gallery has reopened in a converted paper factory in the city.  The gallery was closed late last year by authorities, and dealt with problems this year after part of the gallery collapsed.  “Almost every work, exhibition, music performance, theatre or film presentation needs to have permission from the appropriate syndicate or censors,” says William Wells, the director of the gallery. (more…)