Mark Grotjahn, Miller (Green) (Date TBC), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Mark Grotjahn doesn’t stay in one place for too long.  Despite the honed abstraction techniques illustrated in his long-running series like Butterfly Paintings, his recast, painted cardboard box sculptures, and the swirling figuration of his Face works, Grotjahn has also spent countless hours on small-scale projects, conceptual exercises and intriguing asides.  There is, for one, his Instagram account, a free-wheeling aesthetic testing ground where the artist has obsessively posted album covers, sets of reflexive iPhone screenshots, and bizarre scenarios culled from both his own life and printed media. (more…)

While some warn of a potential bubble burst, auction houses remain confident in Asia, pushing Chinese buyers in particular as a strong bet in the upcoming sales, particularly as new collectors expand their tastes.  “They go within one year from general purchases to sophisticated purchases, such as Surrealism and Max Ernst,” says Giovanna Bertazzoni, Christie’s deputy chairman and senior director of global auctions. (more…)

One in five UK Museums has been forced to make partial closures in the past year, or will do so in 2016, Artforum reports.  “We know from previous research that funding cuts are changing the way museums are managed with many forced to cut jobs, introduce admission charges, reduce opening hours and cut back on other services,” says  Museums Association director Sharon Heal.  (more…)

A trailer carrying over $250,000 in artworks by Matisse, Chagall, Miro, Haring and others has been stolen from a Los Angeles industrial park, the LA Times reports.  Police are still investigating the crime. (more…)

The Ellsworth Kelley Foundation has given a gift of $250,000 to the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, part of a fund that will help maintain and preserve 2,300 works located in 140 countries.  “We are profoundly saddened by his loss, but we are honored and grateful for this extraordinary gift, which guarantees that FAPE’s entire collection will be cared for in perpetuity at no cost to the government,” said FAPE chair Jo Carole Lauder. (more…)

Steve McQueen, Remember Me (2016), via Marian Goodman

“I want to put the public in a situation where everyone becomes acutely sensitive to themselves, to their body and respiration,” Steve McQueen writes in the press release to his new exhibition at Marian Goodman in Paris.  The opening line is an ominous one, hinting at both the perceptual and empathetic threads that his work often delves into, and is a fitting context for the exhibition on view, presenting the artist’s recently completed filmic work Ashes, as well as a funereal neon installation, Remember Me, both of which deal with the juxtaposition of life and death, light and darkness. (more…)

Dana Sherwood, Crossing the Wild Line (2016), courtesy the artist and Denny Gallery

Dana Sherwood’s conceptual focus is the Anthropocene, a contentious term which in essence describes our present and future epoch, framed by the destabilization of nature as impacted by human activity on earth. With a practice that spans drawing, video, and sculptural installations, her work intervenes to engage local wildlife and open up a realm of play between humans and animals. Just as Joseph Beuys instigated a political party for animals back in 1974, Sherwood has hosted a dinner party for animals, using her skills as a former baker to create decorative, decadent meals to entice her guests, ultimately presenting the results at Denny Gallery in New York. (more…)

Analysts in Luxembourg are predicting a “severe correction” to art market prices in coming months, drawing their conclusions from a compiled study of auction figures and trends.  “A certain part of the art market, especially postwar and contemporary, is in bubble territory,” said Anders Petterson, managing director of the research and analysis company ArtTactic. “The really difficult question is to predict when the bubble might burst. I guess if you wait long enough, you will eventually be proved right.” (more…)

In a study conducted by the London Art Fair, over a third of participating dealers said that rising rents and business rates are the most considerable threat to the UK’s prime position in the art world.  A sizable percentage also stated that 2016 would continue to see strong results for the contemporary market.   (more…)

South Korea has topped the list of countries with the most private art museums, boasting an impressive 45 institutions, out of 317 in the world.  “Before our research, we found a lot of guessing and exaggeration on the situation of private contemporary art museums and at the same time we found very little data available,” says Christoph Noe, the founder of Larry’s List and an author of the report. “Our motivation for the study was to get the facts first and to conduct a study as detailed as possible, directly also engaging with the private museum founders.” (more…)

The NYT reviews the ongoing struggle at the Art Students League, where almost 300 members are part of a lawsuit against the school demanding information on the school’s sale of the air rights above the institution several years ago for $31.8 million.  “The sense of collegiality that formerly existed between art students, instructors and administrators, in an ‘open-door’ policy, has disappeared,” says artist and member Marne Rizika, “and been replaced with autocratic rule, which has included hiring armed guards for members’ meetings.” (more…)

The New Yorker looks at the Met’s current push for more emphasis on contemporary art, and its impending opening of the Breuer building uptown.  “Something like ninety-nine per cent of all collectors—the rich, those who are interested and will support museums in the future—are collectors of contemporary art,” Director Thomas Campbell says. “The Met is not, as an act of volition, going to cut itself off from the supporters of the future.” (more…)

Louise Bourgeois, Maman (1999), Collection The Easton Foundation, Courtesy Garage Museum Photography by Olga Alekseenko.

Organized by Haus der Kunst, Munich in collaboration with Moscow’s recently opened Garage Museum, Structures of Existence: The Cells is the largest presentation of the series Louise Bourgeois created in the last two decades of her life, shown alongside the early paintings and drawings which led to the development of her monumental pieces. (more…)

Marlon Mullens, Untitled (2015), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

The White Columns Annual returns to the non-profit space’s West Village grounds this week, kicking the new year off with another exhibition examining the subtle threads and networks of the art world in New York and abroad through the perspective of a single voice.  Each year, the exhibition, celebrating its landmark tenth year this month, offers the position to an art world figure, whether it be a gallerist, writer, or curator, to summarize the past year in a single exhibition, often with the end result being a show that spans a diverse group of practitioners usually separated by context, art world hierarchies or other influences. (more…)

Duane Hanson’s former apartment at 184 Grand St. is on the market with an asking rent of $29,000 per month.  The three-bedroom, four-bathroom building boasts a graffiti tag from Jean-Michel Basquiat in the building stairwell.  (more…)

The Tate Modern has named Frances Morris as its new director.  Morris has worked with the Tate for the past 16 years, serving as head of displays from 2000 to 2006, when she was appointed director of collection for international art. (more…)

After two years and over $2 million invested in the project, the German government has only identified five works from the Cornelius Gurlitt trove as Nazi loot, and returned them to their rightful owners.  “The results are much better than this number indicates,” says Culture Minister Monika Grütters.  “One lesson we have learned will stay with us, namely that speed and thoroughness are not both possible in provenance research.” (more…)

Arts Council England has announced a series of 8 new commissions to celebrate the collection’s 70th Anniversary, including works by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Ryan Gander and Mark Leckey.  “Our 70th anniversary commissions demonstrate what we do best – putting artists at the heart of the collection,” says Jill Constantine, head of the ACC.  “We are thrilled that the artists, half of whom are joining the collection for the first time, will all be represented by such significant pieces.” (more…)

An article in the Guardian reflects on the late David Bowie’s ruse during the 1990’s, in which the musician and former editor for Modern Painters magazine invented a fake artist with writer William Boyd. “He published the book, he organized the launch party (on April Fool’s Day, 1998) in Jeff Koons’s studio in Manhattan – Koons was a friend of Bowie,” Boyd writes, “and it was Bowie who read out extracts of the book, absolutely deadpan, to the assembled New York glitterati.” (more…)

A Los Angeles artist is selling shadowy stand-ins for artist’s iconic works, including Jeff Koons and Constantin Brancusi, billed as a “sustainable” art appropriation.  “Ideas are extremely valuable,” artist Ana Prvacki says of her work. “And making thinner things should have more value than making huge things.  If you can get something to be super thin and really poetic, that should be really valuable. We have to stop thinking in a Costco way.” (more…)

A former schoolteacher and volunteer at the Detroit Institute of Arts gift shop has willed $1.7 million to the institution.  Elizabeth Verdow, who passed away in 2014, gave her full estate to the museum, with $1.26 million intended to buy contemporary art paintings and sculpture, and the additional $450,000 set aside for the museum’s endowment.  “We were delighted and thrilled,” says museum giving officer Deborah Odette. “I have learned never to underestimate people. Just because someone had a long career as a schoolteacher doesn’t mean they might not have means of amassing wealth, if they invest wisely and carefully and live modestly. She obviously loved her work at the museum.” (more…)

As of January 1st, the LEGO Company has reversed its policy on selling bulk orders of its product, considered by many to be a direct result of backlash and worldwide protest over its refusal to provide material to Ai Weiwei for a project in Melbourne.  “If you want to place an order for a large quantity of bricks, we won’t ask what you’re planning to build,” the company website now reads.  “We’ll simply ask you make it clear the work isn’t supported or endorsed by us if it’s for public display.” (more…)

W Magazine has a profile on Josh Roth, the head of United Talent Agency’s new art division, who is using his influence and resources to push new ventures for the company.  “We’re meeting with artists, hearing their dreams, gauging their interest levels,” Roth says. “There’s no expectation of a return on investment in the first 24 months.” (more…)

Gilbert & George
, THE BANNERS
 (Installation View), 9x9x9, White Cube Bermondsey
 © Gilbert & George. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)

THE BANNERS is the title of Gilbert & George’s ongoing exhibition at White Cube’s Bermondsey location, following the eminent duo’s larger scale installment Scapegoating Pictures for London in 2014. Resuming their sturdily rebellious stand against anything corporate or organizational, this current exhibition, akin to their previous one, appropriates the vocal language of political outrage and public protests that have been normalized and spread widely by the media.  As its self-explanatory title dictates, the exhibition includes thirty banners bearing ten different slogans and each repeating on three different white papers. (more…)