Twelve works from the collection Miles and Shirley Fiterman will hit the auction block at Christie’s this November in New York, including works by Roy Lichtenstein and Pablo Picasso.  “They have artists in great depth,” says Laura Paulson, Christie’s chairwoman of postwar and contemporary art. “Miles and Shirley were incredibly passionate — it really can’t be overstated — they were actively involved as a couple in collecting. They had deep relationships with their dealers and with the artists they collected.” (more…)

Both the Whitney Museum and Centre Pompidou will open exhibitions devoted to transformative gifts from collectors and art advisors Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner.   “Thea and Ethan are among the most astute collectors of late twentieth century and early twenty-first-century art and their gift adds enormous strength to the Whitney’s collection. We are deeply grateful to them and are pleased to be collaborating with our friends at the Pompidou,” says Whitney President Adam Weinberg. (more…)

Agnes Martin, Untitled (1999-2000), via Sotheby’s

With the opening days of the Frieze art fair in London also come the annual fall auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, launching another season of marquee sales at the auction houses.  Starting on October 14th, one day after the fair opens its doors for the VIP viewing, the sales will offer a second opportunity for collectors to vie for top works. (more…)

Richard Long, Untitled (2006), via Lisson Gallery

This week, the global art world touches down in Regent’s Park for the 13th edition of the Frieze art fair, marking one of the first major staples of the fall festival circuit in London.  Featuring over 160 galleries from both the UK and around the globe, the event promises another year of in-depth exhibitions, special projects and installations across the British capital. (more…)

Sol LeWitt, Drawing Series I,II,III,IIII (Drawings for Xerox Book) 24 Drawings (1968), via Art Observed

In 1968, a group of artists interested in the material limits of art practice, and the interrelations between text, language and action launched The Xerox Book, a published art book culling contributions from Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, and Lawrence Weiner to be printed and copied as an easily distributed art work.  Presented at Paula Cooper’s 21st Street Location in New York, The Xerox Book is a return to this landmark publication, incorporating a series of works and objects drawn from or inspired by each artist’s contributions.

The Xerox Book (Installation View) © Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Photo: Steven Probert

(more…)

Damien Hirst is planning on opening a new edition of his famed restaurant “Pharmacy” at his Newport Street Gallery next year, the Evening Standard reports.  The new space inherits Hirst’s penchant for controversy from the original, which was ultimately barred by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain over its confusing name. (more…)

David Zwirner has announced that it is now representing the estate of painter Sigmar Polke.  “Growing up in Cologne, I had the great fortune of meeting Sigmar and witnessing firsthand the enormous influence he exerted on his generation and the ones that followed,” Zwirner himself says.  “His creativity and curiosity knew no bounds, and his ability to innovate across different media is unparalleled.” (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced another flagship work in its New York Impressionist and Modern auctions this coming November, Picasso’s La Gommeuse, which features a hidden portrait on the back side of the canvas.  “With her dreamy gaze and frank sensuality, the cabaret dancer in La Gommeuse ushers in a new visual idiom for the 20th century,” says Simon Shaw, co-head of Sotheby’s worldwide impressionist and modern art department. (more…)

Santiago Rumney Guggenheim, great-grandson of the collector Peggy Guggenheim and son of gallerist Sandro Rumney, is opening a new project space in the former Williamsburg Savings Bank at 834 Driggs.  “Here, in this project, I try to carry on the legacy of my family by bringing new faces to the art world,” Rumney Guggenheim says. “But I am making a strong point to my family that I am trying to build this on my own.” (more…)

Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Orange over Mountain Walk, Italian Mask M30.g) (2014), via Anton Kern

Twisting the formal language of both his chosen objects and the painterly signifiers he has built up over the course of his career, Mark Grotjahn returns to Anton Kern Gallery for his fourth solo exhibition with the New York Gallery.  Building on the sculptural objects presented last year at the artist’s exhibition at the Nasher in Dallas, the works on view take Grotjahn’s interest in cast-off materials and repurposed objects, the show turns the artist’s frequently reoccurring subject, the cardboard box, into a container for his own aesthetic interests. (more…)

Dana Schutz, Fight in an Elevator (2015), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Petzel Gallery is a series of new works by artist Dana Schutz, the New York-based painter whose fluid hand, surreal scenarios and meticulous commitment to polymorphous narratives have made her a leading voice among U.S. painters. (more…)

Damien Hirst’s £25m, 37,000 sq ft Newport Street Gallery has opened, drawing rave reviews from The Guardian.  “I’ve felt guilt owning work that’s stored away in boxes where no one can see it. Having a space where I can put on shows from the collection is a dream come true,” Hirst says. (more…)

Carlyle and Banque Pictet have announced plans for an art market venture that will provide funding for collectors in exchange for up to 50 per cent of the value of the art.  “We will drive the institutionalization of this huge market. By introducing more liquidity to the market, we think the cost of capital for these assets will go down and the value will go up,” said Oliver Sarkozy, of Carlyle’s Global Financial Services Fund, and who is investing in the project. “Leverage generally means asset prices inflate.” (more…)

MoMA PS1 has announced that it will offer free admission to New Yorker’s for the next year, thanks to a gift by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.  “It is important to give back to New York City, a city with so many artists,” says Marina Kellen French, the vice president of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.  “MoMA PS1 in Queens has many exhibitions that should be seen by everybody from all five boroughs. I hope the gift will help MoMA PS1 efforts to lower the barriers to enter the museum and reach out to an even wider audience.” (more…)

LACMA has a post on its Unframed blog this week, following the life Human the dog from Pierre Huyghe’s work recently installed in the museum, and her owner, artist Marlon Middeke, as he opens a show in Kassel.  “Marlon takes back mastery of himself after years of being, quite literally, just a piece of Huyghe’s art,” writes author Brian Sonia-Wallace. (more…)

Phillips has announced a non-selling exhibition of works by Barbara Hepworth next summer in London, organized by Andrew Bonacina, the chief curator at the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire.  The show “will serve to show the strength and importance of our collection to a wider audience”, says Simon Wallis, the gallery director. (more…)

Douglas Druick, the current president and director at the The Art Institute of Chicago, has announced that he will be stepping down from his post when a replacement is found. “I have been deeply proud to lead one of the finest museums in the world and to work for three decades with an exceptional cadre of remarkably talented museum colleagues,” Druick says. (more…)

A $25 million gift from trustee David Rubenstein has ensured a new expansion of the Duke arts program, aiding in the construction of a $50 million arts building, billed as “a major step in Duke’s commitment to supporting the artistic work of our students and faculty,” according to Duke President Richard Brodhead. (more…)

Interview takes a look inside Theaster Gates’s recently completed Stony Island Arts Bank on the south side of Chicago, and the artistic impetus behind the project.  “I often meet people who live in my neighborhood, when I’m downtown or in other neighborhoods, and we’re all looking for the same amenities,” he says.  “We all want to go to the reggae spot up north, we all want to go to the jazz club downtown. So I think that being here, I’m thinking about, “What are the amenities that I want to benefit from?” In their absence, I feel like, “All right, maybe I should make them.” (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, Iquitos Dos (2013), All images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.

David Zwirner is currently presenting artist Wolfgang Tillmans’ PCR, his first exhibition with the gallery following his departure from longtime representatives Andrea Rosen Gallery. Doing the justice to the exhibition’s inaugural nature, the gallery has reserved its two locations on 19th street for the massive show of photographs, sculpture and video, which takes its name from an abbreviation of the scientific term “polymerase chain reaction.”  A technique applied in molecular biology to reach a deeper and more particular genetic identity for a person’s DNA, PCR serves as a metaphor for the works on view, which near a hundred in total.  Each piece here underscores the breadth and depth of the artist’s expansive oeuvre, and every piece, similar to a molecule, contributes to build a larger pattern, holding traces of the German-born artist’s decades long career. (more…)

David Douard, bat-breath battery (Installation View), all photos by Daphné Mookherjee for Art Observed

David Douard’s bat-breath battery, presented at the Gallery Chantal Crousel, is a hybridization of formal territories, exploring correlations between poetry and vernacular, human and machine – recurring interests for the artist.  Often delving into the mechanisms of transformation and development, Douard’s work centers on  infectious relations between different worlds and objects, explained through media terminologies that draw from tech, biology, history, and visual culture at large.

(more…)

MoMA PS1 has announced the artist list for its recurring Greater New York exhibition, documenting a range of artists working in and around the New York City area.  Highlights of the list include rising star Jamian Juliano-Villani, conceptual retail project Kiosk and designer Mary Ping.  The show opens Sunday (more…)

Christie’s has announced plans for a new division of sales this coming April in New York, centering its calendar around the Revolution sale, focusing on 18th to 20th century art.  “Most of our collectors are buying in five or six different fields,” says President Jussi Pylkkanen. “Ten years ago, they may have been buying in one or two fields.” (more…)

The lawyers representing Ann Freedman in her court case over the selling of forged works at Knoedler Gallery have sent an open letter to Art Market Monitor, taking the offensive on maintaining her innocence.  “The criminals who committed these crimes have been charged.  Ann Freedman is not one of them,” the letter reads.  “The discovery in these cases has yielded tens of thousands of pages of documents.  Not one proves that Ann Freedman knew these works were forgeries.  It is the plaintiffs’ self-serving fairy tale that has allowed the case to continue for this long, but a trial will finally show the truth:  plaintiffs just want to print money (their lawsuits request three times more than what they paid for the art), and Ann Freedman just wants justice.” (more…)