The Renzo Piano Workshop has unveiled a handbag design collaboration with fashion designer Max Mara, taking the facade of the Whitney Museum as its inspiration.  Proceeds from the bag’s sale will go to benefit the Renzo Piano Foundation.  “We tried to maintain a simple, pure design,” says the architect, “working only on the details by applying a creative use of technology and placing the accent on respect for the materials.” (more…)

A number of artists are voicing their concern over the Frick’s proposed expansion plan, which would eliminate a garden by the British designer Russell Page.  “As professionals working in the art world,” says an open letter signed by Chuck Close, Rachel Feinstein, Lisa Yuskavage, and Frank Stella, among others, “we strongly believe that the Frick’s effectiveness as a display space lies in its intimacy.  Replacing the hall and garden with an institutional 106-foot tower will indeed destroy the famed Frick experience for artists and art lovers around the world.” (more…)

Chris Burden, via NY Times

Chris Burden, the Californian performance art pioneer and sculptor, who consistently pushed the envelope of physical endurance and human capacities, passed away at home this weekend from a malignant melanoma.  He was 69. (more…)

The New York Times takes a look at the work of Chuck Close this week, as the artist prepares to open a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum, examining his use of exacting photographic techniques and his approach to painting.  “I approach all subjects the same,” Close says. “Of course I can’t collaborate with a flower the same way I can with a human, but there is an inherent sensuality in a flower that relates to the nudes, and the close-up details of the flowers are equally revelatory.” (more…)

The Iranian government has adopted a new policy using billboards in Tehran to exhibit classic works of art rather than the usual consumer products and political slogans.  “It’s pretty exciting. It’s wonderful to see billboard ads of laundry machines or big corporate banks being replaced by a Rembrandt or a Cézanne or a Picasso, what better than that?” says journalist Sadra Mohaqeq. “For 10 days, people have time off from the usual billboard ads just promoting consumerism. It is going to affect people’s visual taste in a positive manner.” (more…)

Bloomberg is reporting that Wang Zhongjun, the Chinese movie executive of Huayi Brothers Media Corp. is the buyer of Picasso’s Femme au Chignon dans un Fauteuili, which sold for $29.9 million at Sotheby’s this week.  The purchase is somewhat ironic, given that the sellers were members of Hollywood’s film production dynasty, the Goldwyn family.  “I first fell in love with the painting and then I fell in love with its story,” Wang said after the sale. “I can see not only Pablo Picasso’s genius, but also Samuel Goldwyn Sr.’s creative vision.” (more…)

Adrian Piper, Everything #21 (2010-2013)

The awards for the 56th Venice Biennale have been announced, with the Armenian National Pavilion taking home the Golden Lion for best exhibition, Adrian Piper winning the Golden Lion for best artist in the main exhibition, and El Anatsui winning the Lifetime Achievement award.  A full list of awards is included below: (more…)

New York Magazine has an article charting the friendship between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, through the lens of a soon to open play depicting their famous collaborations.  “Andy fulfilled a father figure role for Jean. Jean was very bright and very childlike at the same time. He was a big kid in a way,”  says playwright Calvin Levels. (more…)

At the entrance to the Biennale’s Central Pavilion, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The Central Pavilion in Venice’s Giardini is the second site for All the World’s Futures, the main curatorial project around which the Biennale centers itself.  Featuring another series of artists spread out inside the exhibition space’s remarkable white facade, the exhibition continues its investigation of debris and late capitalism through a more playful, yet equally critical set of works from its counterpart at the Arsenale. (more…)

Peter Doig, Rain in the Port of Spain (White Oak) (2015), all photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Venetian Ettore Tito was one of the first stars of the Venice Biennale at its inception, presenting his work in almost every one of the early exhibitions through at 1920.  The artist’s colorful compositions often tinged with a slightly surreal, impressionist edge, were a prize of the Italian state in the early decades of the twentieth century, and often filled rooms during the first exhibitions in the city.

It’s a fitting parallel then, that the Scottish-born Peter Doig would be tapped for an exhibit at the former home of the artist, and current location of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa.  Presenting a body of new works, including fourteen paintings and an additional six large-scale canvases, the exhibition’s intimate locale and rich history offers a strong parallel for Doig’s own interpretive and illusory meditations on modernity, memory and fantasy.

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Jenny Holzer, I was called (2013), via Art Observed

Running in conjunction with the events of the Biennale, and fittingly tying itself to themes of political action and structural instability, Venice’s Museo Correr is opening a new exhibition of works by the artist Jenny Holzer, focusing on the artist’s recent explorations into the aesthetic underpinnings of U.S. interrogation policy, declassified military and governmental documents, and other visual devices of the political war machine.  Titled War Paintings, the exhibition is a welcome examination of the artist’s most recent body of work, a stark departure from previous practice that still feels appropriate in the context of her career. (more…)

Cy Twombly, Paesaggio (1986), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Undeniably one the greatest artists of 20th century, Cy Twombly‘s work is currently on display at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery in Venice, offering an in-depth look at the American artist, and his long residence in Italy.  Combining work from Twombly’s last series produced in 2011, an early painting on wood from 1951, and sculptural work from late in his career, this show delivers on its promise of a look at the artist’s career, while avoiding the demands of an exhaustive survey of his practice.  (more…)

Ibrahim Mahama, Out of Bounds (2015), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The first open hours have come and gone in the City of Bridges today, and the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale, All the World’s Futures is now open.  Welcoming 89 different countries to exhibit in the city, with 29 in the Arsenale, 31 in the Central Pavilion, and an additional 29 spread across in the City itself, the exhibition is a monumental affair, with a number of auxiliary events, openings and parties.

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The WSJ has an interview with Jeff Koons at the artist’s studio this week, which sees Koons revealing that his balloon animal sculptures were in part a way to communicate with his son, who left for Italy with the artist’s former wife, Ilona Staller, after their divorce.  “It was a way to be communicating with my son,” Koons says.  “I was thinking of him.” (more…)

A recent article in The New York Times reports on the state of photography in the secondary and auction markets, noting that, despite the popularity of the medium, sales for photography account for less than 2% of the global market.  “Many of these new buyers are looking for unique, high-quality trophy art which has been driving prices of postwar and contemporary art to new heights,” says Anders Petterson, the managing director of ArtTactic. “There has definitely been a trickle-down effect of this on the photo market. However, as most photographic works are selling in the lower- to medium-end of the price spectrum and often in larger editions, there isn’t the same allure of this market to many of these buyers.” (more…)

Sterling Ruby will end his representation with Hauser & Wirth this year, the Art Newspaper reports, after three years with the gallery.  Marc Payot, VP of Hauser & Wirth, stated the gallery remains on “very friendly terms” with Ruby. (more…)

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the California Resale Royalties Act is unconstitutional, but has allowed the law to remain on the books if the objectionable portion of the law is removed, keeping the resale royalty provided the sales take place within California.  Some speculate as to wether this may prevent major auctions from happening in the State.   (more…)

The Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow was investigated yesterday after a man with fake provenance was detained attempting to leave the country with a set of works valued at almost $50,000.  Initial reports speculate that Russian security may have discovered a plot in which wealthy collectors abroad are paying to smuggle the works with forged documents.  “The investigators have already left, and while the investigation is ongoing we will not comment further,” a representative of the gallery told The Guardian. (more…)

Claude Monet, Nymphéas (1905), via Art Observed

The first night of the bustling spring auction week is underway, as Sotheby’s concluded a somewhat unsteady sale last night of Impressionist and Modernist masterpieces that achieved a final of $368,344,000, well over the auction house estimate of $270,000,000.  The final tally saw 14 of the 64 lots go unsold over the course of the evening, which will be the last major Impressionist and Modern sale of the first half of the year on U.S. soil. (more…)

William Pope L., Trinket (Installation View), via MOCA

Inside the MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary building in Downtown Los Angeles, an immensely oversized American flag endlessly flutters in a synthetic breeze, held aloft by a series of industrial grade cooling fans.  The breeze is intense, and the force exerted on the delicate stitching holding the iconic stars and stripes together is gradually tearing apart, a powerful metaphor in a time when the nation is riddled by high levels of police brutality, harsh military involvement overseas and increasingly vitriolic partisanship. (more…)

The New Yorker has a profile on sculptor Charles Ray this week, the Californian sculptor known for his occasionally disturbing and lifelike works, including Huck and Jim a statue based on the inseparable pair of Mark Twin’s classic novel, which was initially intended for the plaza outside the new Whitney before it was declined over fears of controversy.  “I don’t want whatever becomes of it to be less than the original idea, and the original idea was for it to be there,” Ray tells the magazine. “I’m not naïve to the controversies this would generate—I told them that controversies would be a forest we had to navigate through.” (more…)

Claude Monet, Nymphéas (1905), via Sotheby’s

As the art world prepares to jet en masse to Italy this week for the opening of the Biennale Previews, the auction houses are also preparing for their biggest stage of the spring season, with two weeks of major evening sales in both the Impressionist/Modern and Post-War/Contemporary categories set to take place in New York. (more…)

Tania Brugera is one of the 2015 Herb Alpert Award recipients this year, but is unable to attend the awards ceremony, due to the revocation of her passport by the Cuban government.  “The Alpert Award could not come at a better moment,” the artist wrote in a statement to the organization. “The Cuban government does not like my artworks because I’m proposing that our relationship with politics is one where the script is not written for us, but is something we create with responsibility and honesty out of the desire to engage in our political destiny.” (more…)

A protest last Friday over labor rights at its Abu Dhabi construction site led the Guggenheim Museum to close early last Friday.  Protestors threw pamphlets over the museum’s iconic spiraling walkway, and unfurled a banner saying “Meet Workers’ Demands Now” on the ground floor, forcing the museum to shut its doors. “We share their concerns about worker welfare in the Gulf Region, but these kinds of disruptive activities run counter to our objective of building the cooperation and good will necessary to further change on an extremely complex geopolitical issue,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)