NADA at the Deauville, all photos by Art Observed

Again located up Collins Ave at the Deauville Beach Resort in North Beach, the New Art Dealers Alliance fair seems perfectly content to let the buyers come to them.  Boasting a tightly curated but welcoming atmosphere for younger artists and smaller galleries, the fair has remained a yearly mainstay in the proceedings of Miami Art Week. (more…)

Andra Ursuta at ICA Miami (Installation View)

For those following the fractious events surrounding the schism between the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami and the newly founded Institute of Contemporary Art this year, one had to wonder what the new space, located in Miami’s Design District, would bring forward for its first Miami Art Week. Without a permanent home, the ICA has taken up residence at the historic Moore Building, where it held its launch party Tuesday night. (more…)

The Guggenheim has released a list of finalists in the competition to design the prospective new Guggenheim in Helsinki, Finland. The final six selections include a variety of designs, including repurposed buildings and a series of pavilion-style structures linked through an interconnected walkway. The design contest “opens extraordinary possibilities for a Guggenheim in Helsinki and asks us to imagine what a museum of the future can be,” according to director Richard Armstrong. (more…)

Over £45 million in art was donated to the British nation in the past year, a new report by the Arts Council England reports, among them a landmark collection of works from the collection of late artist Lucian Freud.   “There is something of special significance in the perception that one great artist has of another,” says Arts Council England chairman Sir Peter Bazalgette of the Freud collection. “It was this group of paintings and drawings, rather than his own works, that Freud chose to surround himself with in his home.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal heads upstate for a tour of artist Richard Prince’s Catskill Mountains home, where the artist has built a studio and a number of immense sculptures and special projects he has never exhibited. “A lot of stuff here I don’t consider art, or at least it didn’t begin as art,” Prince says. “I’m just trying to make something I haven’t seen before. Cool stuff.” (more…)

Steven Murphy, the Christie’s CEO who has presided over the company during its record-setting run of auctions over the last several years, has announced that he will be leaving his position at the end of the year. “We have now successfully concluded an ambitious three year plan and the company is in the strongest leadership position in its history,” Murphy said in a statement. (more…)

A Manhattan court has decided the lawsuit between Larry Gagosian and Ronald Perelman in favor of Gagosian, ruling that Perelman’s lawsuit “does not establish that [Gagosian] exercised control and dominance over [Perelman], who by [his] own description, frequently purchased, sold and exchanged works of art as investments.” (more…)

Art Basel Miami Beach Opens its Doors, all images via Art Observed

The doors have opened for Art Basel Miami Beach 2014, the 12th edition of an art fair that has since become synonymous with big events, bigger celebrities, and even bigger price tags serving as a year’s end bacchanal for the contemporary art market.

Work by Christopher Wool at Helly Nahmad (more…)

The Kunstmuseum Bern has released a full list of the works received from Cornelius Gurlitt, offering the most in-depth look at the collection since it was discovered.  The museum has announced that it will be accepting the collection, but released the full list “in the interests of transparency.” (more…)

The Art Los Angeles Contemporary Fair will open its doors once again in late January, and has released its exhibitor list this week for the sixth edition of the fair.  Attendees among the 60 gallery list include The Hole, CANADA, Standard (Oslo), and Francois Ghebaly. (more…)

The New Yorker released a lengthy profile on curator Hans Ulrich Obrist today, noting the Swiss co-director of The Serpentine’s countless projects and publications, and his deep passion for conversation with the artists he works with.  “For me, there is no difference between talking to him and talking to other artists,” says Philippe Parreno. “I am engaged at the same level.” (more…)

As the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami prepares its launch party tomorrow night at its temporary site in Miami’s Design District, the museum has released its plans for a 37,500-square-foot, privately funded permanent home in the area.  The museum is funded by car dealership billionaires Irma and Norman Braman.  “We love this museum, and we felt it was the right time, and the right place, and with the right museum,” says Ms. Braman, who also serves as co-chairwoman of the city’s museum’s board. (more…)

Ed Ruscha, Mind If I… (2014), via Gagosian Gallery

As the year winds into its final weeks, the art world is heading south once again, preparing for the annual festivities and fairs surrounding the 13th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach.  The weeklong event will feature a near endless stream of parties, nightlife events, and of course, art exhibitions across the city, from major fairs to hotel pop-ups. (more…)

An article in The Economist charts the ongoing progress of The Louvre Abu Dubai, part of the Saadiyat Island Cultural District being built on a sandbar off the course of the U.A.E. city.  “It will be a museum of and for the world,” says Rita Aoun-Abdo, head of the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority. (more…)

Artist Bjarne Melgaard has unveiled a new fashion collection he designed himself, inspired by the 2013 Catherine Breillat film Abuse of Weakness.  “I was thinking about creating clothes that are about the mental state you’re in and the faults you feel you have,” the artist says. “And rather than do that in sculpture, I wanted to try it with a commercial fashion line.” (more…)

Artist Paul Chan, the winner of this year’s Hugo Boss Prize, is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the temporary retirement the artist took in 2008.  “At a certain point I realized I had no more ideas I was interested in making something out of, so I realized maybe this is time to stop,” he says.  “I cleaned my house and read and tried to live, but at a certain point I realized I needed something else to do besides just living, and that’s where publishing came in.” (more…)

Artist David Hockney is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, reviewing his recent work, and offering his take on the meaning of being an artist. “Lots of people don’t really look,” he says. “They scan the ground in front of them, but they don’t really look that hard.” (more…)

Outgoing Sotheby’s head Bill Ruprecht will receive a $4 million severance package from the company. The news was disclosed in an SEC filing today.  (more…)

Maurizo Cattelan, Him (2001), via Art Observed

Maurizio Cattelan is back in New York.  It’s been some time since the artist’s retirement from the art world proper, capped by his well-attended Guggenheim retrospective in 2011/2012, a move that the artist has made quite good on.  Despite the occasional appearance high-profile appearance, Cattelan’s work has remained relatively outside of the art world spotlight for the past several years.  But the artist’s commitment to his own absence hasn’t deterred Adam Lindemann, who is currently mounting a pair of exhibitions of the artist’s work at both Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery, and at his own space, Venus Over Manhattan on Madison Ave. (more…)

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via Art Observed

Christopher Williams, the Los Angeles-based artist who just recently closed his major MoMA retrospective earlier this month, is back in New York with a new solo exhibition with David Zwirner.

The artist’s current exhibition of new work at the gallery’s 19th Street space makes up for its minimal catalog in conceptual clout, examining the construction of narrative and spatial interactions through a coyly designed exhibition plan that shifts in theme and semiotic interaction based on the viewer’s position.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

The exhibition is composed of a series of variations on Williams’s ongoing fascination with the value of the image, and its role as a circulator of information and ideology in contemporary capitalism.  During the construction of the show, or rather, the deconstruction of the prior show, Marcel Dzama’s Une Danse de Bouffons, Williams elected to remove several dividing walls, and, rather than remount them seamlessly, left them standing solitary, bearing the scars of their removal.  As a result, the exhibition is divided by a series of walls that seem to have slightly broken free in the exhibition space, a peculiar visual phenomenon that also serves as one of the core conceits for the artist’s work.

Christopher Williams, Untitled (Study in Gray) 1967 Citroen DS Serial number: DS851360a Color code: AC 226 Color name: gris satiné Color year: 1964 Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf November 3, 2013, 2014 Inkjet print on cotton rag paper 20 x 25 inches (50.8 x 63.5 cm ) WILCH0415 (2014) via Art Observed

Regarding the photography itself, the artist follows a set of previously explored techniques with new angles.  In one series, he photographs camera lenses cut cleanly in half, underscoring the complexity of a mechanism often left unseen, but wholly complicit in delivering the image itself to the viewer.  In another, Williams photographs damaged car headlights, but shot after replacing all damaged parts and re-painting the car carefully so that only a peculiar, subtle bent can be detected, an inflection that remains buried underneath the aura of newness.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

The third combines an image of a chicken, inspired by the fringe market for poultry appreciation magazines and the linguistic tropes these magazines have established for themselves, with a carefully manipulated magazine advertisement for dish soap with all evidence of food removed, leaving a clean, confusing pan in a pristine environment.

Christopher Williams, Cutaway model Leica Leitz Wetzlar Tele-Elmar 135/4.0 Focal length: 135 mm Aperture range: 4 – 22 Number of elements/groups: 4/4 Focusing range: 1.5 m – infinity Angle of range: 18 degrees Filter thread: 39 mm Weight: 405 g Dimensions: 53.4 × 122.69 mm Manufacturer part number: 11850 Lens design by Dr. Walter Mandler Manufactured by Ernst Leitz GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf March 14, 2013, 2014 Inkjet print on cotton rag paper 7 1/4 x 21 7/8 inches (43.8 x 55.6 cm) WILCH0427 (2014), via Art Observed

Placing these three sets of pieces along calculated sight lines, Williams’s manipulated walls effectively break the space of the room into various thematics based on the viewer’s position.  Depending on position, the viewer may contend with the camera alongside an image of the chicken, or perhaps the broken headlight in all of its cosmetic interference alongside a shining pan.  In each intersection, the idea of publication and the editorial decision, the act of depiction and its formatting within certain standards, takes a prominent role.

Christopher Williams, Demountable wall panel with panel storage cart from the exhibition The Production Line of Happiness, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, January 24 – May 18, 2014 Wall panel materials: Oak, plywood, metal, cardboard, fabric, rubber, vinyl, and adhesive Wall panel dimensions: 102 x 72 x 4 1/2 inches Storage cart materials: Steel, carpet, rubber, plywood, and paint Storage cart dimensions: 78 x 86 x 18 inches Gallery display system designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), Chicago, 1982 Pedestal materials: MDF, plywood, Douglas fir blocking, screws, lag screws, neoprene rubber spacers and shims, and metal Pedestal dimensions: 134 1/2 x 66 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches Pedestal designed by Mack Cole-Edelsack, Department of Exhibition Design and Production, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in accordance with loan specifications from the Art Institute of Chicago, Department of Photography Exhibited in The Production Line of Happiness, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 27 – November 2, 2014 July 20, 2014, 2014 Selenium toned gelatin silver print 22 x 18 1/4 inches (55.9 x 46.4 cm) WILCH0459 (2014) via David Zwirner

Williams is also exhibiting a series of inversions on the notion of the exhibition catalog, in which images and text are merely replaced with color-coded pages, as well as Printed in Germany, a remarkably comical book that is completely blank saved for the aforementioned words printed on the back cover (apparently a requirement for the books to be shipped out of the country).  Bearing only a single mark of international exchange, the book renders all content visually obsolete, underscoring only its place of origin.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

Williams’s exhibition is small, but packs a hefty punch, allowing the construction of the image within a fixed context to underscore and emphasize the methods and modes of image production today.  The show is on view through December 20th.

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Christopher Williams at David Zwirner [David Zwirner]

Julian Stanczak, From Life (Installation View)

On view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s Chelsea location is a career spanning exhibition of Julian Stanczak, the renowned Polish artist considered to be one of the pioneers of Op Art movement. Starting with his works from the 1960’s until the present, the exhibition celebrates the artist’s long career, starting at a Polish refugee camp in Uganda in the 40’s after the artist permanently lost the use of his right arm due to an infection of encephalitis. (more…)

ArtPrize, the Grand Rapids-based art contest that has made the city an unexpected stop on the global art circuit, has announced plans to expand its event to Dallas in 2016.  “We want to make sure there’s an appetite for this sort of thing, and we think there is and we’ll go wherever the appetite is,” says Executive Director Christian Gaines. (more…)

The Financial Times speaks with Maurizio Cattelan this week, as the artist prepares to open an exhibition he curated in Turin.  “From my point of view, humor and irony include tragedy, they’re two sides of the same coin. Laughter is a Trojan horse to enter into direct contact with the unconscious, strike the imagination and trigger visceral reactions,” Cattelan says.  “If the humor of certain works was enough to pull anger, fear and amazement out of everyone, the psychoanalysts would be in disgrace . . . shame is not enough!” (more…)

Gerhard Richter (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Marian Goodman’s freshly inaugurated Mayfair gallery space in London is a new show of paintings and sculpture by Gerhard Richter, works that show the artist expanding his current practice while branching out into new formal space.   (more…)