El Anatsui, Yet Another Place (2014)

Building himself a uniquely personal technique in which he reforms cast-away materials such as bottle caps and copper wire, El Anatsui has been orchestrating works that go against the definitions of any singular medium and dimension.  Standing between a vague figuration and an expressive abstraction of bright colors, the artist’s constructions from discarded materials resist to classification in any one form as sculpture, installation or painting. (more…)

Frank Stella, Concentric Square (1966), via Phillips

The Phillips Contemporary Evening Sale concluded Thursday evening, capping off the fall auction season with a staid, relatively stable performance.  While the sale lacked some of the flair and fireworks of the proceeding evening at Christie’s, a number of notable sales defined the evening, as the auction house achieved a final tally of $52 million, with 8 of the 47 lots on offer failing to sell. (more…)

Mickalene Thomas is on Nowness this week, talking about her recent film profiling the life of her late moth, Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman.   “It allowed me to look at her not only as a subject—as my muse—but as a person. I really tried to understand her world, her own sexuality and femininity and beauty,” Thomas says. (more…)

The New Museum has announced the list of artists for its 2015 Triennial, Surround Audience, which will be curated by Lauren Cornell and artist Ryan Trecartin.  The exhibition will include work by DIS, Casey Jane Ellison (who will be filming her web series Touching the Art at the museum), and Ed Atkins, among others.  According to the press release, Surround Audience “explores how artists are currently depicting subjectivity, unpacking complex systems of power, and claiming sites of artistic agency.” (more…)

An article in Forbes traces the conclusion of the modern and contemporary art auctions over the past two weeks, and places the overall sales during the two series of sales at an unprecedented $1.78 billion.  “We’ve seen a trend over the last few years where clients are going into hard assets, from real estate to art, which is a neutral currency,” says Citi Bank head of art advisory and finance, Suzanne Gyorgy.  “We continue to see U.S. collectors discretely buying at a high level.” (more…)

Tracey Emin, Good Body (2014), all images courtesy White Cube Bermondsey

On view at White Cube Bermondsey, London is a new exhibition by English artist (and YBA member) Tracey Emin. Entitled The Last Great Adventure is You, the show will be her first at White Cube in five years, and will remain on view through November 16th.

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Andy Warhol, Triple Elvis [Ferus Type] (1963), via Christie’s

The market has a new world auction record after Christie’s monumental sale last night in New York, an $852.9 million benchmark that saw 92% of the works find buyers, and 69 of the 75 works on sale exceed $1 million in its final sales total.  Capitalizing on a remarkably strong selection of works and an eager buying pool, the auction saw a number of impressive figures reached, as well as several artist records fall. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal writes on the Chinatown gallery operated by young curator and art dealer Amy Li out of her father’s He Zhen Snap Button Co. Shop  “There are so many assumptions attached to the word ‘gallery,’” Li says. “This is just a space where I work as a curator and art dealer.  I didn’t know anyone who could introduce me to a job opening.  That’s why I continue to do this.” (more…)

The Frick Museum’s proposed expansion plan has met with a new challenge by opposing forces, this time from a group called Unite to Save the Frick which is citing a 1973 agreement by the museum not to alter a garden designed by celebrated landscape architect Russell Page.  This same garden would be demolished in the new expansion, giving the protesting party a stronger case.  “It would have to be taken very, very seriously, because there is no qualitative need for this expansion,” said Roberta Brandes Gratz, a former panel member with the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “This is not really necessary for exhibition purposes. Given that, the permanence issue will be more important.” (more…)

Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, Still from untitled work in progress  (2014), via Regen Projects

Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch have enjoyed one of the more distinctive artistic collaborations in recent history, creating bizarre viewing platforms, caves, stadium seating and other eerily familiar arrangements in the service of immersive film-viewing environments, some of which is currently on view at the duo’s first exhibition at Regen Projects in Los Angeles.  Combining a set of Trecartin and Fitch’s bizarrely evocative sculptures with films and installations, the show welcomes a deep investigation into the pair’s practice, both as solo artists and in collaboration. (more…)

Mark Rothko, No. 21 (Red, Brown, Black and Orange) (1951), via Sotheby’s

Following a strong sale of works from the Mellon Collection last night, many were expecting Sotheby’s to continue with an exceptional start to the auction week, and given the strong offering the auction house had on view this past week at its York Avenue exhibition space, it was conceivable that it would bring forth a competitive sale.  However, a number of major passes and underwhelming bids during the sale left the auction house with what could best be classified as a moderate success with $343 million tally, as a number of records were set, while other works failed to live up to initial estimates. (more…)

The Victoria and Albert Museum is preparing to unveil a cast of Michelangelo’s David, which was given to Queen Victoria in 1857, after a lengthy restoration.  The 16-foot statue will go on view November 29th inside the the newly renovated Weston Cast Court.  (more…)

The New York Times reports that hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen is the collector who purchased Alberto Giacometti’s Chariot last week at Sotheby’s for over $100 million.  “Steve is a very serious, very astute collector,’’ says dealer William Acquavella said. “He also has just the right instincts, ones that can’t be learned from reading art history books.’’ (more…)

Center548, the current home of Zach Feuer Gallery and the Independent Art Fair, as well as the former location for the Dia Foundation, has been purchased by Property Markets Group, a real-estate development group.  The galleries are seeking new exhibition space outside the building. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal profiles the work of Xin Li, the former professional basketball player and model who has become Christie’s top resource in courting billionaire Asian collectors as its Deputy Chairman for the continent.  “I used to get up at 5 a.m. to go to play basketball in minus-30-degree weather,” Ms. Xin says during the interview. “I learned how to focus.” (more…)

Andy Warhol, Triple Elvis [Ferus Type] (1963), via Christie’s

The second week of fall auctions in New York is set to kick off this week, as a series of three sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips that will look to test the ongoing strength of the Contemporary and Post-War Markets.  With major works on sale at all three auction houses, the initial estimates are impressive.

Mark Rothko, No. 21 (Red, Brown, Black and Orange) (1951), via Sotheby’s (more…)

An article on CNBC this week notes that the battle for control of Sotheby’s auction house against investor Dan Loeb cost the company upwards of $20 million in fees for legal defense and a $10 million reimbursement to Loeb for his own fees.  The full total in expenses makes up nearly half of the company’s net income during the time period. (more…)

Mark Rothko, Untitled (1970), via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s kicked off the auction week last night with its sale of works from the collection of Ms. Paul “Bunny” Mellon, a successful outing that say 100% of the works available sold, and which achieved a final sales tally of $158.7 million, a strong figure that reached $38 million above the high estimate.

Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #89 (1975), via Sotheby’s (more…)

Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani of Qatar passed away unexpectedly this week at his home in London.  The former president of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage from 1997 to 2005, Al-Thani was at one point considered among the most influential art buyers in the world, and oversaw the initial stages of a massive museum-building project in the Gulf. (more…)

Cao Fei, HIP HOP NY (2006) via Art Observed

There’s few places in New York that one could find a small-scale show pushing the envelope the way that Brooklyn Rail’s Phong Bui is currently pushing it at Red Bull Studios.  Combining historically rich pieces with a number of young artists and many frequently outside the spotlight of New York’s blockbuster arts calendar, the exhibition is a dizzying combination of forms, spaces and images, from surrealist painting to bizarre installations and architecture and back. (more…)

Jeff Koons was on hand last night at Simon de Pury’s benefit auction for collector Svetlana Uspenskaya’s Project Perpetual, offering a series of Hermès Birkin bags (previously owned by stars like Sofia Coppola, Marc Jacobs, and others) turned into readymade artworks, as well as a sculpture paying homage to Picasso’s La Soupe.   “You look into the gazing ball and it’s very immediate,” Koons said.  “You see your reflection. You’re affirmed, your senses are stimulated…and if you move the abstraction changes. But the piece also becomes affirmed. It becomes reflected into the gazing ball, and when that happens, you go from that Dionysian type of velocity into Platonism.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal has published a piece this week detailing the advantages and drawbacks to gallery sales, private sales and auctions for collectors looking to sell their work, and notes an almost 1000% increase in private sales across the board in the last decade. (more…)

Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014), all images courtesy Maureen Paley

On view at Maureen Paley is a solo exhibition of single-screen video work by Turner Prize-winner Gillian Wearing. Entitled We Are Here, the artist’s 6th at the London gallery.  The exhibition is conceptually inspired by American poet Edgar Lee Master’s book Spoon River Anthology (1915), in which the people who lived by the titular waterway rise up from the grave and talk about their lives and memories.  Wearing, who grew up in the town of Sandwell, bases her video on people from the West Midlands speaking as if they have returned from the grave.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

We Are Here premiered in the UK at The New Art Gallery Walsall and in the US at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and the work here centers around the production and conceptual planning of the piece, including a series of photographs taken around Sandwell, and other pieces of research.  While the show is rather sparse, the exhibition is a welcome investigation into Wearing’s personal history, giving the area around her home town a certain agency to represent itself while also addressing the conditions and histories that help to define her own life and work.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

In her series of photographs, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, she allows her subjects the ability to express themselves on a series of white placards, with the results running from tender moments of self-honesty to hackneyed expressions about world peace.  Taken as a whole, Wearing’s brand of cultural realism uncovers the the anxiety of her environment and the occasionally fraught contract between the artist and her subjects, occasionally breaking down or leaning into pop culture formats.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997 and was awarded an OBE in 2011.  We Are Here was made possible by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund and the Art Fund with support from Maureen Paley, Shaun Regen and Tanya Bonakdar. The exhibition will remain on view at Maureen Paley through November 16, 2014.

Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014)

— E. Baker

Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Maureen Paley]

Egon Schiele, Portrait of Gertie Schiele (1909), all photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The energy on view in the paintings of Egon Schiele often feels as if the surface itself cannot contain it, as if the visceral poses and lucid, flowing lines of the artist’s hand posses an ethereal force beyond that of his practice.  The Austrian painter, who died at the young age of 28 during the Spanish Flu epidemic, poured himself into his works with an enthusiasm few have ever matched, constantly pushing the gestural formats and emotional charges of his materials and subjects.

Egon Schiele: Portraits (Installation View)

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