Ed Ruscha is featured on NOWNESS today, part of the publication’s Getting There series, in which artists take an interviewer on a drive through a certain area. For this edition, Ruscha drove interviewer Matthew Donaldson through his home city of Los Angeles, charting the shifting landscapes and sounds of the California city. “More than the changes of Los Angeles, I notice when things don’t change,” he says. (more…)
This November, Christie’s will be selling a rarely seen sculpture by Willem de Kooning, one of the few works the artist created in the medium. “It is a depiction of the artist himself,” says Brett Gorvy, Christie’s worldwide chairman of postwar and contemporary art. “It is the closest de Kooning came to a self-portrait and was created specifically at a time when he was pushing the boundaries.” (more…)
A set of celebrity portraits by Andy Warhol on sale at Sotheby’s New York in the upcoming weeks may earn as much as $57 million, Bloomberg reports. The works include images of Liz Taylor, Brigitte Bardot, Jackie Onassis Kennedy and more. “Warhol has international appeal,” says Suzanne Gyorgy, head of art advisory and finance at Citi Private Bank. “That kind of art is in a league of its own.” (more…)
Jules de Balincourt, Underneath the Trees They Listened…and Heard Silence (2014), Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac‘s Marais gallery in Paris is currently presenting fifteen new paintings by Jules de Balincourt, his third solo exhibition for the gallery. Titled “Blue Hours,” the exhibition continues Balincourt’s exploration of broad expanses of bright colors that dominate many of his pieces, and bring the viewer into vivid worlds just beyond the bounds of reality. (more…)
A series of recently discovered cave paintings in Sulawesi, Indonesia have been dated as 35,000 years old, making them one of the oldest pieces of art ever found, and indicates that early art most likely originated on the African continent. “Our discovery on Sulawesi shows that cave art was made at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world at about the same time, suggesting these practices have deeper origins, perhaps in Africa before our species left this continent and spread across the globe,” said archaeologist Dr. Maxime Aubert. (more…)
Artist Mark Flood has opened his own gallery space in Chelsea on 22nd Street, directly adjacent to his dealer Zach Feuer, where none of the art is for sale, and where Flood is offering space for artists that he loves and supports. “In New York, little things can have big repercussions,” he says. “I think it’s good to kind of help everybody out. I guess that’s what everyone in the art world is doing. It seems like kind of a sinister business, but it’s full of people who are obsessed with art. I’m another one of those. I don’t have to do anything but look at these great paintings.” (more…)
In anticipation of its new show focusing on the life and work of the Marquis de Sade, The Musée d’Orsay in Paris has reportedly commissioned a promotional video by David Freymond and Florent Michel in which models simulate an orgiastic gathering spelling out “SADE” on the floor of the space. (more…)
A coalition of UK-based artists is leading a legal push against dealers who have refused to pay the resale royalties on artworks sold at auction since the British Government passed legislation mandating the payouts in 2006.“The honeymoon period is now over,” says artist Maggi Hambling, who is leading the charge against dealers. “The law changed in 2006 and there are people who are still trying to get away without paying. I’m not saying all dealers are crooks. But it’s high time that everyone was doing the right thing.” (more…)
Sean Kelly Gallery has announced a new participatory work by Marina Abramovic, titled Generator, which is set to open in New York later this month. “She will transform the main gallery into a space of sensory deprivation, an opportunity for forced introspection,” the press release says. “Dealing with both the meditative and the communal, Generator will be a unique environment for visitors to push the boundaries of their self-awareness and inner-consciousness, as they are confronted with nothing but themselves and the palpable energy in the room.” (more…)
Perrier-Jouët is releasing a new edition of its 2005 Cuvée Belle Epoque Rosé, packaged in a limited-edition bottle designed by celebrated Brazilian visual artist Vik Muniz. “Much as Perrier-Jouët has long embraced Art Nouveau’s love of nature and enchantment, I took the idea of captivation in a natural setting as the inspiration for this motif,” Muniz says. (more…)
Upon a further budget review, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has added an additional $54 million to the $84.7 million earmarked for arts organizations in the Californian metropolis. The money will allow for major renovations to a number of LA Arts organizations and institutions. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at a set of works by Cy Twombly and Martin Kippenberger on sale next month at Christie’s in New York, which are already commanding impressive estimates. Twombly’s untitled 1970 canvas of white looping scrawls is estimated to potentially sell for up to $50 million, while Kippenberger’s self-portrait will look to achieve $15 million and $20 million. (more…)
Dealer Marian Goodman is profiled in The Guardian this week, as she prepares to open her new exhibition space in London. In the interview, Goodman discusses first discovering the work of Gerhard Richter, and her work in bringing him to international prominence. “He was a bit drowned out by all these loud, expressionist voices,” she says. “So I wrote him a letter just telling him how much I loved the work and maybe I could make a difference. Then I went to meet him in Düsseldorf in 1984 and everything started from there.”
The Royal Academy of Art has announced plans for a landmark retrospective of the work of Ai Weiwei, planned for 2015. “There are many artists and exhibitions I would like to put on but there’s something timely about Ai Weiwei,” says Programming Director Tim Marlow. “He’s one of the most famous artists in the world but I don’t think his work is as well known as it should be.”
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The winners of the sixth annual ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan has been announced, with artist Anila Quayyum Agha taking home the $200,000 first prize for her piece Intersections. The artist was also one of the selections for the Juried Prize, a a first for the event. (more…)
Bloomberg looks at the movement of Christopher Wool’s Apocalypse Now over the past years, tracing a history of owners that include François Pinault before selling last year for an astounding $26.4 million to a still unknown buyer. The story is an interesting look at the art market’s occasionally rapid escalations in price due to sudden demand, and the behind the scenes gossip that often accompanies the auction sale of iconic works. (more…)
Roger Hiorns, Untitled (2014), all images courtesy Luhring Augustine
On view at Luhring Augustine is the first New York solo exhibition from London-based artist Roger Hiorns, comprised of a series of varied installations and objects produced in 2013 and 2014. The works will remain on view through October 18th.
Robert Gober, Untitled (2003-2005), via Art Observed
The long-awaited MoMA retrospective for Robert Gober begins in fitting fashiom. An immense, stripped-bare wall runs the length of the museum’s second floor outcropping, blocking off any view of the expansive installations inside, and capped with a single work near the entrance to the exhibition, the artist’s X-Pipe Playpen. The viewer never realizes, passing through the exhibition, that at one point they have found themselves on the inside of this imposing structure, staring at the camouflaged wallpaper and sink sculptures that define the artist’s ouvre. Ominous and surreal, the structure works perfectly in conjunction with the works on view, and offers a concise summary of the exhibition as a whole: a look at the full length of the artist’s prolific career, from his early paintings and sinks to his most demanding, complex environments, constantly examining and readdressing his emotionally potent take on abstraction. (more…)
Jason Rhoades, The Grand Machine/THEAREOLA (2002), via Henry Murpy for Art Observed
On view at David Zwirner in New York is an exhibition of works from Jason Rhoades’s PeaRoeFoam project, which originally debuted at the gallery in 2002. PeaRoeFoam is considered a key work in Rhoades’ career, but it has not been exhibited comprehensively (including all three parts of the trilogy) until now.
Marina Abramovic publicly reached out to director Lars Von Trier this week, telling the director that she wishes to work with him on an upcoming project. “You really bring the actors on the edge of complete nervous breakdowns,” she says. “Because I am a performance artist, I understand very well what you are doing.” (more…)
Steven Cohen is placing King Oliver, a $30 Million painting by Franz Kline, up for sale this November at Christie’s in New York, Bloomberg reports. “It’s got scale and bravado,” said Brett Gorvy, Christie’s chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art. “In today’s masterpiece-driven market, this is exactly the type of language that speaks to our global buyers.” (more…)
Robert Wilson, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, via BAM
Shakespeare’s sonnets were never intended as a theatrical work, a set of poems that extend the Bard’s legendary repertoire beyond a cache of plays that already constitutes a sizable portion of the western theatrical canon. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped Robert Wilson, who has revived Shakespeare’s Iambic Pentameter for his production currently showing at Brooklyn Academy of Music. (more…)
The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio in Greenwich Village, the arts studio and salon that once served as the original home of the Whitney Museum, has been named a National Treasure by the National Trust, calling it “the cradle of the modern American art movement.” (more…)
