The New York Times takes a look inside the Stockholm apartment of artist Carsten Höller, where he breeds and keeps a collection of rare birds. “They look quite beautiful when they are older,” Höller says. “But in the beginning, they look like aliens.” (more…)
Cory Arcangel, Asshole 2 / Lakes (2014), via Team
Given Cory Arcangel’s past exhibition tendencies, the work on view at the artist’s newest Team Gallery solo exhibition downtown is something of a concise affair. Gone are the artist’s abstracted consumer objects, video game hacks and gradient paintings, substituted for a series of simple flat-panel televisions, each bearing a pixelated digital image, and offset by a deep red carpeting that runs along the gallery’s floor. On-screen, the smiling faces of Hilary Clinton (or rather, Hilary Clinton’s book jacket), Jay-Z and P. Diddy, among others, stare out of the viewer, as a delicately waving digital effect below them gives the impression of a liquid reflection. (more…)
Gabriel Orozco, Inner Cut: Black Dagger (2014), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
Gabriel Orozco seems to take pleasure in his own elusiveness. His work is constantly exploring possibilities of space and time, flow and movement as factors just as important to his method of production as the objects themselves. Simple actions, minimal manipulations and frequently employed found objects flow in and out of view, frequently alternating emphasis with the material remainders of the work’s original origins and uses.
Gabriel Orozco, One is Many (2014), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed (more…)
Giuseppe Penone, Albero porta—cedro / Door Tree—Cedar (2012), © Giuseppe Penone. Courtesy Archivio Giuseppe Penone. Photography by Josh White/JWPictures.com
In his current show Ramificazioni del Pensiero / Branches of Thought, on view at Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills, Giuseppe Penone continues his exploration into the heart of the natural materials that compose his work. Focusing on the interplay between man and nature, Penone draws human elements out of the wood and marble he sculpts, obviating an undercurrent of commonality between the human figure and the stoic forms of tree and stone. (more…)
Mike Bouchet, Cloud Nymph (reading) (2014), via Peres Projects
The images of Mike Bouchet have long identified with notions of the cinematic. Whether it’s the artist’s simple paintings executed with his own home-brewed adaptation of Diet Coke, or his ongoing execution of celebrity-inspired jacuzzis, concepts of luxury, commodity and pop culture ideologies find themselves at a bizarre, yet often commanding, intersection. (more…)
The 2017 edition of Documenta (its 17th total), will share locations between Kassel and Athens, the organization announced today. The exhibition title Learning from Athens, will look at Greece’s recent financial straits, and its unique position in today’s global affairs. “What interested me is that Athens is a contemporary metropolitan city of the Mediterranean that is connected to other places across the water,” says Artistic Director Adam Szymczyk. “I see it as a portal or border or place where people coming from many, many other places can have visibility.” (more…)
Al-Jazeera continues the investigation into the Philippine government’s attempts at reclaiming the trove of works previously owned by the Marcos family, some of which they believe have since been stolen from the family’s homes and are now in private collections. “We’d like to think that these paintings have been with the Marcoses from the beginning, and we believe that they were purchased using ill-gotten wealth and public funds,” Presidential Commission on Good Government leader Andres Bautista says. (more…)
The New York Times profiles the work of Bernard Arnault in building the Museum for the Fondation Luis Vuitton’s expansive art collection, a massive structure in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne. “We don’t speak of numbers when we speak of a dream,” he says when asked about the final cost of the building. “Let’s just say it is a very expensive sculpture.” (more…)
Ryan McGinley, YEARBOOK (Installation View)
One of the most prolific contemporary American photographers, Ryan McGinley has continually photographed his subjects inside his Lower East Side studio for over a decade. Two years after Animals, his series of nude models posing with live animals, the artist is continuing his exploration of the human form, as well as its positioning within a reserved studio setting at Team Gallery, where he has been showing for the last seven years. YEARBOOK, however, expands on the notion of space beyond simply signifying an architecture for displaying art, embracing an alternative use of the gallery interior. (more…)
Grayson Perry is featured on the front cover of The Guardian Magazine this week, with a full interview that covers the artist’s defiant, shifting public personae, and the early responses of the art world to his pottery. “Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did,” he says. “Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that haven’t yet been colonized by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadn’t been fully explored.” (more…)
Richard Serra has been announced as the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Americans for the Arts organization. Serra will receive the award on October 20th in New York. (more…)
Nick Cave, Sea Sick (2014), via Henry Murphy for Art Observed
Nick Cave and Jack Shainman Gallery have opened a pair of shows this fall, spanning the gallery’s two Chelsea locations on 20th and 24th street locations. Separately titled as Rescue and Made for Whites by Whites, the exhibitions articulate the artist’s familiar thematic concerns, addressing racial impositions and how they are reflected in everyday consumer culture. Cave delivers the prominent aspects of his practice, such as repurposing of found objects, assemblage of varying textures, and the performance of cultural rituals, with a somewhat stark hand, allowing a fierce critique to emerge from the works themselves. (more…)
Artist Miranda July has designed a special edition handbag, created in collaboration with designer Laurel Consuelo Broughton of Welcome Companions, including remarkably specific titles for each compartment (“Almond in Case of Low Blood Sugar”) as well as a series of cards bearing questions and phrases like “I can’t understand you because my cell phone has a bad connection.” (more…)
The French Court of Appeal has demanded a €20 million bail from Guy Wildenstein, over the art dealer’s alleged concealment of over 30 works from his family’s non-profit, reported as “stolen” or “missing” by their original owners. (more…)
Amedeo Modigliani’s seminal sculpture Tête will be offered at Sotheby’s New York this November, a rare work in stone from the Italian Modernist, that is expected to achieve up to $45 million during the sale. ‘‘Modigliani’s Têtes rank among the most revered sculptures of the 20th century,” says Simon Shaw, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Worldwide Impressionist & Modern Art Department. “Working alongside Constantin Brancusi, he believed that direct carving and staying true to materials were critical if sculpture was to be reborn for the Modern age. The present Tête has a truly mesmerizing aura, and is recognized to be the greatest Modigliani sculpture in private hands.’’ (more…)
The New York Times has published an extended account of the recent ruling on the case regarding the inheritance of James A. Elkins, a collector whose works were held jointly by various members of his family. The ruling, announced earlier this fall, allowed a discounted estate tax on these works, fundamentally changing the way taxes can be levied on art in a collector’s estate. “I’ve had calls from estate planning attorneys that said they celebrated in the coffee room when this decision came out,” says Carsten Hoffmann, managing director at FMV Opinions. “This is a deal changer.” (more…)
John Baldessari has created a series of “selfie collaborations” for the limited edition art and fashion publication Visionaire, featuring images taken by famous celebrities and embellished by the artist using some of his trademark images and iconography. “I’ll probably be most remembered for putting dots over people’s faces,” Baldessari comments. “So it’s funny to do an issue devoted to selfies of famous people.” (more…)
The Philippine government has seized 15 paintings, including works Monet and Van Gogh, from the former home of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, part of an official effort to secure a body of artworks from the politician’s accumulated wealth. “The position of the government is this is part of ill-gotten wealth and should be returned to the government and the people,” says Andres Bautista, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government. (more…)
The New York Times profiles the reopening of the SculptureCenter in Long Island City, Queens, following its expansive renovation, and its take on the presentation of the work within its space. “There are plenty of white boxes in New York, and we don’t want to be another one,” says executive director and chief curator Mary Ceruti. “People come here ready to see art because they’ve made the effort, and that’s a good thing. Would I like more people to make that effort? Yes, and that’s part of why we did this.” (more…)
The Guggenheim Museum has announced plans to open a new location in New York City, which will house the institution’s archives and library, with possible new space for public engagement. (more…)
A painting by Edward Degas, valued at around $7.6 million, has been stolen from the home of an elderly Greek Cypriot. Ballerina Adjusting Her Slipper was stolen Monday in Limassol on the island of Cyprus, and police have already arrested one man in connection with the case. (more…)
Three of France’s most popular musuems, The Louvre, The Musee d’Orsay and The Palace of Versailles, will soon be open to visitors every day, the French government announced. The move “will allow better access for the public and better access to the works,” according to the French Culture Ministry. (more…)
The Whitney Museum of Art will remain open for 36 consecutive hours at the conclusion of the museum’s Jeff Koons retrospective, running from 11 a.m. October 18th through to 11 p.m. October 19th, a last marathon run before the museum decamps to its new building downtown. “This will not only give more people an opportunity to see the Koons retrospective, it’s also a chance for some to say goodbye to the Breuer building as it was,” says Whitney Director Adam Weinberg. (more…)
