Marina Abramovic has partnered with Adidas for a recreation of the artist’s Work Relation, ostensibly as a promotional tie-in with the world cup events the brand is currently undertaking. The video features a group of performers in white lab coats and Adidas sneakers, recreating the piece as the artist looks on. (more…)
The Yorkshire Sculpture Park has earned Britain’s prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year award, earning a £100,000 prize and a reputation as one of the country’s best art spaces. “A perfect fusion of art and landscape, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park has gone from a modest beginning to one of the finest outdoor museums one might ever imagine,” says Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund and panel chair for the award. (more…)
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, The Four Paintings about Sun, via Thaddeus Ropac
Now through July 12, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is presenting Paintings about the Sun, new work by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. The exhibition will take place in Salzburg at the gallery’s Villa Kast location. The works on view represent a departure from many of the artist’s previous installed and illustrated investigations, with the conversational capacity of an image being tested while form and frame are disrupted then elaborated. The sun is a consistent presence throughout the work, represented as either a blinding impediment to vision or impossibly illuminating.
Artist On Kawara, whose ongoing artistic project involved the painting of each day of his life, has passed away at the age of 81.
Born in 1933 in Japan, Kawara worked in Tokyo until 1965, when he moved to New York City. Shortly after arriving, Kawara began his famous “date paintings” series, painting the calendar date for each day of his life, meticulously recording the passage of his life on canvas through a simple, tracing of dates and time. His absurdist, heavily conceptual bent opened a new engagement with the processes of time and context in art, making him an unlikely air to the work of early Dadaists like Duchamp and Magritte. (more…)
Ed Ruscha, Periods (2013), all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery
On view at Gagosian Gallery in New York is a survey of prints and rarely seen photographs produced by Ed Ruscha from 1959 until the present. The exhibition was organized by Gagosian’s director Bob Monk, and will remain on view through July 11, 2014.
The New York Times has published another survey on the contemporary auction market, focusing on the gradual concentration of collectors at the highest tiers of art collecting towards blue-chip artists and trusted names, making competition for these works all the more fierce, and the prices that much higher. “The sleepy days of collecting are over,” says Amy Cappellazzo of the New York-based Partners agency. “The wealthiest of the wealthy now view art as an alternative currency. It’s become a very big business.” (more…)
The New York Times reports on the growing arts scene in Uruguay’s Punta del Este, a coastal resort town on the nation’s eastern coast, as well as the nearby villages of José Ignacio and Pueblo Garzón. A new generation of artists, bolstered by the increased traffic of wealthy collectors buying homes and vacation villas in the area, has resulted in a quickly growing arts scene. “A few years ago I began to see that Uruguay started moving in a very interesting direction,” says dealer Renos Xippas. “There’s a new generation with fresh, ironic ideas.” (more…)
A recent Wall Street Journal interview with Agnes Gund reveals the former MoMA President’s views on the current state of the art world, and its movement towards greater accessibility and access. “The market will start to correct as more collectors, in it for the game, will drive the prices of women artists up as will buyers recognizing the talent that has been there all along,” she says. (more…)
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (Macro) is reportedly facing a financial crisis, after government officials slashed the museum budget from from €350,000 in 2013 to €61,000 this year. “The exhibitions are programmed, and funded, until spring 2015… We spend very little on the shows as we have several sponsors,” says former president Alberta Campitelli. (more…)
The dispute surrounding Aby Rosen’s display of a Damien Hirst sculpture on the grounds of his Old Westbury, home in Long Island, has reached a resolution, with Rosen agreeing to position the statue in a place that will prevent neighbors from seeing its partially exposed skeleton. Rosen will also employ a landscaping scheme to further shield the statue from view outside his estate. “They were very cooperative,” says Mayor Fred J. Carillo. (more…)
Josh Kolbo, Untitled (2013), all photos via Emily Heinz for Art Observed
There was a vibrant buzz around Hauser & Wirth in Chelsea as one of the gallery’s smaller exhibition space filled in for the opening of the group show Fixed Variable, featuring the work of Lucas Blalock, Ethan Greenbaum, John Houck, Matt Keegan, Josh Kolbo, Kate Steciw, Chris Wiley and Letha Wilson, and examining the relationship between the nature of the photograph, the nature of the object, and the intersection between the two.
An Henri Matisse painting stolen 10 years ago from a Venezuelan museum has been returned to its home in Caracas. Odalisque in Red Trousers was recovered in Miami Beach in 2012 after a couple tried to sell it to undercover FBI agents for $740,000. (more…)
The Rauschenberg Foundation has launched a competition for young curators, inviting proposals for exhibitions using works from the Foundation’s extensive collection. Winners will be selected by a panel of judges, including curator John Elderfield and artist Shirin Neshat. (more…)
Several artists have redesigned classic British battleships in London and Liverpool commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the start of WWI. The designs pay homage to the practice of “dazzle” paint jobs on battleships, designed to confuse attacking German U-Boats. (more…)
The New York Times reports on the city of Oslo, and its role in the life of painter Edvard Munch after the artist spend several years healing from the abuse of his alcoholism. Known for his tortured, dark works, Munch’s later canvases exude a certain brightness achieved as the artist returned to a degree of mental clarity. “My mind is like a glass of cloudy water,” he wrote to a friend during his treatment in Copenhagen. “I am now letting it stand to become clear again. I wonder what will happen when the dregs settle at the bottom.” (more…)
The New York Times has published a by-the-numbers review of the recently opened Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney, charting the show’s contents in figures and facts, like the heaviest work (Gorilla, which weights 15,000 pounds), the number of gallons of water in his Equilibrium series (117 and 1/2), and the number of shipments to deliver all of the works (75). (more…)
Richard Long, Four Ways (2014), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery
Richard Long’s first solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery in over three decades brings together photographs, text, and natural elements as records of his walks in England, Switzerland, and Antarctica. Working in conjunction with the materials and forces that make up his surroundings, Long brings the fruits of his lone experiences in nature to the imaginations of a gallery audience. Long made his reputation in the 1970s with his sculptures born of days-long walks to remote locations, acting as bridges between natural design and human creation. His present exhibition reveals his persistence in investigating the themes that run through his lifelong body of work. (more…)
Dealer Yvon Lambert will close his Paris gallery at the end of the year, the Gallery announced this week in a press release. The dealer has made the decision to focus on editioned works, bibliophilia and other printed works, and will open a new venue dedicated specifically to these disciplines. (more…)
Zhang Xiaogang, The Prisoner of Book No. 5 (2014), Courtesy of Pace Gallery
One of the major artists tied to the recent boom of Chinese contemporary art, Zhang Xiaogang has gained some impressive recognition in the last decade, proven in particular by his recent auction record. Referring to certain Western styles of Surrealism and German Expressionism, Ziaogang has been delivering a body of visually captivating figurative paintings, building a signature style from hybridized forms of the subliminal and the physical in human consciousness. (more…)
Artist William Kentridge will bring a massive wall installation to the banks of the Tiber River in Rome later this year, part of a commission by the Maxxi Museum. The work, Triumphs and Laments, will depict scenes from Rome’s 2,000 year history through wall murals, made by removing layers of pollution from the river embankment. As smog continues to accumulate in the city, the work will slowly disappear. (more…)
The annual Sculpture in the City festival has opened in London, with a work by artist João Onofre commanding notable attention. Titled Box Sized Die, the small black cube contains a black metal band, Unfathomable Ruination, playing until they run out of oxygen. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal reports on the growing impact and popularity of the Hudson region in Upstate New York as an arts destination. “It’s a little bit of Bushwick mixed with the Upper East Side,” said Joel Mesler, who opened Retrospective on Hudson with Zach Feuer this year. (more…)
Marina Abramović in the Promotional Video of the Performance
‘I can succeed or I can fail. Let’s see what happens’ says Marina Abramović in the promotional video for her five hundred and twelve hour long, grueling residency at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Starting from June 11th until August 25th, the grand dame of performance art will be present at the art institute, interacting with the public through the framework of “nothingness.” (more…)
Official opening of ‘Jeff Koons: A Retrospective’ at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Images via Kelly Lee for Art Observed
After months of hushed tones and starstruck reports on the scale, cost and ambition of Jeff Koons’s career retrospective at The Whitney, the doors have opened at the museum for its last exhibition before the long-held 75th and Madison building is abandoned for its new Meatpacking District headquarters. As indicated, the show has indeed pulled out the stops for Koons, with a combination of new works and classic pieces.
