With unconditional free reign, Playboy Magazine asked seven artists, among them Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman Will Cotton, Jill Magid, and Tracey Emin, to each contribute a centerfold image for their January-February 2013 issue. Chrissie Iles, senior curator of the Whitney Musuem, said, “The work is incisive in its poetic questioning of the ethics of human behavior and the hidden political structures of society”. Richard Prince’s piece is a photograph called Untitled Girlfriend 2012. Cindy Sherman contributed explicit photographs taken in 1992. (more…)

Kehinde Wiley, The Three Graces, all images courtesy Galerie Daniel Templon

Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris is presenting Kehinde Wiley’s first solo show in France, entitled The World Stage: France, 1880-1960. Wiley’s portraits feature mostly black and brown men on elaborate, baroque backgrounds, their natural stances modified by Wiley to echo the Napoleonic, kingly gestures of traditional portraits like those of Anthony van Dyck.

Kehinde Wiley, Bonaparte in the Great Mosque of Cairo

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Christie’s will offer Sandro Botticelli’s “Madonna and Child With the Young Saint John the Baptist” in Hong Kong next month. The work has a presale estimate of $5 million and should be an indicator of interest in a non-Christian Eastern market. The auction house is hoping that the subject matter could translate as a emotional scene between mother and son. Ken Yeh of Christie’s Asia stated that “When you spend that kind of money, you have to think about resale value,” he said. “It’s no longer just to decorate your house.” (more…)

Simon de Pury Phillips Auction House, image via GQ

Simon de Pury, chairman and principal auctioneer of Phillips de Pury & Co., along with his wife Michaela, a senior director, have announced that they will leave their posts at the auction house, effective today. It will be renamed Phillips in 2013.

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Pieter Schoolwerth, After Troy 6 (2012), courtesy Miguel Abreu

The paintings of Pieter Schoolwerth sit at a peculiar intersection of homage and irreverence, combining classic painting techniques with a uniquely surreal vision of contemporary society, exploring the act of representation in painting, and continually playing with the nature of the human body as depicted in the fine arts. (more…)

Bloomberg calculates that $594.6 million was achieved for the top ten lots  in Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art categories in 2012. This is a 44% increase from 2011. An uncertain global economic climate, the European debt crisis and impending US tax code changes all likely impacted the increase in sales. The top lot was Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, which sold for $119.9 million, the highest price paid for a work at auction. (more…)

Pace Gallery is in lease negotiation with Related Companies for more office space at 511-541 West 25th St. The gallery already occupies exhibition spaces at 508, 510 and 534 West 25th St, as well as its 57th Street headquarters. (more…)

Richard Artschwager, Horizon 2011. All images courtesy David Nolan Gallery

Richard Artschwager’s desert landscapes are the subject of an exhibition at the David Nolan Gallery in New York. Throughout Artschwager’s career, he has been known for his use of non-traditional materials in both sculpture and painting, such as wood, formica and Celotex(a fiberboard used for ceiling panels). He is also recognized for his large grisaille paintings, based on grid structures. These desert landscapes are a clear departure, and emit an emotional sensibility that Artschwager rarely lets us get a glimpse of — only recently has he employed such a vivid exploration of color.

Richard Artschwager Landscape with Pond 2011

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The Armory Show, in the centennial year of its namesake exhibition, announced its list of new and returning visitors for 2013. It will present over 200 galleries from 30 countries at its fifteenth edition from March 7-10th, 2013. The Contemporary section on Pier 94 will house both blue-chip exhibitors and younger galleries, and Pier 92 will again be a showcase for Modern work. Liz Magic Laser has been named the Armory Artist Commission, and Eric Shiner, Director of the Warhol Museum, will curate Armory Focus: USA. (more…)

“Daniele Barbaro” of 1545 has been part of the National Gallery of Canada’s holdings since the museum acquired it in 1928. At that time, the msueum believed it was in fact by Titian himelf because of correspondence between the subject and the Bishop. However, another painting of Daniele Barbaro is in the Prado, and a comparison of the two in the 1990s resulted in the determination that the NGC’s was a copy. A recent restoration has revealed that it is in fact by the Venetian master, and has been confirmed by Prado experts.
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“Everything about my work is driven by my learning disabilities”, said Chuck Close as he gave a private tour of his current exhibition at Pace Gallery to a group of schoolchildren from a poverty-stricken community in Bridgeport, CT. It is part of Turnaround Arts, a federally-funded public-private partnership with a focus on arts using a mentorship program. The artist has faced numerous challenges in his life, from neurological and learning disabilities at a young age, to prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces), to his paralysis from a spinal artery collapse. (more…)

A deceased Metropolitan Museum trustee, Stephen Clark, had donated Cézanne’s “Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory”, which he purchased in 1933. Title was contested by Pierre Konowaloff, who was the sole heir of a collector whose assets were confiscated by the state during the Russian Revolution. Konowaloff argued that there was no legal process in the seizure and that the painting was unduly exported as a result. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that legal doctrine precludes U.S. courts from inquiring into the validity of decisions by recognized foreign sovereign governments within their own territory. (more…)

Sotheby’s total sales for art and antiques appear to be down by 10% this year, according to the figures on Sotheby’s website, says the Telegraph. The auction house realized $4.4 billion in auction sales this year; however that figure does not include private sales, which increased significantly this year. Last year the auction house realized $5.8 billion in total sales, with around $800 million of that from private sales. (more…)

Installation view, Cellblock I, Andrea Rosen Gallery. All photos on site by Erica Simone for Art Observed

The Andrea Rosen Gallery opened Cellblock I at its main space on December 1st, 2012, and simultaneously inaugurated its new, second location–just down the street at 544 West 24th Street–with Cellblock II. Both shows, held together under the theme (and anti-theme) of imprisonment, were curated by the prominent scholar and curator Robert Hobbs.

Robert Motherwell’s Dover Beach III at Cellblock II, Andrea Rosen Gallery

Hobbs is well-known for his work as an art historian and writer. He has been the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair at Virginia Commonwealth University since 1991, and a visiting professor at Yale University for eight years. He is known as the definitive Robert Smithson scholar, and has contributed seminal writings on many of the artists he selected to show, including Alice Aycock, Beverly Pepper, and Kelley Walker. (more…)

After twelve successful years as director of the Louvre, Henri Loyrette has announced that he will be leaving his post in April. Under his leadership the museum broadened its cultural outreach.  Loyrette engaged in planning for the Louvre Abu Dhabi and opening the Islamic Galleries and raising tens of millions of euros in funds from several middle eastern countries. He established a contemporary art program with major installations and expects to nearly double the number of visitors to the museum since 2001. (more…)

Tony Cragg,  Installation View (2012), courtesy Lisson Gallery

Tony Cragg is a prominent British visual artist known for his smooth, blobular, almost alien formations. Cragg commonly uses a range of materials to produce smooth, curved surfaces that explore his observations of the surrounding world by challenging form, volume, scale and function through the medium of sculpture. His latest exhibition at the Lisson Gallery features a variety of new works in a continuance of form, yet extending his practice beyond the previous limits with ever more intricate surfaces areas and new formations.

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Beginning in 1945, Château Mouton Rothschild has commissioned various artists, from Pablo Picasso to Francis Bacon, to create a graphic for its labels. Now it has asked Jeff Koons to design the label for 2010 label of its Pauillac first growth. Koons is one of the world’s most expensive living artists, and has designed an image of The Birth of Venus and a sailing ship under sunny skies. (more…)

The images of Chairman Mao in the largest travelling exhibition of Andy Warhol’s work will be banned from going on public display in China. The show, a two-year tour across Asia that commemorates the 25th anniversary of the artist’s death, is comprised of around 300 works across a variety of media. Among them are the iconic Soup cans, Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe images, alongside 10 Mao paintings. (more…)

The Tate announced a £5m national arts award, given by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation for artists under 25 years of age (Note: the award is not singularly given to one artist). It will involve all four Tate Galleries and kick off in April 2013 with a festival in the Tanks at Tate Modern. The Foundation has granted a total of £200 million since its inception 25 years ago. This grant aims to reach 80,000 young people aged 15–25 over the course of four years. Nicolas Serota, Tate’s director said that “Circuit will spark a long-term transformation in the way young people engage with art.”
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Gabriel Orozco, Astroturf Constellation (2012), courtesy The Guggenheim Museum

Having just ended its opening run at the Guggenheim Deutsche in Berlin earlier this year, Gabriel Orozco‘s two-part set of taxonomic installations, collectively titled “Asterisms,” is now on view at The Guggenheim in New York City.  The eighteenth and final project in the Guggenheim’s commission series, the piece continues Orozco’s ongoing exploration into the nature of environments, and the interactions of humans with these spaces, as well as with each other. (more…)

Hauser & Wirth has unveiled plans to renovate old barns in Somerset, England as gallery space to open in 2014. “This is a beautiful part of the world and also a very creative part of the world,” said Alice Workman, the director of Hauser & Wirth Somerset. “It will serve the local community and town but also act on a national and international level.” It expects around 40,000 visitors per year. (more…)

In 2007, Peter Doig saw his prices skyrocket, due to an auction in which his “White Canoe” sold for $11.3 million, several times over the presale estimate of $1.5 million. Overnight he became the most expensive living European artist. The following year, Tate Britian mounted a midcareer retrospective. Doig discusses how he has had to block out thoughts of the sudden spike in prices to stay focused and successful creatively. Recently, Michael Werner Gallery inaugurated its new Mayfair gallery with a solo show by the artist. Prices range from $250,000 to $3 million.
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L.A. Times’ Christopher Knight reflects on the market as 2012 draws to an end, with a certain inconsistency in the art market as a whole: demand for high-quality modern and contemporary work, with soaring prices for young artists is coupled with the failing economic health of many nonprofits, (LACMA certainly among the most well-known examples). “Obscene private wealth and gross income inequality are global phenomena; the economic system is rigged and surplus cash must go somewhere”.  (more…)

Artist Nate Lowman at the DJ Booth – All photos by C. Dalaeli for ArtObserved

On Tuesday December 11th, The Whitney Museum of American Art hosted its annual Gala and Studio Party, sponsored by Microsoft and Pamella Roland. Originally scheduled to take place at Hudson River Park’s Pier 57 on October 30th, the annual events were postponed due to Hurricane Sandy. With more than $2.7 Million raised Tuesday evening, a portion of which will be donated to the New York Foundation for the Arts Emergency Relief Fund.

Atmosphere

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