Pablo Picasso, Femme à la Fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) courtesy Sotheby’s

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern sale will commence this evening; due to the destruction from the hurricane, Sotheby’s rescheduled its Impressionist sale from November 5th to tomorrow, Thursday the 8th. Airport closures and power outages worried many that the international collecting crowd would not be able to attend. In a season that boasts over a possible billion dollars in revenue and a possible record breaking year at auction, postponement was inevitable.

Both houses are flush with important and iconic works by a plethora of leading artists such as Picasso, Monet, Kandinsky, Miro, Brancusi and Cézanne.

Wassily Kandinsky, Studie für Improvisation 8 courtesy Christie’s
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Installation view, Tatsu Nishi, Discovering Columbus

All photos by Elene Damenia for Art Observed

Through November 18th, New Yorkers and visitors to the city will be able to see what mayor Bloomberg calls “one of the icons of our city,” within the setting of a living room designed by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi. (more…)

A catalogue of mishaps in art handling has been released, with victims ranging from Poussin to Roy Lichtenstein damaged. One example is Roy Lichtenstein’s early famous painting Whaam!, which was defaced by a visitor disposing their chewing gum on the painting’s surface. Tate Britain, which suffered the vandalism against a £50 million Rothko, is now planning an exhibition called Art Under Attack. (more…)

Conservators are overwhelmed with the aftermath of Chelsea flooding. AXA said that they made a list of the 300 most critical locations; although many works are salvageable, the costs are too great, with restoration fees ranging from $1 – 100,000. Zach Feuer alone reportedly had 550 artworks damaged. The Gloria Velandia Art Conservation company is working on pieces by Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Lucio Fontana and Joel Shapiro. (more…)

Creative Time will launch a new work by artist Trevor Paglen into outer space on November 21, 2012. The Last Pictures will enter perpetual orbit and remain on view for five billion years, affixed to the exterior of the communications satellite EchoStar XVI. The work consists of one hundred photographs micro-etched onto a silicon disc encased in a gold-plated shell. (more…)

Chris Ofili, installation view(2012) courtesyVictoria Miro/The National Gallery

Chris Ofili’s latest collection of works  on display at Victoria Miro in London are actually intended for use as backdrops for a collaborative piece that involved The Royal Opera House, The Royal Ballet and the National Gallery. The project, involving artists, choreographers and dancers, depicts scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphosis that were in turn been recreated by Titian in a trilogy of paintings recounting stories of Diana and Actaeon, Diana and Callisto and The Death of Actaeon.

The narratives recall Diana’s nude encounter with Actaeon upon which she turns him into a deer and he is consequently killed by his fellow hunters; the revelation that Callisto, one of Diana’s nymphs who is sworn to chastity, is impregnated by the god Jupiter and subsequently banished; and finally a depiction of Actaeon’s gory death.

Chris Ofili, Stag (2012) courtesy Victoria Miro/The National Gallery

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The Smithsonian American Art Museum has granted Kathy Butterly its Contemporary Artist Award. Butterly will receive $25,000 as the winner of the award, granted annually to an artist younger than fifty who demonstrates exceptional creativity and has produced a significant body of artwork that is considered emblematic of this period in contemporary art. The jurors stated that “her small, nuanced, labor-intensive sculptures are richly communicative and …each enigmatic work balances between humor and horror, seduction and repulsion, abstraction and figuration”. (more…)

A $13 million public art project in Atlantic City, NJ called “Artlantic,” in a 7 acre lot just off the Boardwalk in town will be inaugurated on Friday. “Artlantic: wonder,” is the two-site first phase of the project, which was unaffected by Hurricane Sandy. One component of the installation is a sculpture by Kiki Smith, “Her” (2003), which will be installed in a “red garden,” also designed by the artist, and will change with the seasons. (more…)

The artist – Erwin Wurm, Am I a House? at CAC Málaga

The first major exhibition in Spain of the work of Austrian artist Erwin Wurm is now on view at El Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga. The exhibition consists of video, sculpture and large-scale installation, including quotidian objects and buildings deformed so extremely that they remain almost unrecognizable. Wurm’s work addresses media saturation in contemporary society and exaggerated values, as well as political scandals and human rights.

Erwin Wurm, Am I a House? at CAC Málaga

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MoMA has just published a new book called “What Is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids,” ($19.95), featuring the work of over 70 artists, such as Gillian Wearing, Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky and Jeff Koons. It is written to make contemporary art more understandable and accessible. (more…)

Arturo Vega, Photo Booth Self Portraits (ca. 1974). Courtesy Arturo Vega

Come Closer: Art Around the Bowery 1969-1989 at the New Museum presents ephemera, artwork, films, and performance footage of twenty artists that lived or worked in the Bowery over the course of two decades.  The exhibition documents the influence of the neighborhood on artists during a time when the area was notoriously derelict and neglected.

Coleen Fitzgibbon installing the exhibition “Income and Wealth”. Courtesy Coleen Fitzgibbon

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As White Cube leaves London’s Hoxton Square, the BBC reports on the history – and future – of the neighborhood. When art dealer Jay Jopling opened White Cube in 2000, the neighborhood of Shoreditch transformed into an expensive art and media center, now many galleries are leaving East London with rising prices.
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The Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation in Toronto has closed its doors, the eponymous space of the collector, curator, and artist. She was recently named as one of the 50 most influential people in the art world by ARTnews. She cited reasons of development on Toronto’s King Street as being overdeveloped and said the 25-year old foundation will continue, regardless of its physical location. (more…)

Yue Min Jun is interviewed by the Financial Times, discussing his current show, politics and the legacy of the Cultural Revolution in China.  His current exhibition, ‘Yue Minjun’ runs from November 14th to March 17th, 2013 at the Fondation Cartier, Paris. (more…)

Pablo Picasso – The Maids of Homer (1957), courtesy The Guggenheim Museum

Pablo Picasso, whose relentless explorations of form, representation and perspective fundamentally shifted the art world as one of the defining minds of the 20th century avant-garde.  Moving among a broad variety of approaches, techniques and media, the Spanish painter and sculptor created a vast body of work that defined him as a singular talent and powerful voice for years to come.  Now, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City is exhibitinf a massive exhibition of Picasso works, focusing on the black and white works.

Pablo Picasso – Woman Ironing (La repasseuse), Bateau-Lavoir, Paris, spring 1904,  courtesy The Guggenheim Museum
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Inglett Gallery via Katya Kazakina/Bloomberg

As galleries in Chelsea, the Lower East Side and Brooklyn regain power and cleanup begins, reports about the extent of the damage are slowly emerging. Basements flooded and water surged into first floor spaces, often several feet high, damaging everything. Several galleries had just mounted new shows, and some, like Andrea Rosen, were about to inaugurate expanded or newly acquired spaces.

Major museums closed, and some quickly reopened, giving people a place to gather and power up – like MoMA/PS 1 – or just a respite from the storm – like the Met. The New Museum was in the part of Manhattan without power and just reopened in the past day.

In Red Hook, artist Dustin Yellin lost everything – artwork, including early pieces, as well as recent renovations completed on the $3.7 million building that houses the The Intercourse, a non profit hub for artists through exhibitions, studio residencies, magazine and lecture and workshop series that opened earlier this year.

Red Hook Flooding via The Art Newspaper

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Fischli / Weiss, DÜNNWANDIGE RÖHRE AUS TON, LIEGEND, 2012, courtesy of Sprueth Magers

Peter Fischli and David Weiss currently have an exhibition at the Sprueth Magers gallery in London, which displays somber overtones coinciding with Weiss’ untimely death in April of this year.

An array of clean-cut unfired clay and industrial-looking rubber has been meticulously molded and scrupulously carved to mimic everyday objects of construction in the form of “walls, corners and tubes”. The works, executed between 2010 and 2012, and are connected to the group of works that the artists displayed at the 54th Venice Biennial in 2011. The clean, particular presentation of the scaled objects on virgin white plinths is a visual departure from earlier works.

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A New York supreme court judge has ruled that auction houses must disclose both consignors and buyers in order to create a binding sale contract. In a supply-driven art market that relies on confidentiality, Christie’s (although not a party involved in the original case) is appealing the decision, stating “we take issue with the Court’s opinion and are reviewing our legal options”.  (more…)

The Joan Mitchell Foundation is offering financial help for visual artists affected by the hurricane. It is providing emergency assistance to painters and sculptors affected by natural disasters and can provide information about other organizations that also may be able to assist. (more…)

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Architectural Record revisits MoMA’s 2010 exhibition, “Rising Currents”, which addressed climate change and its effect on rising sea levels. Architects, landscape architects, and engineers imagined the future of the coastlines of New York Harbor in New York and New Jersey. (more…)

MoMA and the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team will host a seminar on preservation and conservation of water-damaged artwork at the museum on Sunday from noon until 2:00 p.m. (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Installation view 2012, courtesy Lisson Gallery

Anish Kapoor’s current exhibition at the Lisson Gallery is a major exhibition of new works. Occupying both the gallery’s spaces on Bell Street, London, the exhibition marks 30 years of Lisson Gallery working together with the Turner-prize winning artist and provides a thorough examination of Kapoor’s most recent work.

Anish Kapoor, Installation view 2012, courtesy Lisson Gallery

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The Bloomberg Commission: Giuseppe Penone Whitechapel Gallery, Installation View, Photo: David Parry / PA Wire, all photos courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery

Work by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone is being highlighted at two locations in London(although not an organized collaboration), the longer of which will remain until August 2013. Spazio di Luce, created by Giuseppe Penone  for the Bloomberg Commission, opened at the Whitechapel Gallery in London on September 5th and will remain installed until August of next year, while Intersecting Gaze/Sguardo Incrociato is taking place currently at Gagosian Gallery at Davies Street London and will remain until November 27th, 2012. The works continue along themes Penone has been exploring throughout his 40-year long career, this time specifically exhibiting the idea that, in Penone’s words, “The stretching of a branch through space in search of light has the same structure as a glance.”

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The Drawing Center is set to open next week with a postponment date of Wednesday November 7th in its new space across the street at 35 Wooster with three shows: Guillermo Kuitca: Diarios, José António Suárez Londoño: The Yearbooks and In Deed: Certificates of Authenticity in Art. (more…)