Image: Sean Daly, Shaun Regen, Kathryn Bigelow, and John Loga via Vogue

Shaun Caley Regen opened her new location in Los Angeles last night at 6750 Santa Monica Boulevard, in a newly developing section of Hollywood, just east of Highland Avenue. The new space was designed by architect Michael Maltzan, creating a museum-like exhibition venue.

Image: Regen Projects’ inaugural exhibition via Regen Projects

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New York Magazine senior editor Christopher Bonanos has published a new book entitled Instant: The Story of Polaroid, (Princeton Architectural Press), which will be released this week. It profiles how artists as diverse as Lucas Samaras, Andy Warhol and Ansel Adams have used the the Polaroid as their medium of choice. (more…)

Alessandro Vezzosi, the director of the Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, and the Zurich-based Mona Lisa Foundation will unveil what could be the Isleworth Mona Lisa in Geneva on Sept 27th. It is owned by a Swiss-based consortium, who says that the version is the first of the famous portrait. In contrast to the Louvre‘s Mona Lisa dated ca. 1503-06, this work is on canvas and some formal aspects of the composition differ. Experts will decide whether the work is from the studio of Leonardo da Vinci or a copy from the late 16th century. (more…)

A new complaint in the lawsuit against Knoedler Gallery is being brought by Domenico De Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International, and his wife, Eleanore. The defendants are Michael Hammer (chairman of the former Knoedler Gallery), Ann Freedman (a former director), and Glafira Rosales and partners (Rosales was a dealer in Sands Point, Long Island who consigned artworks to Knoedler). The plaintiffs are one of 3 parties who claim that the gallery sold fakes. The combined total of the damages being sought by the 3 groups of plaintiffs in the suit is more than $70 million. (more…)

Museum galas in Los Angeles continue to feature celebrities to bolster fund raising: The Hammer Museum has invited Katy Perry, Steve Martin and MSNBC personality Rachel Maddow to its gala on Oct. 6th. The Hammer fundraiser will honor artists Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman and it will be co-chaired by Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker. Individual seats range from $1,500 to $7,500; last year’s gala raised approximately $1.7 million. Additionally, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art gala takes place on Oct. 27th, honoring filmaker Stanley Kubrick and artist Ed Ruscha, with Steven Spielberg presenting and music by Florence and the Machine. The Museum of Contemporary Art has postponed its gala until the spring. (more…)

Image: Daniel Buren, “Le Décor et son Double”. Photo Dirk Pauwels via S.M.A.K.

In 1986, French artist Daniel Buren created an installation for the home of collectors Annick and Anton Herbert called “Le Décor et son Double”. He installed a copy of the room in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent. This second copy was recently conserved and acquired by the museum (now renamed S.M.A.K.) and is being exhibited once again.

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Sotheby’s is entering into a joint venture with a Chinese auction house, Beijing GeHua Art Co., to be able to conduct business in the country. Due to government restrictions on foreign business entities, the auction house has developed a partnership with a Chinese-owned firm and will be operating out of a freeport in Bejing at the Capital International Airport. Sotheby’s will own 80% of the new company although final approval by the Chinese government has not yet been given. (more…)

Experts believe that a painting purchased eight years ago at a golf club in Kent may be a lost JMW Turner painting. Specialists will present the research at a conference on Wednesday at The Dulwich Picture Gallery. They believe it is Turner’s “Fishing Boats in a Stiff Breeze” from 1805. An art fund investor saw it and bought it for £3,700; the new research puts the value at around £20 million. (more…)

Auction houses have reported new consignments for November sales. Two collectors, Steven A. Cohen and Douglas S. Cramer, will be consigning works for the November 14 auctions at Christies. Sotheby’s announced “a seminal group of masterworks that provide a panoramic view of Abstract Expressionism” for its November 13th sale, including Mark Rothko‘s No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) from 1954 and a 1951 Jackson Pollock drip painting .

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The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, purchased a Rothko as part of its effort to bolster the Postwar component of the museum’s collection. The piece is a 1960 painting entitled “No. 210/No. 211 (Orange).” The work has rarely been exhibited and has been in a private European collection for roughly 50 years.  (more…)

An Alberto Giacometti sculpture, once part of an installation at Phillip Johnson’s Glass House, was considered lost and has been “hiding almost in plain sight for years”. Via much research and correspondence, the show’s curator, Jordan Stein, discovered it had actually been at the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation in Paris all these years, unrestored. On Saturday, the building’s owner, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, will be honoring the 1947 sculpture, “Night”, by holding its spot and using the story of its disappearance as the inspiration for a series of temporary exhibitions in its reopening to the public.  (more…)

Germany surprises the art community with its announcement of 4 artists selected to represent the country in the next Venice Biennale: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Indian photographer Dayanita Singh, German film director/writer/producer Romuald Karmakar and South African photographer Santu Mofokeng. The curator, Susanne Gaensheimer, said that all of the artists work in Germany’s art scene and that Germany sees itself as “an active participant in a complex, worldwide constellation”. (more…)

Jeffrey Gundlach, Santa Monica art collector and Wall Street tycoon, returned home from a trip to New York to find $10 million in artwork missing. Jasper Johns’ “Green Target”, along with works by Piet Mondrian, Richard Diebenkorn, Franz Kline, Joseph Cornell, Philip Guston and others were taken. No word yet on whether there was a security video, as the investigation is underway.

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Trevor Paglen discussed his latest project, The Last Pictures, with filmmaker Werner Herzog on the Bryant Park terrace last night. The project, an ultra archival disc that has been micro-etched with 100 photographs and encased in gold, was commissioned and presented by Creative Time. Poet Tracy K. Smith introduced the dialogue with a reading of her work, and Creative Time Chief Curator, Nato Thompson, made introductory remarks.

Image: Werner Herzog at The Last Pictures event presented by Creative Time, photo by Art Observed

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Teresita Fernández – Night Writing (Installation View), Lehmann Maupin Gallery

Teresita Fernández has often explored the natural elements as a framework of perception in her installations, allowing natural phenomena to act as a method of transformation and translation.  For Night Writing, her fifth solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, the artist has continued in this vein, creating a number of works that examine our imposition of meaning on the night sky.

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The Stedelijk Museum will reopen completely on Sunday, Sept 23rd after an eight-year renovation. The museum has renovated the original building and constructed a bathtub-shaped extension. The new structure will house temporary exhibitions, with a wall of windows that looks onto Museumplein. The museum had encountered structural problems with the new building, designed by Benthem Crouwel Architects. Beyond Imagination, an exhibition of emerging Amsterdam artists’ work, will inaugurate the space. It runs from Sept 23rd – Nov 11th. (more…)

Artist Jeff Koons; Thomas P. Campbell, the ninth director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and architect Richard Meier have been chosen by New York State to oversee the selection of designs for a new Tapan Zee bridge. The Tappan Zee bridge crosses the Hudson between Rockland and Westchester Counties. The three will provide aesthetic input to a selection committee, which will make the final recommendation to the State Thruway Authority. A design selection is scheduled to be made by the end of the year. (more…)

The Jing’An International Sculpture Project Biennial opens on today in a public park in Shanghai. It will include pieces by Wim Delvoye, Subodh Gupta, Jaume Plensa and others. Many of the sculptures will be purchased by the city and will be on permanent display. It is being organized by Huang Du, who curated the Chinese pavilions at the 2003 Venice Biennale and the 2004 São Paulo Biennial. (more…)

Christie’s will auction 63 artworks from the collection of Rudolph and Hannelore Schulhof in their November sale. The Schulhofs’ home on Long Island has held their approximately 350-piece collection of important 20th century art since the 1950s. Hannelore Schulhof, a widow, died in February, and since then the estate has been arranging for a portion of the collection to go to various museums and will keep part of the collection in the home as well. The estate will host a viewing of the works up for auction in the North Shore home this weekend. (more…)

The Louvre Museum will open the “most radical architectural intervention since the [I.M. Pei] pyramid in 1989″. After 10 years and $125 million, the new Islamic art galleries are set to open this Saturday. The gold undulating “flying carpet” or “luminous veil” roof is a 150-ton structure that was fabricated by using almost 9,000 steel tubes and designed by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti. Donors to the project include private corporations, the government of France, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, and other Arab donors and nations. The new galleries will house Islamic art from the 7th to the 19th centuries.

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A 1981 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting is expected to set a record for the artist’s work at the Christie’s New York auction on Nov. 14th. The privately-held painting of a fisherman with his catch has been exhibited in every major retrospective. The work will be publicly exhibited in London, Paris and New York prior to the sale. Although the presale estimate is $20 million, Christie’s expects the final price to exceed that due to a strong market for Basquiat. (more…)

Tim Noble and Sue Webster – Deadalive (2012), Saatchi Gallery

Over the past several years, the artists’ studio, RS&A, has commissioned 16 recognized artists to create their own chess sets and boards, allowing them to explore and reconfigure the image of the classic game.  Including sets by Maurizio Cattelan, Tracey Emin, Tom Friedman, Damien Hirst, Barbara Kruger, Yayoi Kusama and Paul McCarthy, the full collection is currently on view at Saatchi Gallery in London.

Yayaoi Kusama – Pumpkin Chess (2003), Saatchi Gallery

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French artist JR today launched his Inside Out project in Hong Kong, on elevated footbridge above Connaught Road, in collaboration with Galerie Perrotin and the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau. (more…)

Image: Expo Chicago via The Chicagoist

Expo Chicago opens with a VIP vernissage tomorrow evening to benefit the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Many blue-chip New York galleries are participating this inaugural year, including big names like Matthew Marks, The Pace Gallery, Luhring Augustine and David Zwirner, as well as other international galleries like Yvon Lambert. In the Exposure section, younger galleries like DODGE gallery and Kate Werble will be exhibiting.

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