Sarah Pickstone is the first woman in 23 years to win the John Moores Painting Prize, BBC reports. Britian’s most prestigious painting prize, it has been awarded in the past to artists David Hockney, Richard Hamilton and Peter Doig. Pickstone’s Stevie Smith and The Willow was chosen from more than 3,000 entries. (more…)
Jackson Pollock’s Red, Black & Silver has been pulled from Phillips de Pury & Company‘s Sept. 20th auction, because of a Vanity Fair profile on the painting’s controversial history. Supposedly Pollock’s last painting ever made, the work was owned by the late Ruth Kligman, Pollock’s mistress. She died in 2010, and it was never authenticated by Lee Krasner or the Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board, who could not corroborate the information given about the work. The executor of Kligman’s estate, Davey Frankel, stated: “Following the article in Vanity Fair, the [Kligman] Trust was approached by parties interested in possibilities for further study of the painting, and felt it in the interest of Ruth and Red, Black & Silver to investigate these options before taking the painting to auction.” The piece is still consigned to Phillips for a future sale. (more…)
Eric Yahnker, Finger (Bush’s Country Style Baked Beans), 2012 via The Hole, New York
LA-based artist Eric Yahnker’s first solo exhibition in New York City, entitled Virgin Birth ‘n’ Turf, opened earlier this month at The Hole. An irreverent and and visceral exploration of the current socio-political climate, Virgin Birth ‘n’ Turf “provides a mad lab where “I get to swab the inner-cheek and place under a microscope a petri dish of the contemporary American experience in the shadow of another blisteringly contentious Presidential election, analyzing the gray matter and microorganisms which make us tick as well as the flesh-eating bacteria which plague us.”, according to the artist.
MoMA to exhibit Edvard Munch‘s 1895 version of The Scream on a 6-month loan from its new owner. The painting was recently sold at auction to an anonymous buyer, achieving the highest price ever paid at auction earlier this year ($120 million). The painting is the only one of four versions of The Scream that is privately held and has never been exhibited publicly in New York. It is the most colorful one of the series and is seen as a precursor to 20th century Expressionism. Although collector Leon Black is purported to be the present owner, neither Mr. Black, Sotheby’s nor MoMA confirmed as such. It will be on view from October 24 – April 29th.
Tate Modern announces that its Damien Hirst retrospective was its most popular exhibition on record, with almost half a million visitors. The show, which closed this month, has proven to be more popular than blockbusters such as Hopper, Gauguin or Rothko.
The Telegraph reports that collector David Roberts plans to open a 12,000 sq ft arts center to house his collection in London’s Camden Town. Roberts estimates the value of his collection of about 2,000 works at around £36 million, with works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Matthew Day Jackson and Thomas Houseago. Vincent Honoré will serve as curator; he previously worked for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Tate Modern. (more…)
The “Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator” website gains fans, advising would-be art historians and critics that “you need never again feel at a loss for pithy commentary or savvy ‘insights.'” The Critical Response to the Art Product which it generates is both humorous and serves as a broader commentary (as did Alan Sokol’s hoax in 1996).
Linda Yablonsky discusses art curation on the set of Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon’s new movie, Arbitrage, in which works by several contemporary artists including Ryan McGinley, Donald Baechler, Marilyn Minter, Adam McEwen and Huma Bhaba, make an appearance. Gere plays a hedge-fund mogul art collector. The filmmakers focused on believability: in addition to choosing the building which was a former home of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the film borrowed work from Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn of Salon 94 Gallery and others. (more…)
David Hockney – A Closer Winter Tunnel, February–March (2006), Guggenheim Bilbao
British painter David Hockney has, over the course of his 50 year career, continually pushed the conceptions of landscape painting, exploring various approaches to form, color and composition that mirror his ongoing fascination with shifting technologies and cultural perception. Now, his work is being shown at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao as the second venue of a major exhibition of the Yorkshire native’s work, including a large collection of works done in his home town.
Art Fag City describes how Lower East Side Galleries are expanding, but not as a result of an art market bubble. Reasonable rent due to the economy, bargain-hunting collectors, and the bohemian sensibility of the LES may be together be creating a sustainable market for gallerists in the area.
Images: Larry Gagosian via Phaidon and Ronald Perelman via Forbes
Larry Gagosian and Ronald Perelman filed lawsuits against each other last week in the New York State Supreme Court. The two have had a business relationship and friendship for over twenty years. The following is a further detailed account of the two cases.
Eric Clapton consigns a Gerhard Richter Abstraktes Bild to Sotheby’s for £9-12 M, ($14MM – $18 MM). The work is a large scale piece from 1994, one of a series of four (number 809-4 in the catalogue raisonné). The auction takes place on October 12th at Sotheby’s London.
L&M Arts announces splitting of partners – Dominique Lévy to open new gallery in an undisclosed Upper East Side location. They will continue to operate L&M Arts in Los Angeles; the New York location will change its name to Mnuchin Gallery. Lévy plans to show postwar and contemporary art, handling primary- and secondary-market sales.
Sotheby’s reports the sale of important Ming Dynasty vase that had previously been used as a doorstop at a private home on Long Island. It sold well above the estimate of $600-900k, at a hammer price of $1.3 million.
Paul Morris, Director and co-founder of The Armory Show, steps down after 18 years. The fair began as the Gramercy International Art Fair in 1994, renamed after relocating to the 69th Regiment Armory in 1999. Morris co-founded the fair with Matthew Marks, Colin de Land and Pat Hearn; after the deaths of the latter two, he sold the fair in 2007 to Merchandise Mart Properties Inc., took on the role as vice president, and closed his own gallery. Morris cited personal reasons as the cause for his departure. The next Armory Show takes place from March 7-10th, 2013.
Photograph by James Franco
CoSTUME NATIONAL opened its “NEW NO DARK WAVE” exhibition, featuring a film installation and photographs by James Franco, as well as work by Tobias Wong, Frédéric Beigbeder, Aaron Young and Daniel Firman.
Exterior View
The second annual ArtRio fair closes in Brazil today, with blue-chip exhibitors seeing strong sales of work by international and Brazilian artists. Gagosian and White Cube reported millions of dollars in total sales. 120 galleries participated, around half of them international.
Kembra Pfahler installation at Participant (2012). All photos by Ryann Donnelly for Art Observed
On view through October 14 at Participant Inc. gallery in New York City’s Lower East Side is a new solo show from multi-media artist and performer, Kembra Pfahler. The sculptural objects included in the show are inspired a new song by Pfahler’s rock band, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black.
Opening at Participant Inc., New York City (more…)
The Rolling Stones have chosen Walton Ford to illustrate the cover of their 50th anniversary album. Due to be released in November, the “GRRR!” cover takes John Pasche’s original lips and tongue logo as inspiration. The cover image is a version of Ford’s piece I Don’t Like to Look at Him, Jack. It Makes Me Think of that Awful Day on the Island, shown in 2011 at Paul Kasmin Gallery. Just as Warhol designed the 1971 Sticky Fingers and Peter Corriston created 1978’s Some Girls, the band continues a half-century old tradition.
Despite the recent attention to various projects mixing contemporary art with fashion, the influence on one another is not new, according an article in the WSJ. The Musée d’Orsay in Paris will open a show called “Impressionism and Fashion” on Sept 25th with paintings, period garments and fashion illustrations. Curator Gloria Groom draws connections between the work of Impressionists and that of fashion designers of the day. The show will travel to New York and Chicago, with different garments in each exhibition.
Jenny Holzer this week began to project randomized sequences of sayings on the façade of L&M Arts in Los Angeles as part of her new exhibition, “Jenny Holzer: THE FUTURE PLEASE”, which will feature her granite benches, 1980s plaques, redaction paintings and LED signs. The exhibition is organized into two parts: early work from 1970s to the present is on view in the West Gallery; recent work in the East Gallery. Runs through Oct 27th.
MoMA will show Christian Marclay’s 24-hour long video installation, “The Clock”, from December 21 through January 21. The film uses a montage of more than 10,000 movie clips featuring clocks, and each scene syncs to real-world time. MoMA will provide 24-hour access to the galleries during January to allow the film to be shown in its entirety, and will have a special New Year’s Eve screening.
Diane Arbus – A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. (1966), Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum
In partnership with Jeu de Paume, Paris, The Estate of Diane Arbus LLC, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam, The Martin-Gropius-Bau Museum is hosting a major retrospective of the work of American Photographer Diane Arbus, including a number of previously unseen pieces.
Giuseppe Penone, Space of Light(2012), The Bloomberg Commission: Giuseppe Penone Whitechapel Gallery Installation View
On the ground floor of London’s Whitechapel Gallery stands the Bloomberg commission- Giuseppe Penone’s “Spazio di Luce” (Space of Light), 12 meters of hollowed out tree trunk decorated with a gold leaf interior. The trunk balances on its own branches creating the allusion of suspension, allowing onlookers to peer inside and around it.