Bravo’s docu-series Gallery Girls premiered last night to mixed reviews. “Bravo’s gallery girls need galleries like the real housewives need husbands: as an entrée into and excuse for a life of shopping, cocktail-drinking, and backstabbing.”

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Ellsworth Kelly, interviewed, describes his taste in art, his creative process and how he chooses to work against the art market rather than give into its pressures. His show, Plant Drawings, will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until September 3rd.

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After 13 successive Turbine Hall annual commissions at the Tate Modern, Unilever has ended their sponsorship of the program causing the institution to seek new sponsorship.  Since 2000, Unilever has sponsored commissions including Olafur Eliasson’s The Weather Project, 2003-04, Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, 2007-08, and Sunflower Seeds by Ai Weiwei, 2010-2011. Unilever’s sponsorship deal runs through 2013, after which, they will remain on board as a corporate member. The Tate is now beginning discussions concerning sponsorship from 2014 onward.

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Architect David Adjaye and artist Doug Aitken have collaborated on a pavilion for the Tate Liverpool designed to create a cultural destination away from the confines of its traditional gallery space. The pavilion, composed of corrugated acrylic, bitumen panels, and wood framing, will mark Aitken’s first public installation in the UK. Forming a gallery during the day, the perimeter walls will display a projection of Aitken’s work at night, similar to that recently displayed at the Hirshhorn Museum.

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Forbes reports on how China may be leading the media to believe its art market is more successful than it may actually be. In the past few years, demand for Chinese contemporary art has remained mostly domestic, and many of works sold at auction in Hong Kong and Beijing remain unpaid-for. Though China has been said to hold the number one spot in terms of ranking of art sales globally, the news tests the accuracy and truth of these rankings.

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Nate Lowman, Bulletin Board (2012) via Venus Over Manhattan

“Bulletin Boards” at Venus Over Manhattan, collector Adam Lindemann’s new uptown gallery, is the product of a collaboration with White Columns, the downtown alternative art space directed by Matthew Higgs. On the heels of Venus Over Manhattan’s heady, decadent “Á rebours” inaugural show, which resulted in the sensational Dalí art theft, “Bulletin Boards brings a notably more experimental endeavor to the space’s industrial walls. The exhibition is modeled on a curatorial project that Higgs debuted ten years ago at the California College of Arts, in which a glazed aluminum bulletin board purchased from an office supply store would become a “project space” for invited artists such as Trisha Donnelly and Carter. In this show’s press release, Higgs states that “the project sought to gently subvert the typical function of a bulletin board, replacing the anticipated pertinent or useful information typically found in such places with something that approximated ‘art’.” In the project’s current manifestation, a selected group of artists and curators were invited to envision their own bulletin boards, resulting in the twenty-five works currently on display. Born from the same conceptual and material conditions presented by the constant of the bulletin board, the final works spring from the different variables employed by the individual artist and curators, resulting in a diverse assortment of ideas and aesthetics that multifariously engage, entertain, and confront the viewer.

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Darryl Kelly, a cleanup man from New York City, when asked to clean out reclusive artist Harry Shunk’s apartment back in 2006, inadvertently found works by Christo to Andy Warhol after the Lichtenstein foundation had taken the rest.  Mr. Kelly intends to auction the works off this fall.

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Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi plans to build a structure supporting a living room which would enclose Columbus Circle’s historic monument, 6 stories above ground. The project, developed by the Public Art Fund, will allow the New York community to scale scaffolding and entertain an intimate face-to-face visit with the statue, surrounded by coffee tables, couches, and and the comforts of home. Workers will use the living room as an enclosed perch for restoration of the monument when the exhibition closes on November 18.

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Zhang Huang, The Mountain Is Still A Mountain (Gallery View)

In the work of Zhang Huang, Buddhist incense ash frequently makes an appearance.  It is a potent medium that stands at the intersection of the physical and the spiritual, the personal and the universal,the detritus of a tangible object destroyed for the sake of spiritual prostration.  It represents the willing departure of the mind beyond the immediacy of flesh towards a higher power.  For Huang, it also bears the signature of his own heritage , and serves as a fittingly specific medium to bring the political and social issues of modern China into the public eye.

Zhang Huang, My Literary Teacher (2008)

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Damien Hirst designed the set of the closing ceremony for the London Olympics, created as a spin painting representing the British flag.

The Wall Street Journal reports on Yasuo Minagawa, one of the most renowned framers in Manhattan, who uses precision and care to create beautiful and handmade frames for his clients: “Mistake is enemy number one.”

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Lehmann Maupin’s “Friends with Benefits,” installation view. All photography by M. Peralta for Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

“Friends with Benefits,” Lehmann Maupin‘s summer group show on view at their location at 201 Chrystie Street, is a correspondence between generations that reveals the concerns of each. The gallery asked five of their artists–Tony Oursler, Angel Otero, Tim Rollins, Mickalene Thomas, and Nari Ward–to ­­request work from young artists they would like to support. Curated by Carla Camacho and Drew Moody, the result is an appealing disjunction of artistic histories, showing contemporary artists engaged with the concerns of a former generation while also reflecting on the artistic currents of their own time. The exhibition’s starting point, as described in the press release, is the notion of “the gallery community as a fertile space,” which takes a positive stance on the white cube as a place where older artists can encourage the work of younger artists.

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LA MOCA’s beleaguerment continues as its main supporter, Eli Broad, misses two payments.  At MOCA’s lowest endowment level of $5 million in 2008 Broad pledged $15 million, provided matching funds could be obtained.  Broad has paid $6.25 million of the amount, and the endowment currently stands at $20 million. No matching has been made. In the last fiscal year, grants and contributions fell 21.5%, operating profit has declined and expenses rose 10.7% to $17.5 million at the museum.

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Crowd Shot at the opening of People Who Work Here at David Zwirner. All photos by Aubrey Roemer for Art Observed.

On a hot summer evening, David Zwirner’s 19th Street Chelsea location held an opening for its artist employees titled People Who Work Here. The show is curated by Rawson Projects co-directors James Morrill and Chris Rawson, who are also fellow David Zwirner employees.

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The Edinburgh airport has reversed its decision to censor Picasso‘s ” Nude Woman in a Red Armchair.” After complaints from several international arrivals, the airport, covered up the image, which was being used to advertise the Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The airport now, however, has reviewed their initial decision and reinstated the image after Gallery officials labeled the move as “bizarre” that “somehow a painted nude by one of the world’s most famous artists is found to be disturbing.”

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 Franz West’s sculpture “Eidolon” is stirring it up a bit in Montauk. Collector Adam Lindemann has been displaying the 14-foot phallic looking sculpture on his Montauk Bluffs estate, visible to beach goers. “Coincidentally it serves as a small homage to him — though one neighbor did refer to it as ‘Moby’s Dick.’ And I like to think Franz would have liked that.” Lindemann stated.

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Mark Flood in front of his painting Entrada (2012) at the Hateful Years opening at Luxembourg & Dayan. All photos by Aubrey Roemer for Art Observed.

Mark Flood’s near mini-retrospective “The Hateful Years” opened this past Wednesday in the upper east-side gallery Luxembourg & Dayan. The five floors of the gallery are each devoted to separate bodies of work within the artist’s oeuvre. Starting on the ground floor with his well known lace paintings – the viewer moves chronologically backward in time through the various creative stages of Mark Flood’s self proclaimed “hateful” work. Exhibiting over 100 paintings, collages, sculptures, and mixed media works, this show redefines the scope and depth of Mark Flood’s vision as an artist.

Mark Flood, David Lee (ND)

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Bob Odenkirk pens ‘A Portrait of the Artist’ for the New Yorker: “He’s been praised as ‘unfathomable at best’ and ‘bafflingly circumlocutory at worst’ by ArtFinger.” “He has adopted a man older than himself whom he has affectionately dubbed Grandbrother and with whom he trades birthday cards three times a year.”

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The late John Chamberlain‘s sculptures, presented by Gagosian Gallery, are to be displayed at the Seagram Plaza in New York, beginning this Friday.

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Detroit voters have approved an unusual and specific 10-year tax to secure funds for the Detroit Institute of the Arts. Expected to raise $23 million a year, Detroit Institute officials hope to raise up to $300 million for their endowment over the next 10 years. In return for supporting the tax, the DIA will offer free general admission for residents of approving counties.

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Sotheby’s reported second quarter revenue which fell 18% to $303.9 million despite its successful first quarter, which the company called its “most profitable quarter in history.” Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht stated “Our results reflect the global economy, which we’re all experiencing, income is down because sales are down. The overall health of the business is intact.”

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British citizens have raised £8 million to save Edouard Manet‘s “Portrait of Fanny Claus” from leaving the country. The painting was originally sold last year to a foreign buyer, but the government placed and export bar on the work and therein made its sale available to British public institutions. Donations were made by over 1,000 members of the public , and were combined with £5.9 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £850,000 from The Art Fund to reach the £7.83 million needed to purchase the work for the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

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Following Paul Schimmel‘s June resignation from Los Angeles MOCA, the museum announced it will hire a new Chief Curator, a post it had decided to leave vacant after his departure. The reversal arises from the criticism of the direction the museum has taken since Jeffrey Deitch has come on board as Executive Director.

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Having spent the last 60 years hanging in a Scottish farmhouse, a possible work of Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered. Facing financial difficulties, Fiona McLaren unknowingly brought her painting to Sotheby’s Scotland for appraisal, where it was discovered to be possibly worth over £100 million (about $156 million). The painting will be sent to London next year to be inspected by experts at the Hamilton Kerr Institute at the University of Cambridge and dated conclusively.

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