‪‬Wolfgang Laib to install 12 years worth of bright yellow hazelnut pollen collected in Germany in the MoMA atrium January–February 2013 [AO Newslink]

(more…)

Dash Snow, Untitled (2001-2009). All images courtesy of Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin.

Contemporary Fine Arts (CFA) Berlin hosts a selection of original Polaroids and a film from the late Dash Snow, curated by  Mary Blair Hansen of the Dash Snow Archive. As infamous as his Polaroids were in art circles and beyond they were only ever exhibited three times in Snow’s life. Most people are familiar with only scanned or C-print editions of the almost 8,000 Polaroids that Snow took. Sensational and yet sensitive, these Polaroids were Snow’s entry point into the art world. On view at CFA are over 400 originals grouped and framed, with certain individual images exhibited alone.

(more…)

–>
View of frame to have picture taken with boulder in Bixby Knolls on March 7, 2012. Images on site for Art Observed by Megan Hoetger.

On Saturday, March 10 at approximately 3:00 am the 340-ton granite megalith that will be part of Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass reached its final destination at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Traveling for eleven days in the dead of night through Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, and Los Angeles Counties, the rock arrived at LACMA to a crowd of a thousand onlookers. The megalith’s final resting place is atop a 465-foot long slot carved into the earth. Viewers will be able to walk down into the slot and underneath the rock, experiencing scale in a way that harkens back to ancient times when massive structures such as Stonehenge, Easter Island, or the Great Pyramids were constructed.

–>
View of boulder in Exposition Park area on March 9, 2012

(more…)

Juergen Teller, Cerith (2011)

“Everything is permitted, as long as it is fantastic.” So were the famous words of eccentric Italian designer Carlo Mollino. It was perhaps in that spirit that photographer Juergen Teller entered Mollino’s old residence to photograph a controversial series of provocative photographs featuring model Kristen McMenamy. The photographs, frequently denounced as “pornographic” by critics, juxtapose a fading beauty with the aging home of a long-deceased designer frequently known for his erotic proclivities, bringing to the forefront themes of aging and beauty that make the pieces as compelling as they are edgy.

(more…)

‪‬Park Avenue Armory new artistic director Alex Poots to possibly commission $1.4 million Paul McCarthy installation, according to “draft programme for 2013 season” [AO Newslink]

(more…)

‪‬Sotheby’s to auction Andy Warhol’s ‘Double Elvis [Ferus Type]’ for estimated $30–50 million at May Contemporary sale in New York, the work will be on view in LA next week [AO Newslink]

(more…)

‪‬James Franco and LA MoCA will screen ‘Rebel’ film at “unusual” venue of JF Chen’s furniture boutique, with work shown also by Douglas Gordon, Harmony Korine, Damon McCarthy, Paul McCarthy, Terry Richardson, Ed Ruscha, and Aaron Young [AO Newslink]

(more…)

Will Ryman, Bird (2012). All images via Paul Kasmin Gallery.

Will Ryman’s Anyone and No One solo show is the artist’s first at Paul Kasmin, and the first for any artist to show simultaneously at both the 10th avenue gallery and the former Bungalow 8 location. Three new site-specific works include a towering labyrinth of 200,000 paintbrushes, and larger than life sculptures of a man and a raven.

Will Ryman, Signature (detail) (2012)

(more…)

‪‬David Zwirner—after announcing a new London space—newly announces construction of a five-story exhibition and project space in Chelsea designed by Annabelle Selldorf, both to open this fall of 2012 [AO Newslink]

(more…)

‪‬Los Angeles philanthropists Jarl and Pamela Mohn fund $100,000 Mohn Prize through The Hammer Museum and its “Made in LA 2012” biennial, the fund committed to at least five biennials [AO Newslink]

(more…)

‪‬

LA MoCA director Jeffrey Deitch and Mike D of The Beastie Boys collaborate for magazine Avant/Garde Diaries’ upcoming Los Angeles cultural festival “Transmission L.A.: AV Club” [AO Newslink]

(more…)

Cy Twombly, To Vivaldi (1960). All photos courtesy Eykyn Maclean and the Sonnabend Collection, New York © Cy Twombly Foundation.

Nineteenth and twentieth century artworks gallery Eykyn Maclean is exhibiting Cy Twombly works from the Sonnabend Collection in its London space, and the works will move to New York City in April. The exhibition consists of eleven pieces from the collection of Ileana Sonnabend, who ran the Sonnabend Gallery for over thirty years, until her death in 2007. Ileana Sonnabend was an early supporter of Twombly, and shortly before his death in 2011, he said of her that “she had the eye.” Many of the works have not been seen in public before, and are part of Sonnabend’s son’s personal collection. The works span several phases of Twombly’s career, beginning with various Twombly-scribbles on large, light canvases from the fifties. Each of the works, from the fifties through the sixties, presses the boundary between writing and painting, revealing the physicality in both.

(more…)

‪‬Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Battle of Anghiari’ may possibly be beneath Giorgio Vasari’s ‘The Battle of Marciano,’ as drilled probes detect similar pigments used in Mona Lisa, though Florence researchers maintain evidence is “not conclusive” at this stage [AO Newslink]

(more…)

‪Damien Hirst will open his own gallery on Newport Street in South London to showcase his collection of 2,000 works, which includes his own paintings, work by street artist Banksy, and Jeff Koons. The gallery plans to open in 2014, following his retrospective at the Tate Modern in London this coming April. [AO Newslink]

(more…)

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild at Galerie Sho Booth, Pier 92

On the third and final day of the Armory Show 2012 both spirits and sales were high amongst the 228 exhibitors. Besides the notable success of David Zwirner’s solo booth by Michael Riedel, which sold out entirely in the first 30 minutes of the fair, many of the other galleries also benefited from the sales of their high-ticket items throughout the three-day exhibition. Art Observed spoke with representatives from various exhibitors including the Susan Sheehan Gallery, Spanierman Modern, Meredith Ward Fine Art, Art in General, Sprüth Magers, and the Gary Snyder Gallery. (more…)

Gilbert and George, Guns (2011). All images via White Cube.

The collaborative duo Gilbert and George opened London Pictures to large crowds in Hong Kong last week, bringing the duo’s brash, oddball brand of British pop to the east for the inauguration of the London-based White Cube gallery’s new location. Based on 3719 source images drawn from newsstand posters stolen in East London over the last six years, the 292 works which comprise the London Pictures are the largest single body of work yet created by the duo, and the exhibition spans all four White Cube spaces—the new Hong Kong location, as well as Bermondsey, Hoxton Square, and Mason’s Yard. The gridded patterns of anywhere from four to forty tiles of found text and imagery—with the artists added in—explore themes of violence, sex, and death, through various methods of repetition. According to the press release, the survey draws “directly on the quotidian life of a vast city, [and] allow[s] contemporary society to recount itself in its own language.”

Installation view (more…)

‪‬Italian police recover 37 old masters paintings stolen from a Roman businessman’s collection in 1971. Paintings by Berlinghieri, El Greco, Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck are among the works, worth £6 million in all.  Five works from the original theft still remain missing. [AO Newslink]

(more…)

Cindy Sherman, Murder Mysteries, at Metro Pictures. All photos on site for Art Observed by Ryann Donnelly.

Running through March 11 at the Park Avenue Armory on New York’s Upper East Side is the 24th annual Art Show organized by the Art Dealer’s Association of America (ADAA). Benefitting The Henry Street Settlement, the show features 35 solo-exhibit booths, and 37 thematic installations from a select array of galleries including Metro Pictures, Cheim & Read, Pace, David Zwirner, Marian Goodman, Anton Kern, and Gladstone Gallery, to name a few. With a steady, if not entirely bustling crowd Thursday afternoon, the gallerists reported positively about sales and client traffic at a show carrying a heavier contemporary selection than in years passed. (more…)

Installation shot. All images courtesy of Gallery Buchholz Berlin.

German artist Isa Genzken presents a new constellation of works Hallelujah at the Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin, Germany. Genzken works primarily in sculpture but is known to also employ other media such as film, photography, works on paper, and collage in her works. Her practice, known for drawing on the legacy of Minimalism, often involves a critical dialogue with Modernist architecture as well as contemporary culture.

(more…)

‪‬Solid Objectives-Idenburg Liu (SO-IL) architects to create 1,500 ft long tent for Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island in May, with ‘neighborhoods,’ ‘wedges,’ and views of Manhattan along the curved structure, “It’s going to be very elegant,” says Frieze co-founder Matthew Slotover [AO Newslink]

(more…)

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #466 (2008)

Cindy Sherman‘s retrospective is on view now at MoMA through June 11. Using herself as her only model, Sherman manipulates her appearance and environment, manifesting a dialogue about gender and social stereotypes through every carefully crafted and costumed persona. With eleven galleries dedicated to various series of her work—from the simplistic roles of femininity displayed in her pioneering Film Stills series, to her more complex transmutations of fashion centerfolds, or the aristocratic elite—her consistent process has yielded more emotionally, psychologically, and aesthetically nuanced characters since her earliest work in 1975.

(more…)

All photos courtesy David Zwirner.

Michael Riedel’s solo site-specific installation of silk-screened posters and wallpaper sold out within the first thirty minutes of the Armory Show preview at David Zwirner’s booth. Art Observed spoke with Riedel that very afternoon in the following interview.

Art Observed: I was really taken by your work and its interaction with systems. I felt that to be a foundational aspect of how you interact with art and what your art-making process is about. How did you get interested or involved with systems?

Michael Riedel: Well, there is a big German writer on systems, and it’s interesting because I found his writing after I produced a lot of works, and then I could say, ‘Wow, this is exactly what is in my work.’ So there is a strong relationship to his writing. I think he is a sociologist… anyway, I think this is something which makes total sense for me—as a product. It’s something that’s ongoing and changing, but also in the same time it is a fixed form somehow. Yet inside there are a lot of interests. You can also touch on the word reproduction; a lot of people like to talk about reproduction in reference to my work, yet there has been a shift in meaning of reproduction—it isn’t about a product anymore, but the process of production. Which means, in the process of producing works, they are only done to produce the next step, to recycle, to transform, to translate. So it’s an ongoing thing.

(more…)

‪‬Online art critic Hennessy Youngman invites “anyone—and I mean anyone—who can bring your art down to Family Business” to participate in upcoming exhibition, ‘ITSA SMALL SMALL WORLD,’ in association with curator Massimiliano Gioni, and artists Maurizio Cattelan, and Marilyn Minter [AO Newslink]

(more…)

‪‬Gerhard Richter’s auction sales reached $200 million last year, while the artist remains humble, says Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art, “Richter doesn’t want to be the next king, but he has taken painting farther than just about anyone else” [AO Newslink]

(more…)