Claude Monet, Nymphéas, c. 1914-1917 (est. $27.4-39.7 million), via Christies.com

If collectors failed to find anything that struck their fancy at Art Basel they’ll have more opportunities to buy during the summer lineup of sales at the three big auction houses in London over the next two weeks. On Tuesday Christie’s will inaugurate with an immense 92-lot auction of Impressionist & Modern Art, followed by Sotheby’s comparatively petit 35-lot sale on Wednesday evening. Next week Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury will hold Contemporary Art sales.

Pablo Picasso, Jeune Fille Endormie, 1935 (est. $14.5-19.3 million), via Christies.com

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Alexander Ponomarev, Baffin Figure, 2006, Performance, Baffin Sea.

Currently on view at the Arsenale Novissima in Venice, Italy is “One of a Thousand Ways to Defeat Entropy.” Organized by the Courtauld Institute of Art, in collaboration with AVC Charity Foundation, the exhibition is one of the official collateral programs of the 54th Venice Biennale. Curated by Alexander Ponomarev and Nadim Samman, the exhibition comprises of  four contemporary artists have been commissioned to create a site-specific work engaging with the theme of entropy: Adrian Ghenie (London/Berlin), Hans Op de Beeck (Brussels), Ryoichi Kurokawa (Osaka/Berlin), and Ponomarev himself (Moscow).

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KAWS “Companion (Passing Through)” 2011  – All photos by ArtObserved

Aptly titled “Companion (Passing Through)”, the sixteen feet tall sculpture by KAWS  has relocated from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut to the front plaza of the Standard Hotel in New York City.  Originally commissioned for the expansive Harbour Mall in Hong Kong, “Companion” is a hybrid of KAWS’s signature skull head and the body of Mickey Mouse in grayscale.  With both hands covering his face, the cartoonish figure in repose appears to be experiencing a range of negative emotions induced by his surroundings.  The specific conditions are ambiguous yet the pose speaks to the viewer with its instant familiarity and universal language of shame, humiliation, and social withdrawal.

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Eric Fischl, Barbeque (1982)

Skarstedt Gallery presents “Eric Fischl: Early Paintings”, on view through June 18th. Known for his postmodern style, this exhibition focuses on nine of Eric Fischl‘s early works that helped introduce his style. Dating from 1979 to 1989, the paintings depict everyday life in the suburbs—tan bodies by the poolside, family barbecues, and children and adults playing their expected roles.  Through these selected glimpses Fischl reveals more serious themes upon a closer look.

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Inside the Greek Pavilion – all photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

“The Biennale is like a wind machine,” Biennale President Paolo Baratta eccentrically stated at the festival’s opening. Whether he was referring to the Biennale’s power to stir things up, or to fuel the art world through another two years, the metaphor felt apt. Early last week, the 54th Venice Biennale opened to press and professionals. Although the usual vaporetto strike caused momentary chaos, determined art world people made their way around the city in water taxis, iPhone/iPad apps in hand. The exhibition opened to the public on Saturday, June 4th and runs through November 27th, 2011.

Artist Kwok Mang-ho (a.k.a Frog King), who represented Hong Kong.

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Move over vaporetti — there’s a new barge in town. Slated to gracing the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice over the past five days was a project by The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, entitled “Commercial Break.” The exhibition is organized by Neville Wakefield, a contemporary art writer prolific curator globally. Powered by POST Magazine, “Commercial Break” considers itself to be a provocative architectural intervention in a city where no advertising is traditionally displayed. Unfortunately, as Artinfo reported, the city pulled permits a few days before and the videos were instead screened at the project’s Bauer Hotel party. The woman behind the “GCCC” is Dasha Zukhova, girlfriend of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich; it is the institution’s second project in Venice.  All videos are now viewable on the exhibition’s website.

Among videos featured is one by  Richard Phillips, starring Lindsey Lohan.

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All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

Art Observed was on site for “The Heard and the Unheard,” a project by Soundscape Taiwan.  The installation, housed in the Taiwan Pavilion (in the Palazzo delle Prigioni), was curated by Amy Cheng with artists Hong-Kai Wu and Yu-Hsien Yu, in collaboration with the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. The inauguration of the installation kicked off with a party entitled “Sounds Edgy!” with performances by Fujui Wang and DJ @llen. In the background, the Sound Library/Bar provides a backdrop of Taiwan’s socio-historical context and the current impetus for change.

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All photos by Caroline Claisse.

Andrea Thal and Thomas Hirschhorn represent Switzerland in the 2011 Venice Biennale.  Previous representatives have included Silvia Bächli and Fabrice Gygi (2009), Ugo Rondinone (2007), and Pipilotti Rist (2005) whose work is visible in the Arsenale.

Hirschhorn is a Bern-born, Paris-based artist best known for large-scale “DIY” style installations using duct tape and tinfoil.  Thal’s practice is based in music and performance; she runs an artist-run gallery space in Zurich, Les Complices.* Hirschhorn has also created a special website for the project, which provides insight into his working process: Crystals of Resistance.

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Aerial short of Randall’s Island, via The Art Newspaper

Frieze, the hallmark London contemporary art fair which has steadily built itself up since 2003, today announced its expansion to New York where it will host a fair in Randall’s Island Park.  Frieze Art Fair will open on May 2nd for VIPs, with the public gaining access between May 3rd and 6th.

The fair will coincide with the city’s 2012 contemporary art auctions and will be around the same size as its London counterpart, with roughly170 galleries from 33 countries participating.  Notably, the fair fall outside of the traditional art fair week in March, anchored by the Armory Show.  This may prompt some galleries to re-evaluate which fairs they will participate in. Similarly, the timing of Frieze’s New York fair may affect galleries who may have opted for Art Basel in June.

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Image courtesy The Guardian.

After 43 days of detention, reports broke earlier today that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was allowed a visit from his wife Lu Qing on Sunday. A friend of Weiwei’s, rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan, confirmed that the artist had not been tortured or ill-handled, and that he was receiving medication for his diabetes and high blood pressure.

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All photos by Lily Streeter for Art Observed

Last night, White Columns hosted their annual Benefit auction and exhibition at their space on 320 west 13th street. White Columns, founded by Jefferey Lew and art interventionist Gordon Matta-Clark, remains recognized as one of New York’s oldest non-profit art spaces, founded originally in Soho in 1970. It relocated four times before arriving upon the building it inhabits now, continously serving as a multi-purpose space for artists to exhibit, screen and present their work. White Columns upholds a tradition of showing new artists, and supporting artists in various experimental projects. The annual fundraiser auction gives artists a chance to return this support by contributing selected works to the silent auction. Various commissioned works were held at live auction this year as well; artists such as Peter Doig, Cecily Brown and Huma Bhabha created works in a series inspired by found vinyl record sleeves.

Peter Doig, Wishing It Would Rain (2011) being sold at live auction

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Cyprien Gaillard The Recovery of Discovery (2011), via KW Berlin.

French artist Cyprien Gaillard’s “The Recovery of Discovery” is currently on view at KW Berlin.  The work consists of cardboard boxes of beer that form the shape of a pyramid, which are available to the public to open and drink, after signing a waiver.  The show opened on March 27th, and is in a continuing state of destruction until May 22nd.

Cyprien Gaillard’s beer pyramid opening night, via KW Berlin. More text and images after the jump…

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Anna Betbeze, Oasis 2011 (2011), via Kate Werble Gallery

Luxembourg & Dayan’s “Unpainted Paintings” is an international survey of Modern artworks from 1950 to today. Organized by Alison Gingeras, chief curator of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy, “Unpainted Paintings” runs through May 27^th.  The show asks viewers to contemplate what makes a painting a painting, displaying works that confound conventional definitions of the medium.

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Andy Warhol, Liz #5, 1963 (est. unpublished, realized $26.9 million). All images via Phillipsdepury.com.

The week’s Contemporary art sales ended Thursday night with a fifty lot auction at Phillips de Pury & Co. The sale just missed its low presale estimate of $84.5 million before fees were added. Thirty-eight lots sold for a total of $82.7 million, or $94.8 million with fees. For the third time this week a Warhol canvas was the top lot. Liz #5, rumored to be sold by hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen, sold for $26.9 million against an unpublished presale estimate of $20-30 million. Unlike Warhol’s photo-booth self portrait on offer Wednesday night at Christie’s, Liz #5‘s trip to the auction block was brief. Bidding opened at $18 million and rose to $24 million before contenders called it quits.

Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat, Third Eye, 1985 (est. $2-3 million, realized $7 million)

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Ai Weiwei, Colored Vases (2009), all images by Soraya Gilanni for Art Observed

AO was on site for the preview of Lisson Gallery‘s major survey show of work by Ai Weiwei. Any reading of the exhibition cannot help but be inflected, if not radically transformed, by the knowledge that the artist’s whereabouts and condition are still unknown after being detained by authorities in Beijing on April 3rd, 2011. The exhibition, which will open to the public on May 13th, coincides with the London display of Ai Weiwei’s Animal/Zodiac heads at Somerset House.

Lisson director Greg Hilty and founder Nicholas Logsdail began the day by addressing the absence of the artist directly. They explained that Lisson Gallery had considered canceling the show, but that the “general consensus” among all involved was that it should “absolutely go ahead” despite the fact that Logsdail described the opening day without the presence of the artist as “mortifying.”

Ai Weiwei, Surveillance Camera (2010)

Weiwei often pushes the boundaries of institutions that exhibit his work, therefore the difficulty of putting on a survey show lies in that the nature of his practice is hard to define. The selection is curtailed to video and sculptural works in a kind of redress of the attention attracted by works like his famous Sunflower Seeds and Template.

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Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, 1963-64 (est. $20-30 million, realized $38.4 million). All images via Christies.com.

Christie’s nearly white-glove sale of of Post-War and Contemporary art on Wednesday night brought in more than twice as the equivalent sale at Sotheby’s on Tuesday evening. Sixty-three of sixty-five lots sold for a whopping $301.7 million, giving the sale a sell through rate of 95% by lot and 99% by value. The total beat the high presale estimate of $299 million despite the fact that a Rauschenberg combine estimated to fetch between $12-18 million was withdrawn from the sale. Wednesday night’s results were the best the auction house has seen for a Contemporary evening auction since May 2008 (that sale realized $331 million). Bidding went on for about two hours, approximately fifteen minutes of which was spent on a single lot. Two telephone bidders chased Andy Warhol‘s blue self-portrait, one on the phone with Brett Gorvy of Christie’s and the other with Philippe Segalot, formerly of Christie’s. The audience laughed as bidding escalated in $100,000 increments and cheered each time one contender took a bigger leap ahead. In the end Gorvy’s buyer was triumphant and paid $38.4 million for the four-part piece, which was estimated to fetch between $20-30 million. The sale was a record for a Warhol portrait (self or otherwise) at auction.

Mark Rothko, Untitled No. 17, 1961 (est. $18-22 million, realized $33.7 million)

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Felix Gonzales-Torres, Untitled (Aparición), 1991 (est. $600,000-800,000, realized $1.65 million). All images via Sothebys.com.

Tuesday evening’s auction of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s New York brought in $128 million for forty-nine of fifty-eight lots sold. The sale’s estimate of $120.8-171.4 million included two lots that were withdrawn from the sale. Inclusive of the buyer’s premium, the night’s earnings barely passed the low presale estimate (prices realized include the buyer’s premium, estimates do not), and the results stood in stark contrast to Monday night’s sale at Sotheby’s of works from the collection of Allan Stone, which realized $54.8 million against a high estimate of $46.8 million. At the press conference auctioneer Tobias Meyer explained that estimates were “possibly aggressive” and that Sotheby’s had worked with sellers in reevaluating their expectations in response to the market, which in some cases meant lowering the reserve price. The sale’s top two lots – Sixteen Jackies by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons‘ Pink Panther – both fetched respectable prices despite the fact that they fell short of presale estimates.

Andy Warhol, Sixteen Jackies, 1964 (est. $20-30 million, realized $20.2 million)

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All photographs by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

MONUMENTA is an invitation from the French Ministry for Culture and Communication for an internationally-renowned contemporary artist to create a site-specific work for the Grand Palais in Paris; this year’s invitation went to Indian-born Anish Kapoor. With 13,500 square meters of space, the Palais serves as a magnificent backdrop for artistic interaction. Previous invitations include Anselm Kiefer (2007), Richard Serra (2008) and Christian Boltanski (2010).

Entitled Leviathan, Kapoor’s sculpture is a breathtaking 35 meters high. “My ambition,” the artist shares, “is to create a space within a space that responds to the height and luminosity of the Nave at the Grand Palais. Visitors will be invited to walk inside the work, to immerse themselves in colour, and it will, I hope, be a contemplative and poetic experience.”

Although Kapoor was all smiles during the inauguration of the sculpture, he took the publicity as an opportunity to show solidarity for Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Kapoor dedicated the sculpture to his incarcerated colleague, and issued a call to museums and galleries of the world to close for a day in protest of Wei Wei’s detention by the Chinese government.

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Ryan McGinley, Jake (Fall Foliage) (2011), via Gabriel Rolt

Although it was his pointed and unabashed live action shots of young, fit nudes jumping off cliffs, climbing trees, and running down sand dunes that transformed Ryan McGinley into an a globally recognized artist, the artist’s current exhibition at Gabriel Rolt in Amsterdam, Somewhere Place, showing through May 14^th, reveals a turn towards more cinematic, choreographed, Baroque imagery. The exhibit also marks McGinley’s first foray into color studio photography, and the young nudes that have become characteristic of his work have moved indoors, calling attention to McGinley’s increased use of choreographed settings and postures in his work.

Ryan McGinley’s “Somewhere Place” Installation, via Gabriel Rolt

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Wim Wenders, Open-Air Screen (2007), via Haunch of Venison

Currently on view at Haunch of Venison London are two solo exhibitions, Wim Wenders and Eve Sussman, artists who work in a variety of media and cannot be pigeon-holed as either photographers, filmmakers or video artists. On their own, these dueling solo exhibitions would be worth a visit but together they are enhanced in their coexistence. Wim Wenders, a German director known for such films as Paris Texas (1984), The Wings of Desire (1987), and Buena Vista Social Club (1999) shows a series of photographs depicting landscapes and cityscapes, for the most part completely devoid of human subjects, and Eve Sussman is showing her photographs alongside one of her video projects.

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James Cuno, who resigned this morning from the Art Institute of Chicago to become President/CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Image via ArtDaily

Earlier this morning, James Cuno announced in an email to the staff of the Art Institute of Chicago that he would be leaving his post as the museum’s director to become the President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust.

Cuno, who has been at the helm of the Art Institute for seven years, is an accomplished leader: he has seen the museum through the addition of a new wing and has raised museum attendance by 33 per cent. Previously, Cuno has been director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, the Harvard University Art Museums, whose budget and staff he doubled in his 12-year reign, Dartmouth’s Hood Museum of Art, and UCLA’s Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts.

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The Getty Center. Image via Artinfo.

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Jeff Koons, Pink Panther, 1988 (est. $20-30 million), via Sothebys.com

This week Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury will hold Contemporary art auctions in New York. After an anemic week of Impressionist and Modern art sales, the auction houses hope to broker nearly half a billion dollars of Contemporary art. On Monday Sotheby’s will offer forty-three lots during two parts of a three part sale of the collection of Allan Stone (consisting mostly of works by Wayne Thiebaud and Willem de Kooning), followed by their fifty-nine lot Contemporary art evening sale on Tuesday. The next night Christie’s will offer sixty-six works expected to fetch at least $230 million. The week ends with Phillips de Pury’s fifty-one lot sale that carries an estimate of $85-120 million.

Andy Warhol, Sixteen Jackies, 1964 (est. $20-30 million), via Sothebys.com

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A video projection on the facade of the New Museum on Bowery by Flash:Light – All photos by Ilhan Kim for Art Observed unless noted

The New Museum’s “Festival of Ideas for the New City,” took place from May 4th- 8th, 2011 off the Bowery, in downtown Manhattan. Promoting the ideas of community, diversity, collaboration, dialogue, and change, this effort was carried by several institutions, including universities, grassroots groups, museums, arts oriented spaces, businesses, and the city. The festival, by delivering many conferences, shows, and street performances, created a very unique and somewhat mesmerizing ambiance to the neighborhood, as it was temporarily transformed into an exhilarating forum of expression, where the simultaneous manifestations of different artistic ideals and perspectives, derived into a multitude of individual and collective experiences, for both participants and audiences.

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The Streetfest on Bowery

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Maurice de Vlaminck, Paysage de Banlieue, 1905 (est. $18-25 million, realized $22.5 million). All images via Christies.com.

The second and final Impressionist and Modern art evening sale in New York this spring was held Wednesday night at Christie’s. The auction realized $156 million, just below the low presale estimate of $162.3 million. Ten of the fifty-seven lots offered failed to find buyers, giving the sale a sell through rate of 82% by lot and 81% by value. The evening progressed much like the Sotheby’s sale last night. There was frenzied interest in a few lots, but otherwise buyers seemed unimpressed by the offerings and hence hesitant to bid. First place was shared by two works – Maurice de Vlaminck‘s Paysage de Banlieue and Monet‘s Les Peupliers both sold for $22.5 million. The Vlaminck was sold by billionaire collector Steven Cohen and just about doubled the artist’s previous auction record set in 1990 for $10.8 million.

Claude Monet, Les Peupliers, 1891 (est. $20-30 million, realized $22.5 million)

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