March 14th, 2017
Raymond Pettibon, A Pen of All Work (Installation View), via Art Observed
Over the past 50 years, few artists have produced a body of work as expansive, multivalent, and formally diverse as Raymond Pettibon, the longtime illustrator whose early work for the Los Angeles punk band Black Flag set the stage for his later career delving into the often elusive, twisting histories of American culture. Ranging from literary rumination on baseball, surfing and poetry through to comical interpretations of the dark history of the American counterculture, Pettibon’s endlessly evolving body of work, often executed in pen and ink, twists and turns varied histories into an endlessly flowing stream of images, one that often functions as an alternative to the prolific mass media systems of modern American culture. This restless approach to his craft is on view this spring at the New Museum, where his first major retrospective, A Pen of All Work, has brought hundreds of the artist’s works to bear on the walls of the institution. Read More »
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March 13th, 2017
Pier Paolo Calzolari, Untitled (2014-2015), via Art Observed
Taking over both of Marianne Boesky’s exhibition spaces on West 24th Street in Chelsea, Italian artist Pier Paolo Calzolari is currently showing a wide range of works exploring his specific interpretation of the Arte Povera movement, and his engagement with a broad range of materials that lend each of his works a notable sense of diffusive agency, allowing his chosen materials to function as both subject and object.
Pier Paolo Calzolari, Untitled (Scarpetta) (1994), via Art Observed
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March 11th, 2017
B. Wurtz, Bunch #4 (1996), via Lulu Gallery
Opening in conjunction with the broad range of events and projects around the Zona Maco art fair this past week in Mexico City, the Cuauhtemoc-based gallery Lulu has welcomed New York-based artist B. Wurtz to present a body of new works, continuing the artist’s enigmatic engagement with the materiality of the everyday. The exhibition will remain on view through the middle of April.
B. Wurtz (Installation View), via Lulu Gallery
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March 10th, 2017
Terence Koh, Sleeping in a beam of sunlight (Installation View), via Art Observed
When Terence Koh announced his sudden return from Upstate New York for a show in Manhattan last year, few could anticipate the artist’s intricate clusters of collaged material, soundscapes, and of course, his Bee Chapel, an immense hive installed inside a wax structure viewers could sit inside and listen to the insects buzzing drones. So when the artist announced a second show in Los Angeles, and took up residency inside the rooms of Moran Bondaroff, one expected something of a second shock inside the sun-filled gallery space.
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March 8th, 2017
Gerhard Richter, Eisberg (1982), via Sothebys
The marathon weeks of March art sales have completed their run in London this evening, following a Sotheby’s outing this evening that concludes a trio of Contemporary and Post-War sales in the British capital. Challenging easy assumptions about a slumping art market, Sotheby’s indicated an early push for market share with this sale, carrying a daring 40% of its offerings this evening with guaranteed bids that seemed to pay off with consistently strong results. The auction house’s 64-lot outing managed to manage a number of impressive sales on top of a consistently comeptitive pool of bidders, resulting in a final sales figure of £118,015,150 with only a handful of unsold lots (4 total). Read More »
| Comments Off on AO Auction Results – London: Sotheby’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale, March 8th, 2017 | |
March 8th, 2017
Christopher Wool, Untitled (1989), via Phillips
Taking its turn after a consistent offering yesterday at Christie’s, Phillips held its spring 20th Century Sale at its 30 Berkeley Square this evening, a 30-lot affair that saw a less measured evening by comparison, underscoring the auction house’s continued efforts to compete alongside the auction house giants, and the challenges it still faces in competing against these marquee sales . Scaling its offering back in comparison with full 60-lot offerings at the other sales, the house managed to move its premier works, while occasional struggles in placing lots overshadowed some of its larger successes. The sale saw 5 lots go unsold over the course of the evening, not counting two withdrawn lots, bringing a final tally of £14,660,000. Read More »
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March 7th, 2017
Mark Rothko, No. 1 (1949), via Christie’s
Following a few days pause for collectors to recover from the busy rush of Armory Week in New York, Christie’s has kicked off another week of major sales in London this evening, concluding its Post-War and Contemporary Evening offering with an unexpectedly energetic outing.
Critics and insiders watching the sale had said little on the auction house’s offerings this week, other than its focus in recent sales on Asian bidders, instead focusing primarily on the high percentage of guaranteed lots in Sotheby’s competing offering tomorrow night. Even so, Christie’s carried its own trove of guarantees, with at least 5 works promising third-party guarantees before the sale. The strategy seemed to pay off, as the evening’s lots moved swiftly and without issue, with only 3 lots failing to find a buyer, and ultimately bringing the sale to a final tally of £96.3 million.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, The Beautyful Ones (2012), via Christie’s Read More »
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March 7th, 2017
Mark Rothko, No. 1 (1949), via Christie’s
With the proceedings of the Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale concluded this past week, attention turns to London’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sales, as a trio of auctions will look to test the waters in the early months of 2017. Boasting an impressively strong focus in particular on German art, the auction houses will seek strong results in a market that has seen noticeably turbulent, unpredictable results in the past months. Yet a recent bump in the London art market, driven by the weak pound, may see some unexpected results for the week’s offerings. Either way, the week should see each auction house battling it out for market share through aggressive guarantees. Read More »
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March 5th, 2017
NADA, via Art Observed
One could have been mistaken for assuming there wasn’t much a NADA New York fair during Armory Week could add to the already broad scope on both the city’s art scene and the international network that the week’s many fairs and openings already offered. Yet at the same time, NADA seems to have long prided itself on its surprises, and its first edition in Tribeca (away from its usual haunt at Basketball City on the Lower East Side) made for a timely update on the fair’s already sterling reputation in the art fair circuit.
Joani Tremblay at Projet Pangee, via Art Observed
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March 4th, 2017
Sascha Braunig, Hide (2015), via Art Observed
Currently on view on the ground floor of MoMA PS1, painter Sascha Braunig has compiled a body of work from the past five years of her practice, showcasing the range and depth of the artist’s investigations into the painted canvas, and her investigations into the act of portraiture. Working through a wide range of visual materials, Brauning’s swirling, twisting confrontations with the history portraiture, and modes of understanding the human form itself, open an intriguing dialogue with the Mark Leckey exhibition just upstairs, and underscore Brauning’s imaginative practice.
Sascha Braunig, Warm Leatherette (2015), via Art Observed
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