The Wall Street Journal evaluates the trend towards galleries moving into Manhattan’s flower district, as many dealers tire of the rapidly increasing rents and steady stream of towering condos. “The spirit of the neighborhood is dramatically changing,” says Casey Kaplan. “A lot of the conversations I’ve had with artists have been about wanting to break out of the art mall and have a different experience.” (more…)
Photographer Donald Graham has sent a cease and desist letter to Richard Prince and Gagosian Gallery, after a work of his ended up in Prince’s recent show of Instagram appropriations. Interestingly enough, the work itself was already used without license on user @rastajay92’s account, which is the image Prince apparently printed. (more…)
An article in Bloomberg this week looks at booms and busts in the art market as tastes change, and the real impacts speculation and economic strength has on artists’ careers. “There’s even more speculative buying and more gamblers than ever,” says collector and dealer Adam Lindemann. “But they’re not going to want to buy the artists that busted. They’re going to want to buy the deals today. They want to move on.” (more…)
The Centre Pompidou has announced plans for a series of pop-up exhibitions taking place across the nation of France, with cities able to apply to host a four-year temporary exhibition space operated by the Paris museum. “We will soon launch an open call for candidates,” says a museum spokesperson. (more…)
Following the success of its exhibition Matisse: The Cut-Outs, MoMA will return Henri Matisse’s full room installation The Swimming Pool to its permanent collection galleries, beginning in April. “MoMA’s viewers will now be able to encounter this important work in the context of the museum’s collection,” says exhibition co-curator Karl Buchberg. (more…)
Artist Tom Sachs has announced the release of A Space Program, a narrative film made in conjunction with his 2012 Space Program: Mars project at the Park Avenue Armory. The film will premiere next month at SXSW in Austin. (more…)
Irina Lebedeva, the head of Moscow’s State Tretyakoff Gallery, has been dismissed by the government following criticisms over her leadership on expansion projects and a number of other various complaints. “The construction of the second wing has dragged out, there are scandals around the museum, which has yet to create comfortable surroundings for visitors, schoolchildren, students, and facilitators,” says Mikhail Bryzgalov in a statement. (more…)
Creative Time has announced a new project set to open this coming may, Drifting in Daylight, which will install a series of works through the winding pathways of Central Park in New York. “The six-weekend show will tempt visitors to transcend their busy lives, losing themselves along a playful trail of sensory experiences,” the project website says. (more…)
Beverly Hills-based United Talent Agency has announced that it is launching a new wing focused on fine art, which will be headed by lawyer Josh Roth. While the agency has no plans to broker sales, it will focus on many tasks traditionally handled by galleries, such as managing financial negotiations, overseeing commissions, and other tasks. “We believe there is room for a serious, professional representation structure in the art world, one that helps artists gain greater control of their careers and opens the doors to new and better opportunities,” Roth said in a statement. (more…)
Ryan McNamara, Performance Plaque (2014)
Ryan McNamara star has rapidly been on the rise in the past years, as his infamous performance commissions, among which are his breakthrough Performa 09 piece A Fag Could Do That and his McLaren Award-winning performance MEEM, which the artist brought to Miami Beach last December. Following the immense success of his recentresidency, McNamara is making his comeback to New York at Mary Boone Gallery’s Midtown location with an exhibition that delves into the tangible aspects of performance art, the remains of a performance (body parts, clothing, and materials), which are left behind following a piece. (more…)
Francis Bacon, Study for a Head (1955), via Christie’s
Another night of sales has come and gone in London, following the conclusion of Christie’s Contemporary Evening Sale, a somewhat textbook outing that saw the auction house forego a reliance on high-achieving works in favor of a series of strong selling works to reach a final tally of £117,142,500. (more…)
The Tate Modern is will launch a two day “dance marathon” this May, inviting a range of modern dance performers to exhibit and teach within the museum space. “The whole feel of it over the 48 hours will be about this constant transformation,” says curator Catherine Wood. “It will be partly a presentation of focused works of choreography and then a spreading of more pop-up things, through the collection gallery and the public spaces.” (more…)
The Rudolf Staechelin Family Trust, which owned the record-setting Paul Gauguin painting that sold last week in Switzerland, has withdrawn its collection from the Kunstmuseum Basel, and is seeking a new partner institution. “These works, which had been integral to our exhibitions, will be sorely missed at the Kunstmuseum, and we are painfully reminded that permanent loans are still loans; the people of Basel do not own them, and they may be taken away at any moment and for whatever reason,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)
The trial for Pierre Le Guennec, a former handyman for Pablo Picasso, and his wife has begun. The pair recently revealed an enormous trove of works by the artist they claim they were given in the 1970’s, and which state prosecutors claim they stole. If convicted of theft, they could face up to five years in prison and a €375,000 fine. (more…)
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (1983), via Sotheby’s
The Contemporary Evening sale at Sotheby’s has concluded, following a sale of works that was fairly by the book in comparison with past auctions, with the exception of a massive new auction record for artist Gerhard Richter just one day after his 83rd birthday. Despite a lack of exceptionally competitive bidding, the 77-lot sale still brought in impressive returns, finishing at a tally of £123,515,250. (more…)
Kehinde Wiley is in New York Magazine this week, showcasing gowns from the spring fashion season worn by a number of female models the artist painted for his soon to open Brooklyn Museum exhibition. “What we wanted to do was to play up the real world within the language of glamour,” Wiley says. “I wanted to have a reprise of that moment, to go back to this idea of fashion and art having something in common, the idea that fashion could change the perception of an individual.” (more…)
An article in The Art Newspaper this week examines the strategies and impacts of museum’s undertaking collection and implementation strategies for video games and computer programs, as well as utilizing game platforms and structures to encourage engagement. “It’s an innovative way to get the public interested in collections, especially audiences that wouldn’t normally engage with them,” says Stella Wisdom, the British Library’s digital curator. “There’s a lot of potential for creative industries to work with cultural institutions and vice versa. We’re just at the start of a journey.” (more…)
A group of artists including Tomma Abts, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Anish Kapoor, and Jeremy Deller have issued a statement condemning Cuba’s treatment of artist Tania Bruguera, following her performance several weeks ago in Havana. “In her work Tania Bruguera frequently addresses issues embedded in Cuba’s social, political and economic history. But her aim is not a question of direct political action but to open our eyes to the injustices and social issues in the world and to expose the mechanisms of power and protocol that shape human behavior,” the letter reads. (more…)
MoMA has announced that it will remain open all weekend, offering late night, discounted admission for the last weekend of the popular Matisse Cut-Outs exhibition. The show closes on Tuesday. (more…)
An exhibition of work by Peter Doig has been announced at the Palazzetto Tito in Venice, coinciding with the opening the Biennale later this year. The exhibition will feature a number of Doig’s large scale works, as well as several intimate pieces. (more…)
MoMA has announced the winner of its yearly Young Architects Program design contest, a “party artifact” titled COSMO and designed by Spanish architect Andrés Jaque. “This year’s proposal takes one of the Young Architects Program’s essential requirements–providing a water feature for leisure and fun–and highlights water itself as a scarce resource,” said Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “Relying on off-the-shelf components from agro-industrial origin, an exuberant mobile architecture celebrates water-purification processes and turns their intricate visualization into an unusual backdrop for the Warm Up sessions.” (more…)
Artist Mickalene Thomas is interviewed in the New York Magazine this week for the paper’s ongoing “21 Questions” segment, discussing her favorite New York sushi restaurants, her methods of working, and her nostalgia for the old Times Square. “’It’s interesting because it was a really sort of crazy under-culture of different types of people walking around expressing themselves, and trying to make their dreams happen. Now you just don’t have that anymore.” (more…)