An article on CNBC this week notes that the battle for control of Sotheby’s auction house against investor Dan Loeb cost the company upwards of $20 million in fees for legal defense and a $10 million reimbursement to Loeb for his own fees. The full total in expenses makes up nearly half of the company’s net income during the time period. (more…)
Mark Rothko, Untitled (1970), via Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s kicked off the auction week last night with its sale of works from the collection of Ms. Paul “Bunny” Mellon, a successful outing that say 100% of the works available sold, and which achieved a final sales tally of $158.7 million, a strong figure that reached $38 million above the high estimate.
Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park #89 (1975), via Sotheby’s (more…)
Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani of Qatar passed away unexpectedly this week at his home in London. The former president of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage from 1997 to 2005, Al-Thani was at one point considered among the most influential art buyers in the world, and oversaw the initial stages of a massive museum-building project in the Gulf. (more…)
Cao Fei, HIP HOP NY (2006) via Art Observed
There’s few places in New York that one could find a small-scale show pushing the envelope the way that Brooklyn Rail’s Phong Bui is currently pushing it at Red Bull Studios. Combining historically rich pieces with a number of young artists and many frequently outside the spotlight of New York’s blockbuster arts calendar, the exhibition is a dizzying combination of forms, spaces and images, from surrealist painting to bizarre installations and architecture and back. (more…)
Jeff Koons was on hand last night at Simon de Pury’s benefit auction for collector Svetlana Uspenskaya’s Project Perpetual, offering a series of Hermès Birkin bags (previously owned by stars like Sofia Coppola, Marc Jacobs, and others) turned into readymade artworks, as well as a sculpture paying homage to Picasso’s La Soupe. “You look into the gazing ball and it’s very immediate,” Koons said. “You see your reflection. You’re affirmed, your senses are stimulated…and if you move the abstraction changes. But the piece also becomes affirmed. It becomes reflected into the gazing ball, and when that happens, you go from that Dionysian type of velocity into Platonism.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal has published a piece this week detailing the advantages and drawbacks to gallery sales, private sales and auctions for collectors looking to sell their work, and notes an almost 1000% increase in private sales across the board in the last decade. (more…)
Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014), all images courtesy Maureen Paley
On view at Maureen Paley is a solo exhibition of single-screen video work by Turner Prize-winner Gillian Wearing. Entitled We Are Here, the artist’s 6th at the London gallery. The exhibition is conceptually inspired by American poet Edgar Lee Master’s book Spoon River Anthology (1915), in which the people who lived by the titular waterway rise up from the grave and talk about their lives and memories. Wearing, who grew up in the town of Sandwell, bases her video on people from the West Midlands speaking as if they have returned from the grave.
Gillian Wearing (Installation View)
We Are Here premiered in the UK at The New Art Gallery Walsall and in the US at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and the work here centers around the production and conceptual planning of the piece, including a series of photographs taken around Sandwell, and other pieces of research. While the show is rather sparse, the exhibition is a welcome investigation into Wearing’s personal history, giving the area around her home town a certain agency to represent itself while also addressing the conditions and histories that help to define her own life and work.
Gillian Wearing (Installation View)
In her series of photographs, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, she allows her subjects the ability to express themselves on a series of white placards, with the results running from tender moments of self-honesty to hackneyed expressions about world peace. Taken as a whole, Wearing’s brand of cultural realism uncovers the the anxiety of her environment and the occasionally fraught contract between the artist and her subjects, occasionally breaking down or leaning into pop culture formats.
Gillian Wearing (Installation View)
Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997 and was awarded an OBE in 2011. We Are Here was made possible by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund and the Art Fund with support from Maureen Paley, Shaun Regen and Tanya Bonakdar. The exhibition will remain on view at Maureen Paley through November 16, 2014.
Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014)
— E. Baker
Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Maureen Paley]
Duane Hanson at Karma, all photos via Art Observed
Spanning two separate weekends this November, the Independent Projects fair is an interesting take on the the art fair as an exhibition opportunity. Rather than rely on an initial rush of collectors, the fair is spread out over two separate weekends, allowing collectors an initial crack at the works offered before they go on public view the next week. Combining this with a small selection of forty galleries and exhibitors, the Projects fair offers a considerable opportunity to expand the concept and execution of the fair environment.
Independent Projects (Installation View) (more…)
John Stezaker, Shadow 5 (2014)
On view at Petzel Gallery is John Stezaker’s new series of screen prints, compiled from appropriated images of 1940’s and 50’s cinema. Known for his ambitious collages of familiar and vague images from commercials, film posters and magazine pages, Stezaker has always been interested in the notion of silhouette as a tool for mysterious narratives and a metaphor for the representation of the subliminal. (more…)
The New York Times profiles the British-born, Los Angeles-based Thomas Houseago, whose work is notoriously unpredictable and has on occasion fallen apart in the midst of its construction. “I believe in these broken sculptures,” he says. “I love that. Sculpture is a constant dance with gravity. In my case, anyway.” (more…)
Hollywood film and television producer Jerry Perenchio has announced a major gift of works to LACMA, including works by Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger and René Magritte, that totals upwards of $500 million in value. “We live in a modern city and modernism has shaped our everyday life, and to tell the story of late 19th century art and the birth of modernism is an incredible thing for LACMA,” says LACMA Director Michael Govan. (more…)
The New York Times profiles the development of Vantablack, a new surface material that uses carbon nanotubes to trap light more effectively than any previous material, and which is currently being tested by artist Anish Kapoor. “When you look at Vantablack on some wrinkled aluminum foil, it looks like a black, flat, featureless void, even with your eyes right up to it,” says developer Ben Jensen. (more…)
Artist Kara Walker is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, as she prepares a new exhibition in New York. “I’ve always been a bit restless in the work,” she says. “I have to look this way and that way, just to see what my limitations are, or if they are limitations. Maybe they’re assets.” (more…)
The New York Times highlights the challenges faced by a growing online auction market, including a relative unwillingness by collectors to exceed certain prices when bidding for work, and concerns about work authenticity and provenance. “They feel comfortable up to about $10,000,” said Ben Hartley, a managing director at Auctionata, an online auction company. “Beyond that, people are still needing levels of trust. Online purchases are going to take time reaching the upper limits.” (more…)
Edouard Manet, Le Printemps (1881), via Art Observed
Christie’s concluded its sale of Impressionist and Modernist works last evening, capping a short but successful 39 lot sale that only saw four works fail to find a buyer, and which achieved a final tally $165,635,000. (more…)
The Art Newspaper reviews the case of Pierre Le Guennec, a retired electrician accused of stealing and hiding a vast collection of works by his former employer Pablo Picasso before attempting to sell them in 2010. Mr. Le Guennec has been ordered to appear in French court in February of next year on charges of receiving stolen goods. (more…)
Ragnar Kjartansson, A Lot of Sorrow (2014), via Art Observed
Last year, Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson was invited to perform at MoMA PS1 for the museum’s ongoing Sunday performance series. He answered with a six hour long performance piece in which Brooklyn rock act The National repeatedly played the same song, Sorrow, over and over again. Fighting off exhaustion, boredom, and the occasional flubbed note, the piece ran throughout the day, with the band never pausing to take a break. The result is a single-channel video work by the artist, currently on view at Luhring Augustine’s Bushwick location.
A new project in Puerto Rico, executed by Allora and Calzadilla in conjunction with the Dia Foundation, is stirring debate for its use of a Dan Flavin sculpture in a manner some feel is inappropriate for the artist’s work. Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) places a 1965 Flavin light sculpture in a remote limestone cave on the Southwest coast of the island, which has already drawn some criticism. “My role at Dia is to bring validity to both the present and the past,” says curator Yasmil Raymond. “There are people who will undoubtedly see this as a provocation from the perspective of post-colonialism. But I think others will see it as a homage to Flavin and to his evocation of this island.” (more…)
Artist Gabriel Orozco will be honored this week with the Americas Society Cultural Achievement Award, a prize that acknowledges the artist’s ongoing commitment to the development and perpetuation of a global language for Latin American contemporary art. “As we prepare to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of our organizations in 2015, the creation of the first Americas Society Cultural Achievement Award reaffirms our commitment to highlight and support culture in the hemisphere,” says Americas Society and Council of the Americas President and CEO Susan Segal. “Gabriel Orozco is a truly worthy recipient of this very important recognition.” (more…)
Nam June Paik, Reclining Buddha (1994), via Art Observed
Nam June Paik’s ongoing retrospective, Becoming Robot at the Asia Society is considerably minimal in execution. The exhibition takes up only a few small rooms in the uptown museum, including a full room dedicated to his (color feedback work) and another dedicated to his continued collaborations with cellist Charlotte Moorman. But the selection of works on view make up for their spare arrangement with their depth and multi-textual possibilities, not to mention their strong correlations to the tech-centered art of the present day. (more…)
Yoko Ono is profiled in the Wall Street Journal this week, as the artist reflects on her career, and offers advice for young artists following in her footsteps. “Artists should adhere to what we are, instead of being sidetracked by other desires,” she says. “We’re supposed to have that independence. But many artists today are, you know, going with this gallery, with that museum, and thinking too much about monetary success, which means they can’t be free. A life of not being challenged and only hearing what you want to hear is being dead.” (more…)
The Telegraph takes a special look inside the home of late painter Lucian Freud’s home in Kensington, where the artist spent the last twenty years of life. “He was a good cook, very fond of game, but he never ate carbs,” says former assistant David Dawson. He knew he needed to be light on his feet.” (more…)
The Hirshhorn’s new director, Melissa Chiu, is profiled in the New York Times this week, highlighting her aims at expanding the Hirshhorn’s international and experimental art offerings, and her efforts at placing the museum in the spotlight as a major patron of experimental works and forms. “The whole art world ecology has changed,” says Ms. Chiu. “The art world has become truly transnational.” (more…)
The New York Times profiles a new effort underway in the Netherlands to encourage public arts patronage through a subscription-based service. The program, titled We Are Public, offers low-price access to a range of cultural events, while promising to contribute €18,000 to local arts institutions. “There’s a tendency on all levels of society that people want to take more control over what’s going on, and people are collectively funding stuff they think is important,” says co-founder Bas Morsch. (more…)
