The winners of the sixth annual ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan has been announced, with artist Anila Quayyum Agha taking home the $200,000 first prize for her piece Intersections. The artist was also one of the selections for the Juried Prize, a a first for the event. (more…)
Bloomberg looks at the movement of Christopher Wool’s Apocalypse Now over the past years, tracing a history of owners that include François Pinault before selling last year for an astounding $26.4 million to a still unknown buyer. The story is an interesting look at the art market’s occasionally rapid escalations in price due to sudden demand, and the behind the scenes gossip that often accompanies the auction sale of iconic works. (more…)
Robert Gober, Untitled (2003-2005), via Art Observed
The long-awaited MoMA retrospective for Robert Gober begins in fitting fashiom. An immense, stripped-bare wall runs the length of the museum’s second floor outcropping, blocking off any view of the expansive installations inside, and capped with a single work near the entrance to the exhibition, the artist’s X-Pipe Playpen. The viewer never realizes, passing through the exhibition, that at one point they have found themselves on the inside of this imposing structure, staring at the camouflaged wallpaper and sink sculptures that define the artist’s ouvre. Ominous and surreal, the structure works perfectly in conjunction with the works on view, and offers a concise summary of the exhibition as a whole: a look at the full length of the artist’s prolific career, from his early paintings and sinks to his most demanding, complex environments, constantly examining and readdressing his emotionally potent take on abstraction. (more…)
Jason Rhoades, The Grand Machine/THEAREOLA (2002), via Henry Murpy for Art Observed
On view at David Zwirner in New York is an exhibition of works from Jason Rhoades’s PeaRoeFoam project, which originally debuted at the gallery in 2002. PeaRoeFoam is considered a key work in Rhoades’ career, but it has not been exhibited comprehensively (including all three parts of the trilogy) until now.
Marina Abramovic publicly reached out to director Lars Von Trier this week, telling the director that she wishes to work with him on an upcoming project. “You really bring the actors on the edge of complete nervous breakdowns,” she says. “Because I am a performance artist, I understand very well what you are doing.” (more…)
Steven Cohen is placing King Oliver, a $30 Million painting by Franz Kline, up for sale this November at Christie’s in New York, Bloomberg reports. “It’s got scale and bravado,” said Brett Gorvy, Christie’s chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art. “In today’s masterpiece-driven market, this is exactly the type of language that speaks to our global buyers.” (more…)
Robert Wilson, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, via BAM
Shakespeare’s sonnets were never intended as a theatrical work, a set of poems that extend the Bard’s legendary repertoire beyond a cache of plays that already constitutes a sizable portion of the western theatrical canon. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped Robert Wilson, who has revived Shakespeare’s Iambic Pentameter for his production currently showing at Brooklyn Academy of Music. (more…)
The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio in Greenwich Village, the arts studio and salon that once served as the original home of the Whitney Museum, has been named a National Treasure by the National Trust, calling it “the cradle of the modern American art movement.” (more…)
Mike Bouchet, Cloud Nymph (reading) (2014), via Peres Projects
The images of Mike Bouchet have long identified with notions of the cinematic. Whether it’s the artist’s simple paintings executed with his own home-brewed adaptation of Diet Coke, or his ongoing execution of celebrity-inspired jacuzzis, concepts of luxury, commodity and pop culture ideologies find themselves at a bizarre, yet often commanding, intersection. (more…)
The 2017 edition of Documenta (its 17th total), will share locations between Kassel and Athens, the organization announced today. The exhibition title Learning from Athens, will look at Greece’s recent financial straits, and its unique position in today’s global affairs. “What interested me is that Athens is a contemporary metropolitan city of the Mediterranean that is connected to other places across the water,” says Artistic Director Adam Szymczyk. “I see it as a portal or border or place where people coming from many, many other places can have visibility.” (more…)
Al-Jazeera continues the investigation into the Philippine government’s attempts at reclaiming the trove of works previously owned by the Marcos family, some of which they believe have since been stolen from the family’s homes and are now in private collections. “We’d like to think that these paintings have been with the Marcoses from the beginning, and we believe that they were purchased using ill-gotten wealth and public funds,” Presidential Commission on Good Government leader Andres Bautista says. (more…)
The New York Times profiles the work of Bernard Arnault in building the Museum for the Fondation Luis Vuitton’s expansive art collection, a massive structure in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne. “We don’t speak of numbers when we speak of a dream,” he says when asked about the final cost of the building. “Let’s just say it is a very expensive sculpture.” (more…)
Ryan McGinley, YEARBOOK (Installation View)
One of the most prolific contemporary American photographers, Ryan McGinley has continually photographed his subjects inside his Lower East Side studio for over a decade. Two years after Animals, his series of nude models posing with live animals, the artist is continuing his exploration of the human form, as well as its positioning within a reserved studio setting at Team Gallery, where he has been showing for the last seven years. YEARBOOK, however, expands on the notion of space beyond simply signifying an architecture for displaying art, embracing an alternative use of the gallery interior. (more…)
Adel Abdessemed, Mon Enfant (2014)
Tel Aviv’s Dvir Gallery is currently presenting a new body of work by the controversial Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed. Known for his highly challenging assemblies of sculpture, video and installation, Abdessemed has not been hesitant to problematize the dynamics of politics, religion and social justice from various vantage points and perspectives. From gruesome footages of animal fights in Mexico to a giant twisted airplane, his art aims to thrill, shock and most importantly provoke. Far from subtlety, the London based artist delivers strongly vocal works of art, positioning himself as an anarchist and a rebel, with the intent of redefining the role of an artist in society. (more…)
Grayson Perry is featured on the front cover of The Guardian Magazine this week, with a full interview that covers the artist’s defiant, shifting public personae, and the early responses of the art world to his pottery. “Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did,” he says. “Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that haven’t yet been colonized by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadn’t been fully explored.” (more…)
Richard Serra has been announced as the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Americans for the Arts organization. Serra will receive the award on October 20th in New York. (more…)
Artist Miranda July has designed a special edition handbag, created in collaboration with designer Laurel Consuelo Broughton of Welcome Companions, including remarkably specific titles for each compartment (“Almond in Case of Low Blood Sugar”) as well as a series of cards bearing questions and phrases like “I can’t understand you because my cell phone has a bad connection.” (more…)
The French Court of Appeal has demanded a €20 million bail from Guy Wildenstein, over the art dealer’s alleged concealment of over 30 works from his family’s non-profit, reported as “stolen” or “missing” by their original owners. (more…)
Amedeo Modigliani’s seminal sculpture Tête will be offered at Sotheby’s New York this November, a rare work in stone from the Italian Modernist, that is expected to achieve up to $45 million during the sale. ‘‘Modigliani’s Têtes rank among the most revered sculptures of the 20th century,” says Simon Shaw, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Worldwide Impressionist & Modern Art Department. “Working alongside Constantin Brancusi, he believed that direct carving and staying true to materials were critical if sculpture was to be reborn for the Modern age. The present Tête has a truly mesmerizing aura, and is recognized to be the greatest Modigliani sculpture in private hands.’’ (more…)
The New York Times has published an extended account of the recent ruling on the case regarding the inheritance of James A. Elkins, a collector whose works were held jointly by various members of his family. The ruling, announced earlier this fall, allowed a discounted estate tax on these works, fundamentally changing the way taxes can be levied on art in a collector’s estate. “I’ve had calls from estate planning attorneys that said they celebrated in the coffee room when this decision came out,” says Carsten Hoffmann, managing director at FMV Opinions. “This is a deal changer.” (more…)
John Baldessari has created a series of “selfie collaborations” for the limited edition art and fashion publication Visionaire, featuring images taken by famous celebrities and embellished by the artist using some of his trademark images and iconography. “I’ll probably be most remembered for putting dots over people’s faces,” Baldessari comments. “So it’s funny to do an issue devoted to selfies of famous people.” (more…)
The Philippine government has seized 15 paintings, including works Monet and Van Gogh, from the former home of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, part of an official effort to secure a body of artworks from the politician’s accumulated wealth. “The position of the government is this is part of ill-gotten wealth and should be returned to the government and the people,” says Andres Bautista, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government. (more…)
A painting by Edward Degas, valued at around $7.6 million, has been stolen from the home of an elderly Greek Cypriot. Ballerina Adjusting Her Slipper was stolen Monday in Limassol on the island of Cyprus, and police have already arrested one man in connection with the case. (more…)
