Tracey Emin recently sat down with The New York Times for a brief interview, discussing aging, her current show at Lehmann Maupin, and the valuation of her work as a woman. “My work rarely comes up in secondary market, so it means that my prices stay low. But I’ll tell you about my contemporaries — if I sold every single thing in my whole show, it is still not as much as one painting of my male contemporaries.” (more…)
The Tate Britain has purchased “Salisbury Cathedral from the Water Meadows,” a 1831 master work by painter John Constable, for the price of $23.1 million. Previously held by the National Gallery, the work will embark on a national tour, through Colchester, London, Salisbury and Cardiff. “It is unimaginable that this particular painting could have ended up anywhere except a British public collection.” Said Heritage Lottery Fund chair Jenny Abramsky, who helped fund the purchase. (more…)
Pablo Picasso, Absinthe Drinker (1901), via Courtauld Gallery
The Courtauld Gallery is currently presenting Becoming Picasso, once again bringing together paintings from Picasso’s 1901 debut exhibition in Paris. The works in this exhibition offer a striking view of Picasso’s early work, and his transformation from his early work in the vocabularies made famous at the time by artists such as Van Gogh, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. That early Paris exhibition successfully launched Picasso’s career, and several of the works included in the original exhibition are now considered to be some of his first masterpieces. (more…)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open its newly renovated European Galleries this Thursday, and the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl has published a brief review of the new wing, praising its appointments and rehang. “I had an eerie sense, while surveying the results the other day, that here was a brand new major institution which, somehow, had plundered the holdings of the Met.” He writes. (more…)
The future Pérez Art Museum Miami has received a large contribution from an anonymous donor, the museum announced this week. The donation will see the museum getting $12 Million in cash, and $3 Million in art. “I can say almost nothing about it except that I’m thrilled,” said Museum Director Thom Collins. (more…)
Online mega-retailer Amazon has outlined plans to launch Amazon Fine Art Gallery this summer, a new branch of its site that will allow users to purchase art directly from partnering galleries. “We have received overwhelming support from the galleries that have already joined the platform and we would love the opportunity to offer your gallery’s selection in the Amazon Art store.” says an email from Amazon to potential new galleries. (more…)
François Pinault, the Christie’s owner and art collector was recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal, highlighting the executive’s passion for contemporary art, and the current show of work by Rudolf Stingel at Pinault’s recently purchased Venetian palace the Palazzo Grassi. “He is a sponge. He is willing to learn all the time,” says Elena Geuna, the former director of Sotheby’s Europe. (more…)
Moving towards a sleeker, stripped-down brand identity, the Whitney Museum of American Art has unveiled its new logo and site design, making reference to the Whitney Museum’s new Chelsea location and its jagged architectural facade. Designed by Experimental Jetset Studios, the museum is currently hosting a video documenting the process of creating the new identity on its website. (more…)
Looking forward to 2016, the Manifesta Arts Festival has announced the location of its 11th edition, taking place in the Swiss city of Zurich. “The Manifesta board appreciated the openness expressed in the Zurich Bid and the willingness to invite Manifesta to take a critical position. With full awareness that initiating a Manifesta Biennial involves unpredictable outcomes Zurich embraces the critical discourse including the opportunities and risks that it entails. That is why we are thrilled to be going to Zurich for Manifesta 11.” Says Manifesta Director Hedwig Fijen. (more…)
Hong Kong Convention Center, via Art in America
Tomorrow, Art Basel Hong Kong will open its doors to the public, inaugurating the expansion of the company’s impressive range of art fairs into the Far East. Situated at the Hong Kong Convention Center, the fair has brought collectors and galleries from the world over to the heart of this bustling metropolis, for a week of art sales, talks and special projects, all with a particular focus on the contemporary art world of the Asia-Pacific region.
Hong Kong’s Inflatable Rubber Duck, via CNN
With the opening of the Chelsea Flower Show in London, British artist Marc Quinn has unveiled his large-scale bronze orchid sculpture, commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society. The flower work took Quinn six months to complete, and is painted with 18 layers of color. “Hopefully, the flowers and the sculpture blend. There is a sense of real nature and artificial nature, although having seen the transformation of this place from a muddy field it is not so clear what is real nature.” Quinn said. (more…)
A new book focusing on the life of Joseph Beuys is seeking to debunk the artist’s revered position in the German art canon, profiling him as intimately connected with past Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, as well as a devotee of some of the racially charged teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Some of Beuys’ friends and co-workers have already responded: “”Beuys was a great artist” says filmmaker Oscar Roehler, “the greatest we had. But he was a big jester who made fools of people, and judging him politically would be to whittle him down.” (more…)
MOCA has announced that will begin airing a video series, titled “The Art of Punk,” looking at the roots of some of punk rock’s most iconic logos and artwork. Created by Bryan Ray Turcote and Bo Bushnell, the series features interviews with a number of musicians and artists, including Jello Biafra, Henry Rollins, Raymond Pettibone, and Winston Smith. The series will debut on June 11th, with an episode on Black Flag. (more…)
In a recent magazine interview with Vanity Fair, YBA veteran Tracey Emin has called out critics for judging her work much more harshly than her male counterparts. She also discussed Roman Standard, her recent project for Petrosino Square in New York that placed a single bird on top of a 13 foot pole. “What I’m saying through the piece is that strength isn’t always about being big.” She says. (more…)
Indian artist Subodh Gupta – Art Observed sat down with the Financial Times recently to discuss his new show at Hauser and Wirth , his youth in India, and his utilization of everyday materials. “I am always good in an unconventional space. The material tells a story. If it is broken, it comes from the reality of life.”
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Out of Memory (Installation View), courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery
Marianne Boesky Gallery is currently hosting a group exhibition titled Out of Memory, curated by Eleanor Cayre and including works by artists: AIDS-3D, Cory Arcangel, Nicolas Deshayes, Aleksandra Domanovic, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Louis Eisner, Roe Ethridge, Matias Faldbakken, Guyton/Walker, Yngve Holen, Alex Israel, Rashid Johnson, Josh Kline, Mark Leckey and many more, exploring ideas of production and presentation in a post-digital society.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is about to open its newest commission for its rooftop garden, a spattered-red work by Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi that plays on the images of blood, and leads a series of works currently on view across New York that play with similarly violent imagery. Responding to bombings in Lahore and Boston, the artist intended the works to provide a moment of reflection, playing against the pristine backdrop of Central Park. (more…)
Artist Mark di Suvero has been awarded a gold medal by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, alongside writer E.L. Doctorow, and honorary inductee Bob Dylan. The 100-year old award is given to two American citizens each year, rotating every six years between a pair of artistic disciplines. Past sculpture nominees have included Martin Puryear, Richard Serra and Louise Bourgeois. (more…)
Artist Ai Weiwei was on hand last week to film and upload a large fight on Beijng’s Ghost Street between ethnic Tibetan and ethnic Han Chinese street vendors. The video quickly went viral, gaining the attention of viewers worldwide. “I had arrived in the middle of the fight,” he said later. “I saw someone lying on the ground with blood.” (more…)
Cell Phone records released in the money laundering and illegal gambling case against Helly Nahmad have put his family’s art dealing business in the public spotlight, particularly one conversation: “Sometimes a bank needs a justification for a wire, right?” Mr. Nahmad said in a government account of a 2012 conversation. “We can just say, Oh, you are buying a painting. If they need justification, you know what I mean? You just be like, Oh yeah, I bought a, you know, Picasso drawing or something.” (more…)
Thomas Messer, the legendary former director of the Guggenheim Foundation, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 93. Messer, who came to the gallery in 1961, just two years after it moved into its signature building on Fifth Avenue, was instrumental in shaping the Guggenheim into the global institution it is today, developing its collection and tirelessly working to expand its mission. “Here we are, three decades later, with Guggenheims in Bilbao, Berlin, Venice, and soon to be Abu Dhabi. The foundation for all this was laid by Tom Messer. And I can tell you, he laid that foundation under budget.” said former Guggenheim President Peter Lawson-Johnston. (more…)
Pollock’s Number 19 Sells to Applause at Christie’s, via Charles Shoener for Art Observed
Christie’s contemporary evening sale made history last night in grand style, storming through its 72 lots to realize a world record $495 Million sales total that included new auction records for Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and 13 other artists, aided auction house’s impressively assembled catalog. Hailing a “new era in the art market,” according to auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen, the show achieved an almost unheard of sell-through rate of 94%, with only four works failing to find buyers. The sale also continues Christie’s growing dominance in the auction market, eclipsing the previous night’s sale at Sotheby’s with little difficulty.
The top selling lot of the night, Jackson Pollock’s Number 19, 1948 (1948), via Christie’s
Andy Warhol (Installation View), via Alexandra Bregman for Art Observed
On May 12th, The Brant Foundation in Greenwich, Connecticut opened its first show of the year with a selection of works by Andy Warhol. Paper mogul and avid collector Peter Brant has been personally buying Warhol’s work since 1968, and has amassed a reported 200 paintings, prints, polaroid portraits and magazine covers, from which he has pulled for this impressive show. Mr. Brant co-curated the exhibition with Heiner Bastian, the latter of whom worked on the traveling Warhol retrospective of 2001-2002, which traveled from Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, London’s Tate Modern, and MOCA LA in Los Angeles. (more…)
On top of his widely recognized work as an artist and political activist, Ai Weiwei is also apparently a skilled barber. Weiwei was recently documented giving haircuts to several fellow diners at a Chinese restaurant by Beijing Cream. “I’ve given hundreds,” the artist said. “I could make a book out of it.” (more…)
