Ed Ruscha’s ‘Vital to the Core’ via STAGES

On view now at Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris is ‘STAGES,’ a fundraising exhibition organized by Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong, featuring artists such as Ed Ruscha, Shepard Fairey, Richard Prince, and a number of others. The exhibition runs concurrently with the Tour de France, which ends on Sunday, July 26th. In addition to the gallery exhibition, which is planned to tour the world after its run at Emmanuel Perrotin, Livestrong has teamed up with Nike and Supertouch to curate a line of artist-designed bikes for Lance to ride during the Tour. Those artists include KAWS, Yoshitomo Nara, and Damien Hirst, who designed the bike for the final stage of the Tour de France. ‘STAGES’ runs July 15-August 8, 2009 at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, after which it will open at the Armory Center in New York on October 2, according to the LA Times.

The Bike Shepard Fairey designed for Lance Armstrong via Supertouch

STAGES09
Hirst to Help Lance Armstrong’s Health Charity Raise $4 Million [Bloomberg]
Damien Hirst Has Designs on Lance Armstrong’s Bike [NY Times]
Nike Livestrong STAGES Exhibition [High Snobiety]
Preview: Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG x Nike Stages Exhibition @ Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin [Arrested Motion]
Lance Armstrong x Nike Sportswear – “Stages” Touring Art Exhibition Supporting Livestrong [Arrested Motion]
Lance Armstrong x Nike Sportswear “Stages” Touring Art Exhibition [Hypebeast]
Lance Armstrong x Trek x Damien Hirst Stages Project Bike [Limited Hype]
Marc Newson for Lance Armstrong – TREK Art Bike [Freshness]
Lance Armstrong’s New Trek Madone Bikes By Kaws & Barry McGee [High Snobiety]
Tom Sachs‘ Lance’s TequilaBike For Girls [The World’s Best Ever]
Stages exhibition, Paris [Wallpaper]
Interview: KAWS @ Stages, Paris [DailyduJour]
AFC+: Will Damien Hirst Remind Lance Armstrong of His Mortality? [Art Fag City]
PARIS///LANCE ARMSTRONG’S TREK ART BIKES COME TO LIFE IN THE WINDOW OF COLETTE [Supertouch]
NEWS///LANCE ARMSTRONG SURGES BACK TO ACTION IN THE TOUR DE FRANCE ON A MARC NEWSON TREK TTX ART BIKE [Supertouch]
ANNOUNCING “STAGES”: LANCE ARMSTRONG’S SUPERTOUCH-CURATED ANTI-CANCER ART SHOW OPENING JULY 16TH [Supertouch]
Lance Armstrong rides bike decorated by Damien Hirst [Art Review]
L.A. artists lend a hand to Lance Armstrong [LA Times]
Livestrong x Stages | Recap [Limited Hype]
Trek Lance Armstrong STAGES Bike by Yoshitomo Nara [Hypebeast]

The bike Yoshitomo Nara designed for Lance Armstrong for the Tour de France via Hypebeast

more images and story after the jump…

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Ed Ruscha’s ‘That Was Then This Is Now’ sold for £713,250, falling between estimates of £600,000-800,000, via Phillips de Pury

Phillips de Pury’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale realized £5.1 million last night, missing its low estimate of £5.4 million.  With a much smaller and deeply discounted offering compared to last year’s sale, Phillips sold 30 out of 39 lots for a 77% sold-by-lot rate, beating last year’s rate of 66%.  However, this year’s totals represent a 79% decrease in value as last year’s sale brought in £24.5 million.  Conservative estimates helped, with many lots selling above their estimates.  The highest selling lot was Ed Ruscha’s fittingly titled ‘That Was Then This Is Now,’ going for £713,250, including buyer’s premium, putting it in the middle of estimates of £600,000-800,000.

Contemporary Art Evening Sale [Phillips de Pury]
Ruscha Canvas Leads a London Sale [NY Times]
Phillips Contemporary: That Was Then, This Is Now [Artinfo]
Phillips Sells 77% of Contemporary Art in London on Discounts [Bloomberg]

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Pablo Picasso’s ‘Homme à l’épée’ estimated to sell between £5-7 million via Christie’s

The summer auction season starts next week with the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sales in London at Christie’s on Tuesday, June 23, and at Sotheby’s the following evening.  Both sales feature a late Picasso painting,part of his Muskateers series, painted by the artist on successive days and both titled ‘Man with a sword.’  The Sotheby’s Picasso is estimated to sell between £6-8 million and the Christie’s Picasso is estimated between £5-7 million. Both auction houses each offered a Muskateer painting in the spring auctions, with one failing to meet its reserve and the other selling for $14.6 million. This era of Picasso’s works has been enjoying a wave of popularity after Gagosian Gallery’s ‘Mosqueteros’ exhibition (as covered by AO here) earlier this spring gaining record attendance, as well as two major museum shows in Paris and London focusing on the artist’s late career. The Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sales take place on Thursday, June 25 at Sotheby’s, Monday, June 29 at Phillips de Pury, and Tuesday, June 30 at Christie’s.  Though healthy sales at Art Basel last weekend have boosted confidence in the market, this season’s estimates are down over 70% from last year.

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Phillips de Pury Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Monday, June 29, 2009
Sotheby’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Thursday, June 30, 2009
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale with Specialists Helena Newman and Alexander Platon [Video; Sotheby’s]
Contemporary Art Evening Sale with Specialists Oliver Barker, Cheyenne Westphal and Alexander Branczik [Video; Sotheby’s]
En garde! Rival houses offer Picasso musketeers [Reuters]
Can Buying Impressionist Art Make You Happy? [Wall Street Journal]
Christie’s Resumes Cutting Jobs After May N.Y. Auctions Decline [Bloomberg]
Battle of the Picasso paintings [TelegraphUK]
London Sales Estimates Down 70 Percent From Last Year [Artinfo]
Warhol, Prince Works Fail to Save Art Sales From 70% Decline [Bloomberg]
After Basel, Dealers Have High Hopes for London Sales [Wall Street Journal]
Artworks by Goya, Fragonard, David and Turner for Sotheby’s July Old Master Paintings Auction [Art Auction Publicity]
Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Auction Expected to Take £20 million [Art Auction Publicity]
Doig painting of Canadian childhood could fetch $3 M [Montreal Gazette via Art Market Monitor]
Duchamp, Miró, Marc, Monet and Picasso Highlight Christie’s Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art [Artdaily]
London Contemporary Art Auctions [The Art Collectors]
Phillips de Pury & Company Announce Highlights of the Forthcoming London Contemporary Art Sales [Artdaily]
Picasso, Monet and Giacometti, for Sotheby’s Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art [Art Auction Publicity]
Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Evening Sale to Present Three Rare Andy Warhol Paintings [Artdaily]
The art market: Picasso endures [Financial Times]
Art Market Watch [Artnet]
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A beach towel by Ed Ruscha via the Art Production Fund

Just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach, new beach towels by Ed Ruscha, Karen Kilimnik, Raymond Pettibon and Julian Schnabel are ready, catch them at the Raleigh Hotel [Art Production Fund]
A Page Six roundup of some of the Art Basel Miami Beach parties, as usual, the Raleigh hotel is front and center [NYPost]

“Paysage, le mur rose” (Landscape, the Pink Wall) by Henri Matisse via Artsjournal

France gives back Henri Matisse painting, once seized by Nazi SS officer, proceeds from sale to go to British charity for medical rescue in Israel [Artsjournal] more here [AP]

Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar via The New York Times

Qatar opens the 41,000 square foot, IM Pei designed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha; Robert de Niro, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and London dealer Jay Jopling attend festivities [NewYork Times]

Portrait of a lady as Flora , by Italian master Giambattista Tiepolo

A lost painting by Giambattista Tiepolo, discovered in a chateau attic, may sell for £1m at Christie’s sale in London next week [FinancialTimes]
City of San Francisco not accepting $1 billion gift to build space to show Gap Inc. founder Don Fisher’s 1,000 work strong collection due to aesthetics of architecture [Bloomberg]
A review of Calvin Tomkins’s ‘Lives of the Artists’ which profiles headliners such as Hirst, Cindy Sherman, Schnabel, Serra, Koons, Currin and others [NYObserver)

Portrait Ria Munk III – by Gustav Klimt via Linz Presse

Lentos Museum in Austria may have to give a $10 million Gustav Klimt painting to heirs of Holocaust victim [Bloomberg]

The artist Steve McQueen via GuardianUK

Turner prize winning video artist Steve McQueen interviewed, and more, on his new film, ‘Hunger’ [GuardianUK]

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Eli Broad, Billionaire Philanthropist and Art Collector, via LA Times

In an apparent reversal from his statements earlier this year, billionaire philanthropist and patron of the arts Eli Broad is now opening a 25,000 square foot museum in the new headquarters for his eponymous foundation, the Broad Art Foundation.  This news comes just nine months after the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened the 60,000 square foot Broad Contemporary Art Museum, built through $56 million dollars provided by Mr. Broad, proprietor of a 2,000 piece collection of post-war art.  Jean Michel Basquiat, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Damien Hirst figure among the many seminal artists whose works are owned by the foundation.  Eli Broad had been outspokenly calling the art market bubble for some time now and recent auction performance in the past month or two has proved him to be somewhat prescient.   Broad has felt that the market is returning to normal levels perhaps as he has recently been reinvigorating purchasing activity.  Mr. Broad’s most recent acquisitions include: Bantam by Robert Rauschenberg ($2.6 million), Wishing Well by Jeff Koons ($2.2 million), and Desire by Ed Ruscha ($2.4 million), all acquired at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale on November 11th (as covered by AO here).

The new facility would include the proposed museum, administrative headquarters for his organization, and storage for the pieces of his collection that aren’t on loan to museums. “We want a new headquarters, a space to have works that are not on loan to others at any given moment available for study by curators and scholars,” the foundation’s spokeswoman said in an article published in Bloomberg.  Broad has expressed that he would like the new headquarters to open within 3 years.

Gensler has been designated as the architect and consultant on the project, with a site in Beverly Hills and two other undisclosed locations under review. The Beverly Hills location would be at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, a few miles away from the LACMA museum that bears his name. Some observers question whether the new museum would introduce too much competition to existing contemporary arts venues, especially the Broad Museum at LACMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), where Broad was a founding trustee. MoCA especially is in a very fragile position: the museum is in a severe fiscal crisis after suffering huge losses to its endowment in the recent market downturn.  Broad has announced a plan to provide $30 million to MoCA over several years to help keep the museum from closing.

The Broad Art Foundation
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Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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Eli Broad Plans Another Art Space [New York Times]
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Broad Decides to Build His Own Museum [New York Times]
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Billionaire Broad Proposes Beverly Hills Art Museum [Bloomberg]
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Eli Broad’s Museum to Keep Art Out of `Basement’ [Bloomberg]
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Eli Broad’s art collection needs a home, so he’ll build it [LA Times]
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MOCA faces serious financial problems [LA Times]
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Saving MOCA: Eli Broad offers $30 million to MOCA in Op-Ed [LA Times]
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Eli Broad to Build Museum in Los Angeles [ArtForum]

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Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York, Tuesday, November 11th
Total Lots Offered: 63
Total Lots Sold: 43 (68.2%)
Total Sales Value: $125.1 million
Total Sales Pre-Auction Estimate: $202.4 million

On the heels of its Impressionist and Modern Art sale that brought in $223 million, well below its low estimate of $339 million, with only 45 of 70 lots sold as previously covered by Art Observed here, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York, held on Tuesday, November 11th, brought in $125 million against a $202 million estimate. The sale was 68.2% sold by lot, with 43 of 63 works finding buyers, marking the lowest selling rate for a multiple-owner evening sale of contemporary art held at Sotheby’s since November 1994. A third of the lots failed to sell, and most of the works that did sell went for less than their presale low estimate. The top lot of the sale was Yves Klein’s Archisponge (RE 11), seen below, which brought $21,362,500. Artist records were set tonight for Philip Guston Beggar’s Joys, which achieved $10,162,500; John Currin, Nice ‘N Easy (see above), which realized $5,458,500 (see above) and Richard Serra, 12-4-8, which fetched $1,650,000.

A Dreary Night for Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s [NYTimes]
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale defies worst fears [Reuters]
Sotheby’s New York Evening Sale of Contemporary Art Brings $125,131,500 [ArtDaily]
$125 million at Sotheby’s Contemporary [ArtNet]
The art market: Contemporary art gets hammered [FinancialTimes]
Bare Market [ArtForum]
Eli Broad Goes Shopping as Sotheby’s Art Auction Falls Short [Bloomberg]
Currin Nudes Set $5.46 Million Record at Spotty Sotheby’s Sale [Bloomberg]

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Damien Hirst via TheDailyMail

Science, Damien Hirst’s corporation, tops the ArtReview power 100, Gagosian follows, and MoMA’s Kathy Halbreich is first woman to make the top 10 [ArtInfo]
Designer Yohji Yamamoto uses museum curators in New York, Paris, London and Antwerp as models in latest campaign [TheMoment]
PaperMag’s latest issue interviews artworld figures such as Terence Koh, Cecily Brown, Tauba Auerbach, Shepard Fairey and James Fuentes [PaperMag]
Sotheby’s secures $250 million loan from Bank of America while cutting auction guarantees [Bloomberg}
A Liechtenstein billionare is on his second attempt to build 23,000 sf Las Vegas Museum of Contemporary Art [ArtForum]
What happens to the corporate artwork of failed companies? [WallStreetJournal]
Jake Chapman interviewed on, for example, his ideal home: with six or seven of his enemies hanging from trees in front of it [GuardianUK]
Fashion designer Stella McCartney and Artist Ed Ruscha together on Iconoclasts [SundanceChannel]

Brice Marden via the The New York Observer

Artist Brice Marden is redeveloping a hotel in the Caribean island of Nevis [NYObserver]
S&M self-portraiture coming to the Guggenheim with Catherine Opie retrospective [NYTimes TMagazine]
After 30 years, lawyer on trial for attempting to profit off stolen art, including a $29.3M Cezanne [Artinfo]
Fake American Apparel ads in Brooklyn reference Jeff Koons and perhaps Damien Hirst [AnimalNY]
Ed Ruscha’s open-air studio in Venice Beach, CA may become a city parking lot [NYTimes]
The 100% self made custom wardrobe of artist Mike Latham, of Art’s Corporation, features his signature barcode [NYSun]

Red, Andy Warhol, (1978) via Gagosian

Gagosian’s spacious Chelsea gallery presents 13 contemporary artists in ‘Retrospective’: Chris Burden, Marcel Duchamp, Tom Friedman, Piero Golia, Douglas Gordon, Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami, Piotr UklaÅ„ski, Andy Warhol, Martin Kippenberger, and Ed Ruscha. Keeping in company with several thematic group shows this summer, this one has been assembled by Andisheh Avini, Gagosian curator, and artist.

Press Release [Gagosian]
‘Retrospective’: Been There, Sold That [NYSun]
Some Shows For Escape, Some For Introspection [NYTimes]
View video of the Retrospective group show here [Gagosian]

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Anselm Keifer, Secret Life of Plants(2008) via Bloomberg

From April 15 to June 29, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London is presenting a unique exhibition on the subject of books in art or of books as art. “Blood on Paper” is an exploration of how artists have interpreted and utilized the book medium. The works range from the conventional book format to large-scale installations and sculptures, such as Anselm Keifer’s enormous book made of lead (pictured).

“Blood on Paper” [Victoria & Albert Museum]
“Bacon’s Trash, Hirst’s Furniture Become Books: Martin Gayford” [Bloomberg]
“The Writing on the Wall“ [Financial Times]
“Works That Speak Volumes” [Financial Times]
“Blood on Paper: the Art of the Book” [The Independent] (more…)