Roni Horn, Gold Field (1980-82), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Taking over the Punta Della Dogana for the dizzying months of the Biennale is Slip of the Tongue, a Danh Vo curated exhibition in collaboration with Palazzo Grassi and The Pinault Collection.  Slip of the Tongue features the work of 35 artists, including pieces from Felix Gonzalez- Torres, Andres Serrano, David Hammons, Sigmar Polke, David Wojnarowicz and the curator himself.  Working in conjunction with a large number of artists, the artist-run show is a first for the exhibition space. (more…)

Fotografica, all photos via Sabrina Wirth for Art Observed

Every two years during the first week of May, Bogotá, Colombia launches its Fotografica Bogotá, the biennial photography exhibition now in its 10th edition. “Bogotá is photographic,” says Gilma Suarez, the powerhouse curator and photographer who founded the event.  Indeed, from May 2nd to June 15th, the city turns itself into a public museum, with images of the artwork on display for anyone to enjoy, while hosting concurrent events at universities, galleries, museums, and foundations, also open to the public.  The event gives photography enthusiasts the chance to meet with the exhibiting photographers from around the world to either listen to their lectures or participate in portfolio reviews.  (more…)

Aurel Schmidt with a work from New Gods, via Art Observed

Recently, artist Aurel Schmidt launched another entry in her series of unexpected pop-up shows, bringing her uniquely visceral, surrealist drawings to an uninhabited apartment on St. Marks Place downtown.  It was a rough and ready affair, with works installed across the hauntingly empty rooms of the walk-up (one work was mounted near the kitchen sink, while another sat above the laundry machine), and a number of the artist’s friends on hand, making it feel more like a casual gathering than a gallery show.  In one room, guests were treated to an impromptu concert by Devonté Hynes (a.k.a. Blood Orange), while Schmidt welcomed guests and showed them around the space.

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The retrospective of Vienna Actionist Hermann Nitsch’s work, previously pulled from Mexico City’ s Museo Jumex this past year, has found a new home at Palermo’s Museo Zac.  “Everybody who knows me, knows that I am an animal protector,” says Nitsch, responding to accusations of animal cruelty that some feel were responsible for closing the show.  “From my point of view, factory farming is the biggest crime in our society.”   (more…)

The New York Times looks at the recent trend towards smaller and boutique art fairs, where collectors can experience specially selected works and a more nuanced buying experience. The article focuses particularly on London’s Art15 fair, where a focus on international buyers and new investors has defined it as a leader in the growing market. “We deliberately made it smaller,” says Art15 Director Kate Bryan. “We wanted to create a concentrated, boutique-style event. The demographic of London is changing all the time, and we wanted to respond to that.”  (more…)

Painter Agnes Martin is profiled in The Guardian this week, as the artist prepares to open her new exhibition at the Tate Modern next month, tracing her early work and her exacting vision for her production. “When you give up on the idea of right and wrong, you don’t get anything,” Martin says. “What you get is rid of everything, freedom from ideas and responsibilities.” (more…)

Rosy Keyser, Terrestrial Mime (2015), all images via Maccarone Gallery

The idea of a frame places a spatial limit on its painterly contents, a statement of intent that rules its exteriors as just that, outside space.  For her first show with Maccarone Gallery, Rosy Keyser takes that logic  to a deconstructive conclusion, presenting a body of works under the title The Hell Bitch that continues the discourse of painterly reduction.  While breaking away from the traditional frame, Keyser’s works allow for viewers to consider definitions of empathy, profanity and form through her patchwork assemblages, fixed to the classic signifier of the canvas stretcher.   (more…)

Coloring Book, a monumental new sculpture by Jeff Koons, has sold for €12 million euros at a Cannes charity auction that ultimately brought in more than €33 million to fund AIDS research through amFAR.    (more…)

After 30 years working with Mary Boone, Eric Fischl is parting ways with the gallery, the Art Newspaper reports.  “Right now, Eric says he wants to concentrate on his work, not be affiliated with a gallery. We respect that and will continue to have a good relationship with him,” says Ron Warren, director and partner at Mary Boone. “I think he has decided that the art world and the market have changed so much that he wants to concentrate on making his work, and distance himself from being represented by a gallery.” (more…)

The New York Post quotes an unnamed source disclosing that the mystery buyer of the record setting, $179 Million Pablo Picasso several weeks ago in New York is former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.  “The painting almost certainly will not go on public display in Qatar because of the nudity, even though it is a cubist work,” the source says. (more…)

The Museum of Modern Art has announced plans for a major retrospective focused on the work of Donald Judd, set to open in 2017, organized by Chief Curator Ann Temkin.  “Half a century after Judd established himself as a leading figure of his time, his legacy demands to be considered anew,” said Ms. Temkin. “The show will cover the entire arc of Judd’s career, including not only quintessential objects from the 1960s and 1970s, but also works made before he arrived at his iconic formal vocabulary, and selections from the remarkable developments of the 1980s.” (more…)

The Whitney has named Scott Rothkopf, the man behind last year’s Jeff Koons retrospective, as the institution’s new chief curator, taking over for Donna De Salvo as she assumes the new position of deputy director.  “Now that the institution has grown, we need more firepower at the top,” says President Adam Weinberg said, adding: “I wouldn’t say so much that it’s a generational change but it is about bringing that next generation into the curatorial and programmatic leadership.” (more…)

Georg Baselitz is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing his early life and his recent contributions to the Glyndebourne  Opera Festival.  “They tell me it’s rather conservative and more than just a bit elitist,” he says. “I don’t even like classical music that much – it bores me. Except for Bach. But he didn’t write opera so that’s not much good.” (more…)

The Guardian takes a tour of Gilbert and George’s East London home and studio, where the pair have lived and worked since 1968, and which they have restored to its original 18th century interior.  “It took 300 years to go downhill,” explained George. “We’ve prepared it for the next 300 years, see? We’ve used the same paint as they used originally, the same plaster, everything is as it would’ve been originally.” (more…)

Nina Beier, Female Nude (2015), all images via Art Observed

Metro Pictures’s airy gallery is currently open to artist Nina Beier’s plotted sculptures that map the conceptual revisions of objects and their representation. Interposing sculptural still lives with flattened three-dimensional picture hangings, the artist presents crisply-laundered down comforters and jackets, flattened as a backdrop for wigs and fashionable ties, while nearby, burrowed coconut forms perched on lush soil.  In another room, gigantic stemware houses familiar objects, introduced by the gallery as an effort in problematizing representation and depiction.

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Ode to Santos Dumont the last work completed by the late Chris Burden this year, has gone on view at LACMA, a helium-filled dirigible that circles inside the Resnick Pavilion, paying tribute to the balloon pilot who sailed around the Eiffel Tower in 1901.  “The idea that you try and fail and try and fail and have an imagination is very much Chris Burden the artist,” LACMA Director Michael Govan says.  “I think he saw in Santos Dumont a bit of himself having ideas and an imagination and tenacity and also that kind of joy of achievement.” (more…)

Michael Heizer is profiled in The Guardian this week, following the opening of his newest show in New York.  “Years ago, when I had no money and I made a work of art, maybe I couldn’t afford to make it more resistant to the weather. I did, however, exploit that situation,” he says of his early work.  “I wasn’t an environmental, greenie artist making things out of moss and leaves. But I knew that some things dissipate, and I factored that into the work.” (more…)

The court case over the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice has begun, a lawsuit by the collector’s grandson to prevent the Guggenheim Foundation from showing any works not in the collection within the museum space, “alleging it breaks with the original arrangement that Peggy wanted and which should be respected after her death,” according to plaintiff Sandro Rumney. (more…)

The Whitney Museum has launched a new program for emerging and young artists, giving them access to the spaces of the new downtown location to put on their first U.S. solo exhibitions.  The first artists selected for the project are New York-based artists Jared Madere and Rachel Rose, as well as Qatari-American writer and artist Sophia Al-Maria.   (more…)

The Guardian has an article this week looking at composer Arvo Pärt and Gerhard Richter’s early careers under communism, and the pair’s respective pieces dedicated to the work of the other, to premiere at this year’s Manchester International Festival this month. (more…)

Elmgreen & Dragset, Past Tomorrow (Installation View)

Currently on view at Galerie Perrotin is Past Tomorrow, Elmgreen & Dragset’s second installment of their ongoing tale focused on the life and loves of imagined architect Norman Swann.  The project that, in its core, is an unrealized play by the Berlin-based Scandinavian duo, had its inception at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2013 exhibition, titled Tomorrow, turning the museum’s galleries into Mr. Swann’s residence.  The narrative resumes as their protagonist migrates to a studio apartment in New York’s Upper East Side neighborhood, after he consumes his entire family inheritance and vacates his London house in South Kensington. (more…)

Josh Reames at Johannes Vogt, all photos via Art Observed

NADA New York returned to the edge of the Lower East Side, drawing a diverse, hip crowd to the Basketball City complex. Free in price, NADA once again brought high-quality exhibitors and young artists, combining art from regional and international galleries alongside NYC Downtown heavy hitters.  This year’s preview event was an engaging alternative to the bright lights and high prices of Frieze. Embodying the social, communal nature of the city’s young arts scene, NADA’s Preview day was filled with with conversation, friendly jokes and familial reunions.  Maintaining the lightness of art openings opposed to the serious air of sales oriented art fairs, the galleries, their friends and artists will spend this weekend sipping drinks out of plastic cups while a roster of interdisciplinary performances, conversations and events take place. (more…)

Galeria Franco Noero, via Art Observed

The doors are open on Frieze New York, marking the early days of the summer art season with a major art event up the East River on Randall’s Island.  Returning for its fourth year, the fair has come into its own as a dedicated staple in the New York Art Calendar, and its presentation this year seems to echo it, with a stripped back tent design that seemed to stretch out much longer than in previous years, but distilled the experience down to only three rows of booths, with the occasional inlet allowing for an enjoyable wander through the space.  The VIP opening launched Wednesday morning for a quiet preview where a number of major collectors and celebrities strolled the aisles, among them Neil Patrick Harris, Mike Meyers, Uma Thurman, Leonardo DiCaprio and Richard Gere and François Pinault. (more…)

NPR has a profile on painter Elaine de Kooning (wife of Willem de Kooning) this week, focusing on the artist’s interest in portraiture as a retrospective of her work opens at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., including her famous depiction of John F. Kennedy.  “The idea of a man who happens to be president of the United States — well, that’s already, right there, he’s bigger than life,” de Kooning said in 1976. “I was scampering up and down the ladder to do this painting.” (more…)