ARTNews sat down with the current head of the Tate Modern, Chris Dercon, to discuss his career, overseeing massive additions to the museum, including its new performance space The Tanks, and his personal philosophy to curating.  “Today, to be really cool and sexy is to be sharing,” he says. “Inclusivity instead of exclusivity. Let the private collectors in the private museums do the exclusivity game.” He said. (more…)

Christie’s Deputy Chair Amy Cappellazzo appeared on Bloomberg TV this week, discussing the weeklong online auction of works by Andy Warhol to benefit the Warhol Foundation, as well as sharing some of her favorite works from the auction.  “There’s a very beautiful 60’s unique print of Marilyn Monroe’s lips, which I think is just spectacular.”  She says. (more…)

Vanity Fair Magazine sat down with curator and dealer Vito Schnabel (son of artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel), to talk about finding his way into the art world, his recently opened group show “White Collar Crimes” at Acquavella Galleries, and his practice as a curator: “It’s very personal; it’s just what I like and what I’m drawn to and what I get enthusiastic or excited about, and what I feel like working with or putting my time into.” (more…)

Artist Kehinde Wiley recently spoke with The Economist about a new series of his immediately recognizable portraits, made during his travels in Israel.  Part of his World Stage series, the new works explore new facets of the complex mesh of ethnic identities and personal politics at play in the Middle Eastern state.  “Mostly I worked with friends of friends,” Mr Wiley says. “I wanted to work with males, ages 18 to 35, who in some way were dealing with or challenging the anxiety and narcissism of youth-entertainment culture.” (more…)

Massimiliano Gioni, the 39-year old director of special exhibitions at the New Museum in New York, sat down with the Wall Street Journal recently to discuss his upcoming position as the youngest curator for the Venice Biennale in one hundred years, his history of innovative exhibitions, and his inclusive take on conceptual and contemporary art.  “We need to remind ourselves that contemporary art is first of all a form of conceptual gymnastics, in which we learn to coexist with what we don’t understand,” he says. (more…)

Andrea Mary Marshall, Gia Condo (Installation View) – All photos by Elene Damenia for Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

Blending fashion photography, performance, video and painting, the second solo exhibition by artist Andrea Mary Marshall explores the artist’s alter ego – the drag-embracing, Mona Lisa-fixated painter Gia Condo.  Across 13 canvases and a series of photographs, the artist explores issues of gender and identity that surround the famous painting of the smiling woman, re-imagining them in the style of predominantly male contemporary artists like Keith Haring, Francis Bacon, and Marcel Duchamp.

Andrea Mary Marshall, Gia Condo (Installation View)

Art Observed spoke with Marshall at the opening of her exhibition at Allegra LaViola Gallery about the character of Gia Condo, and her motivations for the exhibition.

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Peter Campus, Three Transitions (1973) via Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery

Peter Campus has been working with video art and photography since the 1960s as a major contributor to the burgeoning New York-based video art scene. Throughout the span of his career, Campus has put forth a dynamic and diverse oeuvre, which was showcased last month at now and then, a major retrospective of his work at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York.  We had a chance to sit down with the artist in December and ask him a few questions, included here.

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David Shrigley, Signs (Installation View), via Anton Kern

Blending the mundane and the morbid with a healthy sense of humor and cultural subversion, David Shrigley has been producing his particular blend of cartoonish satire for over 20 years.  Trained as a sculptor, the artist has also produced a trove of ink drawings, animations and other projects that showcase his brand of wit and empathy, exploring neurosis, mortality, absurdity and even the art world itself. (more…)

German fashion and art photographer Juergen Teller recently sat down with The Guardian to discuss his career, his life in Germany and the United Kingdom, and his upcoming retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.  “You feel like he’s capturing the speed of life and the speed of light,” says frequent collaborator Charlotte Rampling. “I think he brings out a particular side of people and that’s what photography is to me. However he gets there doesn’t really matter technically, but what he sees is the Juergen Teller view on something.”    (more…)