Alexander Calder, Calder After the War (Installation View), courtesy of Pace London

Currently on view at Pace Gallery London, from April 19th through June 7th, is an exhibition of over fifty works by Alexander Calder, created between 1945 and 1949, one of his most well-known periods during which he pioneered many of his sculptural abstractions through movement in three dimensions, particularly via his mobiles and stabiles.

(more…)

The William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, London has been awarded the UK’s prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year, entitling it to a £100,000 prize.  The award comes after an ambitious renovation and restoration project, which put £3 million into upgrades and new curatorial standards to make the museum a jewel of the city’s already burgeoning cultural offering.  Says Art Fund Director Stephen Deuchar: “The collections are not only important but they are very beautifully presented, in terms of the physical fabric of the showcases and also the interpretation – the labels are erudite and accessible. There is a great curatorial coherence to the collections and that comes across in every square foot of the museum.” (more…)

To commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the Tube, Art on the Underground has invited 15 innovative contemporary artists from across the globe to produce limited-edition posters. Each image will present a different perspective on the London Tube, and hence create a vibrant narrative of the world’s first underground network. Artists involved include Gillian Wearing, Sarah Lucas and Wolfgang Tillmans. (more…)

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…)

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…)

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.”
(more…)

In two weeks, The Tate Modern will open “Exposed,” a show of work focusing on voyeurism and surveillance in the practice of contemporary photography.  Pulling together 250 works from various artists and photographers, the show will examine the act and cultural impact of surveillance in the context of London’s position as the most surveilled city in the world. (more…)

The Guardian reports on Damien Hirst’s recent appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, where the artist admitted to getting so drunk after winning the Turner Prize’s £20,000 grand prize that he woke up in the morning forgetting where he had left the check.  Measuring his creative successes against the dangerous lives of Romantic-era legends like Egon Schiele and Joseph Turner, the newspaper uses Hirst to question the nature of the artist in an increasingly stabile, safe society. (more…)

Tate Britain has recently hung a pair of paintings by British artist Mary Beale, depicting her young son, as part of the museum’s efforts to get more female artists on its gallery walls.  The effort has already brought out a number of rarely seen works from the museum’s collection, and falls in line with museum’s new chronological hanging strategy.  “We are aware that in the past we have under-achieved in presenting the work of women artists,” says head of displays Chris Stephens. “This time in every section we have looked at all the women artists in the collection, and asked why not?, instead of why?” (more…)

Artists Jake and Dinos Chapman will bring three monumental dinosaur sculptures to London this summer, part of a series of sculptural installations that will also include work by Antony Gormley and Robert Indiana.  “Art is an essential part of vitality of the City of London, a draw for workers and visitors alike, a major contributing factor in our economic vibrancy and the kernel of the cultural brio of the Square Mile.”  Says John Scott, chairman of the City of London Corporation’s arts advisory board. (more…)

Marcel Dzama, The Chessmen (2010), courtesy David Zwirner London

Currently on view at David Zwirner gallery in London is a solo exhibition of new work by Marcel Dzama, spanning a diverse range of media that centers on the aesthetic and thematic elements of Chess. The exhibition, entitled Puppets, Pawns, and Prophets opened on April 5th and will continue through May 11th, 2013.

(more…)

Artist Gavin Turk spoke with The Guardian this week in advance of his upcoming show this summer at Ben Brown Fine Arts, covering his practice, failing his MA Thesis show, and his views on the tag “conceptual art.”  “People often don’t want to do any work with art – they just want to see something and enjoy it. I can’t see art in those terms. To me, art is always about ideas. Really, it’s all conceptual.”  He says. (more…)

The National Portrait Gallery in London has purchased a postcard-sized portrait of Queen Elizabeth I for the price of  £329,000.  Thought to be by renowned miniature painter Isaac Oliver, the piece will be part of a show of portraits depicting the Queen and her courtiers, opening this October.   (more…)

This month’s upcoming arts auctions are projected to see over $1 Billion in art change hands in the next few weeks, with a number of major works by Gerhard Richter, Barnett Newman and Fernand Léger all expected to command impressive auction prices.  Analysts are pointing to new focuses on artist’s early work, and aggressive price setting by the auction houses as evidence that the market is ripe for sale, which could lead to a number of record-setting transactions. (more…)

Capitalizing on the growing market of private art sales, Sotheby’s Auction House will open a private sales gallery in London, Bloomberg reports.  The move follows the increasing trend of discreet art purchases for blue chip works, avoiding the high-profile spotlight of the auction room.  “It’s very smart. I would do the same,” said the New York-based dealer Christophe van de Weghe. “Sotheby’s will have the same clientele for both their auctions and their gallery sales.” (more…)

Rachel Whiteread, Detached (Installation View) © Rachel Whiteread. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery, Photo Mike Bruce

Gagosian London is currently exhibiting Detached, a self-reflexive exhibition by Rachel Whiteread that calls to attention the artistic process itself, abstracting and casting everyday objects into large scale sculptures meant to symbolize the detachment from reality that an artist experiences during his or her process.

(more…)

Sterling Ruby, THE POT IS HOT (2013), via Hauser and Wirth

Los Angeles-based Sterling Ruby is currently exhibiting a selection of new works in London, on view at Hauser and Wirth’s Savile Row location.  Investigating a creative process that incorporates studio detritus and recycled elements of previous work into his assemblages and collages, Ruby welcomes a new perspective on the fixed artwork. (more…)

Art mogul Larry Gagosian has announced plans to open his 3rd London gallery in the city’s Mayfair neighborhood, and his 13th gallery worldwide.  The new space is set to open this fall.  “We’ve been looking for a bigger place in Mayfair, one that would resemble a Chelsea gallery,” Gagosian says. “And this has great space with over 15-foot-high ceilings.” (more…)

Local Planning Committee the Thorney Island Society has raised objections over the proposed installation of artist Katharina Fritsch’s bright blue cockerel sculpture on London’s Fourth Plinth.  Taking umbrage with the work’s apparent “innappropriate” placement in Trafalgar Square, the group is taking action to prevent its installation. “We cannot see any logical reason for the proposed sculpture to be placed on the fourth plinth. It is unrelated to the context of Trafalgar Square and adds nothing to it but a feeble distraction.”  The group said in a statement. (more…)

The British Museum’s current expansion efforts, projected to cost £135 Million, are currently running on schedule, and on budget, museum curators said in a progress report this past Monday.  The project will add much needed operations space to the institution, as well as a 1,100 square foot exhibition space designed for major exhibitions.  “Almost in every decade, there’s had to be some kind of amendment, adjustment or extension to the building to make it fit for purpose.” says the museum director, Neil MacGregor. (more…)

Embracing performance and creative theatrics, a group of protestors converged on the Tate Modern yesterday, protesting the ongoing sponsorship of the institution by petroleum giant BP.  Chanting snippets from the corporation’s court proceedings over the Deepwater Horizon spill (yesterday was the disaster’s three-year anniversary), the group sought to underscore the corporation’s ties to the art community. “It’s not only BP that’s on trial for the devastation it has caused to Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems, it’s also Tate and other cultural institutions that provide BP with the social legitimacy to continue operating with such destructive consequences,” said performer Paul Brady.  “We’re making a performance that brings the BP trial into Tate Modern because BP’s arts sponsorship cannot be separated from the irrevocable damage it does to communities and the climate.” (more…)

The Tate Modern in London has announced its plans for a show of the final works completed by Henri Matisse.  Slated for Spring of 2014, the show will feature 120 pieces by the artist, primarily using his large-scale, cut-out technique, including his famous Blue Nudes.  “They are more like installations or environments than paintings; and they seem very contemporary now. Part of the point of the show is to reconsider them in this light,” said Tate curator Nicholas Cullinan. “They were a way of collapsing line and colour; at the same time they were a kind of sculpture – carving into pure colour.” (more…)