Zhang Xiaogang, Beijing Voice (Installation View), Courtesy of PACE Beijing

PACE Beijing is currently exhibiting a selection new works by Chinese painter Zhang Xiaogang, showcasing the artist’s interpretations of Chinese identity, memory and relation.  The exhibition, part of PACE’s annual Beijing Voice’s event, is the first stop on the artist’s work in a global tour which will also include PACE exhibitions at their locations in New York and London. (more…)

Angus Fairhurst, Un-titled (Installation View) via Sadie Coles HQ

Sadie Coles HQ‘s current exhibition by the late Angus Fairhurst (1966-2008), Un-titled, explores notions of “doing and undoing, absence and presence, thinking and feeling.”  Culling from Fairhurst’s broad body of sculpture, painting, collage and photography, the show is a testament to the artist’s brief but impressive output.

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Sarah Lucas, Sitation Classic Pervery (Installation View), via Sadie Coles

In February 2012, Sarah Lucas opened her first Situation exhibition in a project space above Sadie Coles headquarters in Burlington Place. This was the beginning of a project that Lucas has continued as curator and artist ever since.  Her most recent installation, Situation Classic Pervery, was a continuation of this project.

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The auction room at Christie’s, via Christie’s

With the conclusion of Contemporary Art Auction Week yesterday in London, dealers, collectors and artists headed home, having seen well over $200 million exchanged during what many are calling a particularly successful season.  This year, Asian, Russian, and other international collectors continued to make their presence known, including a number of first- time bidders who swooped in one some of the more highly valued works available.  (more…)

Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has accepted the invitation to design the Serpentine Gallery’s 2013 summer pavilion in Kensington Gardens, London.  His 350 square meter design, a steel lattice-work “cloud,” was selected from a competitive pool of designs, and makes him the youngest architect to accept this invitation at 41.  “We are thrilled to be working with one of the most fascinating architects in the world today. Sou Fujimoto has designed a structure that will enthral everyone that encounters it throughout the summer.”   Said Serpentine Director Julia Peyton-Jones and Co-Director Hans Ulrich Obrist in a statement. (more…)

Juergen Teller, Installation View, via The ICA

Juergen Teller leads a life that is far from the norm in fine art. Despite his ubiquitous gallery shows and openings, Teller also embraces the commercial world of photography; touring with rock stars and shooting celebrities around the globe. Regardless, the photographer has always been regarded as the ‘antithesis’ of what should constitute conventional Haute Couture photography.  In order to illustrate the artists distinctive and breathtaking style, the ICA in London is currently presenting a retrospective covering the broad expanse of Teller’s career, along with recent works that steer away from the limelight of his previous glossy campaigns and focus on more subdued topics such as portraiture of his family and friends.

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Eva Hesse, No Title (1965), via Hauser and Wirth

Eva Hesse’s 1965, on view at Hauser and Wirth in London, is a visual representation of a productive period in the late artist’s life.  Named after the formative year in which the pieces on view were created, it reflects the artist’s physical and mental states during this period, a time when she undertook a residency at Kettwig an der Ruhr, Germany.  Living in an abandoned textile factory, Hesse built a new style of working from the sewing machines, fabrics and other cast-off material in her space, simultaneously building a new artistic and personal awareness for herself in the process.

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Beginning their eight night run at Tate Modern last night, German electronic museum pioneers Kraftwerk played their debut album Autobahn to a crowd of 1,250 in the museum’s Turbine Hall.  Mirroring their run of shows at New York’s Museum of Modern Art last year, the band will play one of their eight full length albums each night, closing on February 14th with their last album, Tour de France.  “I saw them three-and-a-half years ago at the Manchester Velodrome and now that the whole show is in 3D and with surround sound, it’s incredible. It’s amazing that 40 years into their career, they’re still relevant,” said Andy McCluskey of electronic act Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. (more…)

Artist Mark Wallinger has just completed work on his installation in the London Underground, cited as the largest ever art commission, for the 150-year anniversary of the British transportation system.  Titled Labyrinth, The work involves 270 unique mazes, each installed in a station in the London Underground system.  “It’s about the everyday, but on such a vast scale of moving people about.  That almost in itself is a colossal, almost mythical sort of function.” (more…)

The late Lucian Freud has left a number of works from his collection, including a late work by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and several sculptures by Degas, to Great Britain as a token of gratitude for the country’s welcoming of his Jewish family, who fled Nazi Germany in 1938.  The Corot work is now on view at the National Gallery, in room 41.  “Although we have a very strong collection of Corot’s works, we have no example of a late figure painting like this,” says National Gallery director Nicholas Penny. “Its rough-hewn monumentality and abrupt transitions anticipate Picasso’s exercises in the classical manner and make it one of the most modern looking pictures in the collection.” (more…)

Fred Sandback, Untitled, (1977-2008), via David Zwirner

Currently on display at David Zwirner’s London Gallery is a matrix of acrylic yarn evoking an eerie experience that heightens the spectator’s spatial awareness. Across the gallery, colored and blackened fibre is stretched into 3D geometrical forms that carry an uncanny resemblance to a two-dimensional line drawing in mid air. The viewer is literally immersed into the surreal world of Fred Sandback as he challenges our perceptions of dimension and reality.

Fred Sandback, Untitled (four part vertical construction) (1988), via David Zwirner

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The Tate Modern has announced that it will screen Roy Lichtenstein’s only film work, titled Three Landscapes, as part of the artist’s upcoming retrospective, opening next month.  Filmed at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, the film was part of an ambitious project for Lichtenstein in the early 1970’s, but was quickly abandoned after the completion of one film.  “When he finished the project, in a way he lost interest. What fascinated him was his painting. It was the first time and the last time he used film.”  Says co-curator Iria Candela. (more…)

This Sunday, the Tate Modern will host an ambitious performance work, organized by artist Suzanne Lacy, in its new performance space, The Tanks.  Welcoming 400 women over 60 who were active in mass political actions of the past 40 years, Silver Action will provide the platform for open, unscripted discussions on aging and political activism.  Visitors will be able to listen into the many conversations concurrently running, and dialogues will also be transcribed online.  “I’m trying to shift the discourse away from one of isolation and increasing frailty: we should see older women as an amazing resource – not just talk about them taking resources.”  The artist says.   (more…)

Frank Cohen, the Mancunian billionaire and art lover, has announced plans to open a free art gallery in the Bloomsbury area of London.  The new space, situated in the former depot for Express Dairies, has already drawn comparisons to Charles Saatchi’s Chelsea location, and has been purchased in partnership with fellow collector Nicolai Frahm.  “We’re trying to give London another space which has a completely different feel.” Says Cohen. (more…)

Ed Ruscha, I’m Amazed (1971),via Bernard Jacobson

This January, Bernard Jacobson Gallery is home to Ed Ruscha’s I’m Amazed collection, which presents some of the artist’s most abstract works.  Known for his treatment of text as objects, the titles of Ruscha’s images become the works themselves. Single words are juxtaposed against simplistic images (i.e. gas stations or landscapes) while others dominate the work completely. His statements, or individual words, become ambiguous against their backdrop. The title of show is adopted from a work that reads ‘I’m Amazed’ in faint grey print,engulfed by a swarm of flies to the point of illegibility. The laconic effect of such imagery sufficiently summarizes the collection and sets the sombre and subdued atmosphere of the show.

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Jonas Mekas, Jonas Mekas (Installation View), Via Serpentine Gallery

Lithuanian-American artist Jonas Mekas has worn many hats over his sixty-plus year career. Emigrating to the United States after his imprisonment in labor camps during World War II, Mekas began creating films that embraced a diaristic approach to documenting the events of his own life, but were informed by his active participation in the New York avant-garde film scene of the 1950’s. (more…)

Phillips, formerly known as Phillips de Pury & Co., having announced the departure of chairman Simon de Pury, and the subsequent reversion to its original name prepares to expand its London and New York operations.  “We’ll be making some dramatic changes that will increase our visibility.” Said chief executive officer Michael McGinnis. (more…)

The Francis Bacon triptych Three Studies for a Self-Portrait is expected to sell for $24 million at auction next month.  The work will join paintings by Gerhard Richter and Jean-Michel Basquiat in a 56-lot auction by Sotheby’s with a minimum valuation of $101 million, based on hammer prices. (more…)

The repairs and restoration of a Joan Miró painting damaged at the Tate Modern in 2011 has been cited at £203,000.  Painting on White Background for the Cell of a Recluse I was damaged when an unidentified museum visitor leaned against it, placing both hands on the canvas.  The large damage payment by the UK government to the Fundació Joan Miró includes both restoration costs as well as compensation for depreciation of the work’s value. (more…)

A portrait attributed to the Venetian master Titian has been discovered in a remote basement room of the National Gallery in London.  The discovery of the painting, depicting Doctor Girolamo Fracastoro, was acquired by the museum in 1924, and positions the National Gallery as one of the leading collections of Titians in the world. (more…)

The Tate Modern’s massive retrospective for British artist Damien Hirst has helped propel the Museum’s attendance to record numbers. Tate Modern saw over 463,000 visitors pass through the exhibition, contributing to the 5.3 million total visitors last year, and also announced the opening of their new extension, The Tanks.  Alex Beard, Tate’s deputy director, said: “It has been an extraordinary year at Tate Modern, opening the Tanks, the world’s first museum galleries permanently dedicated to exhibiting live art, performance, installation and film works, alongside an outstanding exhibition programme which has undoubtedly fuelled the increase in visitors.” (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…)

Xavier Veilhan, The Bear(2010), courtesy The Phillips Collection.

Celebrated French artist Xavier Veilhan generally works with site-specific installations, reflecting art historical styles and concepts that are executed by employing technological innovation with a distinctly stylized futuristic aesthetic. Veilhan’s first major U.S. museum exhibition is currently on view at The Philips Collection as a part of its “Intersections” series. (more…)

Image: Installation shot, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, “Wild Mood Swings,” 2009-10 – Nihilistic Optimistic, all images courtesy of the artists and Blain|Southern, Photographer: Peter Mallet

After the private viewing this evening in London, Nihilistic Optimistic, a sculptural illustration of oppositional and complementary forces by Tim Noble & Sue Webster – their first major solo exhibition in London since 2006 – will open to the public on October 10th  at Blain Southern Gallery in London’s Hanover Square. Six large-scale sculptures constructed from wood scraps and other discarded materials, “fracturing things up – splintering things. So the mind has to wander in a different way…” continues the artists’ “investigation of self-portraiture.”

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