Doug Aitken has launched another iteration of his Station to Station project at London’s Barbican Center, bringing his vast multimedia project to bear on the British capital.  “It will be amazing to see Station to Station come to life in London in such a unique, multi-arts environment as the Barbican,” Aitken says.  “This is a living exhibition with artists of all mediums, creating unique works and unpredictable encounters every day.” (more…)

Ai Weiwei, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2010), via Phillips

Sales have concluded at tonight’s Contemporary and Post-War Evening Sale at Phillips Auction House in London, capping a strong outing by the company that saw 10 of the 53 lots going unsold.  With somewhat sluggish proceedings and a few surprises, the auction seems to be something of a stumble in Phillips’ attempts to challenge the larger auction houses this week.

Sigmar Polke, Carnival (1979), via Phillips (more…)

Yves Klein, Peinture de feu couleur sans titre (FC 27) (1962), via Christie’s

Following strong but subdued outings last week during the London summer sales, attention turns to the Contemporary market in the UK, as a trio of sales this week will usher in the summer months.  The sales start tomorrow, spanning three nights in the British capital, and drawing the first half of the year’s major sales to a close.

Andy Warhol, One Dollar Bill (1962), via Sotheby’s (more…)

Serpentine Pavilion, via Serpentine Galleries

The Serpentine Pavilion, the annual summer architecture project hosted by Serpentine Galleries, has opened in London, a swirling series of multicolored chambers and hallways by Spanish architecture firm SelgasCano (the first commission from a Spanish firm) resting on the lawn outside of the museum galleries. (more…)

The Serpentine has announced a Build Your Own Pavilion contest for young and aspiring architects, aged 8 to 14, inviting them to try their hand at executing their own unique architectural design.  “The platform and workshops give an insight to the basic principles of architectural design and workshop students will be given the Pavilion brief and a toolkit that begins with sketching by hand, working with simple modeling materials and progressing to 3D design and print technologies,” the Serpentine says. (more…)

Richard Dorment, the head arts critic at The Telegraph who is retiring after serving at the position for over 30 years, has an article in the newspaper this week, reviewing the changes in contemporary art since he began writing, and his thoughts on writers unwilling to accept the new in the world of art. “Had the same critics been writing about film, sport, or the stock market they’d have been rumbled in a week,” he notes. (more…)

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism, 18th Construction (1915), via Sotheby’s

The Impressionist and Modern sale has concluded at Sotheby’s tonight, with 51-lot sale that failed to live up to the auction house’s pre-sale proclamations of a record breaking sale.  The auction brought a final total of £178,590,000, falling just shy of the £186.44 million record for London auctions it was expected to beat. (more…)

Claude Monet, Iris Mauves (1914-1917), via Christie’s

The London summer auctions are underway, after Christie’s opening sale this evening at its King Street location, a steady if somewhat relaxed sale that seemed a markedly subdued affair compared to the fireworks the auction house saw last month in New York.  Capping the 52-lot sale with a final tally of £71,461,000, the evening was still a strong entry in the auction house’s recent outings.  Despite lackluster bidding, the sale achieved a remarkably strong sell-through rate, with only 8 works going unsold.  The auction house seemed content to let a number of works go just below estimate, continuing a commitment to a sales-first strategy outgoing president Steven Murphy had outlined late last year. (more…)

Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism, 18th Construction (1915), via Sotheby’s

Following the big ticket sales in Art Basel this past week, the art market’s focus will shift to London this week, where a pair of major Impressionist and Modern Evening sales will launch the last two weeks of market activity before the summer months and their lull of activity.  Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s will face off again following last month’s monumental sales results in New York, with a number of extremely impressive works offered, often with equally impressive price tags. (more…)

Sotheby’s is looking to break the record for the most expensive art auction in London this week, with an Impressionist and modern sale expected to top £203 million.  “The forthcoming sale offers a rich range of highly desirable works, including those that rank among the finest by Manet, Degas, Klimt, Malevich, Gauguin and Miro,” says Helena Newman, global go-chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department. (more…)

Climate change activists have concluded a 25-hour long protest against the Tate Modern’s sponsorship by British Petroleum, writing messages and critics on the Turbine Hall floor after facing down a potential use of police force that was not acted upon.  “It’s a back-down,” says Liberate Tate member and writer Mel Evans. “Maybe it’s a sign of how much the groundswell of public opinion has shifted that the Tate doesn’t feel like they can shut down this discussion.”

(more…)

Karen Kilimnik, The Cold Winter Lane, The Polish Countryside, A Delft Landscape (2013) via Sprüth Magers

Artist Karen Kilimnik returns to Sprüth Magers this month, showcasing her small-scale, painted appropriations, mixed with the influence of traditional Delftware.  Kilimnik’s work focuses on expressing her own views of openness and precision, elegance and humor through a variety of mediums, often creating site-specific projects that mimic 19th Century interiors and often incorporating the design and fashion of the era.  Her small paintings overlay found imagery with new landscapes and imagined scenarios, reinforcing the atmospheric effects of the painterly surface while maintaining the scale and shape of the landscape and her palette. (more…)

London’s National Gallery has indicated that Ireland has some claim to a series of long disputed Impressionist masterpieces.  The collection of Hugh Lane, who died on the Lusitania explosion in 1915, had been willed to Dublin, but since the will had not been witnessed, they were legally bound to Britain.  “The National Gallery claims legal ownership of the paintings bequeathed by Sir Hugh Lane, but has long conceded that Dublin has some moral claim to them,” said National Gallery Director Nicholas Penny, during a lecture on the collection. (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…)

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…)

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…)

The Shortlist for the 2015 Turner Prize has been announced, featuring a diverse body of artists and practices that diverges wildly from last year’s heavily video and film-centric affair.  The 2015 Prize exhibition will be staged this year at the Tramway arts venue in Glasgow.  The Turner Prize, a £25,000 award, is Britain’s most prominent recognition in the arts, and this year will go to either London artist Bonnie Camplin, German-born artist Nicole Wermers, London-based arts collective Assemble (which adopted an abandoned housing estate and converted it into a new community space), or artist Janice Kerbel.  Working in a wide variety of media, social practice and community milieu factor heavily into the pieces on view this year.

The Turner Prize exhibition will open this October in Glasgow. (more…)

London’s Royal Academy of Art has unveiled a £50 million expansion plan that will link the institution’s two buildings in the British capital’s Mayfair district.  “You will be able to go from an exhibition in Burlington House to a lecture in Burlington Gardens through the vaults of the building,” says Sir David Chipperfield, who designed the project.  “You will see the cast corridors, you will see where the schools have been all this time. It’s a small amount of architecture for a profound result.” (more…)

David Hockney is the subject of an interview in The Guardian this week, revisiting his life among movie stars and artists during the 1960’s, contrasted with his intense work ethic.  “I thought I was a hedonist at the time, but when I look back I was always working,” he says.  “I am always working. I work every day. I never give parties; I never gave them.” (more…)

Isa Genzken, Geldbild I (2014)

Referred to as “one of the most important and influential female artists of the past 30 years” by MoMA on the occasion of her retrospective at the museum in 2013, Isa Genzken‘s new work is the subject of Hauser &Wirth’s current solo exhibition in London. Less known in the States compared to her artistic influence and recognition in Europe, Genzken has pursued a notably progressive career in the recent decade, building new bodies of work and showing in various international venues. (more…)

The annual BP Portrait Award has announced this year’s shortlist, featuring artists from the UK, Israel and Spain.  “It was good to see even more international artists entering and my fellow judges and I were impressed by the different styles of portraiture, some quite new to the exhibition, and intrigued by the stories behind the portraits,” says Pim Baxter, the deputy director at London’s National Portrait Gallery. (more…)

A pair of Francis Bacon self-portraits that have been considered missing since they were painted in the mid-1970’s have been found, and are going on sale at Sotheby’s this July in London, estimated at £15 million each.  “Marlborough Fine Art kept a photographic archive and so both of these paintings appeared in a book on Bacon’s self-portraits but, apart from being reproduced in books, they’ve not been seen,” says Sotheby’s Oliver Barker. “We knew of the existence of the paintings but simply had no idea where they could be.” (more…)

The strikes over the National Gallery in London’s plans to privatize its workforce are continuing this week, with artist Ryan Gander joining the protestors outside the museum.  The current protests have requested a delay in any decision to privatize until after the national elections on May 7th. (more…)