Frieze London has announced its “Projects” section for the 2014 edition of the fair in Regent’s Park.  Curated by Nicola Lees, the seven projects located both on-site and around London will include a “living stage” by Nick Mauss, where ballets will be performed each day, and a secret map of the fair routes by Sophia Al Maria, underlining conspiracies hidden throughout.  The presentations will also feature a reconstructed musical performance from the career of conceptual comedian Andy Kaufman, enacted by Jonathan Berger. (more…)

Artist Mélanie Matranga has been awarded the first annual Frieze Artist Award, a new prize that welcomes emerging artists to create an ambitious work for the Frieze London fair.  Matranga’s work will feature a set of videos “that follow a young artistic couple as they negotiate ‘freedom, success and the proper functioning of a couple.’ The episodes will be filmed during the construction of Frieze London in Regent’s Park, including a purpose-built café, which Matranga has designed for use by visitors.” (more…)

Tauba Auerbach, The New Ambidextrous Universe IV (2014), all images courtesy ICA London

On view currently at ICA London is the first solo exhibition in the UK by New York-based artist Tauba Auerbach. Entitled The New Ambidextrous Universe, the exhibition is composed of her recent works in sculpture and photography, focusing on themes of symmetry and reflection as scientific principles, hinting at the existence of a mirror universe.

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Marina Abramovic is interfviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, in advance of the opening for her newest performance 512 Hours at the Serpentine this week.  In the article Abramovic discusses her latest work, her beliefs in performance and technique, and her longing to travel to space.  “I was at Necker Island with Richard Branson,” she says, “and I asked him: ‘Is it possible to pay just half a ticket so I can go to space and stay there, so I don’t need a return?’ He is still thinking about it.” (more…)

The New York Times takes a look at the fading presence of art galleries in the Central London neighborhoods of Mayfair and St. James’s, as increasing rents push dealers from an area they have traditionally occupied for decades.  The article also cites the challenges associated with the state of the current market.  “Modern art is not 500 weeks old — it’s 500 years old,” says dealer James Mayor. “London’s pre-eminence in art dealing and connoisseurship comes from that fact. The perception is that the only art that exists is new art sold in supermarket-type galleries. That doesn’t give the public a chance to develop a taste for anything that’s not force-fed them by the supermarkets. We need diversity.” (more…)

A Francis Bacon portrait of Lucian Freud, formerly owned by renowned children’s writer Roald Dahl is set to hit the auction block this month at Christie’s in London, estimated to sell for up to £12m at auction.  “Both were enigmatic outsiders who were hard to pin down and liked to work in small, claustrophobic spaces,” says Christie’s Francis Outred.  “Both also aroused controversy and fascination in their public and private lives.” (more…)

David Shrigley is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing his early years as an artist, his approach to his recent Sketch Restaurant commission, and his response to not winning the Turner Prize last year.  “It’s like, the day after they announced the winner of the Turner prize,” he says. “I’d had a bad back and the day afterwards my back got better like that.” (more…)

The Guardian reports on a dispute between Marina Abramovic, the Serpentine Gallery and a group of writers, curators and artists who claim that Marina Abramovic’s new performance at the Serpentine fails to acknowledge the work of Mary Ellen Carroll, another artist who has explored concepts of non-action and doing “nothing” as the core of her performance works.  “There are differences,” says art historian David Joselit . “I am not prepared to say Marina Abramović is involved in plagiarising or anything like that.  I just think there should be a conversation.” (more…)

London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has launched a new collection tactic, called “Rapid Response Collecting,” in which the gallery acquires objects and materials as they enter into the public consciousness.  One recent example is a pair of Primark jeans, an emblem of the international trade at the center of the Bangladeshi factory collapse last year.  “Much of the commentary in the media around the Rana Plaza disaster was about international labour laws, building control in Bangladesh and the responsibilities of global corporations and of consumers,” says Corinna Gardner, V&A curator of Rapid Response Collecting.  “But at its heart was a material thing: a pair of jeans that you can buy on any British high street.” (more…)

Charles Saatchi will offer Tracey Emin’s iconic My Bed piece for sale this July at Christie’s in London.  The work, which Saatchi bought for £150,000 in 2000, is estimated to sell between £800,000 and £1.2m, a price which Emin  is “philosophical” about.  “It’s still my bed. I love it,” the artist says. (more…)

Giuseppe Penone, Scrigno (2007), all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery

On view at Gagosian London is an exhibition of Giuseppe Penone’s large scale works from 2006-2008 as well as some more recent pieces. Entitled Circling, the exhibition includes 2 major works, Scrigno (Casket), 2007, and Sigillo (Seal), 2008, depicting the structure of trees, specifically: “the tree as a being that memorializes the feats of its existence” The display will remain on view through May 31, 2014.

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Bill Viola is profiled in The Guardian this week, following the opening of his new long-term installation, Martyrs at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, featuring videos of people engulfed in frames or hung upside down.   “These people are left for dead and don’t expect to live,” Viola says. “That’s all I’ll say.” (more…)

Zhang Huan, Spring Poppy Field No. 34 (2014), via Pace Gallery London

One of the most influential and prolific contemporary artists from China, Zhang Huan has worked across a wide spectrum of practices including performance, installation, photography and sculpture, reflecting his personal history as well as the collective consciousness of the present society.  As a body artist, Huan has delivered performances in which he pushed the limits of physical and psychological endurance, echoing the issues such as war, social injustice and alienation while simultaneously commenting on concepts of spirituality and transcendence. Using his own body as his main tool along with different materials such as blood, meat, brushwood and live animals, he has given impressive and challenging performances in different art institutions around the world, provoking the viewers to contemplate on issues that are often ignored and avoided.

Zhang Huan, Spring Poppy Field No.14 (detail) (2014), via Pace Gallery London (more…)

Miroslaw Balka, We Still Need (2014), all images courtesy The Freud Museum

On view at The Freud Museum in London is a special exhibition from contemporary Polish sculptor and video artist Miroslaw Balka, featuring a series of installations referring to the period from 1938, when Sigmund Freud moved to London from Vienna to avoid Nazi persecution, until 1942, when four of his five sisters died in concentration camps. Densely layering Freud, Wagner and the Holocaust in equal measure, the measured and immersive installation will remain on view through May 25.

Miroslaw Balka, Above your head (2014), via White Cube

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Peter Doig, Burger King (1984), all images courtesy Michael Werner Gallery

On view at Michael Werner Gallery in London is a show from Scottish painter Peter Doig that explores his earliest works, even ones from his student days at St. Martin’s College in London, when he was still finding his voice as a painter.  Included alongside some of the artist’s most iconic and important artworks from his first years of widespread success, the show is an intriguing study into Doig’s continually shifting and specific stylistic tendencies.

Peter Doig: Early Works (Installation View)

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Marina Abramovic is in The Guardian this week, discussing her techniques in the “Abramovic Method,” as a way of increasing awareness and consciousness while preparing for performances. “It’s very much to do with concentration, and to the borderline of how far we can concentrate on one thing at a time.” (more…)

Martino Gamper, L’Arco della Pace, all images Courtesy of Serpentine Galleries

Following 2009’s Design Real, curated by Konstantin Gricic, Serpentine Galleries is hosting its second major design exhibition. Titled design is a state of mind, the exhibition emphasizes London-based, Italian-born designer Martino Gamper’s curatorial vision with a selection of major design works brought together by the renowned designer. Gamper, reminding viewers of the emotional charge of design works are capable of beyond their mere functionality and surface presentation, aims to underline the multiplicity of perspectives when appreciating design. (more…)

In lieu of paying an inheritance tax, the estate of Lucian Freud has donated a selection of 40 works by Frank Auerbach has been donated to the United Kingdom, covering an approximate £16,250,000 tax bill.  The works will be divided into 11 groups and distributed by Arts Council England to various public collections. (more…)

Artist Marina Abramovic is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing her upcoming retrospective at The Serpentine, where the artist will freely wander the space of the gallery, and will allow visitors to come in and watch her.  “It’s the public and me and nothing else,” she says. “I took the objects away. But the encounter, I’ve never done anything as radical as this. This is as immaterial as you can go.” (more…)

Frieze Art Fair, via Art Observed

Following Thursday’s preview event and Friday’s initial day of public entry, Frieze Art Fair is up and running, opening the doors on a revamped fair that has already drawn considerable praise for its strong, diverse selection of galleries and artists, mounting a combination of impressive works alongside more challenging, unique installations that offer a fitting cross-section of the contemporary field.

William Kentridge at Goodman Gallery, via Art Observed (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing the expanse of his career, his approach to photography, and his taste for viewing other artist’s work, including that of artists from many centuries earlier.  “I’ve always understood looking at other and older art as looking at friends’ work,” Tillmans says. “We’re separated through time, but we’re all dealing with ultimately similar questions.” (more…)

Joel Kyack, Clever Formal Gestures ≠ Something to Say, via Francois Ghebaly

As the month of May begins in earnest, another edition of Frieze Art Fair’s New York edition prepares to open its doors on Randall’s Island this week, bringing its familiar bounty of events, talks, special programs, competing events and a number of high-profile auctions and openings across Manhattan.

Yayoi Kusama, INFINITY-NETS [AOQBZ], via David Zwirner (more…)

The Financial Times looks at the “tightening screws” on smaller galleries in the current market, noting the vastly disparate growth rates of different gallery income brackets, and the increasing emphasis on brand-name galleries and artists.   “Today you can go to a super-gallery and for £3,000-£3,5000 get an artwork. And maybe for buyers what is important is the brand,” says dealer Paola Weiss. (more…)

Martin Creed, Work No. 1092, Mothers (2011), Courtesy Hayward Gallery.

A sheet of A4 paper crumbled into a tight ball, an image of several pots of variously colored and shaped cactuses and a large rotating steel beam bearing the word “MOTHERS”  – these are just some of the eclectic works currently on show at London’s Hayward Gallery for What’s the point of it?, a survey of British artist Martin Creed’s equally playful and thought-provoking works.

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