Jacob Kassay, Untitled (2013), Courtesy 303 Gallery
Now on view at 303 Gallery is the space’s first exhibition of works by Jacob Kassay. Composed entirely of new works, IJK opened on November 1st and will remain on view through December 20, 2013.
The Art Show, the annually presented fair taking place concurrently with The Armory Show has announced its 26th edition, featuring 72 booths that include 34 solo artist booths and 38 thematic exhibitions. Highlights include a show of new works by Jacob Kassay at 303 Gallery, and holographic works by James Turrell at Pace. (more…)
Brendan Lynch, Coming Home (2013), via Art Observed
Located just off the main strip of Lincoln Road, the office building at 1632 Pennsylvania Avenue in Miami Beach has a lot going for it. Gently curving walls, a white and teal color scheme, and ample space for movement and installation. It was just this space that Brooklyn collective The Still House Group took over for its annual pop-up show during Art Basel Miami Beach.
Alex Perweiller and Zachary Susskind at Straight II DVD, via Art Observed (more…)
The 2014 edition of The Armory Show has announced its Exhibitors List, marking a smaller offering than previous years with 203 galleries on hand for the March art fair. A higher number of international exhibitors will be at the fair next year, with new appearances by notable galleries including Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Almine Rech Gallery and James Cohan Gallery. The fair will also feature a spotlight this year on Chinese artists. (more…)
Aurel Schmidt, Fruits (2013), via Art Observed Staff
Once again turning heads with an evocative, sexually-potent set of works, artist Aurel Schmidt is currently showing a new set of works at a former bodega on Stanton Street on New York’s Lower East Side. Affixing sexual organs and fetishized body parts to drawings of fruits and vegetables.
Outside of 200 Stanton for Aurel Schmidt’s “Fruits”, via Art Observed Staff (more…)
Balthus, Untitled (1990 – 2000) ©Harumi Klossowska de Rola. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Inaugurating a new ground-floor gallery at 976 Madison Avenue, Gagosian presents The Last Studies, a never before seen exhibition and the gallery’s first partnering with the Estate of Balthus – on display until December 21.
Artist Ryan McGinley is profiled in the New York Times, discussing the group of young protégés he has surrounded himself with at his downtown New York studio. “In a way, it’s a curriculum, as I can give people advice because I’ve been through it,” he said. “I was the first person to get attention within my crew, and I wanted people to share the success that I was enjoying. (more…)
Donald Judd, Untitled (DSS 216) (1970), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed
Currently on view at Mnuchin Gallery’s uptown location is a two-floor exhibition focusing exclusively on the stack sculptures of the late Donald Judd, one of the defining voices of New York minimalism in the 1970’s and beyond.
Donald Judd, Untitled (DSS 154) (1968), via Mnuchin Gallery (more…)
Dia Fall Gala, atmosphere (during Matmos commission). All images courtesy Dia Art Foundation.
Last Monday’s Dia Art Foundation Fall Gala was a striking affair. Video projections, sound, light-play, chatter, and music gave the cavernous venue its mystical feel, all accompanied by a commission by experimental electronic music duo Matmos, whose performance was reminiscent of a spiritual journey. Even so, the full series of events and installations fell in line with the framework of minimal and progressive art that the Dia Art Foundation specializes in bringing to the public through an array of different channels.
Dinner, atmosphere. (more…)
The upcoming Whitney Biennial, opening next March, has announced its initial list of artists for the 2 month exhibition. Featuring work by Triple Canopy, Uri Aran, Bjarne Melgaard, Charlemagne Palestine and more, the 2014 edition of the Biennial will be the final in the museum’s current building before moving to the Meatpacking district in 2015. (more…)
Constantin Brancusi, Mademoiselle Pogany II (1925-2006), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed
In 1913, Constantin Brancusi sent 5 sculptures to the now-infamous Armory Show, gently loping sculptural works that set the stage for the revolutionary sculptural abstractions that would change the face of contemporary art for good. It was the beginning of a long and occasionally rocky relationship with the United States, including a defining court case in which the artist successfully proved his work’s position as art, and breaking the long-held definition of an artwork asbased on a model or subject, opening the door for the proliferation of American abstraction. (more…)
The proceedings at Phillips with Alexander Gilkes at the rostrum, via Aubrey Roemer for Art Observed
Last night, Phillips auction house held their Contemporary Art Evening Sale art, in a packed salesroom. The sale exhibited a strong lead into the week of Contemporary art auctions, with 84% of lots selling by value, and 88% selling by lot. The 40 lots sold for a combined total of $68 million, including premiums, against an estimate of $65 – 97 million.
Kazuo Shiraga, Keishizoku (1961), via Ben Richards for Art Observed (more…)
Francis Bacon, Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), Image via Christie’s
Tonight, the week of Post War & Contemporary Art Evening Sales commence with Phillips kicking off the week long auctions. After last week’s mixed results in sales, with Christie’s and Sotheby’s hosting their respective Impressionist & Modern Art Sales, the contemporary art offerings will provide a more definitive litmus test of the international art market’s power and predilections. A great deal of press and attention has been drawn to the forthcoming sales, both nationally and internationally, attributed to exceptional offerings in all three houses, and a multitude of enormous price tags to accompany the museum-quality works.
Andy Warhol, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963), Image via Sotheby’s (more…)
The founders of the Dia Art Foundation have filed a lawsuit against the organization, as well as auction house Sotheby’s, in order to keep the arts organization from selling parts of its collection this month. The sales, set to take place this week in New York, include works by Barnett Newman, Cy Twombly and John Chamberlain, and are contested by the founders’s claims that the works were intended to remain publicly accessible. “Dia’s proposed auction of the subject works would remove the works from public access and viewing in direct contravention of Dia’s entire intent and purpose and of plaintiffs’ arrangements and understandings with Dia,” founders Fariha and Heiner Friedrichs say in the complaint. (more…)
Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Mr. Briggs (2008), via David Zwirner
“People thought they could have anything. And then it just blew up in their faces.” So says photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia in the press release for his show of works from the East of Eden series at David Zwirner, an ongoing series of photographs documenting what the artist calls the “collapse of everything.”
Philip-Lorca diCorcia, East of Eden (Installation View), via David Zwirner (more…)
The hotly contested painting Red, Black, and Silver has been authenticated as the final painting from artist Jackson Pollock, given to his mistress shortly before his death in 1956. The painting had long believed to have been a Pollock, but was blocked from authentication by Pollock’s wife, Lee Krasner, who held a personal vendetta against his mistress, Ruth Kligman. That changes today, now that authorities have found strands of Pollock’s hair in the canvas, as well as sand unique to the beaches around his East Hamptons home. “The world was flat. Now it is round. It’s Galileo. Science can now be used to authenticate the art. We are [tracing] the painting back to where it was executed. It’s very CSI.” Says artist and Kligman estate trustee Jonathan Cramer. (more…)
Tobias Meyer Opens the Sale, via Aubrey Roemer for Art Observed
“So, the market is alive, right?” This was the closing statement from Sotheby’s auctioneer Tobias Meyer last night at the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale. The sale totaled $290 million – the second highest ever achieved at Sotheby’s for an Impressionist and Modern Art Sale, and its fourth consecutive Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art that had a sell-through rate of 80%.
Pablo Picasso, Tête de Femme (1935), via Sotheby’s (more…)
Mike Kelley. Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites (1991/1999), © Estate of Mike Kelley. Images courtesy of Perry Rubenstein Gallery, Los Angeles. Photography Joshua White JWPictures.com
It’s hard to decide just where to begin with the monumental Mike Kelley retrospective currently on view at MoMA Ps1. The blockbuster exhibition takes up all four floors of the museum, and spans his full career, from his early video and performance work through to some of the last installations and pieces he made before he tragically took his own life in 2012 at the age of 58. All of his immediately recognizable works are on view, including Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites, his Kandor series (recreating the miniature home city of the Superman mythology), and his sprawling masterwork, Day is Done from 2005-2006, all brilliant entries in Kelley’s signature inquiries into the American mythos.
Mike Kelley, Mike Kelley as The Banana Man (1981), © Estate of Mike Kelley Photo: Jim McHugh (more…)
Marc Chagall, Time is a River without Banks (1930-39), via The Jewish Museum
A new exhibition entitled “Chagall: Love, War, and Exile” is currently on view at The Jewish Museum in New York, reviewing the part of Marc Chagall’s career during the rise of European fascism in the 1930s through 1948 while he was living in Paris and New York. The exhibition includes 31 paintings and 22 works on paper.
Christopher Wool, Untitled (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed
The work of artist Christopher Wool is nothing if not immediate. Huge, stencil-cut prints, slurred spray-paint scribbling reminiscent of graffiti, and enormous splashes of paint litter the artist’s canvases and rice paper compositions, all charged with a gritty, urban freneticism that informed Wool’s early years in New York’s supercharged downtown punk scene during the 1970’s. It’s this energy that ultimately becomes the focus of the Guggenheim’s current retrospective of the artist’s work, just recently opened at the uptown museum.
Christopher Wool, Minor Mishap (2001), © Christopher Wool, Courtesy The Guggenheim Museum (more…)
Mike Bouchet, Nothing is Everything 3 Times (Positive) (2013), via the Marlborough Chelsea
Mike Bouchet explores the adage, “You are what you eat,” if what is ingested contains zero-calories, in his new exhibition Flood at the newly renovated Marlborough Chelsea Gallery. The exhibition casts a mirror on to how our society digests all that it can from the media, regardless of nutritional content or health benefits. Through Bouchet’s critical stance, everything ingested is about as substantial as Bouchet’s own blend of diet soda.
Bodybuilders in a pool of Diet Cola, by Mike Bouchet at Hotel Americano, via Ben Richards for Art Observed
The New York State Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the controversial case over the museum’s “Pay What You Want” pricing scheme, dismissing a substantial part of the case. Judge Shirley Werner Kornreich ruled on the decision, stating that the museum’s income is used to help fund education programs and other efforts. “For those without means, or those who do not wish to express their gratitude financially, a de minimis contribution of a penny is accepted,” the judge wrote. “Admission to the Met is de facto free for all.” Even with that ruling, the court will review the portion of the case stating that the museum misrepresents itself, leading visitors to believe that they must pay the full $25 price on museum signage. (more…)
Concluding his October residency on the streets of New York, street artist Banksy has unveiled his last work, the donation of a painted canvas to the Housing Works thrift store in Gramercy Park. Titled The Banality of the Banality of Evil, the canvas features a man in a Nazi uniform viewing a classically rendered mountain vista, and is being auctioned off to benefit the Housing Works organization. So far, bids have already reached over $200,000. “Most New Yorkers have been watching pretty closely what he’s been doing for the past 30 days,” said Housing Works director of PR Rebecca Edmondson. “There has been controversy. But it’s great to end on such a high note by giving back to the New York community.” (more…)
A broad selection of works from the late collector Jan Krugier’s enormous art collection is set to go to the auction block on Nov. 4th and 5th at Christie’s in New York. Consisting of 156 works, the selection of works includes an incredible 29 Picassos, as well as works from Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Georgia O’Keeffe and Robert Rauschenberg, with a total estimated value of $170 million. “Krugier saw himself as but a temporary possessor of these works. I think he’d rather like it.” Said Christie’s deputy chair Conor Jordan. (more…)
