Robert Indiana, The American Gas Works (1962), Courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art

Robert Indiana‘s lasting fame in the canon of American post-war modernism will forever belong to his iconic LOVE sculpture—that immediately recognizable logo of stacked letters animated by it’s slanting O, which graces merchandise as ubiquitous as the US postage stamp. This beautifully simple graphic, originally conceived as a design for a Christmas Card for MoMA, has in fact so eclipsed Indiana’s expansive career that his name has become synonymous with its text. And yet this fall’s large retrospective at the Whitney, Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, plumbs the depths of his oeuvre to present an artist far more complex than those four well-worn letters. Curated by Barbara Haskell, the exhibit presents paintings and sculptures by the pop artist that highlight Indiana’s sociopolitical conscience as boldly as their hard-edged execution, and traces his developing formal vocabulary of language and abstraction, from biting political commentary, to personal biography, to literary allusion, Indian’s broad selection of works on view dispel any notion of the artist as one-hit-wonder.  This exhibit demonstrates the thematic expanse Indiana pursues “beyond Love”, including American identity, the American Dream, and the politics of race and sexuality. Rife with literary references to American authors and indebted to artistic predecessors such as Charles Demuth, the textual program is often as radical as his post-painterly abstraction.

Robert Indiana, LOVE (1961), Courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art (more…)

Another activist investor is making waves at Sotheby’s.  Richard McGuire, the head of Marcato Capital Management LLC (currently the third-ranking stockholder at the company) is apparently engaged in behind the scenes talks to convince the auction house to sell off its New York and London locations, while unlocking money from its smaller dealings in art finance and dealing.  Some have anticipated such a move could free up to $1.3 billion in cash, enough to buy back nearly a third of the company’s stock.  “Sotheby’s is committed to healthy two-way communication with its investors and welcomes thoughtful suggestions as we pursue our common goal of a strong, growing, competitive Sotheby’s open to new opportunities,” said company spokesman Andrew Gully. (more…)

William Kentridge, Untitled (Drum Machine) (2012), via Marian Goodman

On September 17th, Marian Goodman Gallery opened its new exhibition of films, drawings, sculpture, and prints by William Kentridge. Entitled “Second-hand Reading,” the exhibition will continue through October 26, 2013.  Emerging from a series of projects Kentridge started in 2012 called Six Drawing Lessons, originally showed at The Norton Lectures series at Harvard University that year, the works capture the artist developing a concept of the studio as a place of deep meaning, placing an emphasis on work in the studio as a significant act. During that time he also created his sound installation and breathing machine, entitled The Refusal of Time. (more…)

John McCracken, Fair (2011), via David Zwirner

Currently on view in New York are two exquisite Minimalist shows of note, regarding both their historicity and their potential influence on emerging currents: Anne Truitt at Matthew Marks on 22nd street & John McCracken at David Zwirner’s 20th Street location. The prospect of seeing this work in proximity and in such volume is a rare event, and offers an intriguing opportunity for comparison and commentary, joining forces both minimalism’s heart and its periphery, namely the powerful metaphysical concerns within. (more…)

Walter Dahn, Walter (1984/85), via Venus Over Manhattan

Walter Dahn’s 4th Time Around (My Back Pages), an exhibition curated by Richard Prince, is a presentation of paintings, “anti-silkscreens,” and rare bronze sculptures by artist Walter Dahn, presenting a taste of his artistic practice since 1981. The title of the exhibition is derived two Bob Dylan songs, both favorites of the two artists (who have been friends since the late 80’s early 90’s).

Walter Dahn, 4th Time Around (My Back Pages) (Installation View), via Venus Over Manhattan Gallery
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Carol Bove, Hieroglyph (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

There’s an interesting approach to spatial relations that runs through most of Carol Bove’s body of work, almost always insisting on an awareness of the exhibition space, and how this space connects with the sculptural works that fill it.  For her newest show of works at Maccarone in the West Village, Bove continues this trend, running a number of enormous shell girders through that space, always appearing as if they had intentionally been placed there as part of the space’s construction.

Carol Bove, RA, or Why is an orange like a bell? (Installation View), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed (more…)

The nomadic pop-up gallery Shoot the Lobster has announced plans to open a permanent space in Luxembourg.  The gallery has put on shows in both Europe and the U.S., with works by painter Henry Codax, photographer Ryan Foerster, Agnes Lux and Servane Mary.  “The opportunity to work with several artists I know from the area was too good to pass up.”  Owner Jose Martos says.  He is also looking for exhibition space in the Lower East Side. (more…)

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has announced its 2013 SEED Grant recipients, a selection of 16 developing non-profit arts organizations in Boise, Idaho; Buffalo, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; and Phoenix, Arizona, among others.  Each will receive $10,000 in support each year for three years.  “Young institutions have a whole host of hurdles to clear simply to begin the process of raising money,” says executive director Christy MacLear. “We hope to reach promising start-ups earlier than that, both to acknowledge their initial accomplishments and to ensure their longevity.”   (more…)

On November 12th in New York, Christie’s will offer a classic triptych by Francis Bacon of fellow artist Lucien Freud, estimated to sell for an artist record of $95 million.  The piece comes from an unidentified European collection, and is one of only two Bacon triptychs of Freud.  It has never been on the auction block before. (more…)

The Village Voice has published a rare interview with Banksy, discussing the artist’s ongoing show of street art in New York City, and his views towards his craft.  “There is absolutely no reason for doing this show at all. I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There’s no gallery show or book or film. It’s pointless. Which hopefully means something.”  The artist says. (more…)

A collaboration between Robert Motherwell’s The Dedalaus Foundation, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Jamestown Charitable Foundation has resulted in Come Together, a selling exhibition benefitting artists and New York residents affected by Hurricane Sandy last year.  Including works by Alex Katz, Mark di Suvero and the Bruce High Quality Foundation, the show opens on October 20th.  “Hurricane Sandy affected the art community more directly than 9/11,” says Phong Bui, an artist and the publisher of the Brooklyn Rail, who is organising the show. (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced the cover lot for its fall auction of contemporary art in New York this November 13: a rare work from Andy Warhol’s Death and Disaster series featuring a gory car crash.  With the rest of the editions from this work already in museum collections, the auction house anticipates that the work could sell for $60 to $80 million.  “It’s the monumentality of the image that is so powerful,” said Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby’s contemporary-art department worldwide. “It’s as if life and death come straight at you, especially the way Warhol juxtaposes the cascading images of mortality with the void of an empty right panel.” (more…)

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York has received another $5 million allocation from the city to add to its fundraising target of $79 million for new renovations.  The project will expand the building and its surrounding gardens.  “The renovation will make design accessible to museumgoers with expanded gallery space, the restoration and preservation of historic rooms, innovative landscape design,” says cultural affairs commissioner Kate D. Levin. (more…)

A Tale of Two Cities, one of the most impressive works on view at Chris Burden’s current New Museum retrospective, was almost destroyed by the artist before the show.  Fearing the requirements of rehabilitating the long unexhibited piece, Burden had planned to destroy the piece as a last conceptual gesture, but museum authorities stepped in to convince him to try saving the work with a small restored section of the original piece.  “Once he saw the first mock-up, it was like a problem had been solved, and he was on to asking about specific toys,” says Donna Williams, the curator of the Orange County Museum (which owns the work). (more…)

The 2014 edition of the Armory Show has announced its commissioned artist for the fair, welcoming Chinese “chameleon of concept” Xu Zhen to exhibit work throughout the fair’s grounds.  The announcement comes as part of the fair’s Focus: China section.  “I am very honored to be named the The Armory Show 2014 Commissioned Artist. The fair offers an strong platform for exchange, and for dialogue around art, the market and its many interrelated institutions and ideas,” the artist says. (more…)

Elad Lassry, Untitled (Artwork) (2013), via 303 Gallery

“What is the philosophical location of a picture?” asks the press release for Elad Lassry’s current show at 303 Gallery.  It’s a question that Lassry has posed for several years now, using appropriated and self-made photographs, colored frames and sculptural materials to recreate the 2-Dimensional image in a broader dialogue with its surroundings.  Complicating the assemblage of the photograph, Lassry boils it down to its raw elements, placing the viewer in a new awareness of the photograph itself as a physical object.

Elad Lassry (Installation View), via 303 Gallery (more…)

Christie’s November 12th auction in New York will feature a classic Gerhard Richter, on sale from the collection of musician Eric Clapton.  Abstraktes Bild (809-1), which was painted in 1994, is estimated to sell between $20 and $25 million.  “Richter is certainly the greatest abstract painter working today, Abstraktes Bild (809-1) is remarkable for the illusion of space that develops, ironically, out of his incidental process: an accumulation of spontaneous, reactive gestures of adding, moving, and subtracting paint,” says Christie’s Post-War Chairman Brett Gorvy. (more…)

The Financial Times reports on the growing trend for artists seeking large live-work spaces in New York.  Profiling the live-in studios of Vik Muniz, Cai Guo-Qiang and Lawrence Weiner, the article traces the appeal of working from home, especially as Muniz notes: “no matter how you succeed in your career, you will always be nostalgic for the time when your working table and your bed were next to each other.” (more…)

Thomas Houseago, Sleeping Boy I (2012), courtesy Sasha Patkin for Art Observed

In the first ever large-scale presentation of the work of artist Thomas Houseago, Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, New York, presents “As I Went Out One Morning” – a unique exhibition combing both indoor and outdoor sculpture in several media, including bronze, aluminum, plaster, charcoal, and drawings. (more…)

Cy Twombly, Sunset (1957), Image Credit: Tom Powel Imaging / Courtesy Dominique Lévy, New York.

Twenty minutes of continuous, monotone sound, followed by twenty minutes of absolute silence; such is the premise for Yves Klein’s 1949 Monotone Symphony, a powerful piece considered to stand at the core of the artist’s pioneering conceptual ouevre and one that bore remarkable influence on fellow artists Cy Twombly and Lucio Fontana, each of which drove their own sense of dichotomous action on canvas and sculpture, defining the continued explorations of abstraction and concept in post-war art.

Yves Klein, Pluie Bleu (S 36) (1961), Image credit Tom Powel Imaging, © Yves Klein, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York ADAGP, Paris 2013.

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As exhibitions of Balthus prepare to open in New York, critic Jerry Saltz writes on the history of one of the artist’s more sordid works, The Guitar Lesson.  Only exhibited once in 1977, the work has moved through the back channels of the art world in the past 40 years, finally coming to rest in the collection of shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos.  “I don’t love Balthus’s work, but I grant that all parts of the best examples are charged with something wild, almost half-human, some sleeping need, rage, frustration, and restraint. What makes the banishment of The Guitar Lesson so bitter isn’t only that MoMA came this close to owning a second take on the blatant sexuality of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”  Saltz writes. (more…)

Phillips has announced plans for a first-ever digital art auction, held this October 10th in New York, featuring a number of online works including one website, a YouTube video and a number of digital files able to be exhibited on a number of different devices.  Featuring work by artists Brenna Murphy, Addie Wagenknecht and Clement Valla, the auction is curated by Lindsay Howard of Bushwick’s 319 Scholes gallery. (more…)

Charline von Heyl, Carlotta (2013), via Petzel Gallery

On view at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery is an exhibition of new works by German abstract painter Charline von Heyl, marking her seventh solo exhibition at the gallery, and a continuation of her intricately layered practices on canvas.   (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on the recent opening of Galerie Perrotin’s New York space, which shares the building at 909 Madison Avenue (a former Bank of New York branch) with Dominique Lévy Gallery.  With three spaces in Paris, and one in Hong Kong, Emmanuel Perrotin’s growing gallery network has finally found root in New York’s fertile art world. “For many artists around the world, their New York show is their most important,” He said.  It is, according to him,  “the dream of every ambitious gallerist, because within one kilometer of this gallery, you have more collectors than anywhere else in the world.” (more…)