The Midnight Moment video art screenings in New York will continue this May, with the showing of Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests on the immense video billboards of Times Square. The screen tests on view will feature a variety of Factory regulars, including Edie Sedgwick, Susan Sontag and Lou Reed. (more…)
Printed Matter is leaving its current space at 195 Tenth Avenue, which is has occupied for the last 10 years, and moving to a new, two-level space at the corner of Eleventh Avenue and 26th Street this September, the organization announced this week. The new building will double its current space, and will allow a more diverse series of events to be held on-site. “Printed Matter’s new location will provide us with the much-needed space to facilitate our many different programs and services,” says Printed Matter Board Chair Philip Aarons. “In the past 10 years we’ve more than doubled in size as an organization, and it has become clear that we have simply out-grown our current space. We are thrilled by the prospects and opportunities our new home will provide in the fulfillment and furthering of our mission.” (more…)
James Meyer, the former assistant to Jasper Johns convicted of stealing and plotting to sell works from the artist’s studio, has been sentenced to over a year in prison. “I am truly devastated that I destroyed the close relationship that I had with the man who was my mentor, employer and friend since I was 21-years-old,” Meyer said in court. (more…)
The fully realized design proposals for the Guggenheim Helsinki are set to be unveiled at the Kunsthalle Helsinki today, marking the next step in the museum’s proposed expansion to Finland. “We hope this exhibition and its programs will inspire the Finnish public to engage with the possibilities of a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki, and to think about the potential of a prominent site on their waterfront,” says Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong. (more…)
The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at this year’s Venice Biennale will go to Ghanian artist El Anatsui. “The Golden Lion Award acknowledges not just his recent successes internationally, but also his artistic influence amongst two generations of artists working in West Africa,” says Biennale Director Paolo Baratta. “It is also an acknowledgment of the sustained, crucial work he has done as an artist, mentor and teacher for the past forty-five years.” (more…)
The Telegraph looks at the growing competition among the world’s wealthiest for high-priced art trophies as status symbols, and notes the growing trend towards the establishment of non-profit foundations and museums as an even more appealing demonstration of wealth. “Making your collection available to the public, understanding the journey you have been on, your taste,” says Celine Fressart, head of special projects at 1858 Ltd. “That, really, is the ultimate in bragging rights.” (more…)
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is no longer represented by Gagosian Gallery, Artforum reports, a move which ends a partnership first started in 2008. The organization will now look to Pace Gallery (which represented Rauschenberg later in his career), Thaddaeus Ropac, and São Paulo’s Luisa Strina for worldwide representation. (more…)
Alfred Taubman, via Detroit Free Press
Alfred Taubman, the shopping mall developer and business mastermind who turned Sotheby’s from a private auction house to the publicly traded art market power it is today, has passed away at the age of 91.
Taubman earned his fortune during the years following World War II, re-engineering the American retail experience through his design and development of the modern shopping mall, and used his earnings to purchase Sotheby Parke Bernet for $130 million in 1983. Within five years, Taubman had retooled its customer experience and sales strategies before taking the company public in 1988. (more…)
The 2015 Artindex France report, annually released by Art Newspaper sister publication Journal des Arts has been released this week, with Berlin-based, French-Albanian artist Anri Sala topping the list, followed by François Morellet and Christian Boltanski, respectively. The survey bases its findings on the number of solo exhibitions worldwide, compounded by each venue’s level of recognition and prominence. (more…)
Collector Bob Rennie is interviewed in Bloomberg this week, offering his reflections and tips on starting a dedicated art collection, including his takes on art as investment. “We can’t pretend that art is not an asset,” he notes. “It has to be managed.” (more…)
A Los Angeles Times article charts the success of LACMA curator Stephanie Barron, who has helped grow the museum and its collection into an international powerhouse of modern and contemporary art, as well as a growing Korean, Islamic and Latin American collections. “I’ve had the amazing good fortune,” Barron says, “to work for an institution that has unconditionally supported the seriousness of the work that I want to do.” (more…)
The New York Times profiles Joanne Heyler, the leader of Los Angeles’s Broad Foundation, and her role in establishing Eli Broad’s vision for his soon to open museum. “She’s thinking about how to nest this institution in the community, how to engage the broader culture, how to broaden its audience and what the experience is going to be like for someone going to this museum,” says Lisa Dennison, former Guggenheim director and a chairwoman of Sotheby’s. “The book shop, lighting, conservation, storage, the plan for the opening show — it’s all Joanne.” (more…)
Artist Cao Fei is interviewed in the New York Times today, underlining her work in recent years, and her move to Beijing from Guangzhou in 2006. “In the beginning I felt like I couldn’t connect to the city,” she says. “A lot of artists from southern China have that feeling when they come here. Take, for example, my husband, who is a Singaporean artist. For him to come here, the whole history and context is different. It’s not that easy.” (more…)
The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation has given a $5 Million gift to Vermont’s Bennington College, which the artist graduated from in 1949. “Helen‘s education at Bennington was critical to shaping her sensibility as a young artist, nurturing a spirit of risk-taking, experimentation, and inquiry that formed the basis of her creative process,” says Clifford Ross, chairman of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. “The foundation is delighted to be making this gift.”
Williams College is receiving an impressive gift of contemporary works from the collection of anti-virus software developer Peter Norton, a trove of 68 works including pieces by Tracy Emin, Allan Ruppersberg, and Christopher Wool, among others. (more…)
The New York Post reports on a recent tour of artist Jeff Koons’s 29th Street New York studio, by painter Alex Gardega, in an article that offers some interesting, and occasionally bleak snapshots from the artist’s high-precision production methods. “They have lasers printing holes in paper, so they make thousands of pieces of paper with holes in it, and these artists sit all day long and take one stencil, dab paint over it, take the next over that,” he says. “Hundreds of times a day — all for a 5-inch section.” (more…)
A painting recently authenticated as the work of Peter Paul Rubens is set to go on view at the Rubenshuis Museum in Antwerp. The work, Portrait of a Young Girl, was purchased $626,500 in 2013, and was confirmed as authentic shortly after. (more…)
An article in The Atlantic this past week acknowledges the 25th anniversary of the notorious Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft in Boston, and examines the public fascination with art heists, examining this phenomenon against the difficulty in unloading stolen works of such cultural prestige. “The true art isn’t the stealing, it’s the selling,” says Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI’s Art Crimes division. (more…)
Sotheby’s has named Tad Smith as its new company CEO, taking over from William Ruprecht. Smith, formerly the CEO of Madison Square Garden and a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, will look to calm some of the turbulence at the company between stockholders and its board. (more…)
Prominent German dealer Helge Achenbach has been sentenced to 6 years behind bars for his role in 20 counts of art fraud, allegedly overcharging clients on a number of sales. The dealer also currently owes over €20 million to the Albrecht family in damages, but is unlikely to pay after his companies insolvency. (more…)
Hans Ulrich Obrist is the subject of a recent interview in The Guardian this week, exploring his view of his work in terms of the long scope of history, his recent publishing endeavors, and his relentless work ethic. “The film director Tarkovsky once lamented that in our society, ritual has disappeared,” Obrist says. “He said we need to invent our own. I thought that was stimulating, and I have always tried to do that.” (more…)
A Mark Rothko painting from 1958 will lead Christie’s Contemporary and Post-War Auction in New York this coming May, the New York Times reports. Estimated at $30 to $50 million, competition is expected to be fierce, and initial indications hint that the work may near the artist’s $87 Million record. “There’s a perception that these kinds of paintings come and they come regularly, but in reality they’re becoming more and more rare,” says Christie’s Contemporary and Post-War Chairman Brett Gorvy. “The year 1958 was probably Rothko’s all-time high as a recognized artist.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal notes a growing trend towards participation in art funds, where a group of investors pool money to buy art, and split the profits from the work’s sale years later. This method of investing dates back to 1904, when Paris-based financier André Level pooled a group of investors to buy a selection of classic works by Picasso, Matisse and others, selling them several years later at a major mark-up. (more…)
New research confirming the painting Moulin d’Alphonse as the work of Van Gogh has led to its exhibition for the first time in 100 years, The Guardian reports. The piece, identified by a series of small numbers on the back of the work (traced to Van Gogh’s sister in law, Johanna), will be unveiled at TEFAF Maastricht, and is for sale for around $10 million. “Johanna was left with the life’s work of this artist, her brother-in-law who, in theory, she had mixed emotions about. But she set about trying to build a legacy for him,” says lead researcher and art dealer James Roundell. “She could have just burned the lot because, at that point, Van Gogh had no real market.” (more…)