Chinese-Indonesian collector Budi Tek is preparing to open his newly established Yuz Museum in Shanghai, showcasing a broad selection of contemporary Asian works from his collection.  “I don’t have any say, it is done by the curator, who will select from the whole of the collection,” Tek says. “We are very careful to collect and exhibit the best works considered historical to Chinese contemporary art.”  Tek says. (more…)

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.

(more…)

Museo Jumex, via Museo Jumex

Museo Jumex, the long-anticipated home of the Jumex Collection, opened its doors yesterday with a major opening event that drew art world celebrities, collectors and curators from around the world to the Mexico City suburb of Polanco.  Established by food and juice magnate Eugenio López, the Jumex Collection is considered the largest private contemporary arts collection in Latin America, and features works by  Tacita Dean, Sarah Lucas, Donald Judd, Olafur Eliasson, Gabriel Orozco, Damien Hirst, Robert Gober, Andy Warhol and Bruce Nauman to name a few. (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.

(more…)

Cecily Brown, Untitled (The Beautiful and the Damned) (2013), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

A collection of new and recent paintings by London-born artist Cecily Brown, is currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills through October 12. The show includes fifteen paintings primarily focusing on the the human form as an abstraction, and follows up on a previous body of work shown in at Gagosian’s New York gallery earlier this year.

(more…)

The Queens Museum will reopen this fall, following a $137 million renovation that doubled the space’s square footage to 105,000.  Now, the challenge will fall to the museum’s administration to generate interest, luring art lovers out to Flushing Meadows.  “It’s easy to have a wedding,” says director Tom Finkelpearl. “It’s harder to have a good marriage. It’s about sustaining the excitement.” (more…)

Outside the 55th Venice Biennale

The press preview for the 55th edition of the Venice Biennale, the international art world’s largest stage, kicked off this week, sprawling across the narrow alleyways and watery causeways of the Italian city.  Art Observed was on site to cover the opening ceremonies, and has this selection of pictures documenting the first day of the fair.

The Opening Reception, with Paolo Barata and Massimo Gioni (more…)

Beginning May 1st, The Smithsonian Institution will initiate rolling cuts to the hours of certain museum institutions, and will close other galleries to compensate for the sequestration budget cuts.  The cuts, which consisted of a 5% reduction of the total budget, has been handled by scaling back travel and training programs, but museum leaders warn that major sacrifices may be necessary if the reductions remain in place through 2014. (more…)

New York Magazine sat down with Iwan Wirth at the opening of Hauser and Wirth’s new space in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea last month, spotlighting the global arts enterprise he has built from the gallery’s modest Swiss origins, as well as his active encouragement of his impressive stable of artists.  “I think with Iwan it’s not a commercial venture. It’s very much about the artists and what they need and what they want,” says Paul McCarthy. (more…)

Cyprien Gaillard, Artefacts (2011), via MoMA PS1

Over the past several years, French artist Cyprien Gaillard has created a body of work that negotiates the complex spatio-political, geographical and cultural maps of contemporary culture.  Continuously revisiting themes of decay, flux, erosion and conflict, his work picks through the saturated visual landscape of modernity, and exposes the interlocking mechanisms of destruction and creation at work, as well as the grey area between these polar states. (more…)

Andrea Mary Marshall, Gia Condo (Installation View) – All photos by Elene Damenia for Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

Blending fashion photography, performance, video and painting, the second solo exhibition by artist Andrea Mary Marshall explores the artist’s alter ego – the drag-embracing, Mona Lisa-fixated painter Gia Condo.  Across 13 canvases and a series of photographs, the artist explores issues of gender and identity that surround the famous painting of the smiling woman, re-imagining them in the style of predominantly male contemporary artists like Keith Haring, Francis Bacon, and Marcel Duchamp.

Andrea Mary Marshall, Gia Condo (Installation View)

Art Observed spoke with Marshall at the opening of her exhibition at Allegra LaViola Gallery about the character of Gia Condo, and her motivations for the exhibition.

(more…)