“Everything about my work is driven by my learning disabilities”, said Chuck Close as he gave a private tour of his current exhibition at Pace Gallery to a group of schoolchildren from a poverty-stricken community in Bridgeport, CT. It is part of Turnaround Arts, a federally-funded public-private partnership with a focus on arts using a mentorship program. The artist has faced numerous challenges in his life, from neurological and learning disabilities at a young age, to prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces), to his paralysis from a spinal artery collapse. (more…)

Arne Glimcher is interviewed by Charlie Rose to discuss his new book, “Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances”, the only complete monograph on the artist’s career. The chairman of Pace Gallery discusses Martin’s life and work, as well as the gallery’s expansion in China and the nature of artmaking today. (more…)

Robert Irwin - Dotting the i’s & Crossing the t’s: Part II (2012), Courtesy Pace Gallery

A pioneer of the Light and Space movement in 1960s Los Angeles, Robert Irwin made monumental contributions to the conceptual art practice, bringing considerations of interrelation, perception, condition and experience into the broader art lexicon.  Continuing an ongoing exploration of Irwin’s 40-year career, the Pace Gallery in New York is currently hosting a large-scale exhibition of new works.

Robert Irwin –Dotting the i’s  & Crossing the t’s: Part I (2012), Courtesy Pace Gallery (more…)

Lynda Benglis sculptures and Hans Hurting paintings at Cheim & Read’s booth at Frieze Masters. All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Frieze Masters and Frieze London concluded on October 14th, with both fairs reporting solid sales on the high end. This year, there was a distinct focus on curated booths and curatorial projects and less of an overt feeling of commercialization. Frieze Masters in particular focused on serious connoisseurship and an academic approach, both of which translated into a successful fair for dealers.

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Toby Ziegler‘s The Cripples, image via Art Observed

Back in 2003 in Frieze’s first year, no major international art fair had ever been hosted in London before. Frieze Art Fair, organized by Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, has helped take London from being a city without a focused art scene to its current state at the center of the European art market. Now in its tenth year, Frieze Art Fair in London’s Regent’s Park has seen around 60,000 visitors, with 264 dealers from 35 countries hoping to sell work (valuing an estimated  £230m) created by more than 2,400 artists within 175 of the world’s leading galleries.

An Aaron Young motorcycle burn out work at Massimo de Carlo in Milan, photo via Art Observed

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Image: Richard Tuttle, Systems, VIII-XII (Installation View), Courtesy Pace Gallery

Richard Tuttle’s series of “Systems” sculptures is an ongoing project, an attempt at expanding the physical scope of Tuttle’s past sculptural works, while striving to maintain a sense of intimacy throughout.  Assembled out of wood, cloth, metal, wool and Styrofoam, Tuttle’s sculptures constantly play with the familiarity of the subject matter, tweaking familiar shapes and textures with flourishes of the surreal to create a startlingly fresh visual language.  (more…)

Image: Frieze London Courtesy Frieze

Exhibitors are gearing up for the tenth edition of Frieze London, which takes place in London’s Regent’s Park from October 11–14th. The fair kicks off with a vernissage on the evening of Wednesday, October 10th, once again housed in a temporary structure designed by architects Carmody Groarke.

Although mostly composed of UK and US galleries (almost exclusively from London and New York) account for 45% of the main fair, fair organizers are broadening the scope this year, with new sections and exhibitors from 35 countries, making it the most international event to date organized by Frieze.

Image: Mona Hatoum, KAPANCIK, 2012 Courtesy White Cube Gallery

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Image: Installation view of Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes.
All images courtesy The Pace Gallery unless otherwise noted

The Pace Gallery opens its new London flagship gallery on Thursday, October 4th at No. 6 Burlington Gardens in the Royal Academy building. On view will be an exhibition of the work of Mark Rothko and Hiroshi Sugimoto entitled Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes. It will be the first private gallery exhibition of Rothko’s work in London in nearly fifty years.

Image: Installation view of Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes

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Courtesy of Pace Gallery, Alexander Calder’s Tripes (1974), a 19 foot tall steel sculpture, will be on display at the St. Pancreas Renaissance Hotel in London. This sculpture coordinates with both the London Olympics and Pace’s expansion to London.

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Art Basel via The Telegraph

In it’s 43rd conception, Art Basel is continuing its legacy as the leader among the contemporary art world’s fairs.  Last year, 65,000 people flocked to the cultural capital, situated at the border of Switzerland, France, and Germany.  For this year, Basel will no doubt draw a similar, if not greater audience throughout its four-day duration.  Art Observed will be on site to cover and photograph throughout this fair.

Founded in 1970, Art Basel quickly surpassed Germany’s Art Cologne and similar fairs in scale and remains today as the world’s largest.  Almost 300 galleries from around the globe participate, spanning five continents.  This international representation results in a large and diverse assortment of exhibitions, video works, performances, and public installations.  This year specifically there will be more than 2,500 artists exhibiting $2 billion worth of art, nearly 300 gallery booths, and many more single stands present.

Perhaps the star feature of this year’s Basel will be Marlborough Fine Art’s Mark Rothko canvas, dated 1954.  The painting, for which there is already buyer interest, is priced from $78 to $84 million.

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‪‬Former director of Deitch Projects Nicola Vassell, leaves director position at Pace Gallery after year and a half, Andrea Glimcher quoted as saying “It’s best for all that she is pursuing her own projects.” [AO Newslink]

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Roberto Matta, Untitled (1983). All images courtesy of The Pace Gallery.

The Pace Gallery’s Matta: a Centennial Celebration commemorates the life and work of the Chilean-born artist Roberto Matta. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with his children (he is the father of artist Gordon Matta-Clark) and concentrates on work created towards the end of his career. Born in 1911, Matta was a seminal figure in the art world, and his legacy and work continue to resonate. Matta: a Centennial Celebration features 14 paintings, many of which have never been viewed outside of Europe.

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‪‬Artist Sterling Ruby and Pace Gallery part ways as reported by the Baer Faxt [AO Newslink]

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Installation view. All photos via Pace Gallery Site and the New York Times.

1941 marked both a beginning and ending for Alexander Calder. The artist was forced to give up aluminum as one of his key materials in support of the war effort—but not before having one of the most productive years of his life. That year, Calder dug into a number of approaches and techniques he had explored over the past ten years to create some of his best work. Now, the Pace Gallery in Manhattan is hosting a large-scale retrospective on Calder’s work from 1941, featuring some of his most well-known pieces as well as some rarely shown.

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David Byrne and Pace Gallery set to open Tight Spot, a 48-by-20-foot inflatable globe under the High Line on 25th Street in Chelsea, New York [AO Newslink]

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The story of the global powerhouse Pace gallery and the family behind it [AO Newslink]

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Yue Minjun, The Crowing with Thorns, 2009 via Pace Beijing

The Road, an exhibition of recent paintings by Chinese artist Yue Minjun (born 1962) is on view at the Pace Gallery, Beijing from June 6th to July 16th, 2011.  Minjun gained international recognition in the 1990’s for his political allegories, epitomized by rows of figures with grotesque smiles, commenting on Chinese communist ideology. The Road features Minjun’s signature grinning characters with strong reference to Christian iconography.

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Donald Judd, Untitled (1989), Cor-ten steel

Thirteen wall and floor pieces by Donald Judd are on display at the Pace Gallery. A sampling of the work from the last two decades of his life, the exhibition covers a wide range of materials Judd had not previously explored. The thirteen pieces demonstrate the artist’s use of space, materials, and color in his work, which revolve around his iconic box structure. Even before he began working with sculpture, his work has focused on stacks and repeated shapes, mostly with straight edges and right angles.

Donald Judd, Untitled (1978), granite

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Jim Dine, The Dahlias, The Cherries, The Swiss Chard (2010). Via Pace Gallery

In ten large-scale paintings, Jim Dine’s familiar heart comes back in a new splash of color. The Pace Gallery’s show of new paintings from 2010 continues Dine’s tradition of centrally displaying the heart, and includes a 5’ x 12’ triptych titled The Dahlias, The Cherries, The Swiss Chard. Despite the continual reuse of the heart as a prominent shape in his paintings, Dine maintains integrity of the image by revisiting it with varying techniques and always a high level of attention to detail.

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Lucas Samaras, Pose 0314, 2009-2010. All photos via Pace Gallery

Known for his ‘unrepentent ego,’ Lucas Samaras departs from his usual narcissism in Poses / Born Actors at the Pace Gallery until December 24th. Taking digital photographs of art world luminaries—from artists like Jasper Johns to big-name curators and collectors—Samaras reworks them with Photoshop. The artist aims for drama, using the software not to improve the images, but rather highlight rawness and emotion via shadows and color. Lighting the photo from below, and asking his subjects to wear glasses, Samaras creates mysterious, often demonic renderings of friends and peers. Unsure of the reactions of both the viewers and the photos’ subjects, small bottles of vodka were included with subjects’ invitations—for pre-show consumption.

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Hiroshi Sugimoto – Lightning Fields 163, 2009 – © Hiroshi Sugimoto, Courtesy The Pace Gallery

For the first time since announcing their representation of artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, Pace Gallery at West 22^nd street presents an exhibition of the photographer and architect.  On view are two new 50-foot diptychs from his 2009-2010 “Lightning Field” series as well nine single “Lightning Field” photographs.   The middle gallery houses seven of the artist’s “Seascape” photographs from 1987-1996.

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Art dealer Jay Jopling at the White Cube booth

Art Observed was on-site December 1st for the VIP Preview of Art Basel Miami Beach 2010, which opened to the public this morning at 10 a.m. Like most international fairs of its scale and scope, the work presented broadly underscores the trends witnessed across commercial markets and throughout museum and gallery exhibitions over the past several months. It also affords individual institutions an important opportunity to distinguish themselves from their peers, and provide fresh and immediate insight into the nuances and complexities of contemporary taste.

Richard Jackson, Upside Down Duck at the Kordansky Gallery Booth

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Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (Runts), 2007 image courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s large Chelsea space on West 21st street is the first major retrospective of Robert Rauschenberg‘s work since his death in 2008. The artist was represented by Pace Gallery for fifteen years until this past June, when Gagosian gained exclusive commercial representation of the artist’s estate. This exhibition is presented by Gagosian in collaboration with the Estate of Robert Rauschenberg, and is accompanied by a beautifully-illustrated catalogue with essays by art historians James Lawrence and John Young.

Robert Rauschenberg, Aen Floga (Combine Painting), 1962 image courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

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Conrad Shawcross, The Nervous System (Inverted), 2010. Organized and presented by the Pace Gallery. Installed at The Sculpture Garden, 590 Madison Avenue. May 10 – July 10, 2010. Wood, metal, acrylic chord, and mechanical system. Installation dimensions variable. Image via ArtObserved.

Conrad Shawcross: The Nervous System (Inverted) is an evolutionary piece that combines art and invention, a sculpture that completes itself as the audience looks on.  At 590 Madison Avenue, New York, 162 multicolored bobbins suspend 50 feet in the air, feeding rope into motorized contraptions.   The inconspicuously gradual weaving and intertwining, set against the glassy atrium ceiling, occurs at multiple levels of the piece.  The ropes combine in groups of three until one entity remains: a thick, colorfully woven rope that hangs to the floor, where it passes through a pulley and coils finally in a heap.  The complex machinery will ultimately produce one sturdy, 1,7000-foot braided rope, which will be cut into pieces and sold at the exhibition’s close.

Conrad Shawcross, The Nervous System (Inverted), 2010.

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