Ten years of research into the identity of a purported Lucio Fontana painting has resulted in the work’s authentication, ArtNews reports.  Le Jour, painted in 1962, had sat in a European collection for many years, with the identity of the artist in question, until the piece was shown to Michele Casamonti of Tornabuoni Art Paris.  “It’s very interesting because it shows the physical position of Fontana in front of the canvas,” Casamonti notes. “It also shows how Fontana studies his gestures before realizing them. Preparation is almost more important than the execution, which is instinctive, total, and immediate.” (more…)

The FIAC Art Fair will launch a Los Angeles edition in April of 2015, bringing the organization to the US for the first time.  The inaugural fair will include about 150 exhibitors, and chose Los Angeles for its “extremely dynamic” location and proximity to Asia and Latin America, according to director Jean-Daniel Compain. (more…)

The Musée Marmottan-Monet, the private museum holding the largest collection ofClaude Monet paintings in the world, will look to relaunch itself this week alongside its more well-recognized Parisian contemporaries.  “Many of our paintings are well known but the museum is less well known,” says museum director Patrick de Carolis. “We have to change that. We are private and entirely funded by the money we earn for ourselves. We hope that the exhibition, which starts this week will encourage people to come to the Marmottan.” (more…)

Michael Beutler, Weaving Workshop (2009-2013) all images courtesy Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

At the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris is the largest ever textile show presented by the museum to date, including more than 100 woven works by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger, as well as several contemporary artists. The show will remain on view through February 9th.

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Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic, (Installation View), all images courtesy LACMA

Currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a landmark exhibition of from American sculptor Alexander Calder, including his iconic series of mobiles, as well as his later stabiles. Titled Calder and Abstraction: From Avant Garde to Iconic, the exhibition will remain on view at LACMA for over half a year, from November 24, 2013 through July 27, 2014.

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Pierre Huyghe at Centre Pompidou, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Referred to as “a major figure in the French and international art scene”, Pierre Huyghe, a poet of space and sculptor of time was exposed at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris from September 25th 2013 to January 6th 2014. The exhibition was of retrospective nature, presenting 50 projects spanning over 20 years of Huyghe’s career.

Pierre Huyghe at Centre Pompidou, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed (more…)

A number of deals and arrangements made this month have signaled that the centuries-old artistic bastion of Paris may have begun its rise to the highest levels of the international art market.  A classic Modigliani has sold for over €6.5 million, the highest price paid for a painting in France this year, and comes alongside news of a record €44 million tally for sales in France by Sotheby’s in 2013, while Christie’s showed similar success and a €56 million sales total for the year. (more…)

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Accelerated Buddha, exhibition view, all images courtesy Fondation Pierre Bergé

Currently on view at Fondation Pierre Bergé Yves Saint Laurent is an exhibition of work by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, exploring the historical/cultural emergence and relevance of Buddhism in Japanese culture. Entitled Accelerated Buddha, the exhibition is the gallery’s 20th exhibition, which opened on October 10th and will run through January 26th 2013.

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Google has opened the doors to its Google Cultural Institute in Paris this month, welcoming a first look at the virtual umbrella space for a number of the company’s art-focused ventures.  The space will feature artist residencies and exhibitions, as well as talks and panel discussions. (more…)

Philippe Parreno, “ANYWHERE, ANYWHERE OUT OF THE WORLD” (Installation View) Courtesy Palais de Tokyo

Responding to a carte blanche invitation from Paris’s prestigious Palais de Tokyo, Algerian-born Philippe Parreno has transformed its gallery space with an exhibition meant to establish a dialogue between architecture and the concept of the show as a medium in and of itself.

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Family Business Gallery, the collaborative exhibition space by Massimo Gioni and Maurizio Cattelan, has moved from its Chelsea home, and is preparing to take up residence in a new home in Paris.  “Palais de Tokyo had expressed an interest to Family Business practice and generously invited us to experiment within an open dialogue format, amidst an exciting and multifaceted art environment,” says curator  Nadja Argyropoulou. (more…)

Lee Ufan, Dialogue (2013), all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

The work of Lee Ufan takes pleasure in simplicity.  Utilizing simple, geometrically-influenced forms, the artist walks a line between the classic theories and demands of post-war minimalism, and more nuanced, organic approach to the forms and materials of the everyday.

Lee Ufan, La peinture ensevelie…. (2013) (more…)

Georges Braque, Compotier et Cartes (1918), Courtesy Grand Palais

On view at Grand Palais, Galeries nationales in Paris is a retrospective covering the full life and output of French painter and sculptor Georges Braque’s career, beginning with Fauvism to his later works, particularly his birds series. The exhibition will continue through January 6th 2014.

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Lynette & Janette (2013). All images courtesy the Gagosian Gallery.

John Currin’s work is currently on view at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris through December 21^st. Currin is known for his seductive and, to some, lewd appropriations of sixteenth and seventeenth century European painting. His paintings pair explicit sexual representations with the extremely polished and delicate details of this classical style. The result is a fascinating, touching and often hilarious interpretation of the politics of visual representation and sexual provocation.  (more…)

Eva et Adèle – All Photos by Caroline Claisse exclusively for Art Observed

The doors of the Paris-based FIAC fair closed today, concluding what was called a “smooth” edition of the fair by several observers, notching considerable sales, and an increase in the overall attendance of the fair, reaching a total count of 73,550 visitors over the course of the four day event. “This is a great success. Fiac has spent 40 years in style,” Jennifer Flay, fair artistic director, told Le Point. “Paris has regained strength in terms of the art market,” she said.

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Pace Gallery (more…)

Bertrand Lavier, Dino (1984), Yvon Lambert, all photo by Caroline Claisse for Artobserved.

Contemporary and conceptual art spring forth once again within the Grand Palais in Paris yesterday for the first day of the Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain, or FIAC. Starting off as the Frieze Art Fair in London ends, it is the 40th year that FIAC has been held in France.   Below is a photoset from the fair.

Ai Weiwei, Iron Tree (2013), neugerriemschneider, photo by Caroline Claisse for Artobserved.
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Georg Baselitz, BDM Gruppe (2012), via Thaddeus Ropac

On view at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac’s recently opened Paris Pantin location is an exhibition of new sculptures and paintings by German artist Georg Baselitz. The sculptures are sculpted from wood and cast in bronze, and the paintings are part of his new series in black. (more…)

With the first career retrospective of artist Pierre Huyghe set to open at Centre Pompidou this week, the French artist sat down Art Newspaper to discuss his selection of works for the show, the act of exhibition, and the focus of his work.  “I look at how things change, are transformed, or metabolise. The word might not be perfectly appropriate and I might change it. But I am trying to find a word to say ‘something that is alive.'”  He says. (more…)

Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893), Courtesy Munch Museet

Edvard Munch is enjoying somewhat of a timely spotlight, having just has his iconic 1895 pastel The Scream set the global auction record at almost $120 million last May, just one year short of what would be the 150th year since his birth.  This correlation is not lost on the Norwegian city of Oslo, where Munch grew up, and 2013 has been dedicated to the pioneering abstractionist, with a pair of landmark shows compiling almost 300 works from Munch’s groundbreaking career in Oslo, Paris, and Berlin.

Edvard Munch, Workers on Their Way Home (1913-1914), Courtesy Munch Museet (more…)

Conrad Shawcross, ADA (2013), Courtesy Palais de Tokyo

On view at Palais de Tokyo in Paris is a major exhibition, organized by 21 young curators from 13 different countries, who were in turn selected from a candidate pool of 500. Nouvelles Vagues occupies all of Palais de Tokyo’s exhibition space as well as around 30 galleries throughout Paris. (more…)

During research on a book about Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, writer Martin Bailey stumbled across a Parisian newspaper article, detailing the artist’s public severing of his left ear following a row with Gaugin.  The article, which reported the artist merely as “someone named Vincent,” also details Van Gogh’s later arrival at a “house of ill repute,” where he presented the doorman with the piece of his ear.  “Take it, it will be useful.”  The artist told him. (more…)

Lorna Simpson, Chess (2013), via Jeu de Paume

Lorna Simpson (b.1960, Brooklyn, New York) is an African-American artist, working across multiple media, often focusing on photography.  After completing studies at University of California-San Diego and the School of Visual Arts, New York, Simpson achieved recognition in the mid-1980s.  In an era of avid multiculturalism, her work explored themes of racial stereotyping, ethnicity and gender, placing her at the forefront of females and ethnic minorities gaining recognition in the art world.  She was also the first female of color to participate in the Venice Art Biennale (1990).

Lorna Simpson, Wigs (1994-2006), via Jeu de Paume (more…)

Roy Lichtenstein, Woman Drying Her Hair (1980), Courtesy Gagosian Paris

On view at Gagosian Paris is an exhibition exploring the work of Roy Lichtenstein, who remained the motifs and stylistic tropes of Expressionism motifs using his signature primary colors and flat geometry, a style he had slowly developed and refined during the 1960’s and early 1970’s.

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The former Paris studio where Pablo Picasso waited out the Nazi occupation and painted some of his most famous works, among them Guernica, is currently embroiled in a bitter argument between a private arts education group that currently occupies the space rent free, and the building’s owners, who want the group gone.  Calling them “squatters,” the firm owning the building has made moves to evict the group, despite sharp protests.  “It was abandoned and we renovated it completely, respecting its original state,” said Alain Casabona, spokesman for the occupying group, the Comité National Pour l’Education Artistique. (more…)