Installation View  All photographs are via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, 6-24 Britannia street, London is the exhibition titled “Crash, Homage to J.G. Ballard” , a group show dedicated, as the name suggests, to the oeuvre of J.D. Ballard, a prominent British novelist and short-story writer, a representative of the New Wave movement in science fiction.  The exhibition was put together to pay tribute to the enormous cultural influence of J.D. Ballard’s fiction on many visual artists. The impressive selection of works by  such prominent artists as Ed Ruscha, Richard Hamilton, AndyWarhol and Helmut Newton illustrates profound engagement of the writer with the works of visual artists of his generation and their mutual influence.

More images and related links after the jump….
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Candice Breitz, Factum Kang, From the series ‘Factum,’ 2009

Don’t miss Candice Breitz’s third exhibition at the White Cube in Hoxton Square, London. The exhibition, entitled “Factum” after Robert Rauschenberg’s almost identical canvases, Factum I and II, is an investigation into four twins and one triplet. Breitz has created beautifully intimate video portraits of each twin, which when coupled together in a kind of diptych, reveal the subtleties and nuances that make one individual. It is an extension of her perpetual fascination with repetition, identity and portraiture. By examining a phenomenon we wrongly presume as naturally and biologically identical we are encouraged to accept how very different twins really are.

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Untitled, Ellsworth Kelly (1959) via Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Currently showing at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, England are a selection of early, unseen drawings by one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century – Ellsworth Kelly. Executed by Kelly between 1954 and 1962, the drawings have traveled to Middlesbrough directly from the artist’s New York studio where they have been hidden for more than 50 years. The 23 works are all studies for larger pieces and have been presented now, for the first time ever, to illustrate an important period in the artist’s career during which he pioneered his much-admired abstract style that has been integral to the evolution post-war American art.

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Brill Box, Andy Warhol (1964) via Phillips de Pury

Last week ArtObserved was on site for the Modern and Impressionist auctions at Christie‘s and Sotheby‘s in New York. Tonight, November 10, ArtObserved is set to attend Christie’s for the first auction of the fall ‘Contemporary Week’ in the city. After their record-breaking sale on November 4, Sotheby’s Emmanuel Di-Donna stated that “when you have the right property…you get fireworks.” In light of this, much is to be expected this week with Phillips de Pury, Christie’s and Sotheby‘s all stating that they are offering the most important and rare works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Willem De Kooning, Ed Ruscha and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Ilona on Top (Rosa Background), Jeff Koons (1990) via Sotheby’s

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Polar Bears of the Liro, Marc Quinn (2008) Sold within estimate range for £97,250

The Contemporary Sales at Phillips de Pury & Company on Saturday October 17 offered a truly diverse selection of works from premier Contemporary artists. The 43-lot evening sale included four unique works by Martin Kippenberger from the Bleich-Rossi Collection alongside exciting works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lucio Fontana, Steven Parrino, On Kawara, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Jonathan Meese. The Day sale kicked off with a charity auction of twenty-one works by internationally renowned artists, including Anselm Kiefer, Rudolf Stingel and Francesco Vezzoli, to benefit the EMERGENCY charitable organization. The total sales from the Day sale amounted to £2,643,713 and the Evening sale brought in £4,104,950 against a low estimate of £5 million.

Concetto Spaziale, Lucio Fontana (1958-60)

Related Links:
Phillips de Pury & Company Website
Full List of Auction Results [Phillips de Pury]
Basquiat sells as buyers get picky at Choosy at $6.7 million auction [Bloomberg]
Signs of Life in London’s Art Market [WSJ]
A Whole New Spectrum of Buyers [Art Market Monitor]

More text and images after the jump….
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A view of the Cy Twombly retrospective at MUMOK.

A retrospective of Cy Twombly’s work is currently showing, for the first time in Austria, at Museum Moderner Kunst [MUMOK].  On view until October 11, the exhibition includes 200 pieces, ranging in medium from photography to painting, sculpture to drawing, as well as graphic works.  The exhibition, curated by Achim Hochdorfer, features works drawn mostly from private holdings.

Related links:
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Cy Twombly
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MUMOK: Cy Twombly
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First Retrospective for Cy Twombly in Austria at Museum Moderner Kunst in Vienna [Artdaily]
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Cy Twombly – Sensations of the Moment – Restrospective [FineArtPublicity]
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Cy Twombly’s Masterpieces Inaugurate Abbott Galleries for Special Exhibitions [FAD]
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Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK) opens First Retrospective for Cy Twombly in Austria [Art Knowledge News]

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Damien Hirst’s Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain, currently showing at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show. via Pinchuk Art Centre.

The Royal Academy of Arts, in collaboration with the BBC, has opened its 241st summer exhibition, showing until August 16.  The show is coordinated by Royal Academicians Ann Christopher, Eileen Cooper, and Will Alsop, and sponsored by Insight Investment.  The Summer Exhibition seeks to encompass a range of works, in all media, by both well-known and emerging artists.  Included are works of photography, sculpture and architecture, printmaking, film, and painting.  This year’s theme, “Making Space,” reflects the inclusive spirit of the exhibition, which the Times has called “the art world’s annual jumble sale.”

Related links:
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Summer Exhibition [Royal Academy of Arts]
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Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009 at Burlington House W1 [Times Online]
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Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009, review [The Telegraph]
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RA Summer Show [The Guardian UK]

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A piece from Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts, via ArtInfo.

A year after Robert Rauschenberg’s death on May 12, 2008, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice is showing a lesser-known collection of the late artist.  Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts comprises forty works of metal. Gluts presents pieces actually glutted from the Gulf Iron and Metal Junkyard in Fort Myers, Florida, near the artist’s home.  Constructed of metal culled from old traffic signs and automobiles, awnings and exhaust pipes, these pieces, Rauschenberg has said, are “souvenirs without nostalgia.”  The collection confronts its viewers with possibilites: what metal can become in the face of consumerism and greed, which Rauschenberg has called “rampant.”

Related links:
Overview: Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts [The Peggy Guggenheim Collection]
Guggenheim in Venice Celebrates the Memory of Robert Rauschenberg with Exhibition [Artdaily]
Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents Robert Rauschenberg [Artipedia]
Robert Rauschenberg Has Died At Age 82 [Art Observed]
Guggenheim Museum Honors Late Artist Robert Rauschenberg [the Guggenheim]
Robert Rauschenberg: The Wild and Crazy Guy [Time]

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Currently on view at Sotheby’s New York for the first time and for a short time only is a selection of works from the collection of Steven and Alexandra Cohen.  The exhibition consists of twenty pieces by masters of the modern period, such as Picasso, de Kooning and Warhol, and leading contemporary artists, dealing with women as subject matter.   Other artists represented in Women are: Edvard Munch, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani. Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil, Yves Klein, Gerhard Richter, Cindy Sherman, Lucian Freud, Richard Prince, Marlene Dumas and Lisa Yuskavage.

Sotheby’s New York
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Women: A Loan Exhibition from the Collection of Steven and Alexandra Cohen
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1334 York Ave, New York,
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10th floor
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April 2 – April 14, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Exhibition Page and Press Release [Sotheby’s]
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NY Times Carol Vogel Previews the Exhibition [New York Times]
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Steven Cohen’s Rise as a Collector [The Independent]
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MAO Critiquing Cohen’s Motives [MAO]
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NY Mag Examines Cohen’s Motives [New York Magazine]
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The Exhibition in the Light of the Art Market [Wealth Bulletin]
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Speculations on the Exhibition [ArtForum]
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Speculations on the Exhibition II [ArtInfo]
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Speculations on Cohen’s Motives [Bloomberg]
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Exploring Cohen’s Motives [Luxist]
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Preview of the Exhibition [Bloomberg]

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Leo Castelli Gallery presents “Electricity,” a group show featuring Pop artists from the early 1960s.  Works incorporating neon and light bulbs by such visionaries as Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, Joseph Kosuth, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Keith Sonnier, and Robert Watts contest the idea that neon only came of age thanks to Minimalist and and Conceptual art groups in the late 60s.

Leo Castelli Gallery
Electricity Group Show
18 East 77th Street
March 6 – April 25, 2009

RELATED LINKS
Exhibition Page and Press Release [Leo Castelli]
Leo Castelli: Electricity [ArtInfo]
Where Neon Art Comes of Age [New York Times]
Leo Castelli, Influential Art Dealer, Dies at 91 [New York Times] (more…)

Installation view of Rothko’s ‘Seagram Murals’ via MSNBC

Tate Liverpool exhibits Rothko’s Seagram Murals after a 20-year absence [Artdaily]
Rochelle Steiner, under whose tenure Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls” was sponsored, leaves the Public Art Fund [NY Times] and in related, Sotheby’s CEO takes big paycuts in the wake of the market downturn [Bloomberg]

Alex James, bassist of Blur via The Mirror

Blur’s Alex James to judge Charles Saatchi’s art-star reality TV show [The Mirror]
Jonathan Jones on how consumerism spawned Warhol and Pop art and thus the shallowness of contemporary art [Guardian]
Vanity Fair’s imagined conversations overheard at a MoMA party [VanityFair]
A new show at Paris’s Musee d’Art Moderne acknowledges how Italian Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico sold backdated copies of his own work [Bloomberg]

Patti Smith via The Art Newspaper

Patti Smith, whose Polaroids are showing at Robert Miller gallery, on her early career as an artist and why she feels Jeff Koons’s work is “just litter upon the earth” [The Art Newspaper]

Andy Warhol’s BMW Art Car via W Magazine

The BMW Art Car series by artists such as Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg to appear at New York’s Grand Central Terminal starting March 24 [W Magazine]
Chinese art dealer who sabotaged Christie’s sale of bronzes during the Yves Saint Laurent sale weeps at his shattered credibility [Bloomberg]

Steve McQueen modeling for T Magazine

A brief profile of Turner prize winning film artist Steve McQueen’s fashion aesthetic [The Moment]
The Las Vegas Sun does a post-mortem on the Las Vegas Art Museum, which closed last month [Las Vegas sun via ArtsJournal]

Trailer for ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ via Entertainment Weekly

Soon to open in New York, an art world outsider chronicles his relationship with an art world insider in the film ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ [Entertainment Weekly]
Susan Moore looks at the recent emergence of a homegrown art scene in the United Arab Emirates [Financial Times]

Collectors Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant.  Image courtesy Mary Barone via Artnet

Art in America and Interview Magazine owner Peter Brant opens his private collection to the public, by appointment only, at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center [NY Times]
How the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland was unable to secure an immense 16,000 piece art collection obtained during a takeover of ABN Amro as that bank’s CEO deftly transferred ownership to a foundation before the merger [TimesUK]
Turner Prize winning sculptor Antony Gormley announces first public art installation for Scotland [TheScotsman]

Laura Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni and Lauren Cornell, curators at the New Museum of Contemporary Art via NY Times

A preview of the New Museum’s inaugural triennial, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” [NY Times]
Hans Ulrich Obrist’s book “The Conversation Series” includes interviews with artist such as Wolfgang Tillmans and Gilbert and George [ArtInfo]

A peek at Pierogi Gallery’s new annex, the Boiler via NY Times

Williamsburg’s Pierogi Gallery opens new annex, The Boiler [NY Times]
Chelsea galleries, including Andrea Rosen, Barbara Gladstone, Mary Boone and Matthew Marks, to show work at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba [The Art Newspaper]

Anish Kapoor’s ‘Temenos’ via AnishKapoor

Construction begins on first of five of Anish Kapoor outdoor sculptures in the UK: the ‘world’s biggest art project’ [DesignWeek]

Portrait of Pope Benedict XIV by Pierre Subleyras via NY Mag

Old masters prove to be a bellwether in the market downturn [Financial Times] as such, The Metropolitan Museum acquires a Renaissance portrait of Pope Benedict XIV for nearly $1 million amidst financial woes [NY Mag] and this painting also is featured here in a separate video discussion on the resilience of old master paintings [Sotheby’s]

BMW Art Car designed by Frank Stella

First commissioned by the company and racecar driver Herve Poulain in 1975 and completed by the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Alexander Calder, BMW’s art cars have toured the world and featured in exhibitions in the most renowned museums and public spaces worldwide. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art currently hosting four of the sixteen cars as an installation through February 25th, including Warhol’s Black and White Disaster, Stella’s Getty Tomb, Lichtenstein’s Cold Shoulder, and Rauschenberg’s print, Booster.

They will be on display as an installation at the BP Grand Entrance, an admission-free area, and will also feature rare, behind-the-scenes footage of Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg discussing their inspirations and influences in creating their cars, Warhol building his car, and Herve Poulain, the racer and initiator of the Art Car Project.

Poulain first approached BMW in 1975 with the idea of using his car as a canvas. A few months later, the race car driver and BMW commissioned Alexander Calder to create the first car. The most recent cars were done by David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, and Oliafur Eliasson, with a seventeenth under consideration by the German carmaker. The company uses a panel of prestigious judges culled from all over the art world to select the artists who will conceive and paint the cars.

Following their stint in Los Angeles, the Art Cars will be on display in New York at Grand Central station starting March 24th, and will continue to make pit stops through 2010.

BMW Art Cars [LACMA]
Four wheel art appreciation [W Magazine]
Art that moves [Telegraph UK]
BMWs and Beyond [ArtInfo]
LACMA Hosts Four BMW Art Cars by Warhol, Stella, Lichtenstein, and Rauschenberg [ArtDaily]
Snippets of footage of the artists creating and discussing the cars [MetaCafe]

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Still from JG Reads, a film by Rirkrit Tiravanija, via Gavin Brown’s  enterprise

John Giorno–poet, musician, performance artist, and collaborator with William S. Burroughs and Andy Warhol–is the protagonist of a film by Rirkrit Tiravanija, currently showing at Gavin Brown’s enterprise.  Giorno, who was the subject of Warhol’s first film (Sleep, 1963), is considered a fixture of the New York creative community.  His studio was an experimentation hub for the likes of Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, John Cage, and other groundbreaking postwar artists.  The film, which runs for 10 hours, incorporates five decades of John Giorno’s music, poetry, and memoirs from a very interesting life, aiming to capture what the gallery’s press release refers to as a “New York that now exists only as an idea.”

JG READS by Rirkrit Tiravanija
through December 20, 2008
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St, New York, NY
Open Tues – Sat, 10am through 6pm

Gallery: Gavin Brown’s enterprise
Exhibit site: JG Reads
JG Reads Press Release
Video: JG Reads

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Eli Broad, Billionaire Philanthropist and Art Collector, via LA Times

In an apparent reversal from his statements earlier this year, billionaire philanthropist and patron of the arts Eli Broad is now opening a 25,000 square foot museum in the new headquarters for his eponymous foundation, the Broad Art Foundation.  This news comes just nine months after the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened the 60,000 square foot Broad Contemporary Art Museum, built through $56 million dollars provided by Mr. Broad, proprietor of a 2,000 piece collection of post-war art.  Jean Michel Basquiat, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Damien Hirst figure among the many seminal artists whose works are owned by the foundation.  Eli Broad had been outspokenly calling the art market bubble for some time now and recent auction performance in the past month or two has proved him to be somewhat prescient.   Broad has felt that the market is returning to normal levels perhaps as he has recently been reinvigorating purchasing activity.  Mr. Broad’s most recent acquisitions include: Bantam by Robert Rauschenberg ($2.6 million), Wishing Well by Jeff Koons ($2.2 million), and Desire by Ed Ruscha ($2.4 million), all acquired at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale on November 11th (as covered by AO here).

The new facility would include the proposed museum, administrative headquarters for his organization, and storage for the pieces of his collection that aren’t on loan to museums. “We want a new headquarters, a space to have works that are not on loan to others at any given moment available for study by curators and scholars,” the foundation’s spokeswoman said in an article published in Bloomberg.  Broad has expressed that he would like the new headquarters to open within 3 years.

Gensler has been designated as the architect and consultant on the project, with a site in Beverly Hills and two other undisclosed locations under review. The Beverly Hills location would be at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, a few miles away from the LACMA museum that bears his name. Some observers question whether the new museum would introduce too much competition to existing contemporary arts venues, especially the Broad Museum at LACMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), where Broad was a founding trustee. MoCA especially is in a very fragile position: the museum is in a severe fiscal crisis after suffering huge losses to its endowment in the recent market downturn.  Broad has announced a plan to provide $30 million to MoCA over several years to help keep the museum from closing.

The Broad Art Foundation
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Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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Eli Broad Plans Another Art Space [New York Times]
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Broad Decides to Build His Own Museum [New York Times]
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Billionaire Broad Proposes Beverly Hills Art Museum [Bloomberg]
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Eli Broad’s Museum to Keep Art Out of `Basement’ [Bloomberg]
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Eli Broad’s art collection needs a home, so he’ll build it [LA Times]
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MOCA faces serious financial problems [LA Times]
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Saving MOCA: Eli Broad offers $30 million to MOCA in Op-Ed [LA Times]
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Eli Broad to Build Museum in Los Angeles [ArtForum]

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Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York, Tuesday, November 11th
Total Lots Offered: 63
Total Lots Sold: 43 (68.2%)
Total Sales Value: $125.1 million
Total Sales Pre-Auction Estimate: $202.4 million

On the heels of its Impressionist and Modern Art sale that brought in $223 million, well below its low estimate of $339 million, with only 45 of 70 lots sold as previously covered by Art Observed here, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York, held on Tuesday, November 11th, brought in $125 million against a $202 million estimate. The sale was 68.2% sold by lot, with 43 of 63 works finding buyers, marking the lowest selling rate for a multiple-owner evening sale of contemporary art held at Sotheby’s since November 1994. A third of the lots failed to sell, and most of the works that did sell went for less than their presale low estimate. The top lot of the sale was Yves Klein’s Archisponge (RE 11), seen below, which brought $21,362,500. Artist records were set tonight for Philip Guston Beggar’s Joys, which achieved $10,162,500; John Currin, Nice ‘N Easy (see above), which realized $5,458,500 (see above) and Richard Serra, 12-4-8, which fetched $1,650,000.

A Dreary Night for Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s [NYTimes]
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale defies worst fears [Reuters]
Sotheby’s New York Evening Sale of Contemporary Art Brings $125,131,500 [ArtDaily]
$125 million at Sotheby’s Contemporary [ArtNet]
The art market: Contemporary art gets hammered [FinancialTimes]
Bare Market [ArtForum]
Eli Broad Goes Shopping as Sotheby’s Art Auction Falls Short [Bloomberg]
Currin Nudes Set $5.46 Million Record at Spotty Sotheby’s Sale [Bloomberg]

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Le Grande Julie, Fernand Léger (1945) via Foundation Beyeler

Fondation Beyeler Presents Fernand Léger Retrospective, Paris to New York, at their space in Switzerland through September 7, 2008. On view at the exhibition are over 80 paintings, several works on paper, an original Léger film from 1924 called Ballet mécanique, in addition to approximately 20 pieces by American artists that exemplify some sort of influence from Léger and his work. Exhibition is more than just a retrospective of work completed by Léger; it also focuses on how the artist influenced the American Pop movement by exhibiting work from other well-known artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Al Held, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, and Frank Stella, all of which reference Léger’s work in one way or another. Philippe Büttner of Fondation Beyeler is responsible for curating the Retrospective.

Fondation Beyeler Presents Today in Basel Fernand Léger: Paris – New York [ArtDaily]
Fondation Beyeler, Fernand Léger Retrospective, Paris to New York [Beyeler]
Art Exhibitions: Fondation Beyeler [Yucolo]

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Millionaire Nurse, Richard Prince via Artnet

The record-setting Francis Bacon triptych wasn’t the only artwork purchased for large sums at Sotheby’s the other night. The evening sale, which amassed a total of $386 Million and came on the heels of a successful night at Christie’s was filled with powerhouse artwork and collectors –indicating that maybe not all Americans bearish on art.

Market Exuberance Surprises [International Herald Tribune]
Sotheby’s Stock Rises After Strong Contemporary Sales [Forbes]
Francis Bacon Triptych Tops Sales [Art Observed]
Sotheby’s begs the question – what recession? [New York Times]
$86 Million Corpse at Sotheby’s [Bloomberg]
The Scene at Sotheby’s [Wall Street Journal]
Bringing Home the Bacon [Artforum]

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Anselm Keifer, Secret Life of Plants(2008) via Bloomberg

From April 15 to June 29, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London is presenting a unique exhibition on the subject of books in art or of books as art. “Blood on Paper” is an exploration of how artists have interpreted and utilized the book medium. The works range from the conventional book format to large-scale installations and sculptures, such as Anselm Keifer’s enormous book made of lead (pictured).

“Blood on Paper” [Victoria & Albert Museum]
“Bacon’s Trash, Hirst’s Furniture Become Books: Martin Gayford” [Bloomberg]
“The Writing on the Wall“ [Financial Times]
“Works That Speak Volumes” [Financial Times]
“Blood on Paper: the Art of the Book” [The Independent] (more…)

Pieces by artist Robert Rauschenberg via USA today

Artist Rauschenberg sues over sale of discarded art [USA Today]
World’s largest art fair opens March 7th in Dutch city of Maastricht [Bloomberg]
Chinese art claims new presence in volatile market [The New York Sun]
Iranian artist hits new record in million-dollar sale at Dubai auction [Bloomberg]
Jeffrey Weiss ends brief stint as Dia Art Foundation Director [The New York Times]