‬Yayoi Kusama’s traveling exhibition to make its final stop at the Whitney on July 2. “This survey celebrates a career of exceptional duration and distinction, tracing the development of Kusama into one of the most respected and influential artists of her time.”
‬Photos of Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with artist Yayoi Kusama released, showing a line of dresses and shoes patterned by her signature polka dots.
‪‬Yayoi Kusama and Phyllida Barlow to create new works for first Kiev International Biennale, titled ‘The Best of Times, The Worst of Times. Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art,’ to run May 24 through July 31, 2012, and also include works by Ai Weiwei, Louise Bourgeois, Chapman Bros, and Paul McCarthy [AO Newslink]
Yayoi Kusama, Self-Obliteration (1967). Images via Tate Modern.
Currently on view at the Tate Modern is the first major retrospective of Yayoi Kusama’s work in the UK. Covering a practice that has spanned nearly six decades, the fourteen-room exhibition reveals the wide range of the artist’s explorations into media and mediation. Including early manipulated photographs, soft sculptures, and immersive installations, as well as more recent paintings and sculptural works, the Tate’s retrospective moves viewers through one of the most individual and idiosyncratic practices to emerge from the 1960s New York art scene.
All photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer.
The Armory Show 2012 hosts 228 international exhibitors, “showing work that realizes the fair’s mission of innovation and discovery.” Split between Piers 92 and 94 on the west side of Midtown Manhattan, the show runs March 8–11, with several new programming initiatives and a re-designed floor plan added to the show’s fourteenth edition. Pier 94 is the larger exhibition hall, the Contemporary section featuring mainstay galleries Lisson Gallery, Sean Kelly, Victoria Miro, Kukje Gallery/Tina Kim Gallery, David Zwirner, Sprüth Magers, Gallery Hyundai, and Kaikai Kiki, among many others—including 19 invited Nordic galleries in the ‘Armory Focus’—while the Modern sector on Pier 92 is home to Marlborough Gallery, O’Hara Gallery, Inc., Pace Prints, Peter Findlay, and many more.
‪‬Yayoi Kusama collaborates with Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton for a range of goods to debut this July [AO Newslink]
Yves Klein all photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed
This year marked the 2nd iteration of the House of the Nobleman, a privately sponsored exhibition which took place at the Boswall House, 15,000sqft mansion at 2 Cornwall Terrace, overlooking Regent’s Park and the Frieze 2011 Art Fair. Art Observed was on site for the private viewing. On view were works by Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin, Peter Paul Rubens, Edgar Degas, Max Ernst, Damien Hirst, Marlene Dumas, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Sigmar Polke, Christian Boltanski, Anish Kapoor, Nick Hornby, Matthew Day Jackson, Cecily Brown, Lucian Freud, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Longo, Alexander Calder, Eugenia Emets, Francesco Clemente, Salvador Dali, Peter Doig, Olafur Eliasson, George Condo, Takashi Murakami, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Gerhard Richter.
Monet, Claude “ Chemin dans le brouillardâ€, (1879)
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Yayoi Kusama at Museo Reina SofÃa, installation view, via Museo Reina Sofia
A major retrospective of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) is on view at Museo Reina SofÃa in Madrid until September 12th, 2011. The exhibition assembles Kusama’s multimedia projects and includes drawings, paintings, collages, installation, performance, literary, and design pieces. Organized by the Museo Reina SofÃa and the Tate Modern, the exhibition explores the relationship between art and the socio-cultural reality in the past 50 years as reflected through Kusama’s work. Since the late 1950’s, Kusama has been associated with pop, first generation feminist art, minimalism, happenings, conceptual and installation art. Her work addresses and reveals the mental health issues the artist has experienced since the late 1970’s, visible through her “use of repetition, monochrome, and grids.â€Â However, as the curator Frances Morris reminds, “we need to balance the obvious framework of her mental health with the framework of art history and cultural milieu in which she operated over time.â€Â Already shown in the Pompidou Centre, Paris at the beginning of 2011, this one-artist retrospective will travel to the Tate Modern, London in February 2012 and the Whitney Museum, New York in June 2012.  The exhibition traces Kusama’s artistic development through a number of periods.
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Yayoi Kusama, Reach Up to the Universe, Dotted Pumpkin (2010). All images via Gagosian Gallery.
Following a solemn exhibition of black and white photographs by Gregory Crewdson at the Gagosian Gallery Rome is a psychedelic installation of recent works by Yayoi Kusama, on view now through May 7th. Five bold canvases, including two self portraits, are hung in the main gallery. Around the floor’s perimeter are dozens of highly polished and reflective chrome balls that are a later incarnation of a piece Kusama presented at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 (though back then she was not invited to do so).
Yayoi Kusama, Installation View at Gagosian Gallery Rome
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An installation view of Kusama’s ‘I want to Live Forever’ exhibit in Milan
Currently showing at Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan is an exhibition by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, entitled ‘I Want to Live Forever.’ The show focuses on the artist’ s figurative paintings, large-scale sculpture and installations from the last decade, along with more formative drawings from the 50’s and 60’s. Also on show is ‘Narcissus Garden,’  a sculptural installation consisting of an interactive environment of 1,500 mirror balls mounted in a field. The work was first exhibited at the 33rd Biennale di Venezia in 1966– breaking away  from the usual ‘covert commercial aspects’ of the Biennale, Kusama, (known for her talent in merchandising), dressed in a traditional Japanese Kimono and sold each mirror ball for 1,200 lire on the lawns of the Italian Pavilion. More than forty years later, the installation piece now comes to Milan for the first time. Qualities of Kusama’s work are driven by a mental illness (hallucinations and obsessive thoughts) that the artist has struggled with since childhood. Her art often reveals an obsession  for filling spaces with repetitive, identical patterns. Early on in her career, she began covering surfaces with the polka-dots that would eventually become the trademark of her work. These fields of polka-dots, or ‘infinity nets,’ were drawn directly from her hallucinations. “These strange, uncanny things…drove me half into madness for many years,” the artist has said. “The only way to free myself from them was to control them myself–by reproducing them on paper…”
Kusama’s interactive ‘Narcissus Garden,’ consists of 1500 mirror balls. 2009, Via Design Boom
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The entrance to Art Basel Miami Beach 2009
“There’s a lot less ornament and a lot more substance,” declared Micky Wolfson Jr., founder of Miami Beach’s Wolfsonian Museum – this phrase sums-up many reflections on the eighth edition of Art Basel Miami Beach closed on Sunday, December 6 where smaller parties dominated and collectors purchased cautiously. In keeping with tradition edgy Contemporary pieces were bestsellers at Art Basel Miami Beach with larger, museum-targeted pieces dominating the booths along with traditional works by Popular Latin American artists such as the Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco. Interestingly, while many Asian and European buyers skipped the fair, additional Portuguese speakers were hired to aid Latin American buyers who were out in force.
Santigold performs at the Raleigh Hotel
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Polaroid Wall, Dash Snow (2005) all images via Phillips de Pury
This week we have been reporting on the Post-War and Contemporary evening sales in New York and last night Art Observed was on site at the final auction of the week – a smaller, more boutique event at Phillips de Pury in the meatpacking district of the city overlooking the celebrated Highline railway and Hudson River that was overseen by Simon de Pury himself. Unlike the multi-million totals achieved at Sotheby’s and Christie’s Contemporary evening sales, Phillip’s modest sale brought in a grand total of $7,099,250, within the pre-sale estimate of $5.8 – $8.4million.
Ice Bucket, Jeff Koons (1986) sold under estimate $230,500
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Angel of the North (Life-Size Maquette), Antony Gormley 1997. Via Chatsworth
Currently on display in the grounds of Chatsworth House, home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, is Sotheby’s ‘Beyond Limits‘; a selling exhibition of modern and contemporary sculpture which the auction house claims is their “largest and most diverse to date.” The exhibition will continue through November 1. It will be the fourth year of the installation, which has become known as one of the most prestigious platforms for displaying monumental works in an outdoor setting. On display are bronze sculptures by Henry Moore and Aristade Millol, as well as contemporary pieces by Antony Gormley, Marc Quinn, Subodh Gupta and Fernando Botero. All works on display are available for private sale.
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Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped, Henry Moore (1975). Via Sotheby’s
Related Links:
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Chatsworth House Homepage [Chatsworth House]
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‘Beyond Limits’ Event Page [Chatsworth House]
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‘Beyond Limits’ Catalogue [Sotheby’s]
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‘Beyond Limits’ Press Release [Sotheby’s]
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VIDEO TOUR Beyond Limits: A Selling Exhibition of Monumental Sculpturewith Simon Stock, Deputy Director, Impressionist & Modern Art [Sotheby’s]
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In Pictures: Giant Sculputres at Chatsworth House [BBC NEWS]
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Big-money sales behind closed doors [Telegraph.co.uk]
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Philip Taaffe, “Unit of Direction No. 2” (2008). Via Gagosian Gallery.
Until August 21st Gagosian Gallery is displaying a small group exhibition of exuberant abstract paintings which celebrate circles, dots and spots at their West 24th Street location. The collection of nine paintings covers work from their most prestigous artists; Â included are works by Damien Hirst, Yayoi Kusama, Mike Kelley and Roy Lichenstein.
Related Links:
Ecstatic Abstraction: Press Release [Gagosian Gallery]
Ecstatic Abstraction at Gagosian Gallery [Artnews.org]
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“Extremities (smooth, smooth),” Pipilotti Rist’s contribution to “Walking in My Mind,” the Hayward Gallery. via The Guardian.
Currently showing at the Hayward Gallery are the minds of ten artists — or, at least, how the artists feel they can represent the melding of product and creative process. Â Ten installation artists from around the world are featured in the show. Â Some are relative newcomers who are showing new pieces at the Hayward, like Swedish Bo Christian Larsson and Japanese Chiharu Shiota, who exhibit for the first time in London, and Dutch artist Mark Manders, who shows for the first time in a major British exhibition. Others are more well-established, including Yayoi Kusama and Turner prize-winner Keith Tyson, as well as the late controversial American artist Jason Rhoades. Â Also exhibiting are Charles Avery (UK), Thomas Hirschhorn (Switzerland), and Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland).
Related links:
Hayward Gallery: Walking in My Mind
Art Review: Walking in My Mind Hayward Gallery, London SE1 [The Observer]
Thoughts go astray at the Hayward Gallery’s Walking in My Mind show [The Guardian]
Dark delights from the lonely mind of Japanese genius Yoshitomo Nara [The Independent]
Yoshitomo Nara in “Walking in My Mind.” Via The Guardian.
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Yayoi Kusama, Installation View via Gagosian Gallery
To celebrate Yayoi Kusama’s eightieth year, Gagosian’s Gallery is exhibiting some of her recent works at their West 24th Street location until June 27, 2009. Although the show features only Kusama’s latest works, it can be considered as a retrospective: Kusama has been exploring the same themes and forms in her artistic production since the late 1950s, with her paintings, collages, sculptures and environmental works all sharing an obsession with repetition, pattern and accumulation. Gagosian’s exhibit of Kusama’s work reveals how the production of this eccentric and elusive artist is not exactly Abstract-Expressionist, Minimalist, psychedelic or Pop, yet shares characteristics with all of these movements.
Related Links:
Yayoi Kusama Exhibition Page [Gagosian]
Yayoi Kusama Artist’s Page [Gagosian]
The Kusama Myth [ArtNet]
Yayoi Kusama by Grady Turner [Bomb]
Yayoi Kusama’s Myspace
Yayoi Kusama, “Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity” installation view (2009) via Gagosian Gallery
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Baroque Egg with Bow (2006), Jeff Koons via Gagosian
New York art magnate Larry Gagosian brings an eclectic mix of avant-garde art to Moscow in his new show, For What You Are about to Receive. Entitled in spirit of the Bolshevik revolution, “Red October” is the name given to the former chocolate factory in which Gagosian Gallery will showcase over 100 works by approximately 50 post-war artists. Never-seen works by Jeff Koons, Anish Kapoor, Cy Twombly, Richard Serra, and Edward Ruscha will be included in addition to works by Roy Lichtenstein, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Takashi Murakami, Aaron Young, and Yayoi Kusama. A statement by the gallery maintains that the exhibition, “investigates the twin pillars of twentieth century art: the readymade and pure abstraction, reflecting on the sublime through a self-conscious engagement with material and process.” For What You Are about to Receive is Gagosian’s second showing in Moscow, following an auspicious exhibit at Barvikha Luxury Village one year earlier. The show also inaugurates “Red October” as a new contemporary arts center in Moscow, however, Gagosian denies inquiries about opening a permanent establishment in the city.
Gagosian Plans Moscow Show in Former Chocolate Factory [Artinfo]
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For What Your Are About to Receive [Gagosian]
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Gagosian To Host Second Moscow Exhibit [NYSun]
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Gagosian Gallery in Moscow [Artnet]
