AO Art Observed™

Verso, ‘Starry Night’ (2008) by Vik Muniz via Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Brazil and Brooklyn based artist Vik Muniz attempts to tell the true tales behind the masterpieces in his exhibition, Verso.  Until October 11th, spectators can witness the three dimensional mixed media works created to imitate famous works such as Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Seurat’s La Grande Jatte.  Muniz closely studied the back of the canvases for over six years to achieve photo-realistic perfection. This series also includes works that imitate backs of archived photographs from the New York Times. Verso is the artist’s personal exploration of originality found in the ‘backs’, which is invisible from the ‘fronts’. His seemingly tedious process uncovers the roots through copying labels, glue stains, dates, and even the slightest dents with precision.

Vik Muniz - Artist’s official website
Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Vik Muniz - Verso [Artcal]

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the sculptor Anish Kappor via the Boston Globe

Sculptor Anish Kapoor set designs for an upcoming Akram Khan play featuring Juliette Binoche [National Theatre, London]
Are Olafur Eliasson’s waterfalls damaging the local natural environment? [ArtInfo]
Relating a past run-in with Francis Bacon and reflecting on his work before his retrospective at the Tate [The Independent]
Author Michael Gross’s ‘Rogues’ Gallery’ exposes the inner circles of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [ArtInfo] Aug 29
Gustav Klimt at the Tate Liverpool brings record attendance [BBC News] while the British National Gallery’s strategy of exhibiting newer artists leads to a sharp drop in paying visitors [Times Online] Aug. 31

Vawdavitch, Franz Kline (1955) via Artinfo

Next Friday, September 12, the new Haunch of Venison gallery in New York City will open its doors for the first time with an exhibit called “Abstract Expressionism – A World Elsewhere”. The exhibition will feature over 60 works from Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Aaron Siskind, David Smith and Clyfford Still. The Christie’s owned gallery represents notable artists such as Bill Viola, Keith Tyson, and Wim Wenders and has additional locations in London and Zurich. When the gallery was purchased last year by François Pinault, the owner of Christie’s auction house, there was a substantial amount of controversy surrounding the transaction. The purchase of the gallery presented a new take on the relationship between auction houses and galleries, and how the line might blur between the primary and secondary markets of the art world.

Christie’s auction house buys London’s Haunch of Venison contemporary art gallery [IHT]
Haunch of Venison’s New York Moment [The Imagist]
American Perspective [Artinfo]
Auction Houses Vs. Dealers [NYSun]
Haunch of Venison - “Abstract Expressionism—A World Elsewhere” [Haunch of Venison]

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Sam Taylor-Wood via TelegraphUK

Sam Taylor-Wood, YBA artist turned filmaker (and wife of White Cube Gallery owner Jay Jopling), to direct John Lennon film [FirstPost]
Selling dealer weighs in on the Leonardo Da Vinci portrait authenticity debate [NYTimes]
More on the contemporary art market’s surge in China [Financial Times]
Louvre to lend 17th-century art to Japan [ArtInfo]
Charlene Weisler documents NY Street art [New York Sun]
A critique of Jeff Koons-in-Chicago as “overexposure” [WallStreetJournal]

White Gloves, KAWS, 2001via Phillips

Phillips de Pury & Company is holding an auction of street art pieces on September 6th, as part of their Saturday@Phillips series. On sale will be a large collection of pieces ranging from paintings, photographs, jewelry, toys, and other various pieces from well-known artists like Kaws, Invader, Judith Supine, Beejoir, and Bast. The auction represents the growing popularity of the street art movement, the influence of which can be seen on fashion shows, advertising, and galleries and museums in the contemporary art world.

The Word on the Street, by Alex Smith [PhillipsArtExpert]
Urban Art Auction At Phillips de Pury September 6 [Highsnobiety]
The Word on the Street [Phillips]

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Convergence, Jackson Pollock (1952) via NYTimes

Up now at the Jewish Museum in New York City is “Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976”. The exhibition includes over 50 key works by 32 artists involved in the Abstract Expressionist movement, including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, and Mark Rothko. A unique aspect of the show is how the work is shown through the perspectives of the two leading art critics of the time, Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. The Abstract Expressionist artwork that fills the walls of the museum until September 21st is accompanied by texts and opinions, photographs, and film clips of the two prominent critics.

Action Figures: The fifties in paintings and words [The New Yorker]
Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976 [The Jewish Museum]
“Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940–1976” [Timeout]
How famed critics Greenberg, Rosenberg impacted markets of De Kooning and Pollack [AO Newslinks 5.15.08]

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Francois Pinault via the TheLuxeChronicles

In February 2009, works from Francois Pinault’s collection coming to Moscow’s Contemporary Culture Centre “Moscow Garage” [RussiaIC]
Hirst’s $100 million diamond encrusted skull to begin its world tour in … Amsterdam [NYSun]
MoMa selects a Chief Curator of Painting from in-house [NY Times] and, the Guggenheim may soon appoint a new Director from Carnegie Museum [NY Times]
The Jeff Koons-in-Versailles debate continues on [TimesOnline]
Matthew Barney is on Ovation TV, airing Wednesday [OvationTV via C-Monster]
New on the global art scene Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, basically summarized [Wall Street Journal]

Untitled (Greenhouse), Peter Coffin at the UBS Gallery via Murmurmostfoul

Located in midtown Manhattan, UBS Gallery presents “Implant”, with around 100 works by 45 artists, including Pipilotti Rist, Peter Coffin, Roman Signer, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Ellsworth Kelly.  The show was organized by The Horticultural Society of New York, and holds a diverse range of sculptures, paintings, and conceptual works, ranging from the botanically accurate to more abstract interpretations of plant life. Each piece is said to be fueled by the artist’s personal connection (or lack thereof) to the natural kingdom.

The UBS Art Gallery: Implant [UBS]
Yes, the Music Is Lovely, but Will the Plants Like It? [NYTimes]
Horticultural Society of New York: Implant [HSNY]

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Charlotte Rampling will star in ‘Boogie Woogie’ via carmenhaid.com

In November of this year ‘Boogie Woogie’ a comedy lampooning the fine art world is set to be released. Boogie Woogie has a strong cast and is directed by the documentary film maker Duncan Ward, who is the husband of art curator Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst. The film is based on a novel published in 2000 and written by Danny Moynihan, who was once curator and is a friend of the artist Damien Hirst. Hirst created a limited-edition cover for the book which featured works by Sarah Lucas, Marc Quinn and Jeff Koons. Additionally, Charles Saatchi was quoted in the jacket comments for the book.

Top-notch cast lined up for art world spoof [Guardian UK]
Boogie Woogie movie detail [IMDB]
Boogie Woogie the novel [Amazon]
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A rather political work by Banksy spotted in Alabama via Supertouch

Banksy, moving north from New Orleans, (previously covered by AO here), to Alabama [Supertouch]
In October an artist will allow you to stay in a hotel room set up at the Guggenheim [GuardianUK]
New York Magazine highlights 30 art shows for the Fall [NYMag]
Explaining the dearth of Japanese curators [JapanTimes via Artsjournal]
Two books reviewed on the exploits Han van Meegeren: master forger [NYSun]
The Moment reports on vast industrial artspaces at Manifesta 7 in the Italian Alps [The Moment]

Gold Kate Moss sculpture (left), Kate Moss (Right) via Telegraph

British sculptor Marc Quinn is about to unveil the golden sculpture of celebrity, Kate Moss, 34, as part of the  Statuephilia exhibit at the British Museum.  Entitled Siren, it is reportedly the largest golden sculpture created since ancient Egypt.  However, the ’solid’ gold sculpture is actually hollow, weighing exactly110 pounds (50kgs). Moss’s modern ideal beauty is immortalized and will be on display among statue of ancient goddesses like naked Aphrodite and Venus.  Quinn remarked, “I thought the next thing to do would be to make a sculpture of the person who’s the ideal beauty of the moment, but even Kate Moss doesn’t live up to the image.” At the moment, the British Museum has revealed only a teaser image, therefore only a glimpse of the statue’s face is publicized.  Following the similar theme of his previous Kate Moss-series Sphinx show, held in New York last year, covered by Art Observed, Moss will be captured in a seemingly uncomfortable yogic pose.

Kate Moss gets the golden touch as she’s immortalised in gold [Daily Mail]
Statuephilia - Contemporary Sculptors at the British Museum [Art Daily]
Solid gold statue of Kate Moss unveiled at British Museum [Telegraph]
Kate Moss Joins Gild: Mega-Statue Museum-Bound [E Online]
A model who’s worth her weight in gold (50kg, to be precise) [The Independent]
Marc Quinn’s 18 Carat Gold Kate Moss [The World's Best Ever]
Marc Quinn to Unveil Gold Kate Moss “Sphinx” Sculpture [Supertouch]
The British Museum
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Damien Hirst, Auction: Beautiful Inside My Head Forever / “ANATOMY OF AN ANGEL” - Carrara marble

Last week Jay Jopling, Damien Hirst’s long time dealer in London out of the White Cube gallery, in an email statement, denied that the gallery has a “mountain” of unsold works before a Sotheby’s sale as reported by much of the media, including by Art Observed, over a week ago. Jopling did not directly dispute the number of works held it White Cube’s stock but said: “”The appetite for Damien’s art is such that we never have enough and I’m always keen to have as much work on consignment as possible.” The dialog relates to Damien Hirst’s controversial direct sale of 223 works through Sotheby’s of London on September 15–16.

Hirst’s Dealer Denies `Mountain’ of Unsold Works Before Auction [Bloomberg]
White Cube Says Number of Hirst Works in Stock Is Normal [ArtInfo]
Hirst in the Hamptons [NYSun] Aug 28
Hirst Alert! [ArtInfo] Aug 27
Galleries hit as Damien Hirst tees off [TimesOnlineUK]
D-day for Damien: Is Hirst about to turn the art market on its head or finally come a cropper? [The Independent]
A disclosure of White Cube’s unsold Damien Hirst inventory before the artist’s controversial September 15th direct sale by Sotheby’s [ArtObserved]

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Diana and Actaeon by Titian via the BBC

The National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery in London have initiated a joint campaign to buy two paintings by Titian.  The seventh Duke of Sutherland, who is 68, is offering the works to the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery in London for £50m each.  If Diana and Actaeon is sold to the National Galleries of Scotland, Diana and Callisto will be offered for a similar sum to the National Gallery in London in 2013.  The two paintings are part of the Bridgewater collection which since 1945 has been on loan to the National Galleries of Scotland. The Bridgewater collection also includes three paintings by Raphael, a Rembrandt, a Van Dyck, a Tintoretto and two more Titians. Though the Duke is definitively seeking to sell the two works, Diana and Callisto and Diana and Actaeon , he has offered the works to the national galleries for a lower price than the works would fetch in an open market sale, though there are significant tax implications for selling to a national collection. The BBC quotes the National Gallery of Scotland’s director, John Leighton.”The Bridgewater Loan … is the most important Old Master paintings loan to any public museum in the world,” “Losing Diana and Actaeon would be like the Mona Lisa being taking out of the Louvre”.

U.K. National Galleries Seek 50 Million Pounds for Titian Work [Bloomberg]
Race to save £300 million Titians for UK [The Art Newspaper]
£100m appeal to keep Titian works [BBC]
Don’t let these dramatic Titians leave Britain [TelegraphUK]
The battle of the Titians [GuardianUK]
Art auction: National galleries scramble to keep Titians as duke cashes in [GuardianUK]
Who might buy the Titians? Meet the new collectors of the art world [GuardianUK]
Is it worth spending £50m on a Titian? [GuardianUK]

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Martin Kppenberger’s Zuerst die Füsse (Feet First)

The Pope condemns late German artist Martin Kippenberger’s crucified frog sculpture [GuardianUK] and more here [NYTimes]
A critique of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Waterfalls’ as ineffective “shock and awe” public art [NYSun]
Jeff Koons on Night Talk [YouTube via ArtFagCity]
Guggenheim Foundation receives $1 million from National Endowment for the Humanities [ArtForum]
Banksy’s auction-donated $137,000 work to support Ken Livingstone invalidated due to his anonymity [ArtInfo]
Damien Hirst to open his 2nd ‘Other Criteria’ retail shop next to Sotheby’s on New Bond Street, London [Blomberg]

Work Comes Out of Work, Richard Serra at Kunsthaus Bregenz via ArtDaily

Kunsthaus Bregenz will be showing more than 60 large-format drawings by the major American artist, Richard Serra. It is the first such showing of the artist’s graphic ouevre in Europe since 1992. The exhibition will include six work-series, spanning two decades of Serra’s career. Arranged on four levels, the included pieces are the large-format “Diptychs,” 1989, the series “Weight and Measure,” 1994, “Rounds,” 1996/97, “Out-of-rounds,” 1999, and the most recent works “Solids,” 2007/08, and “Forged Drawing,” 2008. Works on display have been selected with the artist from important private collections and museums in Europe and the US, as well as new pieces produced by Richard Serra especially for the exhibition in Bregenz.

Drawings: Work Comes Out Of Work [Kunsthaus Bregenz]
Richard Serra at Kunsthaus Bregenz [Art21]
PhotoGallery / Richard Serra at Kunsthaus Bregenz [ArtDaily]
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A new Banksy mural that recently popped up in New Orleans via Supertouch

Banksy has chosen New Orleans for the location of his most recent work. Throughout the city, Banksy has created more than 12 murals that depict Abraham Lincoln as a homeless man, a marching band wearing gas masks, and a boy flying a refrigerator kite. The New York Times reports that in a statement released by Banksy, the murals were created in response to Fred Radtke, an antigraffiti campaigner also known as the Gray Ghost, who uses gray paint to cover up graffiti. The statement released by Banksy also said, “Three years after Katrina I wanted to make a statement about the state of the clean up operation.”

Banksy Tags the Big Easy [ArtInfo]
Banksy Hits New Orleans [NYTimes]
Banksy Does New Orleans [Gawker]
Banksy Paints New Orleans as Katrina Memorial [Supertouch]
Stencil artist Banksy visits New Orleans [TheAustralian]

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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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From My Giant Colouring Book, Jake and Dinos Chapman via Metro

Campbell Works in London is showing the touring exhibition, My Giant Colouring Book, by artists Jake and Dinos Chapman. The exhibition was developed by the Hayward Gallery and the Arts Council England, and will be at Campbell Works until September 14th. The 19 out of 21 of the work included in the exhibition are loosely based on images and dot formations from children’s connect-the-dots coloring books. The Chapman brothers, who were nominated for the Turner Prize a few years back, have also reworked the gallery space and made the ceiling just under 6 feet off the ground for added effect to the exhibition.

Campbell Works, Jake and Dinos Chapman, My Giant Colouring Book [CampbellWorks]
Jake and Dinos Chapman, My Giant Colouring Book [ArtRabbit]
The big art show: Jake and Dinos Chapman [TheLondonPaper]

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Kanye West and his new music video “Good Morning” via Chicago Sun Times

The hip-hop artist Kanye West ’s video for Good Morning directed by Takashi Murakami is now released and available to be purchased on Itunes. Depicting Kanye as an animated bear, the video follows a narrative of Kanye’s eventful trip to his graduation ceremony.  Japanese contemporary pop artist Murakami created the video in his signature style of animated graphics: characters portrayed as cute cartoons in a surreal environment.  Murakami has collaborated with Kanye West in the past and is the cover artist for the Kanye West album, Graduation.   Murakami is aggressive in his collaboration with fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton, but the relationship of Kanye and Murakami is an interesting fusion of two streams of pop culture that may perhaps be even more pervasive globally in the end.

Kanye West’s new video, “Good Morning” [SunTimes]
Video Premiere: Kanye West’s ‘Good Morning’ [Aceshowbiz]
Kanye West Gets All Cute and Cuddly [Eonline]
Kanye West Meets Takashi Murakami [New York Magazine]
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Terence Koh at his Chinatown studio via BlackBook

Terence Koh’s “personal” fashion style [Blackbookmag]
15 years of Contemporary public art: Jeff Koons to Rachel Whiteread [New York Times]
Damien Hirst opening retail store next to Sotheby’s, London [Bloomberg]
More on Myra Hindly minor scandal [Guardian], previously covered here [AO]
Sotheby’s Australia fine art auction sold only 49% of its inventory [Art Market Monitor]
Hirst’s $100M Skull begins its world tour in…Amsterdam [NYSun]
Lucian Freud portrait model destroys £17M + painting [Dailymail]