News
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12/15/2011
An Andy Warhol painting of Elizabeth Taylor has sold for more than $662,000 at auction in New York. Meanwhile, clothes and jewelry owned by the late movie star are also selling at auction.
from Reuters: "One of actress Elizabeth Taylor's Dior evening gowns sold for $362,500, boosting the total for the auction of her haute couture to $2.6 million at Christie's. Christie's said the sale set a record for a couture auction, although the evening's top lot was actually an Andy Warhol lithograph of Taylor which fetched $662,500."
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12/14/2011
Yuko Hasegawa has been appointed curator of the eleventh Sharjah Biennial, to open in March 2013.
from ARTFORUM: "Hasegawa is chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and has curated and advised numerous other biennials. In its announcement, the Sharjah Art Foundation argued that Hasegawa’s biennial will 'reassess the Eurocentrism of knowledge in modern times.' The foundation’s president, Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, noted that Hasegawa’s proposal 'reflects the long tradition of Sharjah as a place where the gathering of diverse communities encourages an exchange of ideas and knowledge.'"
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12/14/2011
David Bomford, who has served as the Getty museum’s acting director for nearly two years, has announced that he is leaving the museum February 1, 2012.
from the Los Angeles Times: "In an email sent to Getty colleagues Tuesday, Bomford wrote that he will 'return to London, where I plan to continue to pursue research, scholarship and writing.' Deeper in the email, he added: 'As you know a search for a permanent director is underway and, until the new Director is hired and in place, [J. Paul Getty Trust CEO and President] Jim Cuno has elected to serve as Acting Director of the Museum.'"
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12/13/2011
A Dutch design firm has apologized over plans for a pair of towers that resemble the twin towers destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.
from the Washington Post: "The firm’s design statement described a 'pixelated cloud' containing public gardens to connected the two structures. The cloud would also house a wellness center, conference center, swimming pools, restaurants and cafes. The firm apologized for the design’s resemblance to the Twin Towers, saying that they did not see the similarities during their design process. 'It is one of many projects in which MVRDV experiments with a raised city level to reinvent the often solitary typology of the skyscraper,' a statement on their site said."
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12/13/2011
Singer Tony Bennett's nude sketch of Lady Gaga, made during an Annie Leibovitz photo shoot for Vanity Fair, is up for auction.
from Rolling Stone: "The sketch is up for sale at eBay Celebrity, with proceeds to benefit the singers' foundations – Bennett's Exploring the Arts and Gaga's Born This Way. The two singers recorded a version of "The Lady Is a Tramp" for Bennett's recent Duets II album."
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12/12/2011
The shortlist for the inaugural Samsung Art+ Prize for new media art was announced today. Nominees are: Neil Cummings, Doug Fishbone,Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Torsten Lauschmann, Lucky PDF, Aura Satz, Hiraki Sawa, Semiconductor, Erika Tan, and Thomson and Craighead.
from ARTINFO: "At long last, new media art in the UK is getting a prize of its own — though the conception of the term is as open-ended as it gets...The focus is on the UK which, until now, had been lagging behind in terms of new media art platforms. Nominees have to be citizens of, educated, or based in the country. A prize of £10,000 ($15,569) prize will be awarded during a ceremony at London's British Film Institute on January 25, 2012."
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12/12/2011
Suzanne Geiss Company has just opened a space in Soho, New York, where the former Deitch Projects gallery was situated.
from Art Media Agency: "Suzanne Greiss has been the executive director of Deitch Projects gallery from 1997, up until the gallery closed last year, when its creator Jeffrey Deitch was appointed chairman at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Throughout these twelve years, Suzanne Geiss represented works by Keith Haring and artists, such as Vanessa Beecroft and Kristin Baker. She also organised the first retrospective dedicated to Stephen Sprouse and supervised the program of the Deitch Projects gallery."
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12/09/2011
The San Francisco Art Dealers Association (SFADA) has announced the launch of First Saturday, a series of special events.
from the press release: "Beginning January 7, 2012, various SFADA member galleries will present special opportunities to learn more about their featured artists on the first Saturday of each month. “First Saturday allows gallery patrons and art enthusiasts the chance to enjoy intimate and informative gatherings as an alternative to the more social First Thursdays ,” says SFADA President, Trish Bransten of Rena Bransten Gallery. Events will range from artist talks and tours to opening receptions and book signings featuring both emerging and internationally known artists and their work."
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12/09/2011
A Melbourne hotel has placed an original Banksy work of art on its walls valued at up to $15,000, with the challenge that anyone who can steal it can keep it.
from The Australian: "Those who fail to pull off the heist will have to return the work of art to the hotel wall. The piece, No Ball Games, is just one of a handful of signed Banksy's available in Australia. The promotion runs from December 15 until the middle of January and is open to anyone who stays in the hotel."
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12/09/2011
The Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has named Alison Gass its curator of contemporary art.
from Gallerist NY: "As the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University readies for its April 21, 2012, opening date, administrators are staffing up, announcing today the appointment of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art assistant curator of painting and sculpture Alison Gass as its curator of contemporary art."
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12/08/2011
The New Museum, whose exhibition of the work of the Belgian-born artist Carsten Höller has been packing in crowds since it opened last month, has raised its general admission price to $16, from $12.
from the New York Times: "The higher price will help it pay for the extra staff needed to shepherd museumgoers through Mr. Höller’s carnival-like pieces, which take up all the museum’s floors: goggles that turn the world upside down; a three-story tubular slide; and a heavily salinated sensory deprivation tank (complete with a shower and hooks for the clothes of those who decide to undress and get in for a float)."
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12/08/2011
A proposed new ordinance would allow artists to create murals legally on private property across Los Angeles as long as the property owners agree.
from the Los Angeles Times: "If approved, the ordinance would end a controversial prohibition on murals that has left city officials and artists grappling over what is legal. Councilman José Huizar will join muralists and art conservationists Wednesday morning in the Boyle Heights Arts District to unveil the draft local law. It essentially would legalize murals when property owners and artists agree to maintain them for five years and no money is exchanged."
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12/07/2011
At least 70 Occupy SF protesters were arrested after San Francisco police raided the encampment at Justin Herman Plaza early Wednesday.
from the SF Examiner: "Police in riot gear dismantled the camp after protesters were told to clear the plazajust after 1 a.m. Two people were arrested for aggravated assault, but the majority of arrests were for blocking Market Street, San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr said...“This area was declared a public health hazard,” Suhr told reporters. “It needs to be rehabilitated.
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12/06/2011
The national artists's advocacy organization United States Artists (USA) has announced the recipients of fifty, $50,000 USA Fellowship grants for artistic excellence, including seven winners in visual arts.
from ARTINFO: "The winners are Chicago sculpture and video artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, New York conceptual artist Lorraine O’Grady, assemblage artist John Outterbridge, and conceptual artist Allen Ruppersberg from L.A., New York video and performance artist Carolee Schneemann, Kansas painter and theater artist Roger Shimomura, and Tennessee photographer Mike Smith."
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12/06/2011
Martin Boyce has won the Turner Prize, the U.K.’s top contemporary-art award, beating contenders known for crafting artworks out of plastic sheeting, lipstick and overhead projectors.
from Bloomberg: "Boyce -- whose sculptural installations use furniture, lighting and design -- took his award from photographer Mario Testino in a televised ceremony at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, northern England. 'The Turner Prize has done so much for art,' Boyce told Channel 4, which broadcast the ceremony live. 'It’s brought art to an audience, and it’s just an honor to be part of that.'"
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12/05/2011
A European hedge-fund executive is suing a New York art gallery that he says closed its doors one day after he accused it of selling him a phony Jackson Pollock painting for $17 million.
from the New York Post: "Pierre Lagrange’s suit charges that the Knoedler Gallery and its former president, Ann Freedman, duped him into believing the canvas, “Untitled, 1950,” had come from “a private collector who had inherited it." But Lagrange — a Belgian-born Londoner who recently made headlines by splitting from his wife and revealing he’s gay — says recent testing by a “preeminent materials-analysis and consulting firm” revealed that it couldn’t have been painted by the famed abstract expressionist dubbed “Jack the Dripper.”"
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12/02/2011
Gary Tinterow, an executive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has been chosen to be the new director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
from the Wall Street Journal: "Tinterow served as curator of European paintings at the Met for 20 years before becoming curator in charge of the newly formed department of 19th century, modern and contemporary art in 2004. He became chairman of that department in 2008. He succeeds Peter C. Marzio, who died in December 2010 after a battle with cancer."
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12/02/2011
The Miami Art Museum will be renamed the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County after a $35 million gift from the developer.
from the Miami Herald: "The donation includes $5 million that Pérez has already pledged and partially paid; an additional $15 million for the capital campaign and $15 million worth of Latin American art to be chosen by the museum. 'My reaction is stunned gratitude,' said museum director Thom Collins. 'Stunned because this campaign was kicked off in a very, very rosy economy and this project was kicked off in a rosy economy. This is not a very rosy economy.'”
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12/01/2011
A Rio museum canceled a January exhibition of pictures by renowned US photographer Nan Goldin because it includes nude scenes, sex and drugs.
from the Associated Press: "The Oi Futuro museum scrapped the show after deciding some of the thousands of pictures were inappropriate, but Rio's Museum of Modern Art (MAM-Rio) has agreed to host the exhibition instead from February 11 to April 8...Among pictures found to be objectionable are some in the 'Ballad of Sexual Dependency,' a slideshow chronicling the struggle for intimacy and understanding between friends and lovers collectively described by Goldin as her "'tribe.'"
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11/30/2011
The Mid-Market Art Project (MMAP), in conjunction with the San Francisco Art Institute, is seeking artists to submit art project proposals to take place in the mid-market neighborhood of San Francisco in March 2012.
from the SFAI Web site: "The goal of MMAP is to facilitate a conversation about arts’ interactions with a neighborhood community that is currently undergoing cultural development. Three chosen artists will display their work on site in the mid-market neighborhood in March 2012, will be included in a post-project show in a San Francisco gallery, and will be featured in a printed project publication, as well as on the MMAP website."
