News
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02/03/2012
Qatar has purchased Cézanne’s The Card Players for more than $250 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art.
from Vanity Fair: "If the price seems insane, it may well be, since it more than doubles the current auction record for a work of art. And this is no epic van Gogh landscape or Vermeer portrait, but an angular, moody representation of two Aix-en-Provence peasants in a card game. But, for its $250 million, Qatar gets more than a post-Impressionist masterpiece; it wins entry into an exclusive club. There are four other Cézanne Card Players in the series; and they are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay, the Courtauld, and the Barnes Foundation. For a nation in the midst of building a museum empire, it’s instant cred."
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02/02/2012
The artist Christo wants to stretch fabric over the Arkansas River as part of a massive art exhibition. But now a group of University of Denver law students are joining in on the fight to put a stop to it before it ever starts.
from CBS: "The critics call themselves “ROAR,” or Rags Over The Arkansas River. They’ve filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming the project is as risky as mineral development...Christo says he doesn’t mind hearing the opposition to his project, and there was plenty of discussion on both sides...'I say in the very beginning it’s incredible gratification to see the people talking so much about my work of art,' Christo said."
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02/02/2012
Dorothea Tanning, a leading Surrealist painter of the 1930s whose path had led her from the small town of Galesburg, Ill., to a whirlwind life in the international art world, died on Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 101.
from the New York Times: "Married for 30 years to the Surrealist painter and sculptor Max Ernst, Ms. Tanning became well known in her own right for her vivid renderings of dream imagery. Much later in life, after she had reached 80, she gained a different kind of attention when she began to concentrate on writing, producing a novel, an autobiography and poems that appeared in The New Yorker, The Yale Review and The Paris Review."
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02/01/2012
Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker and incognito street artist JR are among the artists whose works will be given as trophies to the filmmakers of winning pics in the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival's jury competitions.
from the Chicago Tribune: "Eleven artists are contributing one work each, ranging from paintings to photos to sculptures. Tribeca's link to the art world comes in part through fest co-founder Robert De Niro, whose late father was an abstract expressionist painter. Peter Dayton, Stephen Hannock, Clifford Ross, Walton Ford, Kim Keever, Nathan Sawaya, Hugo Tillman and Stanley Whitney round out the contributing creatives, whose pieces will be awarded to filmmakers in competish categories including narrative feature and doc for both world cinema and New York-centric pics."
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02/01/2012
Museums in Israel, France, and the U.K. have jointly acquired one of six copies of Christian Marclay’s 24-hour film “The Clock."
from Bloomberg: "Israel Museum in Jerusalem spent a low six-figure sum to jointly acquire the video collage with the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Tate in London. “The Clock,” which is composed of thousands of film images that include clocks, watches or announcements that illuminate the passage of time, premiered in London in October 2010. The work drew about 3,500 visitors in the two days it ran for a full 24 hours in Jerusalem and overall it attracted 50,000 visitors."
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01/31/2012
The Rhode Island School of Design launched a partnership with the U.S. Department of State to promote cross-cultural exchange.
from Market Watch: "Visiting artist Jim Drain is leading Art in Embassies: Morocco, a 2012 studio course at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), as the first phase of a multiyear partnership between RISD and the U.S. Department of State's Office of ART in Embassies...This collaborative project has been designed to promote cross-cultural exchange, and to recognize and nurture the talents of the next generation of professional artists. Ultimately, the collaboration will yield a large-scale outdoor work of art for the U.S. Embassy building currently in the design phase for Rabat, Morocco."
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01/31/2012
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is one of four U.S. organizations singled out by the Wallace Foundation as exemplars of how to attract new audiences for the arts.
from the Boston Globe: "The Wallace Foundation, a national foundation concerned with building arts audiences, studied the strategies of the museum and the [Boston Lyric Opera], along with Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company and the San Francisco Girls Chorus, in an effort to analyze what approaches work. The Gardner Museum was praised for its “Art After Hours’’ initiative, which set aside Thursday nights for a bar, live musicians, DJs - and access to the galleries. The initiative has proved popular with the 18-35-year-old age group."
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01/30/2012
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has announced the recipients of its new Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grant program (AIC).
from ARTINFO: The recipients of the foundation's Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grants, designed to advance "the values promoted by artist and activist Robert Rauschenberg during his lifetime and career," include, among others, New York's The Drawing Center, Los Angeles's Machine Project, the North Dakota Museum of Art, and New York's STREB. [press release]
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01/30/2012
The Art Institute of Chicago has formed a partnership with the government of India. The four-year collaboration fosters exchange programs for Institute curators and staff members at Indian museums.
from the Associated Press: "The Art Institute will host an Indian delegation on Saturday to sign an agreement for the Vivekananda Memorial Program for Museum Excellence. The $500,000 grant honors Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, who spoke in 1893 at the Art Institute during the World's Columbian Exposition. The Art Institute says it's the first U.S. museum to receive a grant from India."
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01/27/2012
Britain's main state art funding body has granted £3,000 ($4,705) to Manchester's second "Artists' Bonfire," an event that gives artists a chance to set their creations alight in public.
from the BBC: "Arts Council England has given £3,000 of National Lottery money to a project allowing artists to burn their work. Organisers said it was 'a research project into art and activism' that allowed local artists to collaborate and to discuss art in a direct way. Arts Council England said the project would support emerging talent and stimulate debate. Organiser Rosanne Robertson said it was 'beneficial to supporting artists and discussing art in a new way - in a more direct way with an audience.'"
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01/27/2012
A New York art dealer has been charged in a $4 million fraud for selling works by Picasso, Matisse and others without informing the owner or giving him the proceeds.
from the Associated Press: "The charges in a criminal complaint in Manhattan accuse Robert Scott Cook of selling 16 works of art without the owner/collector's knowledge. The artwork included watercolors, drawings, photographs, and other works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, among others."
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01/26/2012
The Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi announced that the satellite Louvre art gallery will open its doors in 2015 and the Guggenheim museum in 2017, about three years later than expected.
from AFP: "The museums were originally scheduled to open between 2013 and 2014, but delays were announced in October. At the time, local media reported that Abu Dhabi projects valued at $30 billion were frozen pending review, in a bid to scale back spending in difficult economic conditions."
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01/26/2012
John Ahearn, Uri Aran, Latifa Echakhch, Joel Kyack, Rick Moody, Virginia Overton, Tim Rollins and K.O.S., and Ulla von Brandenburg have been selected for Frieze Projects, the non-profit commissioning program curated by Cecilia Alemani that will run alongside Frieze New York next May.
from e-flux: "Frieze New York will be located in the unique setting of Randall’s Island Park, overlooking the East River. The majority of the commissioned projects are situated outdoors and are located throughout Randall’s Island. Artists have been invited to respond to the island’s unique geography. The projects have been conceived as not only interactions with the existing architecture of the site but also participatory platforms for the fair’s visitors and existing local communities."
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01/25/2012
Union art handlers and the Whitney Museum are in protracted negotiations over a contract that expires Jan. 31—just before preparation for March’s Whitney Biennial kicks into high gear.
from ARTINFO: "The discussions “have been cordial but difficult,” said Teamsters Local 966 manager James Anderson, who is negotiating on behalf of the art handlers. Unable to settle on a new contract, the museum has twice extended the old one, which expired in October...Anderson hopes to bring an offer to the union members within the week — then, it’ll be up to them to accept or reject the proposal. If the art handlers reject it, 'the Whitney could lock us out, we could go on strike, or the employer may agree to sit down and make some modifications,' he said."
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01/25/2012
Photographer Annie Leibovitz says she has come back from some dark days and revived her creativity with a new project now on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that marks a departure from her popular celebrity portraits.
from the Washington Post: "Two years ago, Leibovitz was facing millions in debt and a mismanaged fortune that nearly cost her the legal rights to her own work, which includes some of pop culture’s most memorable images. The ordeal was a good lesson in managing her business, Leibovitz said, but left her “emotionally and mentally depleted." On Tuesday, she led a tour through the photographs she says renewed her inspiration with a few road trips through U.S. history."
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01/24/2012
Ruba Katrib, associate curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, has been tapped by Long Island City’s SculptureCenter as its new curator.
from GalleristNY: "Ms. Katrib replaces Fionn Meade, whose tenure ended last year; she starts work Feb. 15. (Artists, begin lobbying for studio visits now.) At MOCA, North Miami, Ms. Katrib organized solo exhibitions with Cory Arcangel and French duo Claire Fontaine, as well as starting “performance and workshop programs.” She’s now at work on a conference to toast the 20th anniversary of Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies, from which she holds a master’s."
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01/23/2012
We are pleased to announce the Art Practical Mail Art Subscription project. Subscribers will receive a piece of correspondence from each of six artists, starting in March 2012.
We invite you to subscribe to Art Practical’s Mail Art Subscription, which will be produced in a limited edition of 150 offset prints for each artist; subscribers will receive a print, a copy of the referenced article, and an addressed postcard once a month for six months, (March to August 2012) for a total of six installments of Mail Art.
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01/23/2012
"Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival's Library Center Theatre and inspired a rare standing ovation and a general activist fervor at the Utah film gathering.
from the Los Angeles Times: "Directed by newcomer Alison Klayman, a freelance journalist in her 20s who spent years with the artist, the movie is a hybrid talking-head/fly-on-the-wall documentary that draws a portrait of a surprisingly accessible political icon...In one of the film’s numerous scenes of defiance, Ai describes his motivation for his art and his statements. 'If you don't publicize it, it's like it never happened,' he said."
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01/20/2012
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has launched the first phase of a digital archive of materials relating to twentieth-century Latino art.
from the Associated Press: "The archive launched by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Thursday evening is made up of artists' writings, letters, and other unpublished materials, in addition to texts published in newspapers and period journals. By Friday, the archive will be available for free to the public. The phased launch over several years begins with 2,500 documents from Argentina, Mexico and the American Midwest. It will eventually include 10,000 materials."
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01/20/2012
Larry Gagosian is being sued for more than $14 million for allegedly selling two works of art that some claim he had no right to sell.
from the New York Post: "Gagosian has paid British collector Robert Wylde a $4.4 million settlement for selling him Mark Tansey’s $2.5 million “The Innocent Eye Test” in 2009, which Wylde later discovered was owned by Jan Cowles and had been promised to the Met. Now Gagosian is being sued by Cowles, 93."
