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Slideshow: W Magazine and P&G Prestige Present "The Ever Changing Face of Beauty" by Solve Sundsbo


MOCA Will Launch "A Tribute to Mike Kelley" This Weekend, Celebrating the Late Artist's Contributions to L.A.

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MOCA Will Launch "A Tribute to Mike Kelley" This Weekend, Celebrating the Late Artist's Contributions to L.A.
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The first exhibition of Mike Kelley's work since his tragic death on February 1 will open this Saturday at MOCA in Los Angeles. Titled "A Tribute to Mike Kelley," the exhibition will feature 23 of the 34 works by the artist in the museum's permanent collection. “Mike Kelley has had an immense influence on the art and artists of Los Angeles, and the community has been greatly enriched by his exhibitions and his work as an artist, musician, critic, curator, and art historian,” MOCA's chief curator Paul Schimmel said in a statement. “Mike had a profound impact on the world’s perception of Los Angeles art and artists. He was an intellectual force of nature, a real catalyst for a whole generation of artists.”

The quickly organized show will also feature works that Kelley donated to MOCA, including pieces by John Altoon, Cody Choi, Douglas Huebler, William Leavitt, Marnie Weber, and Johanna Went. Among the artist's own works on view are portions of his breakout performance and installation "Monkey Island" (1982-3), a sexually charged, multi-pronged work featuring inflatable bladders and monkey drawings inspired by a trip to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Kelley has been included in more than 20 permanent collection installations at the museum, and his work was among the first to be acquired by MOCA in its early years. His centrality to the Los Angeles art community was canonized in the legendary exhibition "Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s" and, more recently, in the Pacific Standard Time-affiliated show "Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981." He even once tried his hand at curating for MOCA, organizing an exhibition on the photographs of Diane Arbus in 2004.

Those looking to revisit Kelley's work outside of Los Angeles will have ample opportunities in the coming months. Three documentary films chronicling the project "Mobile Homestead," an unfinished replica of the artist's childhood home outside Detroit, will be featured in the 2012 Whitney Biennial in March. A retrospective of Kelley's work is also currently being organized by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It will travel to MOCA in 2014.

Array

Alex Katz and Kara Walker Joined the "Ungovernable" Artists at Their Raucous New Museum Opening

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Alex Katz and Kara Walker Joined the "Ungovernable" Artists at Their Raucous New Museum Opening
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Unruly crowds packed the opening of the New Museum’s “The Ungovernables” triennial last night, padded by the sheer number of artists participating in the show. A good portion of the 50-plus participants made appearances over the course of the evening, lending an atmosphere of well-heeled international hipsterdom to the human crush of the lobby and gallery floors.  

The event was an artist’s art opening, with appearances from Kara Walker, Alex Katz, and Emily Roysdon, as well as museum-opening stalwart Klaus Biesenbach, New Museum director Lisa Dennison, and Studio Museum director Thelma Golden. Adroit triennial curator Eungie Joo was seen attending to her flock of artists, chatting with the Brazilian conceptualist Jonathas de Andrade, trans artist Wu Tsang (in a striking off-the-shoulder number), and American Julia Dault, whose reflective skirt matched the sheen of her sculptures on the third floor.

When festivities ceased promptly at 10, a few lucky visitors braved the coat check line and headed to an after party under the glittering gold ceiling of the Standard Hotel’s aerie-like Top of the Standard party room. (And stragglers who hung around after the New Museum’s booking ended were met with a surprise appearance by burlesque wonder Dita Von Teese, proving that New York night life truly is ungovernable, or at least unpredictable.) 

Click on the slide show for a selection of photos from "The Ungovernables" opening.

 

Sale of the Week, February 19-25: The Milhous Collection of Mechanical Whimsy

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Sale of the Week, February 19-25: The Milhous Collection of Mechanical Whimsy
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RM Auctions Carousel from Milhous Collection

SALE: The Milhous Collection at RM Auctions and Sotheby's

LOCATION: Boca Raton, Florida

DATES: February 24-25

ABOUT: The opportunity to purchase a colorful 46-foot carousel, a peanut and popcorn wagon circa 1910, and a 1947 "Wizzer" motorbike all in one place doesn't come around often. Next week, RM Auctions and Sotheby's will offer the many whimsical masterpieces collected over the course of the last half-century by Paul and Ron Milhous in Boca Raton, Florida. The brothers — distant relatives of former president Richard Milhous Nixon — are clearing out their private museum, reportedly after their wives requested they not "leave this burden to us," according to the Scranton Times Leader.

The Milhous Museum was an accident — it came into being after the duo's "lifelong interest and fascination with mechanicals" outgrew their homes, garages, and a few other locations, forcing them to acquire a 39,500 square-foot space in Boca Raton (although they kept it private and only rarely opened it to the public for special events).

The collection, estimated to fetch $40 million, is a grab bag of motorized drollery with a particular focus on musical instruments (a favorite of Paul's) and classic cars (more Ron's stlye). Visually, the most dramatic piece going under the hammer is the custom-built carousel with 42 animals, two chariots, stained-glass depictions of the Eight Wonders of the World, and a Wurlitzer 153 band organ — it's valued at $1-1.5 million. The classic cars include several of the most sought-after models from the 1930s, as well as the only known surviving 1912 Oldsmobile Limited Five-Passenger Touring (est. $1.4-1.6 million). Among the most impressive musical instruments are two very rare vintage fairground organs. Estimated at $850,000-1.2 million is a restored Gavoli 110-key organ, which can represent over 100 musicians playing, and no less impressive is the German-made Ruth Style 38-B organ by Ruth & Söhne — one of only two known to exist — which dates from 1903 (est. $1-1.2 million).

OTHER INTERNATIONAL SALES:

Sale: Fine and Rare Wines Featuring an Outstanding Single Owner Collection
Location: Christie's London
Date: February 23, 10:30 a.m.

Sale: Fine and Rare Wines
Location: Bonhams New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco
Date: February 25, 1 p.m.

Sale: Fine and Rare Wines
Location: Sotheby's New York
Date: February 25, 10 a.m.

 

Norman Foster Plans a "Wave-Like" Art Museum For India — If the Government Can Afford Him

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Norman Foster Plans a "Wave-Like" Art Museum For India — If the Government Can Afford Him
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Foster + Partners has just been chosen by an international jury, which included Indian artist Subodh Gupta and V&A director Martin Roth, to build a revision of the Patna Museum, an aging remnant of India’s British colonial days in the country’s northern state of Bihar. The current home of local historical artifacts will be replaced by a new £45 million ($70 million) building, the Art Newspaper reported. (There is some irony that India has picked England's most famous contemporary architect to restore the glory of the colonial architecture.)

We don’t have images of Foster’s design yet, but it’s been described as having “an irregular, wave-like roof, with dozens of mature trees piercing through the structure” that would act as a canopy to the building complex below. To tout the museum’s collection of archaeological artifacts, textiles, instruments and sculptures — the most prominent being the iconic Didarganj Yakshi, a voluptuous, third-century B.C. life-sized woman discovered in 1917 on the Ganges riverbank —  the new museum will include nine thematic galleries covering the 15th century and earlier; four devoted to Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and tribal art; and three devoted to its collection of coins, paintings, and terracotta.

Although Foster came out on top of a formidable shortlist that included Daniel Libeskind, Oslo’s Snøhetta, and Vienna’s Coop Himmelblau, Foster has one serious disadvange — his own hefty fees. Coming in second was Tokyo’s Maki architects, headed by Pritzker Prize-winning former Metabolist Fumihiko Maki, the man who brought us the brilliant glass of MIT's Media Lab, and who has World Trade Center 4 and the UN addition coming down the pipeline in New York.

The new Patna Museum is slated for completion in 2015. 

 

Why Red State Republicans Should Back Obama's NEA Budget Boost (Even Though They Won't)

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Why Red State Republicans Should Back Obama's NEA Budget Boost (Even Though They Won't)
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NEA Budget

On Tuesday, President Obama announced his 2013 budget proposal, which included $154 million for the National Endowment for the Arts — that's $0.49 per person in the United States, or less than the amount of income tax you will be paying on the money you made while reading this article at work. That request would top the 2012 NEA budget by $8 million, returning it to its 2010 level. However, the request is a largely symbolic figure, as it's almost assuredly going to be cut down by congressional negotiations in the coming months as the election campaign year heats up. After all, as per the Constitution, the "President's budget" is just a politicized suggestion; Congress has the power of the purse.

Unfortunately the NEA, which last year had an annual budget of less than half of the daily cost of the Afghanistan war, is a highly charged political scapegoat that gets brought up with notorious frequency despite its relatively tiny size. Art is controversial. Who really wants to argue about bloated budgets for private security contractors in Baghdad when you can go on the Sunday shows and rant about the "anti-Christian bigotry" of Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" instead?

But highly controversial, politicized art is not the bread and butter of the government institution — rather, it is a lean institution that spreads out funds among various small towns across America, and most of the art it supports is relatively banal. Ronald Reagan first suggested abolishing the NEA in the 1980s (which, incidentally, was the high-water point for funding). But it was the '90s that really did in the institution. As speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich painted a picture of a wasteful, elitist, unnecessary Big Government entity and almost succeeded in getting rid of it. It emerged from the Contract for America fundamentally changed. Its budget was slashed by 45 percent in 1996, and fund increases since have only kept up with inflation.

It isn't surprising that someone like myself, an urban elitist with a liberal arts degree and a career in the art world, is out to defend the NEA. But not because I think it helps me, or anyone around me. The Chelsea gallery scene would muddle along just fine if the NEA faded into oblivion.

These days, it's really the people outside of urban areas — America's heartland, if you will — who should be concerned. This country's major museums, concentrated in cities where there are groups of people who actually list their profession as "philanthropist," are supported by private donors and gigantic tax-breaks (the Republican-preferred way to support the arts). They have budgets that stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars and are largely beholden to the intellectual and financial urban elite. By contrast, the NEA gives comparatively tiny grants (generally $5,000-500,000) to small-town arts institutions that support culture for America's rural and suburban populations who, polling data suggests, tend to vote for the people who want to abolish the NEA.

So, you might ask, what's the matter with Kansas? Go back and read the Q&A we did with former head of Kansas's Arts Commission Henry Schwaller last year when governor Sam Brownback eliminated the organization, making the state ineligable for NEA funds, and you will get a sense of what arts mean for the heartland. "There's a small community in the southwest portion of the state, a tiny town near Dodge City, and its arts center is the community center," Schwaller told ARTINFO, by way of example. "People go there — little old ladies go there to paint watercolors, but they also go there on the holidays to wrap Christmas gifts for service members in Iraq or needy children, and they gather there for coffee and other things, and that's what the arts centers across Kansas do." How un-American.

When he took the reins, the new, Senate-confirmed head of the NEA Rocco Landesman fought to direct funding toward good art, rather than basing funding on a simple geographic distribution criteria. But in 2011 his NEA also launched a new program called "Our Town" to support community projects utilizing "local creative assets." Last year, "Our Town" gave $100,000 to fund the redesign of public spaces, channeling resources, for instances, to the artistic promotion of the "tri-cultural heritage" of the small town of Ajo, Arizona. Elsewhere, a $50,000 grant helped support a new master plan — including future support of local artists — for green space in the town square in Burlington, Vermont. In total, the NEA attempts to give out at least one grant per congressional district, from Maine to California to Alaska, every year, and supports thousands of performances, exhibitions, and artist residencies in places that don't necessarily have access to other forms of private support.

To sum up: In general, the average American voter is much more likely to benefit from a $50,000 NEA program, for which they contributed $0.50, than from the new $60 million plaza that David Koch is funding at the Met steps away from his palatial Park Avenue apartment. That is, of course, if the New York museum's Upper East Side neighbors (and benefactors, no doubt) don't succeed in their plan to keep the plebeians from "hanging out" in front of the museum. It's just too bad the average taxpayer doesn’t have the money to buy political clout.

Slideshow: Highlights from Rodarte Fall/Winter 2012

The Virgin Curator: Marilyn Minter on Her Show for Maurizio Cattelan’s Experimental New Gallery

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The Virgin Curator: Marilyn Minter on Her Show for Maurizio Cattelan’s Experimental New Gallery
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Superstar artist Maurizio Cattelan is not quitting art, as he recently declared. He’s just changing his job description. With the help of a constellation of forces including his curator friend and longtime collaborator Massimiliano Gioni, the Bard Curatorial Center, and the Anna Kustera gallery, Cattelan is set to launch Family Business, a non-profit art space that opens tomorrow night. The very idea is enough to pique the interest of any contemporary art lover — Gioni and Cattelan previously made waves with their miniature Wrong Gallery experiment, an itty-bitty art space that has cast a long shadow.

The debut show at Family Business is “The Virgins,” a group exhibition curated by veteran painter Marilyn Minter that highlights some unknown names — artists who have never before appeared in a New York City gallery show (hence the “virgins” moniker). These young guns include Andrew Brischler, David Mramor, and Rebecca Ward, as well as the art world's answer to YouTube stardom, Hennessy Youngman. The crew also incorporates a few “born-again” virgins like Laurel Nakadate and Mika Rottenberg.

As for the aesthetics of the show, “The Virgins” appears to go after a trend that Minter has noticed in young artists (check out the invitation preview video for a taste): the “New Casualist” embrace of sloppy, slacker abstraction, a term explored by writer and painter Sharon Butler in the Brooklyn Rail last year. Under the marquee of Family Business's big backers, this offhanded new abstraction might be due for a splash of the art-world spotlight.

ARTINFO got in touch with Minter in the midst of installing “The Virgins,” asking how the show came together, and what the Family Business experience has been like so far.

What's it been like working with Gioni and Cattelan? How did they explain the project, and what did they expect of you in curating a show?

Gioni and Cattelan have been great. They gave me full control until I run out of ideas or time. Cattelan explained the project as an altruistic gesture, giving artists a free place to express themselves. He pays rent and electricity and supplies interns to attend the space. It’s a pretty cool way to give back.

I was sitting next to Maurizio at a dinner, and since he was "retiring,” I suggested he might want to start teaching. A month later he asked me to curate a show. I think they expect artists to use the space as a laboratory, to go with the flow — it’s a place right next to Gagosian gallery to experiment.

Why did you choose to feature artists who had never shown in New York before?

I love to teach. After many years of not seeing very much painting in the graduate school programs, all of a sudden I started to notice a trend this year. I've been saying that if Mary Heilmann had a threesome with Martin Kippenberger and Blinky Palermo, this art would be the result. And I noticed this at two different schools — it's something out of a collective unconscious. The idea fell into my lap.

It's a virgin space with kids who have never shown before, and I am sort of a "virgin curator.” We asked the band The Virgins to play in the space at the opening, and they said yes. It just made sense to call it “The Virgins.” Plus, I had never written a press release before.

You also include some “born-again” virgins. Why show the first works of already established artists like Laurel Nakadate and Mika Rottenberg?

Since the space is so small, one can see the whole show without entering the building. I wanted to have something on a screen that could run 24/7. I love all these artists’ work. Some of them are former students of mine. I asked them if they would become "born-again virgins" for the length of the exhibition and show the first video works they ever made. It’s an excuse to show work night and day. 

Hennessy Youngman is a late addition to the roster. How did you hear about his work?

Hah! How do you not know his videos? They are hysterical! I realized that I have never seen his work in a New York gallery. I got in touch with him and he made a new video, so this will be his New York debut, as a virgin! He has a great idea for the space, too. It will be a nice surprise in April!

Family Business is located in a pop-up space sectioned off from Anna Kustera gallery, at 520 West 21st Street. "The Virgins" opens this Thursday, February 16. 

by Kyle Chayka,Contemporary Arts

Slideshow: Top Lots from Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Auction

Meta-Mourning: Were We Truly Grieving Whitney Houston?

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Meta-Mourning: Were We Truly Grieving Whitney Houston?
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“Is Whitney Houston really dead?” This Tweet — the very first word of Houston’s death online, and possibly in any media — expressed little more than disbelief, and was shared exactly three times. The news, reactions, and rememberances went Big Bang from there; by the time the Grammys rolled around, there was a whole universe, from black holes to inhabitable planets, of Houston sharing. The nature of this universe’s growth — and indeed, its very existence — raises some philosophical-type questions.

In a thought-provoking piece replete with graphs (Twitter trends) and historical context (Victorian era), Atlantic writer Megan Garber asks why the public now cycles so quickly through its grief.

We've had our allotted phase for re-watching the national anthem video and remembering that scene from The Bodyguard and reminiscing about our first cassette singles of "So Emotional" — but that phase has been quick, and the quickness has been carved not by cultural agreement, but by our abbreviated attention spans. We talk a lot about the sped-up news cycle — the new news, with its new metabolism — and its effect on the way we relate to information. What we talk less about is how the new speed of the news cycle is changing the way we relate to each other, culturally. Impatience is becoming the dominant emotion of the discursive Internet. We want our conversation fodder fresh, exciting, and yesterday.

In other words, cultural agreement — the mourning rituals of, say, the late-1800s England — has given way to a free-for-all of instant, quick-evaporating reaction. Garber suggests that the dead therefore get short shrift.

Tablet’s Liel Liebovitz says we shouldn’t mourn in this way at all. Or at least, not without a pause, an approach he bases on the teachings of one Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik:

While we usually think Judaism’s chief edict when it comes to grieving is shiva — the communal congregation at the home of the deceased for the benefit of the surviving family — the eminent Orthodox thinker reminds us that Jewish bereavement has two stages. Before we get to aveilut, or mourning, we have to go through aninut, or acute mourning, the period between first receiving the bad news and completing the funeral rites.

Such mad sorrow, Judaism teaches us, such impotent rage, is not only permissible but normal … To that end, friends and family members are discouraged from offering their condolences until the deceased is buried. “Do not console a person whose deceased relative lies before him,” Pirkei Avot, the compilation of rabbinical wisdom and teachings, commands us. Cool J should’ve listened.

(By “Cool J,” Liebovitz means LL Cool J, who started the Grammys with a prayer for Houston.)

But Cool J, of course, was mourning not in private but on TV, his words broadcast and tweeted in real time and recounted on scores of blogs. And he was speaking a day after Houston’s demise, by which time the pop legend had been the subject of hundreds of tributes and obituaries on the Internet. We socially mediated moderns have no time for aninut. Death excites us to comment, publicly and immediately, even if what we have to say is not a howl of horror but a muted murmur, drained of warmth and meaning.

Liebovitz ends, hilariously, by suggesting that the internet just shut up: “So, until we can figure out how to speak about Whitney Houston’s death with distance and depth and insight, let us observe this period of aninut and say nothing more.”

Part of us wants to applaud this bold suggestion. So many people shared so much about Houston so soon that fatigue set in almost immediately. The sharing was so widespread that it felt rote, and that will be especially true in retrospect, once no one says anything about her unless it’s connected to new gossip. But it’s nice to have an excuse to revisit favorite songs, maybe discover an artist you didn’t know, and really unpack someone’s legacy.  You can’t argue that Houston wasn’t given her due, that virtually everything that needed to be said (and many things that didn’t) was offered up in her memory.

Both Garber and Liebovitz miss something central about the Houston phenomenon: It’s not mourning. People were surely saddened by her death. But processing that death is nothing like processing the death of someone you actually know. Commenters on her passing observed — or flouted — the conventions of mourning, because language as it is propogated in the media still mimics interpersonal exchange. But they were offering condolences to a void, as if everyone were searching for the receiving line at a wake and, finding none, instead turned to each other to shake hands and hug. (It is a similar search that led people to leave flowers outside of Apple stores following Steve Jobs’ death.)

Houston’s family and friends were surely moved to see the outpouring over her death. But what all those gestures really spoke to was the discovery, however fleeting, of a common ground in an increasingly fragmented world of cultural exchange. It’s a similar impulse that sparks Twitter trends whenever a more minor celebrity dies — a group of people basically recognize each other for being aware of the same person, and for noticing news of their passing. What’s being called mourning here is in some ways a simple celebration of a celebrity. But more than anything, it is a hunt for connection between non-celebrities.

Slideshow: Jacques Villon exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Angers, France

Sotheby's Contemporary Sale Soars to $80 Million in London, Driven by Gerhard Richter Fever

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Sotheby's Contemporary Sale Soars to $80 Million in London, Driven by Gerhard Richter Fever
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LONDON — Stoked by a half-dozen Gerhard Richter paintings chased by an international cast of hungry bidders, the contemporary art market maintained its surging pace at Sotheby’s tonight, realizing £50,688,450 ($79,672,106). 

The tally clipped pre-sale expectations of £34.5-48 million ($54.2-75.5 million), and improved on last February's £44.3-48 million ($71 million). Only six of the 63 lots offered failed to find buyers for a slim buy-in rate by lot of 9.5 percent and five percent by value. Nine lots sold for over a million pounds and 21 over one million dollars. Two artist records were set, both by German artists, Albert Oehlen and A.R. Penck.

The quick tempo sale, navigated by auctioneer Tobias Meyer, motored along at autobahn speeds as Andreas Gursky’s “James Bond Island I” (2007), from an edition of five, sold to Bona Montagu of London’s Simon Dickinson Gallery for £713,250 ($1.1 million) (est. £300-400,000). “My clients are delighted,” said Bona, who beat out five other bidders. “It’s quite an iconic piece."

European works by classic Postwar artists were in keen demand as Yves Klein’s “ANT 59” (1960), a pigment in synthetic resin on paper laid down on canvas and bearing the unmistakable imprint of a woman’s body sold to a telephone bidder for £937,250 ($1.5 million) (est. £450-650,000). It last sold at Sotheby’s London in June 2009 for £457,250 ($751,314). Doubling its value in 32 months is a sure sign of a market recovery.

Another Klein, “F130,” one of the artist’s so-called fire paintings, blow-torched in charred pasteboard on wood panel from circa 1961, sold to Zurich dealer Mathias Rastorfer of Galerie Gmurzynska for £253,250 ($398,058) (est. £250-350,000). “These were OK paintings,” said Rastorfer, who also was an underbidder for “ANT 59,” “but not outstanding ones. You’ll definitely be seeing greater Kleins coming out.”

Italian artists were also drawing intense interest as Alberto Burri’s “Nero Plastica” (1965), comprised of artfully burned jet black plastic on canvas, sold to London’s Helly Nahmad Gallery for £2 million ($3.2 million) (est. £800,000-1.2 million). At least four other bidders chased the Burri, another strong signal of a market hungry for good material.

Another Burri abstraction, lot 18, “Composizione” (1952), in oil and mixed media on fabric and canvas sold to Milan’s Galeria Tega for £481,250 ($756,429) (est. £400-500,000). “I bought it for a client,” said Giulia Tega, “and it looks like there are new buyers from all over the world. Europe is very quiet right now,” opined the dealer, “and the U.S. and the Far East are more active.”

Though Sotheby’s doesn’t provide geographic breakdowns on buyers in percentage terms, the house did reveal that buyers came from 20 different countries, but without identifying which ones. Still, the appearance of two Zao Wou-ki abstract landscapes in London indicated the probability of strong Asian interest as “28.12.99” (1999), close in temperament to a tranquil AbEx-styled painting, sold to an anonymous telephone bidder £1.8 million ($2.9 million) (est. £500-700,000).

Zao Wou-ki’s “10.01.91” (1991) — the system of titling is similar to On Kawara — sold to another telephone bidder for £1.6 million ($2.5 million) (est. £600-800,000). For comparison sake, a painting by the artist sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong last October for a record $8.8 million.

But the serious money tonight was largely reserved for Gerhard Richter, who one could say is the most bankable living artist on the planet right now. There were a half dozen of his paintings on offer, overwhelmingly in the abstract mode, though “Ice (Eis)” (1981), a heavily romantic and Caspar David Friedrich-like photo-based painting of icebergs sold to a telephone bidder for £4.3 million ($6.8 million) (est. £2-3 million). At least five bidders chased the compact trophy. It certainly doesn’t hurt the Richter market that his traveling retrospective that began at Tate Modern last year is still on the road (in Germany). For whatever reason, Richters of every stripe and price find a buyer.

Richter’s gray-and-white-hued “Abstraktes Bild (768-4)” (1992), resembling a vertical forest of birch trees, sold to another telephone bidder for the evening's top lot price of £4.9 million ($7.6 million) (est. £3-4 million). Altogether, the half dozen Richters brought a whopping £17.6 million ($27.7 million), compared to the high estimate of the grouping, which had the paintings topping out at £14.8 million.

“If there are two artists who are hot in my book,” ventured New York dealer Christophe van de Weghe as he strode out of the salesroom, “they are Basquiat and Richter. That’s what appeals to young collectors today.”

Van de Weghe was referring to the strong performance of a good but not great Basquiat painting, “Orange Sports Figure” (1982), an early, prime work in acrylic, oil stick and spray paint on canvas, depicting in part a grinning head and a suspended baseball. It sold to a telephone bidder for a little more than £4 million ($6.4 milliom) (est. £3-4 million). According to Sotheby’s, the artist’s signature and date are scrawled on the bottom right-hand side of the canvas in invisible ink.

Two other Basquiats were offered, including “Tuxedo” (1983), a large-scaled editioned piece of 10, executed in silkscreen on canvas and comprising a lexicon of the artist’s favorite words and anatomy classifications, sold for a jumbo priced £724,450 ($1.1 million) (est. £ 250-350,000).

Although Sotheby’s had no true blockbuster to match the luscious Francis Bacon nude that sold for $33.4 million at Christie’s Tuesday evening — the most expensive trophy so far this season — it did offer an early and quirky example. Bacon's “Figure with Monkey” (1951), a small-scaled work by the artist's standards at 26 by 22 inches, featuring a man seemingly trying to feed a rather ferocious monkey through the grill of a zoo fence, sold to a sole telephone bidder for £1.8 million ($2.9 million) (est. £1.8-2.5 million). Though the Bacon was more curiosity than masterpiece, it still did better than a small group of Lucian Freud drawings from a single, anonymous owner.

Of the six Freuds, the jowly close-up of “Lord Goodman,” the artist’s one-time solicitor, in charcoal on paper from 1985 sold to London dealer Matthew Green of the Richard Green Gallery for a toppy £735,650 ($1.2 million) (est. £400-600,000). A charcoal-and-crayon “Head of Success II” (1983), depicting a bridled racehorse, sold to Acquavella Galleries, the late artist’s dealer, for £253,250 ($398,058) (est. £100-150,000). “The Freud market remains very strong,” said Saville Row dealer Pilar Ordovas, who underbid Freud’s Lord Goodman, "but it’s selective for quality, which is a healthy sign.”

The evening finale takes place at Phillips de Pury on Thursday.

To see a selection of lots from Sotheby's London's contemporary sale, click on the slide show.

by Judd Tully,Auctions

Move Over Tiffany! French Designers Craft Jiggly Jell-O Lamps

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Move Over Tiffany! French Designers Craft Jiggly Jell-O Lamps
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Le Creative Sweatshop's Jell-O Lamp

Crêpes. Macarons. Crème brûlée. Kwah-sonts. The French have long been the arbiters of the world’s best desserts, and now Paris-based Le Creative Sweatshop (comprised of Julien Morin and Mathieu Missiaen) has made its own improvements on Jell-O, the old American standard. The duo has taken advantage of the nursing home staple's transparency, which diffuses light in such a way that lends itself perfectly to creating luminous, candy-colored sculptures.

"The idea came when I was eating Teddy Bear candy and I saw the light through it," Missiaen told ARTINFO. By sticking light fixtures into molds they later filled with gelatin, they created ephemeral  modernist lamps that lasted just long enough to be photographed. The jiggly pieces are gorgeous enough to eat, although we don't recommend it. As delicious-looking as they are, those strawberry and blue raspberry tints come from ink — perhaps not so far off from the chemicals that go into real Jell-O, but we'd avoid ingesting it all the same. 

To see more of Le Creative Sweatshops gummi light fixtures, click the slide show

 

Slideshow: Highlights from Milly Fall/Winter 2012

Damien Hirst's Latest (and Greatest?) Scheme: Saving the World Through Eco-Architecture

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Damien Hirst's Latest (and Greatest?) Scheme: Saving the World Through Eco-Architecture
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Damien Hirst

Can Damien Hirst use his media savvy and sprawling, globe-spanning ambitions — recently on view in his critically reviled "Spot Painting" show at Gagosian gallery — for good? The former Young British Artist has just unveiled his newest endeavor: He wants to build 500 eco-friendly houses in the town of Ilfracombe, Devon, to serve (in his eyes) as an example for the rest of the nation. Much like his spot paintings, the eco homes are the product of his vision, but the technical specs will be carried out by others, including architect Mike Rundell.

"He wants these houses to be the kind of homes he would want to live in," Rundell announced last week, the Telegraph reports. What does this mean? Sustainable luxury flourishes like rooftop wind turbines, solar panels, and the most technologically advanced methods of insulation. He has made it clear the development wasn’t going to be a “retirement home” community, either. "We want these houses to attract young, creative families as well as people who already live here,” the architect added. (Likely on the wealthier side, it would seem.)

Hirst has lived in Ilfracombe, a seaside resort town (and one-time home of Joan and Jackie Collins) in the North of England, where he already owns a restaurant, studio, and other properties, for several years. The houses would be built on land at Winsham Farm, which Hirst already owns 40 percent of.  

As of now, the artist and his team have tentative plans to submit their application by this summer and break ground in early 2013. "If we are committed to doing this as Damien wants it, it will happen,” said Rundell. “Damien is a man who gets things done."

 

 

by Janelle Zara,Architecture & Design

App Art: David Shrigley's "Light Switch" Takes a Swipe at Conceptual Art on the iPhone

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App Art: David Shrigley's "Light Switch" Takes a Swipe at Conceptual Art on the iPhone
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The latest hot promo for art shows everywhere? Bespoke smartphone apps. The latest example is British artist David Shrigley’s downloadable bit of whimsy for his exhibition “Brain Activity” at the London Southbank Centre’s Hayward gallery, which is so infuriatingly simple in its conception that it must be art: Players control an animated hand that pokes at a light switch. As the switch alternates, the player’s screen goes black, as if the lights had gone off on your phone. A counter in the top left marks the number of times the light gets flipped. ARTINFO has done so 220 times. We’re not sure why.

There is no visible incentive to hit the switch. Shrigley’s animation is cute, and the way the disembodied hand becomes impatient when a player stalls is eerily disturbing and fairly entertaining. But the real meat of the app is in its implied riff on his fellow artists, in this case Scottish artist Martin Creed’s 2001 Turner-Prize-winning piece “The Lights Going On and Off,” which was composed entirely of two light bulbs installed in a bare gallery intermittently turning on and off. Shrigley one-ups that conceptual joke by turning the player into Creed’s absurd light-switcher, revisiting that work for our mobile and mediated age. 

App Grade: B+, for conceptual heft but no fun 

Cost: Free

David Shrigley's "Light Switch" app is available in the app store 

 

Slideshow: Highlights from Reed Krakoff Fall/Winter 2012

Slideshow: Top Lots from Phillips de Pury's Contemporary Art Evening Sale

Sinead O’Connor and Lil’ Kim Skirt the Love Conundrum

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Sinead O’Connor and Lil’ Kim Skirt the Love Conundrum
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Sinead O’Connor and Lil’ Kim might not seem to have much in common, other than a flair for offending churchgoers. Which neither of them has done in awhile; one of the more recent things they share is a certain downward career trajectory. (You need to be simulating exorcisms on the Grammys to turn the Catholic League’s head — more on Nicki Minaj later.) But both of them built those careers by defying expectations and using the full force of their often idiosyncratic personalities. And this week, they’ve both hinted at comebacks. Lil’ Kim very modestly, with the release of a new, Valentine’s Day-themed song, “If You Love Me”; and O’Connor, boldly, with an NPR stream of her brilliant, gorgeous new album, “How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?”

In her spot-on write-up of “How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?” (out next week), Ann Powers borrows some academic thinking to help explain O’Connor’s special power:

Here's a term that might not seem too musical: "immediacy behavior." Educators use it to describe the way a teacher acts to gain the trust of his or her students. Open body language, an engaging way of speaking, a warm, direct gaze — these cues, as much as any words uttered, forge the connection that makes learning possible. Immediacy behavior is crucial to making great pop music, too. Artists rely on it to get their points across. For some, it's an occasional stance, taken when the spotlight narrows and the spectacle falls away, as when Lady Gaga performs at her piano. Others make it the center of their creative process. It doesn't matter whether they're genuinely confessional or just good at weaving a story. We trust what they tell us … Immediacy behavior is Sinead O'Connor's métier.

Here we see O’Connor and Lil’ Kim in relief. Kim’s never been about warmth. If we had to name her métier, it would be standoffish sexuality — she is direct and in some ways (absurdly) intimate, but you never anticipate her full embrace. We’re thinking in particular of a song like “Not Tonight,” where she remembers “Jimmy, [who would] lay me on my back, bustin’ nuts all in me,” all as a way of setting up the chorus: “I don’t want dick tonight/Eat my pussy right.” That’s a rather literal example, but you get the idea.

Kim’s new song takes a softer tack, although the “if” in the title is a big one: The man to whom she’s offering her Valentine — and indeed, her dreams, of a family and a “house on a hill” — won’t say he loves her in front of anyone else. But what makes this track isn’t the conflict — that’s merely of a piece with Kim’s, you know, métier — or her rapping, which is muted, even half-hearted. The song is slick and compact, appealing in a “Drive” soundtrack sort of way, and while the rhymes may be lackluster, the whole package speaks of ease, even confidence. It helps — a lot — that she’s not attacking Nicki Minaj, whose new song, “Starships” (also released on Valentine’s Day), sounds almost desperately pop. (It changed our brain chemistry after the second listen, and now we love it.)

If Lil’ Kim has shown a little savvy, Sinead O’Connor is fully in herself, and the moment. So much so that a song like “4th and Vine,” a wedding ditty, seems to dare the future to go pear-shaped: “I’m gonna marry my love, and we’ll be happy for all time … we’re gonna have six children, and enough love for them,” she sings, effervescent world music cresting around her. If this is her way of positioning herself to once again offend those churchgoers, it’s one hell of a feint. (Although as Powers tells us, “Take Off Your Shoes” is a sort of message to the Vatican.) But make of it what you will — honestly, stream the album now if you aren’t already.

Slideshow: Alec Soth's "Broken Manual" exhibition at Sean Kelly Gallery

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