Displaying items by tag: Contemporary Art

The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. has organized several installations throughout the museum showcasing recent acquisitions alongside popular masterpieces and rarely exhibited works from its permanent collection. Divided among several intimate galleries, the installations are organized by theme, including sculpture, drawings, and portraiture.

Perpetual crowd-pleasers such as Edgar Degas’ “Dancers at the Barre,” Joan Miró’s “The Red Sun,” and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” will appear next to rarely seen works, including Jean-Honore Fragonard’s drawing “Odorico Kills Corebo and Sets Out in Pursuit of Isabella” and Pablo Picasso’s bronze sculpture “Head of a Woman,” promoting the rediscovery of treasures in the museum’s holdings. Showing support for established and emerging artists alike, recent acquisitions, including contemporary works by living artists, will be exhibited on the museum’s second floor.

Dr. Dorothy Kosinski, the Phillips Collection’s director, said, “The juxtaposition of provocative new additions with iconic European masterworks demonstrates the museum’s commitment to founder Duncan Phillips’s mission to create an ‘intimate museum combined with an experiment station.’”

The Phillips Collection plans to display a selection of new acquisitions throughout the spring and summer, with a rotation of artworks in May.

The 27th edition of The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) opened to the public on March 14 in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The show, which is widely regarded as the world’s leading art fair, brings together 275 of the finest art and antiques dealers from around the globe. Offerings include everything from Old Master paintings and antiquities to 20th century design and contemporary art.

This year’s show began with a V.I.P preview on Thursday, March 13, which saw a number of big-ticket sales. Galerie Odermatt-Vedovi (Paris) sold a mobile by Alexander Calder to a European collector for around $2.6 million and Van de Weghe Fine Art (New York) sold Pablo Picasso’s “Tete couronnee” in black crayon on paper to a Belgian collector for $485,000.

A number of important works are being offered at this year’s fair including Vincent van Gogh’s “Moulin de la Galette,” which will be exhibited by Dickinson (New York/London); a double portrait of Sir George Villiers and Lady Catherine Manners as Adonis and Venus by Sir Anthony van Dyck, which is being shown by David Koetser Gallery (Zurich); and three works by Damien Hirst, which are being offered by Tomasso Brothers Fine Art (London/Leeds).

TEFAF runs through March 23. 

On March 7, the Whitney Museum of American Art launched its 77th Whitney Biennial -- a highly-anticipated survey of the latest developments in American art. This will be the last Biennial in the Whitney’s building on Madison Avenue before the museum moves downtown to its new Renzo Piano-designed building in the spring of 2015.

The 2014 Whitney Biennial was co-curated by Stuart Comer, the Chief Curator of Media and Performance at the Museum of Modern Art, Anthony Elms, an Associate Curator at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art, and Michelle Grabner, an American artist and Professor in the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The curators have selected 103 participants that together, offer a sweeping view of contemporary art in the United States. Two Whitney curators, Jay Sanders and Elisabeth Sussman, both of whom organized the renowned 2012 Biennial, oversaw the process. 

Donna De Salvo, the Whitney’s Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs, said, “The 2014 Biennial brings together the findings of three curators with very distinct points of view. There is little overlap in the artists they have selected and yet there is common ground. This can be seen in their choice of artists working in interdisciplinary ways, artists working collectively, and artists from a variety of generations. Together, the 103 participants offer one of the broadest and most diverse takes on art in the United States that the Whitney has offered in many years.”

The 2014 Whitney Biennial will take place through May 25, 2014.

Two sisters of the late, New York City-based modern artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat, filed a $1 million lawsuit against Christie’s in Manhattan’s Federal District Court on Tuesday, March 4. Basquiat’s siblings claim that the auction house tried to sell possible fakes and falsely suggested that a number of the works had been authenticated by the estate.

The works in question are being offered by Alexis Adler, Basquiat’s former girlfriend and roommate, and include poems written on scrap paper, painted clothing, a sketchbook, prints, and collages. The suit states that six of the more than three dozen items being offered were authenticated by the estate in 2007, but one was rejected because the committee did not consider it a work of art. The other objects were never submitted for the authentication committee’s approval. The lawsuit states that despite bypassing the committee, Christie’s included a notice in the auction catalog that the works being offered had been copyrighted by the estate. Basquiat’s sisters are seeking a court order barring the auction house from using the estate’s name in the sale.

The Basquiat auction, which is being held online and at the auction house, began on Monday, March 2 and will run through Monday, March 17.

Basquiat, who rose to fame in the 1980s, died of a drug overdose in 1988. His graffiti-inspired Neo-expressionist and Primitivist paintings remain highly influential in the realm of contemporary art.

This March, the Museum of Modern Art in New York will present a selection of new works by the celebrated contemporary artist Jasper Johns. “Jasper Johns: Regrets” features approximately 30 works created by the artist in the last year and a half.

Johns, who emerged as a pioneering figure in American art in the late-1950s, is known for his exploration of iconography, especially flags, targets and numbers. Johns’ new series introduces a new motif -- the British painter Lucian Freud. Johns took a photograph of Freud sitting on a bed with his arm raised to obscure his face, and not only incorporated the image into his work, but also the physical qualities of the original black-and-white print, which had been torn and creased. The new series includes an array of mediums such as watercolor, pencil and ink-on-plastic.

“Jasper Johns: Regrets” will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art from March 15, 2014 through September 1, 2014.

Francis Bacon’s ‘Portrait of George Dyer Talking’ sold for $70 million at Christie’s evening auction of Post-War and Contemporary Art on February 13 in London. The painting, which was the sale’s top lot and achieved the highest price ever paid at auction for a single panel by the artist, was expected to fetch around $49 million. Bacon’s triptych of Lucian Freud, which sold for $142 million at Christie’s in New York in November 2013, remains the most expensive work by the artist ever sold at auction.

The 6’ by 6’ canvas depicting Bacon’s lover, George Dyer, was featured in the artist’s monumental retrospective at Paris’ Grand Palais in 1971. The exhibition opened just two days after Dyer was found dead in a French hotel room due to an alcohol and drug overdose. Despite their famously tumultuous relationship, Bacon painted portraits of Dyer almost obsessively both before and after his death.

The sale at Christie’s garnered $206,158,720 -- the second highest total for a European auction of Post-War and Contemporary art in history -- and sold 83% by lot and 95% by value. Other highlights included Gerhard Richter’s ‘Abstraktes Bild,’ one of the artist’s finest abstract works to appear at auction, which sold for $32.5 million; a sculpture by Jeff Koons titled ‘Cracked Egg (Magenta),’ which fetched $23.4 million; and Damien Hirst’s spot painting of Mickey Mouse titled ‘Mickey,’ which sold for $1.5 million.     

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas has acquired ‘Hanging Heart (Gold/Magenta)’, a nearly ten-foot wide metallic sculpture by the contemporary artist Jeff Koons. Weighing in at over 3,000 pounds, the mirror-polished stainless steel sculpture arrived via cargo flight and was transported to its spot in the museum using a specially designed trolley from Koons’ studio. Workers used a forklift to hoist the sculpture up and suspend it on a custom mount. ‘Hanging Heart’ is one of the largest works to be installed inside of the museum.

‘Hanging Heart’ is one of five unique versions created by Koons, each with a different transparent color coating. This particular iteration was the only one kept by the artist before being sold directly to Crystal Bridges in 2013. The ‘Hanging Heart’ sculptures are part of Koons’ ‘Celebration’ series, which began in 1994, and were meant to signify the various celebratory events of a lifetime.

‘Hanging Heart’ is mounted nine feet above the heads of diners in the museum’s restaurant, Eleven.

The opening date for the Broad, the contemporary art museum that will showcase Eli and Edythe Broad’s comprehensive collection, has been pushed back to 2015. The $140 million museum, which is being designed by the New York City-based studio, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, was initially slated to open at the end of this year but construction delays slowed progress.

The delay has given the museum, which will be located in downtown Los Angeles, time to develop plans for a restaurant and landscaped plaza. Diller Scofidio + Renfro have already finalized plans for the outdoor space while architects for the restaurant, which will be located next to the museum, have not yet been selected.

In 1984, lifelong philanthropists, Eli and Edythe Broad, founded the Broad Art Foundation, a lending library of contemporary artworks that have been loaned over 8,000 times to nearly 500 museums and galleries across the globe. The Broad, which will offer free admission, will serve as the headquarters for the Broad Art Foundation.

Museum officials plan to announce the Broad’s new opening date later this year. 

Sotheby’s announced that it has named Alexander Rotter and Cheyenne Westphal the new Global Heads of Contemporary Art. Tobias Meyer, the auction house’s former Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art, stepped down at the end of November 2013. Rotter and Westphal have both been with Sotheby’s for many years -- Rotter was behind the recent sale of Andy Warhol’s ‘Silver Car Crash,’ which brought a record $104 million, and Westphal helped launch Sotheby’s new contemporary art galleries in London.

Helena Newman and Simon Shaw will helm the auction house’s department of Impressionist and Modern Art. Newman, who joined Sotheby’s in 1988, was instrumental in the February 2010 auction that netted $263.6 million, a record for a European sale. Shaw, who has worked at Sotheby’s outposts in Stockholm, Paris and London, orchestrated the 2012 sale of Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream,’ which sold for an historic price of $119.9 million, a record for a modern work of art at auction.

Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund manager who is Sotheby’s largest shareholder, recently commented on the auction house’s need to establish new leadership and more efficient operations.

The American contemporary artist, Jasper Johns, testified in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday, January 23, saying that he never authorized foundry owner, Brian Ramnarine, to make a bronze copy of his Sculptmetal painting, ‘Flag.’ Johns had given Ramnarine a mold of the work in 1990 with instructions to make a single wax cast mold.

Prosecutors are trying to prove that Ramnarine, owner of the Empire Bronze Art Foundry in Long Island City, Queens, attempted to sell an unauthorized bronze sculpture of the painting in 2010. Johns stated in court that Ramnarine had never returned the original mold to him and that somebody later showed him a flag sculpture that he had never seen before, but he believed had been made from the mold in Ramnarine’s possession.

Ramnarine attempted to seek a buyer for the alleged Johns sculpture, telling interested parties that he was willing to sell the work for $11 million. Potential buyers were suspicious of Ramnarine as Johns had made only six ‘Flag’ sculptures and had kept several in his own possession (another is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago and another was given to President John F. Kennedy by the art dealer Leo Castelli). In an attempt to quell wariness, Ramnarine would provide interested parties with a letter said to be from Johns as well as a certificate of authenticity. Johns said he had nothing to do with either document.

Ramnarine has pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against him.