Displaying items by tag: Modern Art

The first thing you see in “Sturtevant: Double Trouble,” the Museum of Modern Art’s taut and feisty retrospective of the American artist Elaine Sturtevant, is work by artists far better known than Ms. Sturtevant herself.

Right at the start is the familiar 1972 photographic portrait of the German Conceptualist Joseph Beuys, in his porkpie hat and flak jacket, striding toward the camera. A bit farther on you’ll find Jasper Johns’s 1955 “Target With Four Faces,” a combination of painting, collage and sculpture and a MoMA treasure. Near it is Eliot Elisofon’s classic 1952 time-lapse photograph of Marcel Duchamp descending a staircase.

Berlin's art scene continues to grow. After over two years of controversy and political wrangling, the Bundestag's budget committee has approved €200 million for the construction of a new museum for modern art in Berlin, the DPA reports. The plan was confirmed by the SPD political party's budget expert Swen Schulz on Thursday. The new building is expected to open in 2021.

The confirmation brings an end to years of uncertainty first about whether Berlin would get approval to create its new museum at all, and later regarding who would pay for the creation of the institution (see "Will Private Sector Fund German MoMA?").

On Wednesday, November 12, Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York netted a whopping $852.9 million -- the highest-ever total for an auction. Filled with blue-chip works by modern masters, including Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, and Gerhard Richter, the sale soared past its estimate, which hovered around $600 million. Brett Gorvy, Chairman and International Head of Postwar and Contemporary Art at Christie’s, said, “This was a sale of extraordinary quality and range, with every major artist represented by at least one masterwork. The landmark sale result achieved tonight is a reflection of both growing global enthusiasm and demand in this category and a virtuous cycle of confidence in the art market that brings a fresh supply of exciting, high-quality works into the market with each new season.”

Jasper Johns’ seminal “Flag” painting sold for $36 million on Tuesday, November 11, at Sotheby’s Contemporary and Postwar Art sale in New York. The work, which carried a presale estimate of $15 million to $20 million, eclipsed the artist’s $28.6 million auction record, which was set by a different “Flag” painting at Christie’s in May 2010. The iconic encaustic was offered by Johns’ former studio assistant Mark Lancaster, who acquired the work directly from the artist in 1983, the year it was made.  

The Sotheby’s sale was anchored by the collection of Pierre Schlumberger, an aristocratic French oil-industry tycoon, and his beautiful Portuguese wife, São. Two of the most visionary collectors of the twentieth century, the Schlumbergers’ collection comprised over ninety modern and contemporary masterworks.

On Monday, November 10, Sotheby’s offered works from the collection of Rachel “Bunny” Mellon -- a gardening and design icon, an ardent philanthropist, and the wife of Paul Mellon, the heir to the Mellon banking fortune. The auction, which took place in New York, fetched a total of $158.7 million, far exceeding the sale’s presale estimate of $82.9 million to $120.1 million. All of the forty-three lots offered sold -- a testament to Mellon’s keen eye and impeccable taste. 

“Property from the Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon: Masterworks” presented a curated selection of fine art, ranging from seventeenth-century still lifes to masterpieces of the twentieth century.

A celebrated portrait of a Parisian actress by Edouard Manet set a new auction record for the artist Wednesday, during the second day of a major fall sale in New York of impressionist and modern art.

“Le Printemps,” or “Spring,” was sold at Christie’s Wednesday for $65 million, almost doubling the previous record of $33.2 million for the French impressionist.

It's not the sort of thing you generally see in a museum: a comfortable easy chair, a working TV set turned to an afternoon talk show on which "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" mom Kris Jenner is making salsa.

But this unlikely arrangement is, in fact, a work of art, on view as part of the Hammer Museum's Robert Heinecken retrospective, "Object Matter." The longtime L.A. artist, who passed away in 2006, was known for his pioneering use of found photographs in sculptural assemblages and vast wall installations. He was also known for undertaking guerrilla actions, such as surreptitiously printing images into new editions of "Time" magazine and then returning the copies to the newsstand. (San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art has an example.)

Sotheby’s got New York’s fall auctions off to a rollicking start with a sale of Impressionist and modern art on Tuesday that totaled $422.1 million, the highest in the 270-year-old company’s history.

Leading the charge was Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti’s 1951-52 bronze “Chariot”—depicting a finger-thin woman riding atop a chariot—that sold to a telephone bidder for $101 million.

This city may not have a reputation as being on the cutting edge of the international arts scene, but Melissa Chiu may be about to remedy that in her new role as director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

In her first interview since assuming her post a month ago, Ms. Chiu outlined a plan to develop the Hirshhorn, whose reputation rests largely on its collection of American and European modern and contemporary art, into more of a showcase for experimental and international works.

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, a vibrant modern and contemporary art museum in Buffalo, New York, is gearing up for its first expansion in over fifty years. Earlier this month, the 152-year-old institution announced that it will hold a series of meetings with its members and the public to help determine the size and scope of its eventual growth and development. The meetings, which will be followed by a series of focus groups, are slated to begin on October 27.

While Albright-Knox’s parent organization, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, was founded in 1862, construction on the Gallery didn’t begin until 1890. Designed by prominent local architect Edward B. Green and funded by Buffalo entrepreneur and philanthropist John J. Albright, the Greek Revival structure opened to the public in May 1905.