‘Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs’ Exhibition Opens at the Asia Society Museu

NEW YORK, NY.- Asia Society Museum presents an exhibition of 227 photographs taken by Ai Weiwei, capturing the history, culture, and atmosphere of 1980s New York from his unique perspective. The exhibition marks the first time Ai Weiwei’s New York Photographs series is being shown outside of China. Before Ai Weiwei became internationally recognized as an artist and activist, he lived in a tiny apartment in New York’s East Village, and was a prominent member of a community of expatriate [...]

Recent Paintings and Sculptures by Takashi Murakami at Gagosian in London

LONDON.- Gagosian Gallery presents recent paintings and sculptures by Takashi Murakami. In his distinctive “Superflat” style, which employs highly refined, traditional Japanese painting techniques and formats to depict a charged mix of historical subject matter, Pop, animé and otaku content within a flattened representational picture-plane, Murakami moves freely within an ever-expanding field of aesthetic issues and cultural inspirations. Parallel to his distinctive toonish formulations of utopian and dystopian themes, he has recollected and revitalized religious and secular narratives of transcendence [...]

Charismatic Art Historian James Fox Explores British Masters for New Series on BBC

LONDON.- In a major re-calibration of 20th-century British paintings, art historian James Fox argues that British painting from 1910 to 1975 was an extraordinary flowering of genius. He predicts that art historians of the future will rank the period alongside the Golden Ages of Renaissance Italy and Impressionist France. Drawing upon the work of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney, among others, Fox explores why, during the 20th century, British painters were often dismissed for [...]

Abstract Expressionism and Its Discontents at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Abstract Expressionism and its Discontents, a new installation at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) on view through August 28, 2011, revisits the post-World War II art movement to include artists historically not associated with Abstract Expressionism. When in 1946 New Yorker critic Robert Coates identified an expressive, gestural and subjective approach towards abstract painting in American art, he inadvertently gave the name to a style popularly known as “Abstract Expressionism.” Although it has come to describe [...]

Sotheby’s Establishes Highest Total for Any Sale of Contemporary Art Ever in London

LONDON.- This evening, Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Evening Sale brought the extraordinary total of £108,803,550 / $174,129,201 /€120,923,897 – in excess of pre-sale expectations (estimate: £74-105 million) and establishing the highest total ever achieved for any sale of Contemporary Art in London. Buyers from 14 countries participated in the auction, which achieved remarkable sell-through rates of 89.8% by lot and 93.9% by value and established five new artist records. Twenty-nine works sold for over £1 million, and 45 lots sold for [...]

Andrew Myers’ Screw Portraits

California-based artist Andrew Meyers drives thousands screws at various depths, creating unique 3D images. Once the screws are in at the correct depth, (from 7,000 to 10,000 holes by hand) he paints over each head individually to create the finished product,which looks more like a portrait than a sculpture.  

Record for a Sale of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings and Drawings at Sotheby’s

PARIS.- The final sale of the season at Sotheby’s Paris, devoted to Old Master & 19th Century Paintings & Drawings, yielded €7.6m – the highest total for a sale of Old Master & 19th Century Paintings & Drawings by Sotheby’s France to date, including three world records. Pierre Etienne, Head of the Old Master Paintings & Drawings Department, observed that ‘Today’s sale included many rediscovered or market-fresh works from 17th and 18th century France, consigned from European private collections like the [...]

Stencil Art by C215, aka Christian Guémy

C215, aka Christian Guémy, is a stencil artist based in Paris, France. He began spray painting in 2005, he has become extremely proficient at stenciling in the past five years. His interest in portraits has carried over from his childhood, when he was impressed by classic portraiture.

One of the Greatest Venetian View Paintings by Francesco Guardi to Lead Sotheby’s Sale

LONDON.- On 6th July 2011, Sotheby’s London Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale will offer a selection of newly discovered and important works of exceptional quality and rarity, many of which have remained in private collections for decades. Estimated to reach a total in excess of £31 million, the auction of 73 paintings, led by a monumental Venetian view painting by Francesco Guardi, will feature masterpiece works by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Correggio, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, John Constable, Giovanni [...]

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to Retain Ownership of Eglon van der Neer Painting

BOSTON, MA.- Research conducted by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), about the provenance, or history of ownership, of its painting Portrait of a Man and Woman in an Interior (1665–67) by Dutch artist Eglon van der Neer (1634–1703), has led to an agreement with the estate of German art dealer Walter Westfeld (1889–1945), enabling the MFA to retain ownership of the work. The Museum decided to reach a financial settlement for the painting with the estate after reviewing recent [...]

A Portrait of Holland: The Dutch Landscape in Art Since 1850 at De Hallen Haarlem

HAARLEM.- A green polder countryside with cows, ditches, farmhouses and windmills, boundless vistas, vibrant bulb fields and panoramic river and dune landscapes: every facet of the Dutch landscape can be seen this summer in the exhibition A Portrait of Holland – The Dutch Landscape in Art since 1850 in De Hallen Haarlem. More than a hundred and twenty paintings, watercolours, prints, photographs and films by Dutch artists like Anton Mauve, the Maris brothers, Piet Mondrian, Jan Toorop, Jan Sluijters, M.C. Escher, [...]

Christie’s to Sell Most Outstanding Group of Lucian Freud Drawings to Come to Auction

LONDON.- Christie’s will offer a selection of works from the collection of Kay Saatchi at the Post-War and Contemporary art auctions in London in June 2011. The collection features an outstanding and rare group of early works on paper by Lucian Freud, executed in the 1940s, Ron Mueck’s Big Baby, the first work in the artist’s catalogue raisonné and Paula Rego’s masterpiece, Looking Back. These works represent Ron Mueck, Big Baby, 1996 Lucian Freud, Rabbit on a chair, 1944 the [...]

Sotheby’s Auction Features Important Example of Miquel Barceló’s Bullfighting Paintings

LONDON.- The Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction taking place on 28th June 2011, will feature an exceptional range of works dating from the early Post-War period to the present day. Swirling with a dizzying, centrifugal energy across its expansive surface and beholden of the thick sculpted painterly surface which creates it, Faena de muleta is by far the largest and most important example of Miquel Barceló’s most celebrated series of bullfighting paintings ever to come to auction. Accentuating the [...]

Andy Warhol’s Portrait of Debbie Harry, A Highlight of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale

LONDON.- Selected as the cover image for the major survey of Warhol’s portraiture published by Phaidon in 2005, Debbie Harry, from 1980, is one of Warhol’s most accomplished portraits of celebrity. One of only four such portraits of the Blondie star in this rare 42 inches format, two of which are in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, this pink version has become one of the best recognized images in Warhol’s oeuvre and the definitive portrait of the 1980s style [...]

Released Chinese Artist-Activist Ai Weiwei’s Associates Freed After Ai’s Release

BEIJING (REUTERS).- Four associates of Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei detained along with him in a controversial case were freed after Ai’s release, friends of the artist said on Saturday. The four included journalist Wen Tao, detained along with Ai in early April when the two were at Beijing airport heading to Hong Kong, said Liu Yanping, a volunteer worker involved in Ai’s campaigning on rights issues. “All of the people connected to the case have been released,” Liu told Reuters [...]