Archive for the 'New Infos' Category
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Rubell Collection to Expand to D.C.
The recently sold Randall School building was purchased from the by the Rubells in partnership with the Telesis real estate firm from the Corcoran School and Museum. The joint venture will see the site developed into a new Rubell museum, a hotel, and private residencies. (Image via)
Famed Miami based collectors Don and Mira Rubell have just announced plans to open up a new museum in Wasington D.C. to showcase their ever expanding collection of contemporary art. The location will serve as a satellite to their Miami museum, and was purchased for $6.5 million from Corcoran College and Gallery of Art in partnership with real estate investment firm, Telesis. Part of the building will also be developed into a hotel and private residences.
This isn’t the Rubell’s first foray into the D.C. area. In 2002, the couple bought the Capitol Skyline Hotel. The seven story building was designed by their friend, architect Morris Lapidus, known for the Fontainebleau Hotel and other Miami Beach properties. Around the same time, they began focusing on D.C. artists. “The reason we even bothered to find a business [in D.C.] is that the art is amazing,” noted Mera Rubell in a December interview with Art in America. “A hotel is a natural place to create a kind of home. I want artists there—it’s exciting for my existence here whenever I’m here.”
(Image: Jenny Yang via Art in America)
The Corcoran is slated to host an exhibition organized by and culled from the Rubell’s collection. 30 Americans focuses on African American artists in the Rubell’s personal collection and was first on view at their private Miami museum in December of 2008. Last week, Tyler Green’s Modern Art Notes raised concern over the arrangement. Clarifying that works in the exhibit are owned by the Rubell family and not by their foundation, he notes:
“The last line of the Washington Post story on the deal is a classic case of burying the lede: “Officials said the exhibition is not related to the sale.” Really? When an art-museum-and-school is preparing to exhibit a family’s private collection at the same time it is cutting a real estate deal with the owners of that collection (and curator(s) of the show), the arrangement deserves significantly more journalistic examination than a toss-off at the end of a story.”
Spokespersons for the Corcoran affirm the exhibit and property sale are not related. Yet, if the recent hoopla over the New Museum’s upcoming exhibit of museum trustee Dakis Joannou’s personal collection is waranted, perhaps the Rubell’s dealings with the Corcoran are also worth further examination.
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Details of Controversial Koons-Curated Joannou Exhibit Emerge
Jeff Koons’ One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (1985) was the first major art acquisition by collector Dakis Joannou, and the only piece of the artist’s work to be shown in the collector’s forthcoming New Museum survey, Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection (Image: the Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens)
The New Museum of New York has just released the details of an already debated exhibition of works from the treasure chest of billionaire collector Dakis Joannou. Though parts of the collection have previously been on view at Joannou’s own DESTE Foundation in Anthens, as well as in Paris and Vienna, the upcoming New York exhibit has skeptics voicing concerns of nepotism. Critics say the show is an obvious conflict of interest, arguing that Joannou, who is one of the museum’s trustees, could easily see the notoriety and value of his collection catapult.
Titled Skin Fruit, the show, which runs March 3 – June 6, will include 100+ works by 50 international artists, selected from the Joannou Collection by guest curator, Jeff Koons (whose work will also appear in the exhibit). Koons’ very first solo showing with a museum was held at the New Museum in 1980, when his Hoover vacuum cleaner installation was displayed in the windows of their former 5th Ave. location. The artist has also been heavily supported by Joannou, who owns 40 of Koons works, along with his 2008 yacht commission.
For more thorough investigative journalism regarding the debate over the exhibit, check out the always enlightening Culturegrrl here
The 50 selected artists are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Mark Ryden Coming to New York
Paul Kasmin Gallery will unveil a much anticipated show of new paintings by Mark Ryden on April 29, 2010. Pictured above, is Incarnation (#100), one of Ryden’s most recent works. The 6 ft. x 4 ft. painting was on display at this past December’s Art Basel Miami and sold for a reported $900,000.
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
The Art Street Journal’s November Issue
Carmichael Gallery has released the November issue of their monthly newspaper The Art Street Journal containing interviews with Dan Witz, Hush and WK Interact. Free subscriptions are available here.
Sunday, October 18th, 2009
New Whitney Museum Confirmed
The High Line at night (Image © Jeff Newman/TheArtCollectors)
The New York Times confirms that after three years of negotiation, the Whitney Museum has closed a deal with the New York City Economic Development Corporation to build a second museum near the Ganesvoort St. entrance to the new High Line park, located on a former elevated railway line in the Chelsea area of Manhattan. The museum recently singed a contract to buy the city owned site for $18 million, about one-half its actual value.
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
Interview :: Ryan McLennan
(All Images © Ryan McLennan via Joshua Liner Gallery)
Virginia based artist Ryan McLennan has created a dense visual parable for our own existence, where animals, much like we humans, shape their surrounding world while engaged in the struggle to survive and coexist. McLennan opens a solo show of recent works this weekend, at New York’s Joshua Liner Gallery. We had time to ask Ryan a few questions before packing up his new paintings and heading to the city. Make sure to click images for larger views.
TAC: The title of your upcoming show is “The Strain of Inheritance.” Can you talk a bit more about this?
RM: Basically it is the struggle for survival and trying to build upon what little there is to begin with. Who exactly these animals have inherited their world from is not important, but they have it and what they are doing with it and themselves is the focus.
TAC: How crucial is it for you to create images that contain a political, social, or environmental message? Is this the starting point for you when planning a piece or body of work?
RM: The environmental message built the landscape for my paintings so it remains prevalent, though not always at the top of my thoughts. Political and social issues come through in the narrative, but again not a focus. I think those messages seep in through the subconscious, as I don’t consider myself an overly political person, definitely not a political artist. I am telling a story, creating a world that in many ways reflects our own. The animals in this world deal with issues just as we do. They have social relationships, varying religious beliefs, love and family, opposing political views, crime, work, and so on.
TAC: What can you share about your creative process and the research that goes into your pieces? – Has it changed or evolved at all with the latest work?
RM: When I started making these paintings, I was concerned with factual information and researching the behavior of the animals. This is still important, but lately I have found interest in fantastic and absurd scenarios. Using what I have read in mythology and legend to create landscapes and taking influence from portrait photography to individualize the animals, giving them roles in society. These sources have pushed my work in a different direction. I feel like these paintings have evolved into stills from a fantasy movie.
TAC: There seem to be conflicting messages of both hope and despair, violence and peace in your paintings – as if new life is being sustained by the death and destruction of previous life. What are your thoughts on this?
RM: The life and death cycle is very important in my work as well as in nature. I recently spent some time in Yellowstone National Park, which is crawling with wildlife. For all the elk and bison I saw I also came across plenty of skeletons and antlers. Those remains help in sustaining the ecosystem there. I use this in my paintings, but I push it a little further. The environment in my paintings is so barren that anything existing there must be considered for sustenance, shelter, or as something sacred. I lean a little more to the despair and struggle, which brings us back to the show title, but there is still a feeling of hope…with a little humor, at least funny to me.
TAC: So, you’re packing up and heading to NY for the show – anything you are looking forward to in the city?
RM: I’m really looking forward to seeing my NY friends. My family, Boston, Richmond and Philly friends all coming together. Simen Johan at Yossi Milo Gallery and some other shows I want to see around Chelsea. Museums. Bookstores. Restaurants. Just being in NY and not in Richmond. I try to visit enough to not have to live there.
Ryan McLennan – The Strain of Inheritance
Oct. 17 – Nov. 14
Joshua Liner Gallery
548 W. 28th Street
NY, NY 10001
info@joshualinergallery.com
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
Renewed :: MOCA Celebrates 30 Years with Massive Permanent Collection Exhibition
Franz Kline - Buttress, 1956, oil on canvas, 46 ½ x 55 ½ in., collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Panza Collection, © 2009 The Franz Kline Estate/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
We’ve got to hand it to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. After surviving near financial disaster and significant restructuring, MOCA is set to celebrate its 30 year anniversary with a new exhibition from its permanent holdings.
Opening November 15, 2009 at both of two of MOCA’s Los Angeles locations, Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years will be the most comprehensive exhibition of the museum’s renowned post-war collection to date, highlighting over 500 works by more than 200 artists, including Diane Arbus, Chris Burden, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, Nan Goldin, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Piet Mondrian, Bruce Nauman, Chris Ofilli, Claes Oldenburg, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark Rothko.
The exhibition is a bold and appropriate reassertion of the recently troubled institution’s vital contribution to the field of public arts. Paul Schimmel, MOCA’s Chief Curator noted that the museum “is approaching this exhibition of works from its collection with the same level of ambition and depth that has characterized the museum’s most celebrated thematic exhibitions. MOCA is assembling its major holdings into an unprecedented installation that will occupy 50,000 square feet in two museum buildings. The scope and scale of Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years will enable the community to build relationships with individual works of art and develop a sense of long-term engagement with the collection and the museum.”
To commemorate the event, the museum has launched a clever email campaign. Every week for 30 consecutive weeks members and mailing list subscribers will receive an image of a featured work from the museum’s permanent collection. Sign up here
Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years
Nov. 16, 2009 – May 3, 2010
MOCA Grand Avenue, 250 S. Grand Ave., L.A., 90012
The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, N. Central Ave., L.A. 90013
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Nike AM90 x Dizzee Rascal x Ben Drury Video
Friday 18th September, Nike and Mercury recording artist Dizzee Rascal will release the very special, and strictly limited, Nike Air Max 90 ‘Tongue N’ Cheek’ sneaker. The shoe has been created in a special partnership between Dizzee, Nike Design and long-time Dizzee collaborator and creative director, Ben Drury and will go on sale exclusively at Nike’s 1948 store in London’s Shoreditch, ahead of the release of Dizzee’s fourth LP, Tongue N’ Cheek (Monday 21st September).
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
KAWS Keeping Busy
Image: Kaws
There’s been quite a bit of KAWS news during the week off. First, we can only hope that what appears to be a fresh take on the classic Chum character in this painting posted on Kaws’ blog, is a sign of things to come (that’s Erik Parker with a great new painting in the pic). The artist will present his next solo exhibit this February in Madrid. While there’s no official word yet, expect Galeria Javier Lopez to play host.
Next up are two new products on the way, including a much anticipated monotone version of the ambitious Four Foot Dissected Companion sculpture. Despite a hefty price tag, if the release of the first color-way earlier this summer is any indication, expect this one to be gone in the blink of an eye. Released this past weekend is a playful toy collaboration with Japanese brand, Undercover, featuring the fashion label’s bear hugging Kaws’ Companion character.
Images: OriginalFake
Lastly, Kaws has lent his hand to the September issue of Interview Magazine’s feature on Michael Jackson.
Image: Kaws
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Update :: Conor Harrington Mural Liberated
The newly uncovered Conor Harrington mural at the corner of W. 13 and Washington Streets in NYC. (Image: Public Ad Campaign)
Earlier this week we reported that an unsolicited New York City street mural created by British painter Conor Harrington had been covered with illegal NPA City Outdoor advertising without necessary permits. Last night a Facebook post from Dickchicken alerted us to the mural’s liberation. It looks like The Public Ad Campaign and Chicken took matters into their own hands, removing the billboard frame from the wall. While we are happy to see that Conor’s piece is once again visible, the entire story does raise interesting questions in the debate over the use of public space.