Art in America - Most Recent News and Opinion

Long Island Art Dealer Glafira Rosales Arrested

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:30:00 +0100

Glafira Rosales, a little-known art dealer affiliated with the formerly venerable gallery Knoedler & Co., was arrested at her Long Island home this morning, according to the New York Times.

Asia Society Appoints Josette Sheeran

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:00:00 +0100

The Asia Society, a global nonprofit that fosters connections between Asia and the U.S., has appointed Josette Sheeran as its new president.

The NeoLucida: Artists Revive an Old Master Tool

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:45:00 +0100

When artists Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin launched their latest Kickstarter project on May 7, aiming to raise money to produce an updated camera lucida, the $30 NeoLucida, their big hope was to attract 500 backers before June. By midmorning on the next day they were fully funded.

More than Words: An Interview with Karla Black

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:15:00 +0100

Scottish artist Karla Black makes large, multisensory sculptural installations that commingle traditional art supplies—plaster, chalk, paint, paper—with materials more familiar from the medicine cabinet, such as Vaseline, face powder and Alka-Seltzer.

Concrete Continuity

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:45:00 +0100

How do new generations of artists absorb the art of the past? "Concrete Remains: Postwar and Contemporary Art from Brazil," a compact show on view at Chelsea's Tierney Gardarin Gallery (formerly Cristin Tierney), through June 22, is, in one sense, an exploration of this question. It also encapsulates an important area of Latin American art, shedding new light on the ongoing preoccupation of 21st-century Brazilian artists with their nation's major contribution to 20th-century art: Concrete and Neo-Concrete art.

Miami Museum Looks South to Go Global

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:00:00 +0100

With a new Herzog and de Meuron-designed building and a new name, the Miami Art Museum hopes to make that tropical city a center of the art world. Formerly known as the Miami Art Museum, the institution will be re-named in Pérez's honor when it reopens in December as the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

Warhol Enlivens Phillips Evening Sale

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:00:00 +0100

Last night's contemporary art sale at New York auctioneer Phillips totaled $78.6 million, falling short of the evening's high estimate of $110 million. The undisputed star of the evening, Andy Warhol, accounted for three of the evening's top 10 sales, with his silkscreen painting Four Marilyns (1962) ringing in at $38.2 million. The house found buyers for 31 of the 38 lots offered.

The Frieze Speakeasy Experience

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:30:00 +0100

"Don't you know how to read? Show me your number!" barked the unseen doorman. I showed it to him. "I'm not even talking to you," he jeered. The man ahead of me was afforded entry, while the door shut in my face. It was a Monday afternoon on Randall's Island but I felt as self-conscious as if it were Friday night in front of a club in SoHo.

Hammer Museum Hires Curators Butler, Moshayedi

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:00:00 +0100

Cornelia Butler, named in April as co-curator with Michael Ned Holte of the upcoming Hammer biennial "Made in LA 2014," will assume the position of chief curator. She replaces Douglas Fogle, who left the Hammer in 2011 to be an independent curator. Aram Moshayedi, currently of REDCAT, will also join the Hammer, in the newly created position of curator.

At the Altar of Saint Genet

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:00:00 +0100

Gold leaf, honey, tar, blood, wax, flowers, leeches, pheasants, arrows: such are the materials used by Seattle-based experimental theater company Saint Genet, whose new work Paradisiacal Rites opens at Seattle performance space On The Boards this week.

Cooper Occupation Exceeds One-Week Mark

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:00 +0100

In the latest development in an ongoing conflict, students at New York's Cooper Union have occupied the office of school president Jamshed Bharucha for a full week. They have vowed to continue their protest until Bharucha steps down. "It's very evident that he does not believe in the mission of the school," second-year art student Angus Buchanan-Smith told A.i.A. during a visit this week to the East Village college.

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:00 +0100

This week we check out Michele Abeles's photos at 47 Canal, geometric abstractions and sculptural tableaux by Elizabeth Neel at Sikkema Jenkins and Gedi Sibony's bare-bones assemblages at Greene Naftali.

Christie's Sells Nearly Half a Billion Dollars of Contemporary Art

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:00:00 +0100

Christie's contemporary art sale last night achieved the highest total in auction history at $495 million. Records were set for Pollock, Lichtenstein, Basquiat, Manzoni, Tuymans, Cornell, Hofmann, Guston, Noland, Mehretu, Serra and Ruth Asawa in a two-hour sale in a buzzing, packed room in which 94 percent of artworks offered found buyers among an exceptionally active field of telephone and in-room bidders.

EXPO Chicago Announces Participating Galleries

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:15:00 +0100

Expo Chicago president and director Tony Karman revealed the list of 120 galleries, hailing from 16 countries and 35 cities globally.

Dominic Molon Hired as Curator at RISD Museum

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:00:00 +0100

Molon fills the vacancy left by Judith Tannenbaum, who stepped down in February after 13 years in the position. She will remain with the museum as an adjunct curator through the end of the year.

McCarthy Spring

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:30:00 +0100

It's the season of Paul McCarthy in New York. This spring and summer McCarthy's unsettling work—much of it a perverse reworking of children's fairy tales—will be the subject of six installations at five different locations around the city, not counting the Los Angeles-based artist's 21-year-old animatronic sculpture of a father instructing his son on the ways of love with a goat, which is already on view at the New Museum as part of the exhibition "NYC 1993" (through May 26).

Newman, Richter and Klein Make Records at Sotheby's

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:00:00 +0100

Works by Barnett Newman, Gerhard Richter and Yves Klein led a $294-million contemporary art sale at Sotheby's New York last night, each setting an auction record. At $37.1 million, the Richter set an auction record for any living artist. After fevered bidding on some early lots, including works by Cy Twombly, John Currin and George Condo that benefited the Whitney Museum, however, the room cooled off.

Venice Biennale First-Timers: The Vatican

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:00:00 +0100

The Venice Biennale has finally earned a stamp of approval from the Vatican, which will have a pavilion for the first time this year, in its 55th outing.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Christie's Aim to Save the Planet

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:40:00 +0100

Leonardo DiCaprio and Christie's New York raised $38.8 million at an auction last night to benefit the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. Along the way, auction records were set for no fewer than 13 artists among the 33 in the sale.

Playing God at MoMA: Rain Room

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:30:00 +0100

Rain Room, on view at MoMA (through July 28) as part of MoMA PS1's multi-exhibition Expo 1 initiative (through Sept. 2), was conceived by the collective Random International, which Koch founded in 2005 with Stuart Wood and Florian Ortkrass, fellow graduates of London's Brunel University. Known for creating high-tech immersive installations that respond to human presence, they first conceived of Rain Room as a way to explore what it would feel like for a human to be totally subsumed in a physical environment.