Ellsworth Kelly, one of America’s great 20th-century abstract artists, who in the years after World War II shaped a distinctive style of American painting by combining the solid shapes and brilliant colors of European abstraction with forms distilled from everyday life, died on Sunday at his home in Spencertown, N.Y. He was 92. Although he […]
Mondrian wrote in 1927 about his ideas on his rather extreme interior design: The interior of the home must no longer be an accumulation of rooms formed by four walls with nothing but holes instead of doors and windows, but a construction of coloured and colourless planes, combined with furniture and equipment, which must be nothing […]
“Buy the best, forget the rest” has become the conventional wisdom for collectors in today’s investment-minded art market. But what does “the best” mean? Clearly it meant different things to the 77,000 people who flocked to Art Basel Miami Beach this month. The fair, the last major event of 2015 for the hectic contemporary art […]
It seems as if there’s never a quiet moment in the art world, especially during boom times. There are record-breaking auctions,controversial exhibitions, and even violent episodes by artists, as well as trolling by the general public. Here’s a quick guide to some of the more scandalous news reports that have happened over the course of this year.
Although it may seem strange to devote a year-end roundup to the subject of atemporality, 2015 found the art world in a state of chronological confusion. The year began, so to speak, in December of 2014 when the Museum of Modern Art opened “The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World,” which ran through […]
Voyeurism is, for many artists, a necessary part of the creative process. But some take the act of watching the unaware a step further, into surveillance or espionage. As the 2011 SF MoMA and Tate Modern show “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870” reminded us, these activities have been going on in art […]
This time last year, my editor asked me to put together a list of the most important essays of 2014, and I drew a blank. I asked around. By far the most common answer I got from peers was, “Nothing comes to mind.” Even the professionals, who’ve got their eyes glued to this stuff like Malcolm McDowell […]
Is Robert Ryman, the master of the white-on-white painting for the past half-century or so, a covert “Light and Space” artist? The Dia Art Foundation’s new exhibition in Chelsea, “Robert Ryman: Real Light, 1958-2007,” certainly encourages us to see him this way—as another example of the California-centric, Minimalism-influenced movement that includes James Turrell, Robert Irwin, […]
British artist Martin Creed’s short-lived but much loved installation titled Work No. 2592 at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise on New York’s Lower East Side is open until Saturday, and people cannot seem to get enough of the bright-red balloons that half-fill the space at 291 Grand Street. The playful installation by the 2001 Turner Prize winner has been delighting adults and kids alike and has […]
Museums and galleries bring out the best in ambitious architects. Here are 10 of the best cultural buildings of the year, from Renzo Piano’s Whitney in New York to Pattersons’ Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, New Zealand.
For artist Joseph Kosuth, neon isn’t a means for glitzy spectacle; for him, it is a serious instrument for conveying deep philosophical ideas. He can’t help it, however, if spectacular sights arise from a long career’s worth of rigorous thinking. All reflect the probing and playful work of Mr. Kosuth, who helped pioneer the movement […]
Don’t be fooled—this balloon-filled room is not a tribute to Nena’s classic hit, “99 Red Balloons”. It is, however, an interactive art installation, “Work No. 2592” by Martin Creed, a British artist and Turner prize-winner, which is open for some child-like revelry, for adults and children alike. Yep, it’s a ball pit for adults, but it […]
A lion with a blue-plumed pirate hat, an obsidian nude with her face blacked out, a mysterious rider on horseback — the settings and characters in Peter Doig’s newest paintings, now on view at Michael Werner Gallery, are at once strange and somehow totally familiar, like scenes from myths or dreams. Some recall hypnagogic states, fragments […]
It is not surprising to learn that the Los Angeles-based artist Liz Glynn studied environmental studies at Harvard before pursuing a master’s degree at the California Institute of the Arts. Indeed, her multidisciplinary sculptures, installations and performances—which often employ found items and materials—seem to suggest the redemptive power of salvage, and are marked by an […]
The contemporary art market settled down to a steadier pace at Sotheby’s New York Wednesday evening, turning in a solid and respectable $294,850,000 sale for the 44 lots that sold. Ten of the 54 lots offered failed to sell for a trim buy-in rate by lot of 18.5 percent. Five works sold for more than $15 […]
On Monday morning, the artist Jeff Koons stood in Gagosian Gallery’s West 21st Street location in Chelsea, discussing his new show at the space with a small gathering of reporters. The exhibition features work from his “Gazing Ball” series. For the show, Koons has placed blue reflective spheres on small shelves in front of very […]
The artist’s new show presents repainted versions of masterpieces, from Titian’s Venus and Mars to the Mona Lisa, with a shiny blue sphere placed in front of each. Standing in front of the Mona Lisa – only this version was around three times the size of the original and had a blue sphere on a […]
The Shanghai financier Liu Yiqian went from taxi driver to multimillionaire. He is also one of China’s most prolific collectors of art. Watch the video.
Notable dealers have chosen to end eponymous enterprises to join larger entities at a partnership level. Such was the case with Gérard Faggionato, who recently joined David Zwirner in London, and Valerie Carberry, who merged with Chicago’s Richard Gray last spring. Veteran contemporary art dealers Esther Schipper and Jorg Johnen are in the process of […]
Alberto Burri’s prescient paintings — in patched, burned and otherwise abused burlap, plastic or wood — form a lavish, beautiful and admirable, if sometimes monotonous retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum. It presents an artist who is impressive less for the profundity of his work than for his consistency and his ideas, which remain very much […]