Art News Update

Cy Twombly has a new catalogue raisonne of his drawings. Gagosian will have a book launch on Friday, May 20 at the 988 Madison Ave location from 6-8pm.

Annie Lapin’s first solo show at Honor Fraser Gallery opens May 21. Titled “The Pure Space Animate”, the exhibit will present expressive & richly layered paintings by this UCLA/ Yale grad who has recently been noted in “Modern Painters” and was the Editor’s Pick in “New American Paintings”.

Moby exhibits his photography at Clic Gallery, Lower East Side thru June 26. This show “Destroyed” coincides with the release of a book of his work.

Sotheby’s Contemporary art evening sale scored a total of $128 million on Tuesday. Luc Tuyman’s “Easter” sold at &962,500, Mark Tansey’s “Shades” went for $3.4 million. Jeff Koon’s “Pink Panther” porcelain piece from 1988 hammered at $16.8 million, under the overblown estimate of $20-30 million.

This week is Warhol mania in NY. A slew of 52 works by Warhol are heading to auction with the big 3 auction houses with a total estimate of $148.7 million.

Darren Waterston has a new show, “Kingdom” at Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle of his recent oil paintings on panel, sculptures and gouache paintings on paper.

Dianna Molzan at the Whitney Museum till June 19. Love her irreverent approach to her abstract paintings. This is her first solo museum exhibition.

Ori Gersht will open a show of photography and film works at Angles Gallery May 21.

Art HK will debut Feb 2-5, 2012. The owner of Art Basel, MCH Swiss Exhibition, has just purchased a majority stake in the Hong Kong fair Art HK. Magnus Renfrew will stay on as director.

“New Masters” at Subliminal Projects, a figurative group show by contemporary artist thru June 4. Artists include Jonathan Yeo, Mary Jane Ansell, Benjamin Bryce Kelley.

artMRKT San Francisco takes place May 19 – 22.

John Currin has a new monograph out, published by Gagosian with texts written by Wells Tower.

Barbara Kruger opens at L & M Arts, L.A. this Saturday, May 14. This is her first show in her hometown since her solo presentation at MOCA in 1999.

Art News Update

Ai Weiwei has disappeared after being detained by Chinese authorities on April 3rd. As of today, there is still no word of his whereabouts. Please sign a petition on change.org/petitions to voice your position, along with many in the international arts community.

John McCracken has died. The California artist is known for his sleek and monochromatic works, most notably are the glossy rectangular planks that lean against the wall. He was 76 years old and passed away in New York.

David Smith: Cubes & Anarchy is on view at LACMA till July 24. This show features over 100 works from one of our greatest sculptors of the 20th century.

Walead Beshty opens at Regen Projects this Saturday April 16, 6-8pm

Francois Ghebaly Gallery has Robert Russell “Masters” on view until May 14th.

Glenn Ligon and exhibition curator, Scott Rothkopf will discuss “what a midcareer retrospective means” at the Whitney Museum April 21, 7pm.

LA based artist Dianna Molzan has “Bologna Meissen” on view at the Whitney until June 2011. Also, she currently has works at the Hammer Museum’s “All of this and Nothing”. Ends April 24, 2011.

Richard Serra has a retrospective of his drawings at the Met until Aug 28.

Allison Miller has a show that opens at ACME on April 23, 6 – 8pm.

Art Chicago 2011 will take place April 29 – May 2, 2011

Florian Maier-Aichen has a new exhibit at Blum & Poe – closes May 14.

Museo Soumaya in Mexico City opened to the public on March 28. This museum is operated by the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim who paid $70 million to design and build this hourglass-shaped building.

Culture Clicks

A View of Hirst’s Spin Painting Booth at Davos

The 3rd India Art Summit (NY Times)

Colbert Portrait, with Art World Input to be Sold at Auction (NY Times)

Dispute Over Jewish Archive Derails Russian Art Loans to US (NY Times)

Google’s Art of Technology (WSJ)

VIP Art Fair Gets Negative Press as Top Works Go Unsold (Bloomberg)

What Artists Think About When They Think About Football (ARTINFO)

Houellebecq’s Shocking New Art-World Novel (ARTINFO)

At  Davos, Hirst Took Wealthy Admirers for a Spin as Koons Looked On (ARTINFO)

Robert “Roy” Ritchie on his Years at the Huntington (LA Times)

LACMA Says Mattel Did Not Pay Barbie’s Way Into Museum Exhibition (LA Times)

Art Preserving Art

by Caroline Newman

The UCLA Fowler Museum is currently exhibiting “Street Art: Photographic Elevations of Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin by Larry Yust,” which explores the often over-looked art form, graffiti, within these three prominent cities.  For the past eight years, filmmaker and photographer Larry Yust has been capturing images of urban landscapes and compositing anywhere from 70-80 photographic images to create, what he refers to as, a single “photographic elevation.”  Using this artistic technique, Yust creates a new kind of urban landscape; one that is impossible to see with the naked eye, one that cannot be reproduced, and one that can be preserved.

Yust’s images are a few feet high and around 15-20 feet in length, yielding a unique and enthralling photographic experience.  While directly facing and maintaining a constant distance from his subject, whether it is a wall, building, or fence covered in graffiti, Yust moves parallel to it, capturing many precise images.  These images are flawlessly composited to create an extremely long, horizontal, and practically 3-dimensional urban landscape.