Articles

Sotheby’s is pleased to announce that its 5 November 2015 Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art will feature one of the finest works by Kazimir Malevich.

This work by Anish Kapoor is universal; it has nothing to do with the King or the Queen, with Versailles or France. Appreciated in 2011 in Italy, it will be just as liked throughout the world, because this work speaks of light, of birth, of life’s journey, of the unknown: the mystery and darkness that surround death. It also tells us that we all come from the same planet and that we have to love it.

There was a time when a trip to Europe could be described as ‘Grand’. Long before bargain flights, crossing the continent was a major undertaking. It was part education, part shopping trip, and if you weren’t wealthy, or at least in the retinue of someone who was, it was beyond your means. Grand Tours flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries, a time during which the nobility stocked their stately homes with artworks and antiquities from the Mediterranean lands. In 2015, they still have an exclusive aura, or did so until the arrival of Pablo Bronstein.

Revisions and Alternative Ending to Revolutionary Song Revealed for the First Time. Estimated £150,000-200,000 at Sotheby's.

Dutch artist Hellen van Meene is well known for her style of photographic portraiture. Van Meene’s works depict mostly adolescents, but there are also sometimes small children or even animals. When looking at these photographs it is hard to say exactly when and where they were made. The background is only available at a glimpse, and the nondescript clothes pull the viewer’s attention completely towards the model. The subject’s postures and facial expressions that van Meen captures can almost paralyze the viewer, so deep is the experience of immersion, as Hellen van Meene stops the moment and captures the viewer within the world of these children.

Zaha Hadid Architects, working with Leonhardt, Andrä & Partner and Sinotech Engineering Consultants, have won the international competition to design the new Danjiang Bridge in Taipei for the Directorate General of Highways, Taiwan, R.O.C. Located at the mouth of Tamsui River that flows through the capital Taipei, the Danjiang Bridge is integral to the infrastructure upgrading program of northern Taiwan.

Sotheby’s Hong Kong autumn 2015 sale series to take place from 3 to 7 October.

German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol just finished his work on a large outdoor sculpture. The larger-than-life figure represents a kneeling but upward looking man dressed in a white shirt and black trousers. It is 5.70 metres high and weighs nearly 3 tons. Originally Balkenhol had designed the figure for the Freedom and Unity Monument in Berlin in 2010.

Marco Godoy (Madrid 1986) understands his artistic practice as a way to find spaces from which to redefine social and political events. His works are linked to protest and political art, but the aesthetics and mediums he uses present new approaches from which to address specific topics.

Those who like adventure with their art are currently well served at Ambika P3, that vast space for the University of Westminster in North London. Visitors follow bright signs to a sex club, indeed an Alien Sex Club. Passing through a towering veil of coloured organza, you are then invited to lose yourself in an array of boarded passages and darkened cells.

Beyond the canvas posters of Swiss-French designer and architect Le Corbusier, the Pompidou’s idiosyncratic building in central Paris also plays host to a retrospective styled exhibition of Beirut born, London and Berlin based artist Mona Hatoum. Whose work has since the early 1980’s been concerned with the trappings of control; as it proved the invasive ingredient for her Palestinian up-bringing. Leaving Lebanon for London in 1975 as a consequence of civil war, Hatoum’s work draws attention to the lives and landscapes of those permanently under seize and out of place.

In the heart of Brussels, a novel yet self-evident approach to art appreciation is taking place at Maison Particulière. The Maison is not a museum – there is no collection; it is not a gallery – nothing is for sale. Rather, Maison Particulière is a private residence that houses temporary exhibits. It is a home for art, where art lovers can feel at home.

Contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei made a photo of himself holding his Chinese passport on his Instagram account earlier today. Chinese artist and dissident wrote, “Today I got my passport.”

Whereas the early works of Russian artist Alexey Kallima stand out for their political overtones, his latest series (“Audience”) focuses on one simple and universal feature: the smile. The series, previously on show at Regina Gallery in Moscow, contained 65 portraits of smiling people. Kallima argues that the smile represents an emotion that is somehow missing in real life – through his work he therefore aims to draw the viewer into a form of involuntary therapy, resulting in the normalization of disturbed vital processes and a recovery towards a positive state.

It is one of London’s few, if not only, art galleries with a political programme. And from its premises on a run down estate in the East End, waterside contemporary has promoted sales for a group of international artists - such as Karen Mirza & Brad Butler, Nikita Kadan, and Oreet Ashery - who all share a sense of social engagement. And what these broadly leftist artists also share is a less than straightforward approach to the market. That’s where curator, director and dealer Pierre d’Alancaisez steps in, finding new markets for his opponents of capitalism.

On July 14, 2015 the United States became the first country to reach Pluto -- and the first country to explore the entire classical solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

The Mediterranean region lies at the core of the main and parallel programme of the forthcoming 5th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, which will be held from June 23 until September 30, 2015, in Thessaloniki, as the last segment of a three part program which began in 2011, under the general title “Old Intersections-Make it New”.

“Making money is art. And working is art. And good business is the best art” Andy Warhol. The dollar ($) is perhaps the most widely-recognised and potent symbol of our time, a shorthand for wealth, power and the American Dream. On 1 and 2 July 2015, Sotheby's offers a museum-quality private collection which explores how this iconic motif has provided such a rich source of inspiration for contemporary artists over the last sixty years.

The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Government of Moscow, VDNKh and the Moscow Biennale Foundation present the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art How to Gather? Acting in a Center in a City in the Heart of the Island of Eurasia, which takes place from September 22 to November 1, 2015 at VDNKh. The Biennale will take place over ten days, and then a documentary exhibition about it will be presented for the duration of the following month.

"Works of art are sometimes a focus for the larger discomforts in society. My 'Dirty Corner' at Versailles has such a fate. It has been reviled in the press as the “Queen’s vagina” or the “vagina on the lawn” and has seemingly given offence to certain people of the extreme political right wing in France."