Posts Tagged ‘Gagosian’

Art Basel Miami 2009: A Week in Review

Monday, December 7th, 2009

By JRS

Nothing could stop Art Basel from having another successful year in Miami. Not a recession, not adverse conditions—though heavy rain and flooding destroyed a few works of art—could keep the droves of people from returning to south Florida and jamming the aisles of all participating spaces and the streets of the Design District.

What felt like most of Miami—and New York, LA, and Europe’s art communities—flocked mostly to the Miami Convention Center in search of fine art and design. The more adventurous patrons made their way across the causeway and back to the mainland.

Comparing SCOPE to Art Basel at the Convention Center is like comparing the Uptown and Downtown scenes in New York; they’re total opposites. For those who have never been, Art Basel is made up of several different parts: Art Basel, SCOPE, Pulse, Art Asia, and the bevy of neighborhood galleries that fling open their doors during the week and curate exhibitions of their own. Truth be told, these are often the most interesting shows to experience, as they have no preconceptions and are akin to Dash’s old shows at Deitch circa 2005: completely uninhibited.

New York Street Artist Judith Sapine's Newest Work

New York Street Artist Judith Supine's Newest Work

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Takashi Murakami to Exhibit in the Château de Versailles in 2010

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

By JRS

Last month in Paris, during event to promote the launch of a show of work on September 13th by French pop artist Xavier Veilhan at Château de Versailles, the Versailles museum director Jean-Jacques Aillagon announced to the Associated Free Press that Japanese artist Takashi Murakami had been chosen to appear at the venerable institution in 2010.  Murakami is often described as the “Japanese Warhol,” due perhaps to his Pop art style and extremely prolific production of work.  Of course another artist often described in this way is Jeff Koons, who in the winter of last year displayed many of his significant sculpture pieces at Versailles, which though iconic as contemporary art, were perhaps incongruous to that particular location.

Though the Jeff Koons in Versailles show last year was generally concluded to be both a successful and well attended exhibition, with almost 1 million visitors attending, it did garner significant controversy.  Prince Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme, a French aristocrat in the line of succession to the French throne and a descendant of the palace’s original creator, Louis XIV, mounted a hight-profile legal challenge to the installation, which ultimately failed. Prince Charles-Emmanuel cited the Koons exhibition as “pornographic.”  As Takashi Murakami is also known to produce relatively illicit subject matter in his art, this exhibit may as well stir up some ire with French traditionalists.

Jeff Koons at Versailles

Jeff Koons at Versailles

Takashi Murakami currently has simultaneous solo exhibitions this month in both Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, New York and at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris.

New Murakami

New Murakami