New waterfront space for Boston’s ICA
Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art has announced it will open a seasonal outpost for large-scale and site-specific projects.
Named The Watershed, it will occupy a 15,000-square-foot condemned former factory building located in a shipyard across the water from the ICA. The local firm Anmahian Winton Architects will lead the renovation project, which, in addition to projected programming for the next five years, will cost $10 million. In order to access the new venue, visitors will have to board a boat docked at the ICA and be ferried across the harbor. The New York Times has more information.
Marc Straus to build luxury flats (and gallery)
New York art dealer Marc Straus has announced plans to demolish three historic federal houses in the heavily-gentrified Lower East Side in order to build an eight-story luxury condominium with a ground-floor art gallery space.
The three buildings slated for demolition, 282–286 Grand Street, were built in 1820, and have been in the Straus family for some time. Straus stated that for the past two years, he was using the buildings as a studio space for artists, “a sort of unofficial residency.” Construction is scheduled to begin this Spring, and the project is expected to be completed in Fall 2018. In addition to the gallery, there will be 20 condos and two penthouses. More information on artnet News.
A rendering of the future look of 282 Grand Street. Courtesy Marc Straus
Klimt scores success for Sotheby’s
The combined total of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern sale and its Surrealist sale, which took on March 1, was a record £194.8m (with fees), the highest-ever total fetched in a London evening auction.
The huge figure was realized with the help of a stand-out Gustav Klimt painting — Bauerngarten (1907) — which sold for £42.5 million, far exceeding its £35m estimate. The Austrian painter garnered further success for Sotheby’s with his 1896 painting Girl in the Foliage, which sold for £3.7 million, more than double its upper estimate. It was a reasonably successful night for late works by Picasso, too, with his monochrome portrait Femme assise dans un fauteuil sur fond blanc (1953) selling above its high estimate for £10.6 million. The Art Newspaper has more.
Folkestone Triennial announces participants
The Creative Foundation has announced the artists that will participate in the fourth edition of Folkestone Triennial, which will run from September 2 through November 2017.
The triennial is one of the UK’s most ambitious art exhibitions, aiming to transform the southern coastal town of Folkestone into a better place to live, work, visit and study. Internationally-recognised artists have been commissioned to create a collection of new artworks to be exhibited in the town’s public spaces, with certain works set to remain in the town to add to its expanding art collection. The title of this year’s triennial, “double edge,” alludes to notions of borders, thresholds and margins, speaking to contemporary political issues such as migration, border control, wealth inequality and sustainability. Among the participating artists are Sol Calero, Antony Gormley, David Shrigley and Bill Woodrow. Find out more on e-flux.
Kusama installation returns after selfie disaster
Following the minor disaster that occurred last week when a visitor tripped and fell in the Yayoi Kusama installation currently on show at Washington D.C.'s Hirshhorn Museum, the artwork is up-and-running once more.
The guest was apparently taking a selfie before she tripped and fell, damaging one of the $800,000 polka-dotted, LED-lit pumpkins that form Kasuma’s Infinity Room - All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins. Read more on Vice.
