Elaine YJ Zheng

1 day ago | ocula.com | Elaine YJ Zheng

New York City’s New Museum will reopen this autumn with a new façade, crowned with a sculpture by American figurative artist Tschabalala Self. The sculpture, Art Lovers, depicts a couple embracing at the intersection of the museum’s newly connected buildings, nodding to the joining—or ‘kiss point’ in architectural terms—of the first SANAA-designed structure with the new OMA-designed expansion. This comes after close to three years of construction and a $82 million USD buildout.

1 day ago | ocula.com | Elaine YJ Zheng

Phillips’ Modern and Contemporary Evening sale on Tuesday brought in $52 million (all figures USD with fees), demonstrating that even amid a cautious market, demand for exceptional talent persists. New records were achieved for five artists, including four women. However, for artists like Olga de Amaral, it was a record-breaking evening.

2 days ago | ocula.com | Elaine YJ Zheng

Despite a cooling top end of the market, New York’s May auctions kicked off this week with leading auction houses doing their best to entice collectors with big-name artists. Art Basel and UBS’s latest market survey found public auctions had registered a 25 percent drop in value last year, amid an overall 12 percent decline in the global art market.

3 days ago | ocula.com | Elaine YJ Zheng

Over the weekend, the would-be curator for next year’s Venice Biennale died suddenly in a Swiss hospital on her 58th birthday, leaving a wake of mourners across the art world. Koyo Kouoh was set to become the first African woman to the biennial since its inception in 1895. On Sunday, The New York Times reported the Cameroonian-Swiss curator died from recently diagnosed cancer in a hospital in Basel, Switzerland.

6 days ago | ocula.com | Elaine YJ Zheng

Brisbane artist Julie Fragar broke down crying upon hearing she had won Australia's leading prize for portraiture. Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) today announced Fragar would take home the $100,000 AUD Archibald Prize for her portrait of artist and colleague Justene Williams. The four-time finalist said portrait painting wasn’t taken as seriously in the 1990s as it is today. ‘You work your whole career imagining this might happen one day,’ she said.