Korakrit Arunanondchai at Clearing, all images via Art Observed

As Frieze opens up shop for the week on the West Coast, the bevy of satellite fairs and event openings are underway across the city.  One particular highlight, and also a second-time event for Frieze Week, Felix LA, the joint effort of collector Dean Valentine and dealers Al and Mills Morán, has returned to the rooms and public spaces of the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles for the week.  One of the more compelling fair entries of the week, the work’s program, which sees gallerists taking over rooms in the hotel, allows a unique mixture of intimate exhibitions and adventurous concepts that felt well-suited to the well-heeled patrons of the contemporary art market, both looking for a good piece of work and a unique experience shopping for it.   (more…)

Lorna Simpson, all images via Art Observed

As the early hours of the second Frieze Los Angeles Art Fair draw to a close this evening, and the sun sets over the Pacific, the fair seems to have once again hammered home its vital engagement with the city, and with its thriving art scene, launching another strong event spread across the grounds of the Paramount Studios.   With strong sales reported and an energetic atmosphere across the fair, it would seem that the small-scale and focused approach of the fair had once again seen the fair brand making its case as an arbiter of thoughtful, curated approaches towards the market and its participants.

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Jeff Koons via Almine Rech

Opening for its second year in the Californian sprawl of Los Angeles, the Frieze Art Fair returns for a second year under the sunny skies of the Golden State.  Taking its place once again at Paramount Studios, the fair has quickly planted its flag as a major part of the early weeks of the annual fair calendar, and has become the flagship fair in the run up to the Armory Show in New York next month.  (more…)

 
Ai Weiwei at Lisson Gallery, all photos via Anfisa Vrubel for Art Observed

Zona Maco has opened the doors for its 17th year this week, celebrating the milestone event today with the first day of its VIP preview yesterday at the Centro Banamex.  Offering a look at the stature of the fair in relation to the burgeoning artistic community in Mexico City in relation to the art and artists flying in from around the globe, the fair’s dynamic program included conferences with international guests, a section with specialized publications and editorials, and the widest program of parallel activities with exhibitions at the most outstanding galleries and museums in the country. (more…)

Tamara de Lempicka, Portrait de Marjorie Ferry (1932), final price: £16,280,000, via Christie’s

With the UK now into its first days of Brexit, attention turned to London this week for a string of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist Sales that looked to take the first test of the market.  Considering the results this week, a path forward seems uneasy but possible, as mixed results between the auction houses made for a series of compelling auctions and unpredictable results (more…)

Robert Grosvenor, Untitled (2020), via Karma

Artist Robert Grosvenor could perhaps best be described as an artist invested in space.  His interests rely not only on how the object exists within it, but equally how the space around an object twists and responds, moves and carves up space.  His sculptures capture a similar idea, pulling the viewer through their specific materiality and unconventional formal language that at one point might incorporate a distinct industrial materiality, while at others moving into a hard-edged, classic minimalism.  Each of the elements of this historical movement’s conceptual interests are there: heft and weight, density, scale, and even color, yet Grosvenor, more and more over the past years particularly, seems to take these principles and turn them towards the everyday, mining the language of the world around him to find new ways to ask similar questions . For his third show at Karma in New York, Grosvenor continues this particular interest in the realm between space and object, presenting a room-sized sculpture that the artist refers to as a “block of water,” as well as a collection of found and variously altered models of aircraft, watercraft, and automobiles.

Robert Grosvenor, Untitled (2020), via Karma (more…)

David Hockney, The Splash (1966), via Sotheby’s

As the first batch of major art fairs gets underway in North America, the secondary market turns its attention to Frieze London this week, as the first test of its health gets underway in the British capital. Kicking off two weeks of auctions at the major auction houses, there should be ample chance for bidders to show just how confident they are on the current state of Britain, its place in the European art market, and how Brexit might have changed those forecasts. With Impressionist and Modern Sales scheduled for this week, and a trio of Contemporary and 20th Century Sales next, the month of February should be an intriguing bellwether for the coming months, and perhaps for 2020 more broadly.

Ed Ruscha, God Knows Where (2014), via Phillips

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Erwin Wurm, Urinal (2011/2019), via Lehmann Maupin

Currently on view at Lehmann Maupin in New York, artist Erwin Wurm brings forward a new body of work that marks an expansion and elaboration on his already precise and peculiar style of sculpture. Titled Yes Biological, the show utilized biological effects and elements to create a new series that pushes the boundaries of sculpture ever further. (more…)

Jamal Penjweny,  Saddam is Here (2010), via MoMA

Military engagement in Iraq over the last 30 years has had a unprecedented impact on contemporary culture and society, with American intervention  in the Gulf and Iraq Wars opening a debate on American values and beliefs, in turn influencing the work of artists around the world. Exploring this concept MoMA PS1 presents Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, a large-scale group exhibition analyzing the legacy of the U.S. military presence in the region. The exhibition spans four floors, including more than 250 works featuring over 80 artists and collectives, including thirty-six Iraqis and Kuwaitis.

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Noah Davis, Man with Alien and Shotgun (2008), all images via Art Observed

In the all-too-short run of his life as both an artist and organizer, Noah Davis was a larger than life energy.  He was a tireless advocate for black arts in Los Angeles, and a relentless energetic painter whose lush figurative style tied together signifiers and concepts from across the expanse of modern painting.  As curator and organizer at the Underground Museum, a black-owned-and-operated art space dedicated to the exhibition of museum-quality art in a culturally underserved African American and Latinx neighborhood, he was a central figure in advocating and advancing the work of his peers and predecessors, creating historical dialogues on the back of his own vision.   This energy serves as the underlying power of his current exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, where the late artist’s work is succinctly summarized and celebrated.

Noah Davis, 1975 (8) (2013)

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Hanne Darboven, Erdkunde I, II, III (1986), via Sprüth Magers

Currently on view at Sprüth Magers in Berlin, the gallery presents a selection of works by Hanne Darboven, the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work at the Berlin gallery.  Compiling her works Erdkunde I, II, III (Geography I, II, III) (1986) and (Süd-) Koreanischer Kalender / (South) Korean Calendar (1991), the exhibition marks the beginning of the gallery’s worldwide representation of the Darboven Estate.  (more…)

Jon Pylypchuk, Cast your empire on a kingdom of doubts (2019), via Petzel

On view in its Chelsea exhibition space, Petzel Gallery presents Waiting for the Next Nirvana, an exhibition of new paintings by Canada-born, Los Angeles-based artist Jon Pylypchuk. On view through the end of February, the show draws on his work as a musician, and as an artist, exploring concepts of nostalgia, anticipation, energy, confidence, and, foremost, seductive and rebellious emotion. (more…)

Fischli/Weiss, The Raft (1982/83), via Sprüth Magers

Currently on view at Sprüth Magers’s London exhibition space,  Should I paint a pirate ship on my car with an armed figure on it holding a decapitated head by the hair? marks the fifth exhibition by the pair of Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss at their London gallery. The exhibition presents a concise overview of the artists’ transformations of the commonplace in the form of three seminal works from throughout their collaborative career, a subtle investigation of their core themes in a minimal selection of pieces. (more…)

Hans Haacke, All Connected (Installation View), via New Museum

Artist Hans Haacke’s works, ranging from kinetic art to environmental art, conceptual art and institutional critique, culminates in his critiques of social and political systems, orchestrated in masterful form this winter at the New Museum.  The retrospective marks the first major American museum exhibition of Haacke’s career, focusing on the influence of the corporate world on contemporary art. (more…)

Kim Gordon, The Bonfire 2 (2019), via 303

Taking over the exhibition spaces at 303 Gallery’s Chelsea space this winter, Kim Gordon presents a body of new works that mix together a range of cultural vantage points and disparate iconographies through multi-media works, photographs and painted canvases.  Her second solo exhibition with the gallery, the show is a striking look at the artist’s nuanced and expansive oeuvre, one which has earned her increasing recognition in recent years.

Kim Gordon, Los Angeles June 6, 2019 (2019), via 303

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Mark Dion, Bureau of Censorship (1996/2019), via Art Observed

The year 2020 is being heralded as a crucial moment for society, a moment to respond to massive political upheaval and environmental crises. With immigration on the rise around the globe, and social tensions inflamed over crises of leadership at the heads of global superpowers, the world is at a crossroads. This concept sits at the core of Songs in the Dark, a group show currently on at Tanya Bonakdar that illustrates how artists deal with the world at its tipping point; how artists find beauty in the darkness of their own times, how they straddle the personal and political in their work, and how they make art as activism. (more…)

Issy Wood, Slouching towards the maxillofacial unit (2018), via JTT

Issy Wood’s paintings and sculptures carry a peculiar cultural charge, moments of collision and fusion that mark her objects with both the signifiers of the art historical and with the banal moments of daily life. For her current show, daughterproof at JTT in New York, the artist continues this process, putting forward a selection of works that seem to mark the passage of culture and time against the body itself.   (more…)

Ugo Rondinone, thanx 4 nothing (A Tribute to John Giorno) (Installation View), via Gladstone

When the poet John Giorno passed away late last year, he left behind a lifetime of artistic adventurism and exploration, a reputation for his tireless support of the arts and his energetic commitment to collaboration, connection and creativity.  It makes sense then, that one of the first shows to celebrate the artist since his passing would be a collaboration with his husband, artist Ugo Rondinone, at Gladstone Gallery.  Open now, the show features the artist’s captivating 2015 video piece thanx 4 nothing, (more…)

Ragen Moss, Senior Borrower (with Mezzanine Borrower) (2019), via Bridget Donahue

Currently on view at Bridget Donahue, artist Ragen Moss has hung an octet of peculiar hanging sculptures.  Referred to at points as “couples” and as “animals,” the show seems to take on the atmosphere of animals moving about an enclosure, watched closely by the viewer to glimpse moments of personality and persona. The works, on view through the end of the month, offer a particularly impressive chance to observe and explore the nature of viewing, and the concept of nature itself.    (more…)

Lothar Baumgarten, Tropenhäuser (Guayana), Conservatorie (Guayana) (1969-1972:2012), via Marian Goodman

Currently on view at Marian Goodman in New York, artist Lothar Baumgarten is the subject of a posthumous show focusing on a body of work he helped compile before his passing.  “The Early Years” focuses on the formative works that shaped his oeuvre, and functions as an homage to one of the most important German artists who influenced a subsequent generation, not to mention an artist who has worked with the gallery since the 1980’s.

Lothar Baumgarten, Kosmos (1968), via Marian Goodman

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Lee Bul, Perdu XX (2019), via Lehmann Maupin

On view through January 18th in New York, the South Korean artist Lee Bul presents a selection of new works unified under the title Interlude: Perdu at Lehmann Maupin, a solo presentation that  features recent mixed media paintings from the artist’s Perdu series that blend biomorphic and cybertronic forms, vividly yet delicately rendered in acrylic paint and mother of pearl.  The artist’s work, which incorporates these divergent forms into a new formal language, makes for an expressive wrinkle in her broader body of work. (more…)

Rachel Harrison, Hoarders (2012), via Whitney

Combining sculpture, readymades, drawing and a playful conceptual bent, artist Rachel Harrison’s work over the past 30 years has challenged easy readings of consumption, commercialism and modernity, imbuing her lumpy, peculiar objects with a sense of wry humor and situational irony.  Opening a major retrospective at The Whitney this winter, the artist’s work gets ample room to breathe, to striking result.    (more…)

Rashid Johnson, The Hikers (Installation View), via Art Observed

On view this fall in New York, Hauser & Wirth presents The Hikers, an exhibition of recent works by Rashid Johnson that unites ceramic tile mosaics, collaged paintings, and a large-scale sculpture that work together to address Johnson’s recurring interest in currents of anxiety and escapism created by the political and social turmoil felt across the United States and around the globe. (more…)

Jessi Reaves, Going Out in Style (Installation View), via Herald St

Currently on view at Herald St Gallery in London, the New York-based artist Jessi Reaves has opened a new show of work, ‘Going out in style,’ which marks a continued evolution in her practice and her second exhibition with the London space. Presenting works that are contradictory in their forms and perceived functions, often oscillating between sculpture and furniture while never quite fitting squarely into either category, the artist’s work underscores a particularly resonant series of concepts and conundrums in the landscape of the present. (more…)