Olafur Eliasson at Tanya Bonakdar, via Art Basel

As the year rolls into December, and businesses remain shuttered over Covid-19, the Art Basel fair franchise has launched another edition of its Online Viewing Rooms series, marking off the string of days normally occupied by Art Basel’s famed Miami Beach fair with a more restrained, but equally well-stocked outing that seems to have notched strong response in its early hours.  Long marking the end of the art world’s fall season, and serving as a much-needed last bash of the year for art lovers and art workers worldwide, this year’s edition of Art Basel’s December fair comes without the endless string of afterparties, replaced with a range of online offerings. (more…)

Evgen Copi Gorisek at Plan X, via Untitled

Each year, the first week of December is normally reserved for Miami Beach, a bastion of sun and sand that welcomed international hordes of art lovers to its Art Deco havens and bustling streets for the proceedings of Miami Art Week and, at its center, Art Basel Miami Beach.  Yet with the new surge of Covid-19, and the challenges the disease has posed to the art world, this year sees the annual end of year fair and its hordes of parties practiced in proxy, with a similar bevy of sales events heading online.  Not least of those is Untitled Art Fair. (more…)

Theaster Gates, Black Vessel (Installation View), via Art Observed

Marking his first solo exhibition in New York City, artist Theaster Gates has touched down at Gagosian Gallery, bringing with him a diverse and conceptually-rich selection of works that underscore his work as a prominent activist and cultural force in American art.  Underscoring the artist’s complex and intuitive work with a range of materials, equally anchored in the histories of racial and social justice movements, and in the canon of art history, not to mention the artist’s own personal narrative, the show traces a range of ideas and concepts through the artist’s body, making for a powerful first show in the Big Apple.

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Alex Da Corte, Helter Shelter Or: The Red Show! or… (Installation View), via Sadie Coles HQ

Marking a new wrinkle in an ever-evolving artistic oeuvre, artist Alex Da Corte touches down this month at Sadie Coles HQ for a show of works that continues his approach towards larger than life spaces and gestures, orchestrating a surreal series of physical pairings and semiotic exchanges within the framework of the gallery. Taking his expressive and intriguing body of works into a broader bend of language and understanding, the artist makes the most out of a relatively minimal setup. (more…)

George Condo, Father and Daughter with Face Mask (2020), via Hauser & Wirth

Currently on at Hauser & Wirth, artist George Condo has opened a show of new works created this past year.  Composed during the early months of quarantine, the works by the artist reflect the unsettling experience of physical distance and the absence of human contact during a prolonged social isolation. Comprising a new incorporation of abstraction into his already complex figurative project, the works on view here are a fascinating reinvention of the artist’s work.   (more…)

Kader Attia, The Vally of Dreams (Installation View), via Regen Projects

Marking his first exhibition in Los Angeles, French-Algerian artist Kader Attia has opened The Valley of Dreams at Regen Projects, marking a new wrinkle in an already expansive and complex body of work.  Spanning a selection of both new and preexisting works in various media including a lightbox photograph, ceramics, sculptures, and a large-scale installation that continue his material and philosophical investigation of the notion of repair as a global, cultural phenomenon, the show is a perfect introduction to the artist’s work for the West Coast. (more…)

Paul Chan, Spekulieren (to speculate) (2020), via Greene Naftali

Opening his fifth solo exhibition, Drawings for Word Book by Ludwig Wittgenstein, at Greene Naftali in New York, artist Paul Chan has installed a series of loosely rendered, childlike drawings, a swirling body of playful images rendered in black and white, sprawling across the walls of the gallery.  Marking a continuation of his practice between producing art works and printed materials through his publishing company, Badlands Unlimited, the show marks an intriguing engagement with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.   (more…)

Cecily Brown, The Splendid Table (2019-2020), via Paula Cooper

Currently on view at Paula Cooper’s 26th Street Exhibition Space, artist Cecily Brown has brought forth a striking body of new paintings, continuing her unique exploration of the liminal spaces between abstraction and figuration.  Across a range of works exploring a rich color palette of warm polychrome hues and deep black, Brown’s work demonstrates a prolonged exploration of color’s potential to fill in this space between modes of depiction.

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Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Wind Rider (Installation View), via Company

Hyper-loaded with material and imagery that spans a range of cultural signifiers so often ascribed to the American cowboy as a standard of heterosexual, white heroism, painter Jonathan Lyndon Chase has opened a powerful new show at Company Gallery, titled Wind Rider.  Rich subject matter and made all the more nuanced and powerful by the artist’s own experiences and history, the show is a fluid, charged affair, mixing memory and iconography into a series of pieces that open new lines of discourse and awareness.   (more…)

Nicole Eisenman, Where I Was, It Shall Be (Installation View), via Hauser & Wirth

Having established herself as a central figure in American painting throughout the 1990s, Nicole Eisenman has only continued to grow and expand her impact and practice over the following decades, building her practice outwards into a range of media formats and frameworks that explore her particular experience of the construction of 2-dimensional, and now 3-dimensional space.  Marking her first show with Hauser & Wirth in the gallery’s picturesque Somerset compound, the artist showcases a diverse multidisciplinary language through mixed media works on paper, sculpture and painting. (more…)

Brian Calvin, Minor Difference (2020), via Anton Kern

Artist Brian Calvin returns to Anton Kern this fall for his seventh solo show with the gallery, continuing his unique approach to portraiture and figuration that twists cartoonish color and form into a nuanced depiction of the human visage. (more…)

Helio Oiticica (Installation View), via Lisson

Taking over both New York City Lisson Gallery spaces this fall, the Brazilian master Hélio Oiticica has a set of works on view documenting his engaging and expansive practice, underscoring his luminary role in the pioneering development of Brazilian contemporary art.  An influential and all-consuming vision, Oiticica’s work ranged across visual art, music, theater, literature and more, each of which is explored here in this pair of exhibitions. (more…)

Senga Nengudi, Sandmining B (detail) (2020), via Sprüth Magers

Always deeply connected to the human body, Senga Nengudi’s work invokes ritual, narrative and connections between cultures disparate in geography and time. For her newest show, on view now at Sprüth Magers’s Los Angeles exhibition space on the Miracle Mile, the artist has erected a series of large-scale installation works, offering profound insights into her way of thinking and working.

Senga Nengudi, Sandmining B (2020), via Sprüth Magers (more…)

Trevor Paglen, Octopus (2020), via Pace

Taking over the Pace Gallery space at 6 Burlington Gardens in London, artist Trevor Paglen opens a show that seeks to find a shared physical and digital space, mining the artist’s long engagement with technology and aesthetics to present a set of new works that explore the society-shaping power of computing, and the massive troves of data collected every day online.   His new show, Bloom explores central themes of artificial intelligence, the politics of images, facial recognition technologies, and alternative futures, marking his second show with the gallery.   (more…)

Sam Falls,  Paradise (2020), via 303

A look at the work of Sam Falls illustrates a vibrant interior universe, one populated by swirling undergrowth, alien forms and a series of linkages connecting human and non-human agents. This sensibility hits a high point at his most recent exhibition with 303 Gallery, where Falls has selected a series of new works for his fall show.   (more…)

Jim Shaw, One Percent for Art (2020), via Simon Lee

Jim Shaw returns to Simon Lee Gallery this month for a show of new works in London, continuing the artist’s incisive and often comical adaptations of recent events, comic book iconographies and the last 75 years of American history.  (more…)

Amy Sillman, Split 2 (2020), via Gladstone Gallery

Colorful, bold flourishes and deliberate brush strokes greet the viewer upon entry to Gladstone Gallery’s Chelsea exhibition space, a dynamic and enervating tableau orchestrated by painter Amy Sillman.  Taking over the gallery for a show that now opens after its earlier postponement in the wake of covid-19, the show introduces a flourish of energy that underscores Sillman’s ongoing work, and offers a moment of reflection and repose for viewers in the midst of the current turbulence of the world outside the gallery.    (more…)

Jean-Marie Appriou, The Blood Drop (2020), via Clearing

Taking over the expanses of Clearing Gallery’s Bushwick exhibition space, artist Jean-Marie Appriou presents a body of new work delving into Medieval aesthetics and the legends of the era, creating a range of works that mine the lore and mythologies that sprung from the era following the fall of Rome.    (more…)

Josh Smith, Untitled (2020), via David Zwirner

Marking a new entry in his ongoing practice of obsessive painterly documentation and flowing, lyrical canvases, artist Josh Smith has opened a string of shows at David Zwirner in New York and London, continuing his exploration of landscape and space, here focusing on a series of empty streetscapes.   Reflecting on the experience of creating these new works during the 2020 pandemic, the artist’s work explores the meaning of creativity and artistic purpose in the midst of global crisis.   (more…)

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #609 (2019), via Metro Pictures

The ever-shifting visage of Cindy Sherman touches down once again at Metro Pictures this month, installing a selection of new works that continue her explorations of iconographies and cultural trappings, bodies and time as suspended within the frame of the photograph.  Considered among the most influential voices of her generation, Sherman opens the show as she installs a major body of work at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #611 (2019), via Metro Pictures

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Klara Liden, Kahba (2020), via Sadie Coles

Currently on view at Sadie Coles HQ’s Davies Street location in London, artist Klara Liden has orchestrated a body of new works drawing on the urban landscape, its moments of improvised and recontextualized materiality, and peculiar interrogations of these spaces through the body and through the body populace.  At the center of the show is an investigation of cities and landscapes, and how human agency slowly transmutes and transfigures much the space within it.   (more…)

Danh Vo, Chicxulub (Installation View), via Art Observed

Taking over the full expanse of White Cube Bermondsey, artist Danh Vo presents a selection of new works that continues his uniquely deep interrogations of the politics and materiality of language, drawing together a show of fragmentary items and momentary encounters that build and amplify their respective elements.

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Raymond Pettibon, No Title (Prick up your) (2020), via Regen Projects

For its fall exhibition, Regen Projects has tapped the voluminous body of work produced by Raymond Pettibon, presenting a range of new drawings and collages by the artist to round out his 11th exhibition with the gallery since joining in 1993.  Uniting his various interests in literature, sport and art, Pettibon’s most recent selection of works continues his investigations into the landscape of modern culture. (more…)

Tavares Strachan, In Plain Sight (Installation View), via Marian Goodman

On view this month at Marian Goodman in London, artist Tavares Strachan takes an in-depth, beguiling look at the interconnected figures of 20th Century politics and culture for his first UK solo show, part of his ongoing investigatory project The Encyclopedia of Invisibility.  The show, on view through tomorrow, makes a powerful, serpentine pathway through the landscape and history of the world, tying together the Queen, Haille Selassie, Nina Simone, and many more.   (more…)