Rodney Graham, Tattooed Man on Balcony (2018), via 303 Gallery

Artist Rodney Graham returns to 303 Gallery this month, bringing with him a new series of works that blend together his ongoing investigations of the iconography of various social spheres with a body of works that simultaneously seem to blend his constructed worlds with the space of the viewer.  The show, which opened this past week, includes both lightbox works and paintings, each informing a shared space that Graham allows to float in a certain degree of indeterminacy.

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Doug Aitken, New Era (Installation View), via Art Observed

Walking into the shadowy depths of 303 Gallery this month, viewers are confronted with an almost completely destabilizing series of visuals.  Huge explosions of color and line expand out from the center of television screens placed in the pitch-black space, swirling movements and patterns created by arrangements of various technologic peripherals and paraphernalia.  Accentuated by the hall of mirrors the artist has constructed inside the gallery space, the video creates a alienating effect, the feeling of being awash in technologic constructs we are inventing faster than we can fully comprehend their effects on communication, knowledge or expression. (more…)

Marina Pinsky, Trigger Trace 1 (2018), via 303

The Russian-born artist Marina Pinsky’s work is political in the most expansive sense of the word. Delving into intersections of spatial, material and ideological models of the world and its inhabitants, her pieces examine personal relationships, contractual agreements and concrete localities as part of an ongoing continuum, working at specific narratives and sites in a mode of process that seems as inspired by social research strategies as they are by the writings of Foucault. Delving into both sculptural and photographic practices, her works seem to both model and reconstruct environments and situations while also actively documenting them in real-time. In her most recent show at 303 in New York, the city’s origins become her focus. (more…)

Stephen Shore, New York, New York, May 20, 2017 (2017), via Art Observed

Few photographers have left such an enduring impact on the practice of contemporary photography, and arguably on the state of contemporary art making as Stephen Shore.  Exploring a mix of taut, close cropped examinations of modern civilization alongside the varied textures and scenes that marks its intermingling with natural environments and varied foreign agents, Shore’s interest in the present condition is frequently bound up in a series of variations and interpretations along shared themes.  Working in series with varied materials and cameras, his work is ever-shifting and precise in its statements, making him an endlessly compelling artist to view. (more…)

Rodney Graham, Media Studies ’77 (2017), via Art Observed

Currently spread out across 303 Gallery’s spacious 21st Street exhibition space in Chelsea, photographer Rodney Graham has returned with a body of new works, continuing his playful and incisive understanding of cultural archetypes.  Drawing from a range of situations and signifiers, the artist’s body of new works, a series of chromogenic transparencies mounted on light-boxes, play on both Graham’s observations of his native Vancouver, and more broadly, his understanding of the conventions of the image in modern creative production. (more…)

Sue Williams, Chicken Leg in Yellow (2017), via 303 Gallery

Currently on view at 303 Gallery, Sue Williams has brought a new body of paintings continuing her exploration of history and memory through the abstraction of both form and the painterly canon.  The exhibition, devoted to a handful of paintings and collages that trace the artist’s precise, and often humorously incisive approach to the American past, in conjunction with an incisive look at its impact on the female body.   (more…)

Matt Johnson, Drywall #2 (Grape Hyacinth M560-3) (2016), via 303 Gallery

Spread out across the floor of 303‘s exhibition on West 21st Street, a wide, often enigmatic series of seemingly cast-off objects sit atop small plinths.  Ranging from crumbled pizza and avocado boxes to stacked bags of concrete to immense towers of interlocking slabs, the sculptures are part of a new series by Los Angeles-based artist Matt Johnson, using the flexible and expressive capacities of wood to create works that vary in their notes of the hyperreal, pathetic and ephemeral in relation to the world around them.  Taking this intersection of historical and cultural reference points as a rich space for operation, the artist’s work conjures a wide range of interpretations and readings through minimal effort.

Matt Johnson, Untitled (4 Stacked Tape Rolls) (2016), via 303 Gallery (more…)

Karen Kilimnik, the adoration of the cats (2015), via 303 Gallery

In her eleventh exhibition with 303 Gallery, on view through March 26th, Karen Kilimnik returns to her historically-motivated sense of sarcasm and self-awareness, dissecting the convoluted theoretical foundations of contemporary art, in a trademark language that plays on, and resonates with, notions and concepts of kitsch.  Kilimnik’s uncompromising fascination with the imperviousness of pre-20th century European extravagance, and its depictions in the art of the era, as well as that of modernity, blossom through her own collage techniques here, combining flippant references with lush environs to create critically de-centered works.

Karen Kilimnik (Installation View), via 303 Gallery

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Sarah Meyohas at 303 Gallery (Installation View)

303 Gallery is hosting a special collaboration with New York based artist Sarah Meyohas, merging the inherently performative natures of two distinct terrains of art making and stock marketing.  Stemming from Mehoyas’s dual educational background in both business and fine arts, the Yale MFA graduate traded stocks on the New York Stock Exchange during the market’s operating hours for ten business days, affecting the value of these stocks.  Transferring their behavior into stark black and white drawings, Mehoyas transfers the market’s often erratic movements into the serene white cube. (more…)

The recently opened Collier Schorr exhibition at 303 Gallery suggests a fresh dialogue on appropriation, a trend in art that has been associated with photographic work more often than any other medium since the 80s, and is here taken up again by a long-time photographer. Instead of Richard Prince’s infamous rephotographing of Marlboro ads or Jeff Koons’ re-sculpting of the kitsch, though, Schorr’s practice stands closer to the likes of Sherrie Levine or Barbara Kruger, presenting new discussions on feminism, the female body and its place in the contemporary aesthetic discourse.

Collier Schorr, The Bricks (2013), Courtesy of Collier Schorr and 303 Gallery, New York (more…)

Photographer Collier Schorr is profiled in the New York Times this week, following the opening of her newest show at 303 earlier this month.  “I don’t know what to do until I meet them,” Schorr says of engaging with the models she shoots. “Who are you? I’m going to take that picture.” (more…)

Lisa Spellman’s 303 Gallery is set to open its new location tonight on 24th Street in Chelsea.  The move is the latest in a series of migrations from the space’s original location on Park Ave, and will also serve as the opening for a show of new work by Rodney Graham.   Spellman’s gallery has a long reputation for cultivating major talents; “I try to work with artists I feel a connection to,” she says, “since that helps determine the quality and longevity of the relationship.” (more…)

The Opening for Doug Aitken, 100 YRS, Courtesy of 303 Gallery

Working across a broad body of media and techniques, including photography, sculpture, video, installation, sound art and architectural interventions, Los Angeles-based artist Doug Aitken’s work frequently explores concepts of rhythm, repetition and duration, exploring interrelations between time, memory and space and the subsequent fluctuations of meaning and understanding caused by their interactions.  His work has been ehxibited in a variety of institutions and contexts, including his enormous Song1 installation on the outside of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, as well as his upcoming video art installation at the Seattle Art Museum.

Doug Aitken, MORE (Shattered Pour) (2013), Courtesy of 303 Gallery

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Image: Installation View, Karen Kilimnik and Kim Gordon at 303 Gallery

Currently on display at 303 Gallery is a collaborative exhibition of work by Kim Gordon (of the band Sonic Youth) and Karen Kilimnik. It is Kilimnik’s eleventh time exhibiting at 303 and Gordon’s second. Upon entering the gallery, one is submerged into a dimly lit and twinkling underworld of subculture that is examined through film, painting, performance and installation.

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Louise Bourgeois, Untitled (2004). All photos on site by Art Observed.

The last of the throng at the first Frieze Art Fair on Randall’s Island in New York City petered out Monday afternoon yet, the most avid collectors simply shifted course to the remainder auction sales at Christie’s and Philips de Pury. Overall, gallerists at the fair appeared to be immensely pleased with the inaugural event, some booths claiming blowout sales, while others were content with merely executing reserve transactions.

John Ahearn casts a fairgoer in plaster as part of Frieze Projects

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Hans-Peter Feldmann, Golden Shoes with Pins (2012). Photos for Art Observed by Ryann Donnelly unless otherwise noted.

Hans-Peter Feldmann‘s sixth solo exhibition of new work is on view now at 303 Gallery in Chelsea, featuring pieces from several recent series in sculpture, collage, painting, and photography. Across the various mediums, the work is united by Feldmann’s keen appropriative sense, and traceable aesthetic manipulations. Often wavering between the vaguely comedic and the latently subversive, Feldmann’s work re-engages the seemingly familiar or ubiquitous to propose an alternative dialogue. (more…)

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Eva Rothschild, Blackout (2007) All images courtesy of 303 Gallery.

Eva Rothschild‘s latest exhibition is her second at 303 Gallery, titled The Heart of a Thousand Petalled Lotus. The main white room is peppered with matte black objects and looming sculptures, focusing on the form of the line and simplistic silhouettes of shape. Crudely structured objects are precisely wrapped and woven with red and white, while a series of totem pole-like columns huddle together. Also included in the show are brighter, more psychedelic paintings, a distinct difference from her sharply calm sculptures.

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Above: Karen Kilimnik, Me Corner of Haight & Ashbury, 1966, 1998.
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Below: Joseph Cornell, Untitled, c. 1953.
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Image courtesy of the Artists, 303 Gallery New York and Sprueth Magers Gallery Berlin London.

Currently on view at Sprueth Magers London is “Something Beautiful,” a collaborative show by American artists Joseph Cornell and Karen Kilimnik. Curated by Todd Levin, the exhibition features paintings, collages, and mixed-media installations that reflect the influence of the Romantic-era ballet on both artists.

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was an American artist known for pioneering the art of assemblage. Created from found objects, Cornell’s boxes often read like three-dimensional Surrealist paintings. He admired the work of Max Ernst and Rene Magritte, but claimed to have found their work to be too dark.  His work was also inspired heavily by his beliefs in Christian Science, which he adopted in his early twenties. He never received formal training as an artist, but was influenced by American Transcendentalist poetry and French Symbolist painters, such as Mallarme and Nerval. Another motif of his work, 19th century European ballet dancers, comes to life in this exhibition.

Similarly, Karen Kilimnik’s work redeploys discreet objects in a quest for the romantic sublime. Theater and stagecraft have figured strongly in her installations, and her use of particular materials suggests the influence of Cornell. Often making direct references to Degas and other Impressionist painters, Kilimnik’s subjects occupy a nineteenth-century world: one of mystery, drama, and romance.

Anthony Byrt, in his review for Art Forum, refers to Levin’s conceptual approach here as a “bold curatorial statement,” suggesting that the premise upon which the two artists are connected is a precarious one. However, “Ballet aside,” says Byrt, “tangible links do emerge, such as theatricality, quiet spectacle, and ideas of feminine beauty, which both artists explore.”

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Karen Kilimnik, Paris Opera Rats, 1993. Image credited as above.

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Rodney Graham’s “Dance!!!!!” (2008) © 303 Gallery

Last week “Music and Dance,” a new series by Rodney Graham, opened at 303 Gallery. Art Observed was on site at the show, which presents a series of lightboxes depicting scenes of archetypes and activity.  Each work encapsulates a disconnection from the very object it is depicting, thereby questioning the status of the object.

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Quiver of Arrows, 2010 by Mike Nelson    All images via 303 Gallery unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at 303 Gallery at 547 W 21 Street, New York is the exhibition of new works by a contemporary British installation artist Mike Nelson. Quiver of Arrows, an installation constructed of  four travel trailers from 1939- 1969 that form Nelson’s   extended labyrinths,  is the artist’s first solo show in the United States.

Video of the Installation via Art Observed

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Grayson Perry; Entrance To The Forest; 2002; Victoria Miro Gallery; London -Photos by ArtObserved

“The surprise is the business we are doing. Frankly, people are expressing more confidence in the art market than the government or Wall Street right now,” said Sean Kelly of Sean Kelly Gallery. The night of December 2nd, Vernissage attendees glittered and Piper Heidsieck champagne flowed.  More importantly, buyers were in attendance, asking questions and indeed, according to most of the galleries interviewed for this article, buying.  On Thursday afternoon, Douglas Baxter, President of Pace Wildenstein professed “We’ve met expectations.” Also on Thursday, when asked his feelings on sales from the night before, a representative at Cheim & Read insisted his artists have been selling well, pointing to Jack Pierson sculpture and a pile of William Eggleston’s photos.  Margherita Belaief of Peres Projects had the same confidence, “It’s hard to say so early but in general, Dash Snow’s pieces are selling strong.”  While hesitant to disclose precise numbers, the overall sentiment of the top galleries was optimistic.

However, it’s important to note while the larger known artists have been selling strong, some galleries have reported some difficulty selling lesser known artist pieces.  Alfons Klosterfelde at Klosterfelde was most direct: “People are asking more questions and really want to know the details,” but he said pointedly as of Thursday, “there have been less sales” and Klosterfelde remarked the pieces sold were from the gallery’s more known artists.

Photos and Writing by Faith-Ann Young

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Opening reception for Doug Aitken ‘Migration’ at 303 Gallery photos by Art Observed

Art Observed was on site at the well attended opening reception for Doug Aitken’s new installations at 303 Gallery. His piece called ‘Migration’ is the first exhibition to inhabit the new 303 Gallery space on 21st Street but the opening also took place correspondingly at the gallery’s original 22nd street location. On 22nd street, a series of 30 abstract watercolors greet you when you first enter the brightly lit circular room, and lead you to the back gallery which houses a series of illuminated signs. The large-scale signs are lit up and filled with panoramic photos of our contemporary landscape.

‘Migration’, an audio-visual installation, is played on three large screens spaced throughout the new 21st Street gallery space. In the footage, Doug Aitken takes wild North American migratory animals out of their natural environment and juxtaposes them in roadside hotel and motel rooms, all the while supplementing the footage with a dramatic soundtrack. The guests at the opening reception spread out through the gallery in search of a preferred viewing vantage point; some standing in front of the screen, sitting on the ground, or mingling towards the front of the gallery. The exhibition will continue to be on view at547 W. 21 St through November 1st and 525 W. 22 St through November 8th.

Art Observed Exclusive Videos of the opening:
Opening reception for Doug Aitken: Migration at 303 Gallery [Art Observed]

Doug Aitken: Migration [303 Gallery]
303 Gallery current exhibitions [Artslant]
Doug Aitken at 303 Gallery [Supreme Management]
AO On Site: 303 Gallery’s 25th Anniversary Summer Celebration, Wednesday night, July 23 NYC [ArtObserved]

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Mariko Munro, Karen Kilimnik, and Kirsten Dunst, photo courtesy of 303 Gallery, shot by Billy Ferrel/Patrick McMullan

Last night, 303 Gallery threw a Summer Celebration to mark their expansion into their new space. The event celebrated the gallery’s 25th anniversary at it’s brand new 5,000-square-foot Chelsea location on 21st Street in New York City. The party hosted a performance by indie rock band, The Virgins, and a set by DJ Thurston Moore. Mary Heilmann selected David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Richard Sarafian’s Vanishing Point to be projected on the gallery walls. The start studded guest list included actress Kirsten Dunst, artist Karen Kilimnik, artist Dan Graham, artist Aaron Young, just to name a few. Also spotted on the scene: Designer/model Agyness Deyn, designer Cynthia Rowley, Genevieve Jones, Joe Zee from Elle, Rogan Gregory, Serge Becker, model Jessica Stam, Anna Sui, Byrdie Bell, Bill Powers, Cecilia Dean from Visionaire, Fashion Desiger Elise Overland, Poppy de Villeneuve, Doreen Remen from Art Production Fund, Julie Gilhart from Barney’s New York, Bowery Hotel owner Sean McPherson, collectors Baby Jane Holzer, Matt Aberle, David Hoberman, curators Francesco Bonami, Richard Flood, Barbara London, galleriests Andrew Kreps and Anton Kerns, stylist Natasha Royt, Meredith Darrow, Jason Wu, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, Anthony Haden-Guest, musician Lissy Trullie, curator Shamim Momin, Knight Landesman from Art Forum, and Amanda Sharpe from Frieze.

Art, Music, and Heat: Shvitzing at the 303 Gallery Opening [Refinery 29]
Of Nubiles and Noblemen [Style]
Summer Celebration at 303 Gallery [Art Fag City]
303 Gallery Website [303 Gallery]
303 Gallery Summer Kick Off [Fashion Week Daily]
Tonight at 303 Gallery [Suprememanagment]
Full Steam Ahead [Vogue Scene]
Additional photos courtesy Billy Farrell and Patrick McMullan via 303 Gallery [303 Gallery]

more photos of the event after the jump…

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This photograph taken in Jamaica four years ago, is believed to be Banksy via Daily Mail

After a year long investigation, Graffiti artist Banksy revealed? More here, and here [Daily Mail], [NYTimes], [Supertouchart]
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Ad agencies reverse the long-evident trend of artists poaching from popular ads by creating popular ads that poach from artists [NYTimes]
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A profile of Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Daria “Dasha” Zhukova, a new player on the art scene [TimesUK]
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Previously thought ‘fake’ is a Rembrandt, but not a self-portrait [The Art Newspaper]
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The Sun reviews Art Market tome ‘The $12 Million Stuffed Shark’ previously covered by AO here [NYSun]
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On Page Six: 303 Gallery employee fired for mistaking Marc Jacobs for a homeless man and Andres Serrano keeps it gritty in his new Chelsea show [NYPost]
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MoMA assembles modern prefab houses in adjacent vacant lot [NYTimesMag]