Kim Tschang-Yeul, Waterdrops (1980)

In a decade-spanning exhibition at Upper East Side’s Almine Rech Gallery, Kim Tschang-Yeul exhibits a body of water drop paintings that have become something of a calling card for the Korean artist. Pursuing the singular idea of depicting water drops in ever-shifting narratives, the artist has built an elaborate series of works in this form over the past few decades, exhibiting his meticulously-illustrated oil on canvas compositions to a broad audience in Europe, Asia, and America. The exhibition emphasizes the artist’s unending quest to expand this signature style to implement political, personal or artistic narratives into simple, yet poetic presence of oozing water. Using the drop’s magnifying ability and translucent ethereality in diverse formats, Kim merges techniques of hyperrealist painting with cues from abstraction, particularly with his direct reference to monochromatic painting. (more…)

Genieve Figgis, Happy Accidents of the Swing (2018), via Almine Rech

Part of the challenge of the current exhibition of work on view by painter Genieve Figgis on view at Almine Rech’s Paris location lies in the deciphering of her press release.  With only a single paragraph on the genesis and economic boon caused by the “Monster Jesus” phenomenon (in which a woman’s disastrous restoration of a fresco depicting the Christ in the North of Spain became the city’ main tourist draw), the show makes Figgis’s paintings a bit more confounding.  For an artist whose body of work consists of deconstructed, loosely rendered interpretations of Rococo and Classical masterpieces, the comparison is a strange one.  Are we being led to understand Figgis’s work as a degradation of these works?  Is she presenting them as an economically-motivated path away from such classic images?

Genieve Figgis, Wish You Were Here (Installation View), via Almine Rech

(more…)

Words Without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go (Installation View)

Almine Rech Gallery, one of Paris’s foremost galleries, opened its first New York location more than a year ago on the Upper East Side, bringing with it a unique program that mixes a strong artist roster with a consistently adventurous curatorial project.  For its most recent venture, the gallery has brought together key figures from the canon of 20th century Western art for Words Without Thoughts Never to Heaven Go. Adapting its title from a line in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the exhibition investigates ways artists use text as an allegorical element. Serving as a chronological and thematic starting point to the exhibition is Être ou ne pas être, Picasso’s 1912 painting considered as one of the foremost examples of appropriation of text in modern painting. Declaring “to be or not be” in French with gouache on paper, Picasso not only pays homage to one of the most emblematic texts ever written, but he also questions the mimetic essence of a painting. Can a painting of words serve to depict an image? (more…)

Alex Israel, Pelican (2017), via Almine Rech

Marking a new stage in his engagement with the cultural landscape and natural phenomena of the California coastline, Alex Israel returns to Almine Rech’s Paris location this month, presenting his aptly titled solo exhibition, Summer 2.  Drawn from the artist’s work on his forthcoming feature-length film, SPF-18, Israel has created a series of aluminum and acrylic wetsuit sculptures, text-based pieces, and an extremely detailed pelican sculpture, each presenting its own twist on the familiar iconography of the beach environments he has so often used as source material. (more…)

Jeff Koons (Installation View), via Art Observed

Opening its new exhibition space in London during Frieze Week, Almine Rech has tapped Jeff Koons for a series of new pieces to christen the space.  The show, which draws heavily on Koons’s recent work in his Gazing Ball series, shown alongside a small selection of polished steel Ballerina sculptures, marks an interesting continuation of the series. (more…)

Paris Gallery Almine Rech has announced plans to open a 3,000-square-foot New York location this coming October.  “It is an honor to inaugurate Almine Rech Gallery’s newest location in New York City with an exhibition by two of the most iconic artists of the twentieth century,” says Paul de Froment, who will lead the new space.  “The exhibition is not only an exploration of the creative dialogue between these two formidable artists, but an insightful and intimate story shared from the families’ perspectives.” (more…)

Both Almine Rech and White Cube Gallery are planning on opening New York outposts, the Art News reports.  Almine Rech is eyeing a “project space” proposal on the Upper East Side, while White Cube is still looking for space. (more…)

Francesco Vezzoli, Eternal Kiss (2015), via Almine Rech

Continuing his recent interest in the preservation, representation and context of the historical, Francesco Vezzoli is currently showing a new work Eternal Kiss at Almine Rech’s London exhibition space.  Taking a pair of classical Roman busts originally acquired at auction, Vezzoli has worked for several years restoring the works, relying on the input and advice of archaeologists and historians to approximate their original surfaces. (more…)

FIAC crowds, photo by Tiphaine Popesco for Art Observed

FIAC closed today, Sunday October 21st, with dealers reporting strong sales and a collective sigh of relief that the proposed inclusion of artwork over €50,000 to France’s wealth tax had not passed.  The fair was, by all accounts, well-organized and exhibited an impressive program of young galleries alongside work by established blue-chip artists. This year the fair added exhibition space in the Salon d’Honneur, the newly-renovated upper floor of the historic Grand Palais.  In past years the fair has seen more European collectors, but this year dealers reported sales to many collectors from Asia, Russia and the Middle East as well. The fair was directed by Jennifer Flay.

Marc Quinn, The Origin of the World, 2012, photo by Tiphaine Popesco for Art Observed

(more…)

–>
Ugo Rondinone, ERSTERJUNIZWEITAUSENDUNDELF (2011). All images courtesy of Almine Rech Gallery.

New Horizon is the sixth solo exhibition by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone at Almine Rech Gallery Brussels. For the first time since 1997 the artist’s iconic “horizon paintings” are being presented along with a series of watercolors. The now New York-based multi-media artist has continually questioned the relationship between viewer and artwork as well as the role of the artist and his place in the world. This series of works offer an entry point into the artist’s personal meditations around these inquiries while challenging the notion of public versus private domains.

(more…)

Joe Bradley, Duckling Fantasy (2011) installation view, courtesy Almine Rech.

Joe Bradley’s “Duckling Fantasy” is currently on show at Paris’s Almine Rech Gallery.  The exhibition consists of new, somewhat large-scale paintings from oil, oil sticks and pencils, that continue Bradley’s interest in color and dirt.

More text and images after the jump… (more…)

–>
Yutaka Sone Little Manhattan (2007-2009) at David Zwirner Gallery – All images by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

Art Observed remains on site in Basel, Switzerland for Art 42 Basel 2011.  The following is our second of the photosets of the main fair.  Stay tuned for more coverage of the main fair before the end of the week as well as profiles of the satellite exhibitions and events.

–>
Artist Wim Delvoye before one of his sculptures at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin

more images and links after the jump…

(more…)