Installation view, Cellblock I, Andrea Rosen Gallery. All photos on site by Erica Simone for Art Observed

The Andrea Rosen Gallery opened Cellblock I at its main space on December 1st, 2012, and simultaneously inaugurated its new, second location–just down the street at 544 West 24th Street–with Cellblock II. Both shows, held together under the theme (and anti-theme) of imprisonment, were curated by the prominent scholar and curator Robert Hobbs.

Robert Motherwell’s Dover Beach III at Cellblock II, Andrea Rosen Gallery

Hobbs is well-known for his work as an art historian and writer. He has been the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair at Virginia Commonwealth University since 1991, and a visiting professor at Yale University for eight years. He is known as the definitive Robert Smithson scholar, and has contributed seminal writings on many of the artists he selected to show, including Alice Aycock, Beverly Pepper, and Kelley Walker. (more…)

Image: Rita Ackermann, Fire By Days: The Fool I, 2012, oil on canvas
All images courtesy Hauser & Wirth Gallery

On view at Hauser and Wirth’s London Picadilly space is the exhibition entitled Fire By Days, Rita Ackermann’s latest series by the same name.

It is comprised of three miniseries: Fire by Days, Fire by Days Blues and Fire by Days The Fool. The first two contain numerous diptychs that have been created by initially pressing the works together to form a ‘reflective pair’ but then working each piece separately yet simultaneously to distort the reflective essence of the duos.

(more…)

All images for Art Observed on site by Guillaume Vandame.

The Andrea Rosen Gallery currently presents its first exhibition of Sterling Ruby and Lucio Fontana, an adventurous juxtaposition of the hip contemporary Californian with the radical and aggressive 20th Century artist. Ms. Andrea Rosen, who kindly answered questions on the show, described how the inspiration for the exhibition came as a conversation with Ruby when Rosen was doing a group show of De Kooning, Fontana, and Eva Hesse in the fall of 2008. “We were talking about contextualizing Sterling’s work and Sterling had very much liked that show, in particular my relationship to those particular ceramics which hadn’t been shown very much,” Rosen said. “So we started with a discussion and it sort of evolved in a year long conversation about what we wanted to accomplish juxtaposing Sterling and Fontana.”

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

David Altmejd, The Vessel (2011), via Andrea Rosen Gallery

Currently on view at Andrea Rosen Gallery is an exhibition by Canadian artist David Altmejd, whose show includes sculptures that use a wide range of media and technique- terrines that house massive, undulating sculptures share the space with and site-specific pieces that draw their material from the wall of the gallery itself. Altmejd gained prominence in 2007 after his participation in the Whitney Biennial. His sculptures take many forms, but usually are centered around themes of life, death, decay and birth (not necessarily in that order.)

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

–>
Installation View. Carol Bove, Sterling Ruby, Dana Schutz. Andrea Rosen Gallery, 2010. All images courtesy of Andrea Rosen Gallery.

Open until Friday, August 20 at Andrea Rosen Gallery is a group exhibition featuring artists Carol Bove, Sterling Ruby, and Dana Schutz. Each of the works on view in this summer show explore themes of confinement, disaster, and violence, uniting the disparate styles and material approaches of the three participating artists.

(more…)

Title to be Determined, Nate Lowman, 2010, bulletproof glass and bullets (detail view). Images by J. Swan for Art Observed.

On view at Andrea Rosen Gallery is the unusual pairing of artists Karla Black and Nate Lowman, two artists whose works address a general groundlessness, or rather, whose works evinces an almost petulant objection to groundlessness.  In partnership with Mary Mary and Maccarone, this exhibition, closing June 19th, displays recent works of painting and sculpture, executed in materials ranging from traditional alkyd paint on canvas to its self-conscious coupling with retired gas pumps, to guileful manipulations of paper that serve to threaten the material’s core integrity.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)