Theaster Gates, White Sky, overcast (2014), All Images Courtesy White Cube Gallery

Now through July 5, the White Cube Gallery in Bermondsey presents an exhibition of new work by Theaster Gates, the installation artist and professor of visual art at the University of Chicago who draws from themes of individual and collective history, place and self, and empowerment in his work.  Freedom of Assembly continues and expands upon the artist’s approach to art as a vehicle for social-justice, communication, and critique.

Theaster Gates, Freedom of Assembly (Installation View)

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Richard Prince, Original (Installation View)

Richard Prince’s Original series is currently the subject of a new exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, nestled at the gallery’s Upper East Side bookstore showroom, and using Prince’s ‘arrangements’ of soft-core adult novels with artworks created for their covers, showing the next step in the artist’s fascination with collecting, ownership and presentation.  An ardent, perhaps even obsessive collector himself, Prince often mines and unfolds worn and sometimes clandestine images, not only from vintage pulps, which serve for the selection here, but also from copies of influential literary pieces, a pattern the artist has studied throughout his career of media appropriations.  A devoted member of a group of artists who started experimenting with appropriation in the ‘70’s, Prince usually employs minimal alteration to his subject matter; rearranging, editing and sometimes even rephotographing what already exists. (more…)

Alex Da Corte, Die Hexe (Installation View), via Art Observed

For the past month and a half, the 77th Street location of Luxembourg and Dayan’s townhouse location has served as a bizarre cross between retro kitsch and haunted house, part of artist Alex Da Corte’s solo exhibition at the space. (more…)

Sturtevant, Duchamp Relâche (1967)

The Museum of Modern Art is hosting the first US exhibition focusing on the work of the late Sturtevant, one of the foremost artists to initiate conversations on commodification and appropriation of artworks, after the late artist was the subject of various solo shows in Europe. Born Elaine Horan in Ohio, Sturtevant always chose to remain discrete about her biography, so much that her year of birth is still a matter of discussion. (more…)

Mario Schifano, Propaganda (1965), *All artwork images Courtesy of Artist Rights Society and Luxembourg & Dayan, installation shots Courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan

Luxembourg & Dayan is presenting the New York leg of the gallery’s acclaimed London show from this past summer, Mario Schifano: 1960-67, which celebrated the seminal post-war Italian artist’s impressive career. Titled The ‘60s, the selection for thisshow delivers an ambitious look at a crucial period in the late artist’s life and career. Less known compared to his fellow counterparts, such as Pistoletto or Manzoni, Schifano had his breakthrough in the New York art scene with the infamous New Realists show at Sidney Janis Gallery in 1962.  (more…)

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via Art Observed

Christopher Williams, the Los Angeles-based artist who just recently closed his major MoMA retrospective earlier this month, is back in New York with a new solo exhibition with David Zwirner.

The artist’s current exhibition of new work at the gallery’s 19th Street space makes up for its minimal catalog in conceptual clout, examining the construction of narrative and spatial interactions through a coyly designed exhibition plan that shifts in theme and semiotic interaction based on the viewer’s position.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

The exhibition is composed of a series of variations on Williams’s ongoing fascination with the value of the image, and its role as a circulator of information and ideology in contemporary capitalism.  During the construction of the show, or rather, the deconstruction of the prior show, Marcel Dzama’s Une Danse de Bouffons, Williams elected to remove several dividing walls, and, rather than remount them seamlessly, left them standing solitary, bearing the scars of their removal.  As a result, the exhibition is divided by a series of walls that seem to have slightly broken free in the exhibition space, a peculiar visual phenomenon that also serves as one of the core conceits for the artist’s work.

Christopher Williams, Untitled (Study in Gray) 1967 Citroen DS Serial number: DS851360a Color code: AC 226 Color name: gris satiné Color year: 1964 Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf November 3, 2013, 2014 Inkjet print on cotton rag paper 20 x 25 inches (50.8 x 63.5 cm ) WILCH0415 (2014) via Art Observed

Regarding the photography itself, the artist follows a set of previously explored techniques with new angles.  In one series, he photographs camera lenses cut cleanly in half, underscoring the complexity of a mechanism often left unseen, but wholly complicit in delivering the image itself to the viewer.  In another, Williams photographs damaged car headlights, but shot after replacing all damaged parts and re-painting the car carefully so that only a peculiar, subtle bent can be detected, an inflection that remains buried underneath the aura of newness.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

The third combines an image of a chicken, inspired by the fringe market for poultry appreciation magazines and the linguistic tropes these magazines have established for themselves, with a carefully manipulated magazine advertisement for dish soap with all evidence of food removed, leaving a clean, confusing pan in a pristine environment.

Christopher Williams, Cutaway model Leica Leitz Wetzlar Tele-Elmar 135/4.0 Focal length: 135 mm Aperture range: 4 – 22 Number of elements/groups: 4/4 Focusing range: 1.5 m – infinity Angle of range: 18 degrees Filter thread: 39 mm Weight: 405 g Dimensions: 53.4 × 122.69 mm Manufacturer part number: 11850 Lens design by Dr. Walter Mandler Manufactured by Ernst Leitz GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf March 14, 2013, 2014 Inkjet print on cotton rag paper 7 1/4 x 21 7/8 inches (43.8 x 55.6 cm) WILCH0427 (2014), via Art Observed

Placing these three sets of pieces along calculated sight lines, Williams’s manipulated walls effectively break the space of the room into various thematics based on the viewer’s position.  Depending on position, the viewer may contend with the camera alongside an image of the chicken, or perhaps the broken headlight in all of its cosmetic interference alongside a shining pan.  In each intersection, the idea of publication and the editorial decision, the act of depiction and its formatting within certain standards, takes a prominent role.

Christopher Williams, Demountable wall panel with panel storage cart from the exhibition The Production Line of Happiness, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, January 24 – May 18, 2014 Wall panel materials: Oak, plywood, metal, cardboard, fabric, rubber, vinyl, and adhesive Wall panel dimensions: 102 x 72 x 4 1/2 inches Storage cart materials: Steel, carpet, rubber, plywood, and paint Storage cart dimensions: 78 x 86 x 18 inches Gallery display system designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), Chicago, 1982 Pedestal materials: MDF, plywood, Douglas fir blocking, screws, lag screws, neoprene rubber spacers and shims, and metal Pedestal dimensions: 134 1/2 x 66 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches Pedestal designed by Mack Cole-Edelsack, Department of Exhibition Design and Production, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in accordance with loan specifications from the Art Institute of Chicago, Department of Photography Exhibited in The Production Line of Happiness, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 27 – November 2, 2014 July 20, 2014, 2014 Selenium toned gelatin silver print 22 x 18 1/4 inches (55.9 x 46.4 cm) WILCH0459 (2014) via David Zwirner

Williams is also exhibiting a series of inversions on the notion of the exhibition catalog, in which images and text are merely replaced with color-coded pages, as well as Printed in Germany, a remarkably comical book that is completely blank saved for the aforementioned words printed on the back cover (apparently a requirement for the books to be shipped out of the country).  Bearing only a single mark of international exchange, the book renders all content visually obsolete, underscoring only its place of origin.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

Williams’s exhibition is small, but packs a hefty punch, allowing the construction of the image within a fixed context to underscore and emphasize the methods and modes of image production today.  The show is on view through December 20th.

— D. Creahan

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Christopher Williams at David Zwirner [David Zwirner]

El Anatsui, Yet Another Place (2014)

Building himself a uniquely personal technique in which he reforms cast-away materials such as bottle caps and copper wire, El Anatsui has been orchestrating works that go against the definitions of any singular medium and dimension.  Standing between a vague figuration and an expressive abstraction of bright colors, the artist’s constructions from discarded materials resist to classification in any one form as sculpture, installation or painting. (more…)

Jenny Holzer, Presently in the United States (2014) via Emily Heinz for Art Observed

On view now at Cheim & Read through October 25th, 2014, Dust Paintings is a series of recent paintings by Jenny Holzer, an artist known primarily for her use of language and political investigation. Culled from the ongoing use of political documents from 2004, months after the United States and United Kingdom instigated the invasion of Iraq, Holzer makes a comprehensive “map”, of sorts, from linguistics to action; from intention to execution, stressing importance and the power of language, while providing a kind of physical and aesthetic proof of this idea.

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Richard Prince, Untitled (Portrait) (2014), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph By Robert Mckeever.

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s smaller galleries at 976 Madison, Richard Prince’s new set of Instagram-culled pieces are nearly as potent in exposition as they are in person, a series of images pulled directly from the social media app’s user accounts, and blown up to immense scales, full-sized canvases that command the attention of viewers passing by on the street outside. (more…)

Jonathan Monk, A Copy of Deflated Sculpture No. 1 (2009-2014), all photos via Osman Yerebakan for Art Observed

Appropriating the works of the lead players of Conceptual and Minimal art with an allusive wit, the British artist Jonathan Monk is known for adding his own accent to the often trenchant dynamics of the art world.  In his current show at Casey Kaplan, however, Monk embarks on an autobiographical investigation, reminiscing and eventually interpreting his artistic relation with various other artists. (more…)

Richard Prince’s recently executed series of prints, created using the actual photos of celebrities’ Instagram accounts, have been selling strongly in a private sale through Gagosian, the New York Post reports.  An unconfirmed report has priced the works at up to $100,000.   (more…)

Rene Ricard, The Archaic Smile (1978)

An artist embracing multiple formats, genres and techniques, Rene Ricard was born into a troubled family in Boston in 1946. Before he was eighteen years old, Ricard had already moved to New York, and immersed himself in its vibrant Downtown scene, appearing in many of Andy Warhol’s films, and becoming a regular in the artist’s “Factory.”  Referred to as ‘the George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world’ by Warhol, Ricard emerged as a highly influential art critic in the early 80’s, playing major a role in launching the careers of artists such as Julian Schnabel, Francesco Vezzoli, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose graffiti works were compared to the wall paintings in Pompeii by Ricard in his famous Artforum essay The Radiant Child. (more…)

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Nancy Rubins, Our Friend Fluid Metal (2014)

Nancy Rubins has not been hesitant about creating mammoth works of art, as seen in her first public installation at a shopping center in Illinois in 1981 or her 1995 installation of salvaged airplanes at MoMA.  Exhibiting objects collected from thrift stores and and secondhand shops, the artist’s sculptural assemblages are charged with an eclectic energy.  Televisions, planes, surfboards, heaters and mattresses are just a few source materials transformed into complex structures, charged with tangible energy and an inexplicable resistance to gravity.  (more…)

Anne Collier, Developing Tray #2 (2009)

In the winter of 2012, a gigantic human eye was gazed out intently on Chelsea and the Hudson River from the High Line billboard on 18th street. The billboard installation, Developing Tray #2, belonged to Anne Collier, an artist known for her appropriation based photographs culling a wide range of printed media from popular culture, suggesting a reinterpretation of otherwise neglected statements. Utilizing minimalistic techniques and a neutral white surface as a background, Collier photographs album covers, commercials, magazine pages or calendars, revealing the subtle ideological undertones related to feminism, consumerism and gender politics. (more…)

Scott Benzel, Counterfeit Nike ‘Heaven’s Gate’ SB Dunks (2011) Photo by Joerg Lohse

For the past several years, Arizona-born, L.A.-based artist Scott Benzel has been mining the mundane objects of capitalism and its reflection in the cultural agenda through his assemblage and display-based works, challenging the designated meanings of everyday objects as they enter into dialogue with each other. Approaching  simple and mostly utilitarian commodities as reflections of their collective or individualist identities, Benzel decodes dismissed or undiscovered subtleties in contemporary culture, and allows unspoken connections to come to the fore. (more…)

Mark Leckey, GreenScreenVegetables (2011), all images courtesy Untitled, New York

Currently on view at Untitled, located at 30 Orchard Street in New York, is a group exhibition of work by both emerging and well-known artists surrounding themes of decontextualization and absence. The show will be on view through August 2nd, 2014.

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Hanna Liden, Let it Go (2014), all images courtesy of the artist and Maccarone, New York

Currently on display at Maccarone in New York is a group of new photographic works by Swedish artist Hanna Liden. Entitled I hope these ruin a perfectly bad day, the series of still life photos repurpose her urban leitmotifs as makeshift vases for brightly colored flowers. The exhibition will continue through June 21, 2014.

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Glenn Brown, Cactus Land (2012), via Osman Can Yerebakan

In his first solo show in New York in seven years, Glenn Brown delivers a large scale body of work, focusing on sculptural works besides his widely recognized paintings. Palatially spread across Gagosian Gallery’s twenty-first street location with an array of exuberant colors, Brown’s selection of artistic references in this exhibition include nods to Rococo, Baroque and Mannerist techniques, alongside the likes of Frank Auerbach and Pieter Bruegel. (more…)

Erwin Wurm, Kiss (Abstract Sculptures) (2013), via Art Observed

Taking up the main room of Lehmann Maupin’s considerable Chelsea gallery, Austrian artist Erwin Wurm is presenting a series of recent sculptural works, continuing the artist’s irreverent and bizarre abstractions of both contemporary materials and the human form.  Short but sweet, Wurm’s show takes on his past approaches to figurative sculpture, and recasts it in an increasingly abstract, yet surprisingly cohesive series of sculptures, using the full body of his work to create new pieces that combine his aesthetic endeavors into more nuanced wholes.

Erwin Wurm, Synthesa (Installation View), via Art Observed (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…)

Gerhard Richter, Abdu (2009),  © Gerhard Richter 2013

Currently on display at Gagosian Gallery’s London space on Davies Street are a series of 4 tapestries, created in 2009 by prominent artist Gerhard Richter, entitled Abdu, Iblan, Musa and Yusuf.  Combining the artist’s signature style with bold new aesthetic forms, the works are based on the artist’s 1990 work, Abstract Painting (724-4).

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A video, released online yesterday and since removed, purportedly depicts artist Richard Prince burning one of the five still disputed Canal Zone pictures that were challenged in court by photographer Patrick Cariou.  While Prince had won the case for the majority of the works in the series, Graduation, the work depicted in the film, was still under consideration for not being fully “transformative.”  Cariou had originally sued to have the works destroyed.  In the video, Prince is quoted as saying “to them this stands for money,” before having an assistant douse the work in gasoline and light it on fire. (more…)

Jeff Koons (Installation view), © Jeff Koons. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever

This past week, Jeff Koons opened a show of recent work at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, continuing the artist’s exploration of new forms in printed works, sculpture and assemblage.  Facing off against David Zwirner’s show of new Koons pieces several blocks away, the show was seemed to make its show-stopping intentions explicit, showcasing a number of Koons’ stainless steel balloon animals, and a series of hyper-kinetic prints alongside recent inflatable sculptures and takes on classical art works. (more…)

Danh Vo, Mother Tongue (Installation View), via Marian Goodman

The recipient of the 2012 Hugo Boss Prize, Vietnamese-German artist Danh Vo creates works that feature a layering of significances, interrelated meanings tied together through the conception, production and presentation of his work.  It is this practice of appropriation and representation that informs his recent show of new work, Mother Tongue, at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York.

Danh Vo, Lot 12. A Vietnamese Carved Ivory Tusk (2013), via Marian Goodman

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