Pipilotti Rist, Worry Will Vanish Horizon (video still)  (2014), All images Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine New York.

One of the most seminal names in video art, Pipilotti Rist is presenting a new body of work at Hauser & Wirth’s two Britain locations. The Swiss born artist, who emerged in the rapidly developing field of video art during the 80’s with her infamous video I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much, has presented an ambitious oeuvre throughout the years, reflecting on issues related to the body, gender and technology. In doing so, she has blended various mediums and structures that are challenging to consider under one practice, each one holding onto a distinct atmosphere set in what could be considered an alternate reality. (more…)

Robert Gober, Untitled (2003-2005), via Art Observed

The long-awaited MoMA retrospective for Robert Gober begins in fitting fashiom. An immense, stripped-bare wall runs the length of the museum’s second floor outcropping, blocking off any view of the expansive installations inside, and capped with a single work near the entrance to the exhibition, the artist’s X-Pipe Playpen.  The viewer never realizes, passing through the exhibition, that at one point they have found themselves on the inside of this imposing structure, staring at the camouflaged wallpaper and sink sculptures that define the artist’s ouvre.  Ominous and surreal, the structure works perfectly in conjunction with the works on view, and offers a concise summary of the exhibition as a whole: a look at the full length of the artist’s prolific career, from his early paintings and sinks to his most demanding, complex environments, constantly examining and readdressing his emotionally potent take on abstraction. (more…)

The Museum of Modern Art has announced that it will host the first-ever U.S. museum retrospective of works by Robert Gober.  Titled The Heart Is Not a Metaphor, Mr. Gober’s work will be on view beginning in October.  “Robert is totally involved and approaching himself as if he were one of his subjects,” says Ann Temkin, chief curator of painting and sculpture. (more…)

Aurel Schmidt, Fruits (2013), via Art Observed Staff

Once again turning heads with an evocative, sexually-potent set of works, artist Aurel Schmidt is currently showing a new set of works at a former bodega on Stanton Street on New York’s Lower East Side.  Affixing sexual organs and fetishized body parts to drawings of fruits and vegetables.

Outside of 200 Stanton for Aurel Schmidt’s “Fruits”, via Art Observed Staff (more…)

Chris Burden, Shoot, (1971), Performance at F Space, Santa Ana, California November 19, 1971

The New Museum’s Extreme Measures, a career retrospective of the work of Chris Burden, begins modestly: an orange flatbed truck sits in the museum’s ground floor exhibition space, holding a 1 ton block of steel on its mounted crane.  Silent and imposing , the work hints at Burden’s preoccupation with scale and weight, his focus on material scale and industrial affect.

Chris Burden, Ghost Ship (2005), Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery (more…)

Josh Kline, Forever 27 (2013), Courtesy 47 Canal

Quality of Life is Josh Kline’s first solo exhibition since 2011, and directly follows his having organized this summer’s high-profile Pro-Bio group show at MoMA PS1. The exhibition acts as something of a statement of intent for the New York artist and deals with themes increasingly familiar within Kline’s growing body of work, looking at the commodification of identity and youth, alongside the forging of new, posthuman understandings of the body.

Josh Kline, Quality of Life (Installation View), via Sasha Patkin for Art Observed (more…)

John Baldessari, Man Fixing Curlers in Woman’s Hair (2013), all images by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

On view at Sprüth Magers Berlin is a solo exhibition of new works by L.A.-based John Baldessari: large-format storyboard canvases he created in 2013.

The opening for John Baldessari’s Storyboard (in 4 Parts)
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