David Salle, Yellow Fellow (2015), via Art Observed
Painter David Salle is currently presenting a new body of work at Skarstedt’s Chelsea outpost, returning to his previous Product Paintings series in a set of vividly rendered prints and paintings that seem to address not only the artwork as object and commodity, but also that relation to the Post-War canon. (more…)
Cecily Brown, The English Garden (Installation View), Rachel Williams for Art Observed
Currently at Maccarone Gallery are a set of intimately-sized canvases by painter Cecily Brown. Aggressively captivating beyond their small boarders, the artist’s works here ignite a series of personal experiences as viewers stand inches away from canvases no more than 18 inches in height or width. Organized by novelist and art writer Jim Lewis, The English Garden contains garden scenes rather than traditional landscapes. Sharp lines inside Brown’s expressionist marks create additional horizons that depict mysterious and often open-ended garden scenes. (more…)
Sotheby’s will bolster its May 12th Contemporary Evening Auction in New York next month with a brilliant, 1954 Mark Rothko, the New York Times reports. Untitled (Yellow and Blue), which formerly sat in the collections of both Bunny Mellon and François Pinault, is estimated to achieve between $40 and $60 million. (more…)
Keith Haring, Untitled (May 29, 1984) (1984), via Art Observed
Culling a minimal selection of works from Keith Haring’s immense output over the course of his life, Skarstedt Gallery is currently presenting Heaven and Hell a series of colorfully surreal compositions from 1984 and 1985, several years before the artist passed away in 1990. (more…)
Paul McCarthy, WS SC (Installation View), all images courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Currently on through Saturday at Hauser & Wirth’s London exhibition space is an exhibition of new paintings by multimedia artist, sculptor, and performance artist Paul McCarthy, marking the artist’s first exhibition devoted entirely to painting since the 1980s. Continuing his work with the narratives of Snow White, McCarthy delves deeper into the formats and genres of Hollywood film production.
Sterling Ruby, SP288 (2014), Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio and Gagosian Gallery.
Declared ‘one of the most interesting artists to emerge in this century’ by Roberta Smith, Sterling Ruby has become one of the major fixtures among West Coast artists after leaving the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 2005. The L.A. based artist, who is known for his large scale ceramic or bronze sculptures and ambitious installations challenging the limits of artistic production (his first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth was on view in Chelsea this spring after the artist joined the gallery roster), is presenting VIVIDS, his spray paint works on canvas at Gagosian Hong Kong. This exhibition is another addition to Ruby’s recent series of projects in Asia, which started with an exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo, and will continue with the Gwangju and Taipei biennials, alongside an upcoming exhibition at the Ullens Center in Beijing. (more…)
Genieve Figgis, Our First Party (2014), All images via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.
Following her American debut at Harper’s Books in East Hampton this past summer, Genieve Figgis moves to the Upper East Side for her first New York City show at Half Gallery. One of the recent rising stars of the art world, the Dublin native received major international attention with her unearthly depictions of aristocracy’s heydays, maneuvering between an impressionistic figurativeness and bold abstraction. In Good Morning, Midnight, the artist continues her ambitiously exhilarated portrayals of joyous escapism. (more…)
Mickalene Thomas, Portrait of Qusuquzah (2008) all images courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia and The Monaco Project for the Arts
At the Pavillon Bosio at the École Supérieure d’Arts Plastiques in Monaco is a collection of paintings, a series of photographs, and a new video by American artist Mickalene Thomas. Entitled Femme au divan II, the exhibition will remain on view through August 31st, and includes a series of photographs and paintings incorporating Thomas’s fascination with various time periods and perspectives on female African-American identity.
Larry Clark, Knoxville (homage to Brad Renfro) (2011) all images via Osman Can Yerebakan
Currently on view at Luhring Augustine is a career spanning exhibition of Larry Clark, one of the most vocal representatives of the American youth since the early 60’s. Tulsa, the inspiration and the namesake of his infamous photography book, is where Clark began experimenting with photography at an early age with his mother’s camera, using his circle of friends as his object of interest. Clark started to document the suburban lifestyle through the lens of a generation engaged with drug use, underage sex and violence. Adding further weight to the already graphic nature of his subject matter, the rawness and the honesty of Clark’s perspective as an insider’s point of view has marked him as one of the foremost voices in American photography. (more…)
Alexander Calder, Occident (1975) all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery
On view at Gagosian Gallery in London is the second segment of a two-part exhibition of American sculptor and painter Alexander Calder’s gouache paintings. The first part was held in New York at Gagosian’s Madison Avenue location through June 14th, and on June 10th the second part opened in London, slated to continue through July 26th, 2014.
Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, The Four Paintings about Sun, via Thaddeus Ropac
Now through July 12, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is presenting Paintings about the Sun, new work by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. The exhibition will take place in Salzburg at the gallery’s Villa Kast location. The works on view represent a departure from many of the artist’s previous installed and illustrated investigations, with the conversational capacity of an image being tested while form and frame are disrupted then elaborated. The sun is a consistent presence throughout the work, represented as either a blinding impediment to vision or impossibly illuminating.
The Shaped Canvas Revisited (Installation View), via Luxembourg and Dayan
On view at Luexembourg & Dayan in New York City is an exhibition focusing on painted works with a non-rectangular canvas. In 1964, The Shaped Canvas was an exhibition held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, curated by Lawrence Alloway, revealing the desire to overthrow existing aesthetic hierarchies. The current exhibition revisits this 1964 exhibition, featuring more than two dozen works connecting the postwar history of the genre to present day use of the shaped canvas.
Pierre Soulages, Peinture 175 X 222 Cm, 23 Mai 2013, via Art Observed
Held in high regard in his home country of France, and throughout much of continental Europe, the work of Pierre Soulages has never really achieved the same stature in the United States, despite his formal ties to the particularly American strains abstract expressionism and minimalism that have populated his work over the past sixty years. But it’s that same lack of recognition that Dominique Lévy and Emmanuel Perrotin are looking to change this spring, bringing a selection of the artist’s most recent work, and some of his most classic canvases to show at the pair’s uptown exhibition spaces.
Pierre Soulages, Peinture 202 X 159 Cm, 18 Octobre 1967, via Art Observed (more…)
Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Yellow Butterfly Orange Mark Grotjahn 2004) (2004), all images courtesy Blum and Poe
Celebrating the inaugural show at its first New York location, Blum & Poe’ is presenting a show of Mark Grotjahn’s Butterfly Paintings, curated by Douglas Fogle at its E 66th Street location. The show focuses on select works from Grotjahn’s recognizable series, which range in date from 2001 to 2008, and tracing the evolution of the paintings over a period of 7 years.
Julian Schnabel, Untitled (los Patos Del Buen Retiro II) (1991), via Art Observed
It’s not difficult to make links between young painters currently working today and Julian Schnabel. The improvisatory, often deconstructive approach to the canvas as such pervades much of the medium’s current practice, and as if by some tacit understanding, few artists can be seen at as many shows of young painters as Schnabel himself, a man who seems invested not only in the next generation of New York artists (his patronage of the BHQF, for example, among others), but also in his impact on them. (more…)
Pierre Soulages is profiled in The New York Times this week, exploring the artist’s 60+ year career, and his position as one of the most successful artists in France, and his continuous output, even as he approaches his 95th birthday. “I’ve decided to lose count of his age,” says dealer Dominique Lévy said. “I always feel he’s challenging me and pushing me and such a force of nature.” (more…)
Nate Lowman, This Is Your Brain On Drugs Again, via Art Observed
Nate Lowman’s current solo show is notable in its subtlety. Once a maker of enormous reproductions of vinyl, consumer-grade bullet hole decals and canvases covered with smiley-faces, Lowman’s new work currently on view at Maccarone Gallery takes a different tack entirely. Lightly painted, cut canvases and pixelated cut-outs dot the works, rendering soft, pastel forms that mark a notable break from the often harsh images of urban decay he so often selected as the subject of his past practice.
Nate Lowman, Rave the Painforest (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)
Sue Williams, Philip Zelikow, Historian (2013) All photos courtesy of 303 Gallery
303 Gallery presents Sue Williams WTC, WWIII, Couch Size, on view through February 22nd, 2014. Williams’ ninth solo exhibition with the gallery, this show features six new large-scale paintings, of ‘couch-sized’ proportion. This titular reference to the commercial appraisal of artworks marks the comic butt of a seemingly sinister thematic program, which proclaims the World Trade Center and World War III as its subject. Williams’ nominal list introduces the ironic tone that colors her paintings, their dark subject matter bursting with chromatic brilliance and her signature comic levity.
Dana Schutz, Yawn 2 (2012), Courtesy Hepworth Wakefield Gallery
At The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, is the first solo show in the UK for young artist Dana Schutz. Mostly made up of new paintings and drawings, the exhibition includes 20 vibrantly colored works depicting absurd, hypothetical situations.
Sotheby’s first auction in mainland China closed today with an impressive final sales tally of over $37 million. The final results included a record-setting $14,725,457 final price for Zao Wou-Ki’s 1958 canvas, Abstraction. (more…)
Lee Ufan, Dialogue (2013), all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed unless otherwise noted
The work of Lee Ufan takes pleasure in simplicity. Utilizing simple, geometrically-influenced forms, the artist walks a line between the classic theories and demands of post-war minimalism, and more nuanced, organic approach to the forms and materials of the everyday.
Lee Ufan, La peinture ensevelie…. (2013) (more…)
Georges Braque, Compotier et Cartes (1918), Courtesy Grand Palais
On view at Grand Palais, Galeries nationales in Paris is a retrospective covering the full life and output of French painter and sculptor Georges Braque’s career, beginning with Fauvism to his later works, particularly his birds series. The exhibition will continue through January 6th 2014.
Kara Walker, Negress (Installation View), Courtesy Camden Arts Center
Currently on display in all three gallery spaces of Camden Arts Centre in London is a new exhibition of works by American artist Kara Walker, which directly confront racial and gender tensions through familiar characters found in American culture, pop culture, and history.
Ahead of an upcoming show at Tate Britain, featuring a group of five British painters under fifty, Chris Ofili and Simon Ling sat down with the Financial Times to discuss their personal styles, the act of painting, and their inspirations from the streets of London. “Well, this is about the city’s lack of aspiration.” Says Ling during the interview, considering a fragmented canvas. “The lack of planning and failure, where the city is almost like a tectonic construction, a weird jumble.” (more…)
