Richard Artschwager, Excursion (2001), via Art Observed

Currently at Gagosian Gallery’s 980 Madison Space, the mega-dealer has launched a show of works by the late artist Richard Artschwager. Titled Primary Sources, the show compiles a series of key paintings and drawings alongside materials from his personal archive, research documents, sketches and other elements that underscore Artschwager’s meticulous and impressive approach to working. (more…)

Installation view. All images via Gagosian Gallery.

In Urs Fischer’s latest exhibition at Gagosian’s Davies street gallery in London, the artist has created a life-sized wax model of Russian collector Dasha Zhukova. This is the next installment in a series made by the artist in which art-world figures are converted into giant candles and then burned slowly, until they are reduced to wax drippings. Previously making works of artists Julian Schnabel and Rudolf Stingel, and dealer Bruno Bischofsberger. Though Zhukova requested she be the next art figure turned wax candle, Fischer hesitated because, up until this point, he has only portrayed men. Ultimately, however, on Monday, September 10^th, the wick at the top of the wax figure of Dasha Zhukova’s head was lit, and will continue to burn until the sculpture is reduced to a puddle of melted wax, coinciding with the show’s closing on November 3^rd. (more…)

Urs Fischer, PLAY with Choreography by Madeline Hollander (Installation View), via Art Observed

Over the past several years, few artists have moved so effortlessly across media and concepts like Urs Fischer.  From kaleidoscopic, cartoonish abstractions to surreal sculptural assemblages on to patient, gradual evolutions of form and space on canvas, his work perhaps best characterized by its willingness to never stay in one place for too long.  This relentless invention finds a new outlet in PLAY, a new sculptural work at Gagosian Gallery in New York, created in collaboration with Madeline Hollander. (more…)

Urs Fischer, Sōtatsu (detail) (2018)New York, Artworks © Urs Fischer, Photo Rob McKeever

Throughout the career of Swiss artist Urs Fischer, space and form have long worked in lock step with acts of repetition and iteration, allowing his myriad approaches towards studio process to create ever-evolving forms and bodies of work that change as much from piece to piece as they do series to series.  For his most recent body of works on view now at Gagosian Gallery‘s uptown location, the artist takes this interest to a natural conclusion, creating a series of panel-based paintings that draw on a gradual evolution in the painter’s improvisations on single images. (more…)

Jenny Saville, Fate I (2018), via Josie Berman for Art Observed

Jenny Saville returns to Gagosian this month in New York, bringing her iconic painterly style and remarkably attentive perspective towards the human body with her.  The artist, whose past 25 years of practice have seen her delve into an ever-evolving interest in the nuanced erotics and endlessly narrative capacities of the human form, returns here to her frequent interest in couples and pairings of form, using intertwined bodies and interlocked figures to explore human relation and emotion.  (more…)

Tom Wesselmann, Still Life #59 (1972), via Art Observed

Dwelling on a unique body of work in artist Tom Wesselmann’s expansive oeuvre, Gagosian Gallery in New York is currently presenting a series of the artist’s monumentally-scaled “Standing Still-Lifes,” a series of works that saw the artist explore past practices and themes in his work, while embracing a scattered, varied approach towards his own imagery.  On view through the end of February, Wesselmann’s work in series presents a unique opportunity to dive deeper into the artist’s relentlessly innovative vision and interests in the language of American consumerism.   (more…)

Chris Burden, via Art Observed

For its newest exhibition on view at its 24th Street exhibition space in New York, Gagosian Gallery takes a look to the west, embracing the recent potency of Los Angeles’s fine arts community with a show of works that both spotlight the gallery’s representation of artists currently working in the Californian metropolis, while simultaneously exploring the cultural landscape and iconographies of a city that has shaped their work as much as they have shaped its perception in the art world.  Drawing on work from Alex Israel, Mary Weatherford, Jonas Wood and others, the show is a striking introduction to the Californian artists currently working with Gagosian, and the shared lineage of Californian art that the gallery has long participated in supporting. (more…)

Sanford Biggers presented by monique meloche, via Art Observed

Situated just beyond the tourist traps of Navy Pier, the EXPO Chicago art fair attracted visitors out over the lapis waters of Lake Michigan for the sixth iteration offering another year of global arts attention on the Windy City. British artist Roger Hiorn‘s deliciously fun, foam spawning A retrospective view of the pathway is prominently placed in the front yard of the space, serving as a prominent lure for the show, and indicative of this same international flavor. As well as partnering with the Palais de Tokyo and Institut Francais for an exhibition of emerging French and Chicago artists at the DuSable Museum of African American History, the press release heralded this year as the “most global edition to date.”

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Carsten Höller, Double Mushroom Vitrine (Threefold), 2015. All images via Gagosian Gallery.

On view through September 1^st, the Gagosian Gallery in New York presents REASON, an exhibition of recent work by Carsten Höller.  In this show, the artist’s first in New York since 2011, Höller unites scientific exactitude, play, and art through work that transforms the gallery into a laboratory for exploring and disproving the conceptual act and understanding of reason. Revolving doors, rotating mirrors, giant mushrooms, and huge dice create a world of discovery and whimsy, in which viewers are invited to explore the fascinating and beautiful logic behind the natural world.

Divisions Square (Senegal-yellow Surface), 2017

Trained in the natural sciences, Höller’s work has revolved around interrogating the methods through which humans seek to understand the world. Towards this end, he imposes standardized systems of logic on the behaviors and appearances of humans, fungi, insects, and animals, then lets go and observes what happens. As the artist states, “I start with a formula to get a process going, then the formula takes over and continues into infinity on its own. It is not about creative decisions anymore; there is no choice, only reason.” The effect of this process is the sense that Höller’s work seeks to invite viewers into the satisfying and inspiring process of discovery and experimentation. By eliminating subjectivity, the subjects are treated as independent, organic material acting and reacting independently. This places both the viewer and the artist in the position of an objective observer, passively admiring the results of some predetermined formula.  Both formally and conceptually captivating, Höller’s topics work to involve the viewer and inspire reflection and wonder. In this exhibition, the overall scheme for the two galleries is that of binary, diametric opposition and division. Following a pattern of diminishing halves, this takes place through color gradations, light intensity, and the positioning of the work itself.

Installation View.

In Revolving Doors, constructed according to the concept of triadic division, the viewer is engulfed in a sea of changing, shifting, turning reflections. The Divisions series of paintings, as well as two murals that cover the gallery walls, instead follow a binary logic. A biological equivalent to this geometric pattern is explored in Divisions (Rose-grain Aphid and Surface), which shows the parthenogenesis of a female rose aphid against a red background. The Giant Triple Mushroom sculptures are composed of enlarged cross-sections of three different fungal species, while Muscimol 3. Versuch, sees the artist exploring the hallucinogenic effects produced by the fly agaric mushroom when ingested. Another mushroom work, Flying Mushrooms is a giant stabile with moving parts, involving the rotation of seven fly agaric mushroom replicas slowly through the air like a propeller.

Installation View.

As in his other investigations, Höller seeks to eliminate subjectivity in order to apply and allow divisional formulae to determine the composition of each work. Setting objects free in a loose network of objects and interpretations, his pieces push the viewer into an extended space of indeterminacy and playful construction of meaning. The standardized systems of logic applied here produce a captivating and hyperreal resulting piece. The artist’s fascination with the formulaic rationality that rules the natural world comes through in REASON, and invites the viewer into an experience of wonder and play, predicated on the foundation of objective precision. In turn, the exhibition takes on the role of homage to the exquisite symmetry of the natural world.

Revolving Doors, 2014/16

— A. Corrigan

Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Gagosian Gallery]

Edward Quinn, Picasso wearing a bull’s head intended for bullfighter’s training, La Californie, Cannes (1959), courtesy of Gagosian

A true Spaniard at heart, Pablo Picasso had a great affinity for bullfighting. With a keen appreciation for the sport, it proved to be a continuous theme throughout his work. Picasso’s oeuvre is riddled with symbolism as well as direct pictorial representations of bulls, matadors and the mythological minotaur— the half-man, half-beast that so piqued Picasso’s interest. Minotaurs and Matadors, on view at Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill gallery space through August 25th, a show expertly curated by Sir John Patrick Richardson, celebrates Picasso’s passion and link to both his traditional Spanish roots and the mythological landscapes that so inspired him in turn. (more…)

Anselm Kiefer, The Painter’s Studio (2016), via Art Observed

Artist Anselm Kiefer returns to New York this month, bringing with him a dense and wide-ranging body of oil paintings, books, watercolors and assemblages to the expansive halls of Gagosian’s Chelsea exhibition space.  Marking a continued engagement with the process and materiality of painting, rather than a direct engagement with a selected end subject or image, the artist’s works here reflect his continued interest in the alchemical potentials for painting, and the broad vocabulary he has developed over the course of his career. (more…)

Robert Therrien, Transparent Room (2010), via Art Observed

Cataloguing a range of Robert Therrien’s nuanced explorations and elaborations on the physical and psychological landscapes of the everyday, Gagosian Gallery has brought a body of new and recent works to its 24th Street exhibition space in Chelsea.  Marking the artist’s first exhibition in New York in ten years, the show marks a fitting continuation of Therrien’s interests in domestic space, memory and form through a series of sculptures, large-scale environments and works on paper.   (more…)

Joe Bradley, Out Joy (2017), via Art Observed

Currently on at Gagosian Beverly Hills, artist Joe Bradley is presenting a body of new works, continuing the artist’s complex and occasionally irreverent visual language through a wide range of formats and materials.  Marking the gallery’s most recent entry in its annual Oscars Weekend exhibition series, the exhibition is the artist’s first solo show with the gallery in Los Angeles, a fitting introduction to his work that draws widely from his recent output.

Joe Bradley, Eric’s Hair (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Katharina Grosse, Untitled (2016), via Art Observed

Opening her first exhibition with Gagosian since announcing her representation by the gallery last year, Katharina Grosse has brought a swirling, nuanced body of new works to the gallery’s 24th Street location in Chelsea this month, documenting her enigmatic approach to the painted canvas through a variety of approaches and forms.  Allowing varied layers and lines to intersect, overlap and combine, the artist’s gestural techniques, in conversation with her use of various technologies in the rendering of the canvas, create densely packed spaces of visual information.

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Richard Serra, NJ-2 (2016), via Art Observed

Richard Serra’s works are nothing if not an experience; curving, twisting forms that wind the viewer through space, while taking an active hand on shaping the space itself.   Throughout the artist’s career, he has continued to create works that challenge conventional understanding of form, and re-conceptualize notions of gravity in play with his objects.  Working within this familiar domain, Serra is currently presenting three unique, large-scale steel sculptures at Gagosian Britannia Street, London. On view through March 10th, 2017 his new works highlight his mastery of material, and his unique ability to continually pursue a sense of creative vitality.  In some sense, his works here: NJ-2 (previously on view in New York), Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure, and Rotate, exist as portals of some sort, gateways into a repositioned experience of space, and the act of viewing work within a given series of physical constraints. (more…)

Frieze London, via Art Observed

The doors are open and the 2016 edition of Frieze London is now underway, bringing a wide range of works and artists to bear on the fairgrounds at Regent’s Park in the northern part of the city.  With its VIP Preview concluding today, the fair made its first big push of sales alongside the kick-off for a number of its projects and performance works, which conclude this Sunday.

Samara Golden at Canada Gallery, via Art Observed

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Mark Grotjahn, Pink Cosco (Installation View), All artworks © Mark Grotjahn. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery. Installation photography: Mike Bruce

Continuing his inquiries into the modes of perspective, constraint and repetition at play in the modes of contemporary art practice, Los Angeles-based painter Mark Grotjahn brings a new series of works to Gagosian Gallery in London, under the title Pink Cosco.  Reprising several of his previous forms, particularly his painted “mask” sculptures, executed in bronze and covered in varied layers and styles of paint, Grotjahn again insists upon the beauty and precision to be discovered in variations on a theme. (more…)

Rachel Whiteread, Yellow Edge (2007-2008), via Art Observed

Continuing its slow but steady expansion around the globe, Gagosian Gallery has inaugurated a new exhibition space in downtown San Francisco, opening a spacious and beautifully lit gallery on Howard Street, just across from the recently re-opened SFMoMA.  Taking the opportunity to flex its roster in its new home, the gallery has curated a strong exhibition, Plane.Site, taking intersections of form, practice and material across a variety of artists from the gallery’s expansive representation. (more…)

Richard Serra, NJ-1 (2016), via Art Observed

Spread across both of Gagosian’s Chelsea exhibition spaces, Richard Serra’s immense spatial investigations have returned to New York City, marking a continuation and expansion of the artist’s already tightly honed sculptural language.  Consisting of a total of only four works, the gallery is showing Serra’s immense rolled steel work NJ-1 in its 21st Street space, while giving over its 24th Street gallery to a trio of Serra’s pressed steel installations, a pairing that sees him returning to his precise visual vocabulary while pushing its expressive limits.

Richard Serra, Every Which Way (2015), via Art Observed (more…)

Walter de Maria, Truth/Beauty series (detail) (1993 – 2016), © The Estate of Walter De Maria, Photo Joseph Asghar. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Comprising two separate series created by the artist during the course of his career, Gagosian Gallery on London’s Britannia Street has opened an exhibition of work by renowned minimalist Walter de Maria, opening a dialogue within the artist’s own body of work across decades of practice, and through a range of materials that underscore the artist’s particular approach to questions of space, subjectivity and time. (more…)

Richard Prince has reportedly broken ties with Gagosian Gallery, Artnet reports.  The split was suspected as the result of issues “over representation.”   (more…)

Jenny Saville, Ebb and Flow (2015) © Jenny Saville. Photograph by Ashmolean Museum Photo Studio

Jenny Saville is known for her large-scale oil paintings of bodies in flux, and associated with flesh in all its forms: living, dead, young, old, human and animal. There is a fascination with the mass, weight, and transmutability of the body that runs throughout Saville’s impressive and applauded career, and now, Gagosian’s London space is presenting Erota, an exhibition of new drawings by the artist that equally represent a continuation of themes, questioning of previous work, and a departure into new territory. (more…)

The New York Times profiles Larry Gagosian’s soon to open exhibition space in San Francisco, and timing for the gallery’s move.  “The emerging collector base in Silicon Valley and the reopening of SFMOMA made it a perfect time to open in San Francisco,” Gagosian says. (more…)

The Art Newspaper notes efforts by both Gagosian and Lisson Gallery to extend their influence to Tehran, lending works to an exhibition in downtown gallery Ab-Anbar.  “The galleries were very cooperative; I think they are testing the waters,” gallery director Salman Matinfar says. (more…)