AO Art Observed™

Alexander Calder, Blue and Yellow Sickles (1960). All images courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Larry Gagosian brings yet another big-ticket artist to his London location with a survey of Alexander Calder’s sculptures made between 1939 and 1960.  The exhibition occupies one long gallery and consists of three of Calder’s iconic mobiles: Triangles, Blue and Yellow Sickles, and an untitled composition.  Each work reflects the artist’s facility with wire and metal used to create tenuous “drawings” which float in mid-air.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Tansey, Mark. The Innocent Eye Test (1981). Via the Metropolitan Museum of Art

British collector Robert Wylde filed federal suit against Gagosian Gallery on Thursday over a Mark Tansey painting, “The Innocent Eye Test.” Wylde alleges that the Manhattan gallery concealed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 31 percent partial ownership of the work, and the fact that the museum planned to eventually reclaim the painting altogether.

more story, images and links after the jump…

(more…)

Kazimir Malevich, Rectangle and Circle (1915). Via ibiblio

Through a collaboration with the heirs of Kazimir Malevich, the Gagosian Gallery is displaying six of Malevich’s paintings as the centerpiece in their current show, ‘Malevich and the American Legacy.’ Surviving paintings by this trailblazer in geometric abstract art are a rarity, and it is uncommon to see them on display outside of a museum. ‘Malevich and the American Legacy’ affords viewers some intimacy with these influential paintings while displaying works by a sampling of the artists Malevich inspired, including Carl Andre, John Baldessari, Alexander Calder, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, James Turrell, and Cy Twombly.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Ed Ruscha, Psycho Spaghetti Western #5 (2010). All images via Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills is a series of ten paintings by Ed Ruscha in an exhibition titled Psycho Spaghetti Westerns. The show opened with a star-studded evening gala on February 24th and is up through April 9, 2011. The ten large paintings each have a ground, most often natural and diagonally sloping across the canvas, on which realistically painted detritus is resting. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ruscha explains that the title has little to do with “Spaghetti Western” films and more to do with the meaning of the three words themselves: “‘Spaghetti Westerns’ says it all: tangled up messes like spaghetti, and we’re living out here in the West, and we’re all psycho.”

Ed Ruscha, Psycho Spaghetti Western #7 (2010)

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

The Three Shades (1881-1886) by August Rodin via Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris is an unprecedented exhibition pairing the works of acclaimed nineteenth-century sculptor Auguste-Rodin (1840-1917) with acclaimed present-day Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto (b.1948).  The exhibition features three monumental works by the late French sculpture including The Three Shades (c.1880), Monument to Victor Hugo (1897), and the Whistler Muse (1908). Sugimoto’s work revolves around the relation of images to sculpted light. Seen side-by-side Rodin’s powerful works is his series Stylized Sculptures (2007) in which he selected distinct garments by some of the world’s most celebrated fashion designers and photographed them in such a way as to reveal their inherent sculptural qualities.

Stylized Sculpture 008, designer: Yves Saint Laurent (2007) by Hiroshi Sugimoto, via Gagosian Gallery

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

Francesco Vezzoli, Jesus Christ Superstar, Light box (2011). Photo by Sei Eun Lee, Art Observed

Francesco Vezzoli holds his first solo exhibition Sacrilegio in New York at the 21st Street Gagosian Gallery through March 12th. Vezzoli has enlarged several Madonna and Child paintings by 15th and 16th century artists Giovanni Bellini, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea Mantegna, and Sandro Botticelli, reinterpreting them within a contemporary context by replacing the virginal faces with supermodels Claudia Schiffer, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, Naomi Campbell, and Kim Alexis.

Francesco Vezzoli, Crying portrait of Kim Alexis as a Renaissance Madonna with Holy Child (after Giovanni Bellini) (2010). Via Gagosian Gallery

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Piotr Uklański, Jupiter Glow (2010). All images via Gagosian Gallery

In his new series on display at the Gagosian Gallery, Discharge!, Piotr Uklański stretches the boundaries of what can be called painting. Rather than add color to a blank canvas, the artist removes color by applying bleach to cotton sheets treated with fiber reactive dyes. This discharge of the bright pigments brings the creative process of painting into question by using an act of removal, rather than addition, to generate images. His method in this series produced vivid images often reminiscent of astronomical photographs in their bursts of color, or cellular patterns in their organic repetition.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Damien Hirst, For Heaven’s Sake (2008). Platinum, pink and white diamonds, 85 x 85 x 100 mm. © 2011 Damien Hirst and Hirst Holdings Ltd, DACS 2011

For the inauguration of the Gagosian Gallery‘s new Hong Kong exhibition space, Damien Hirst presents Forgotten Promises, a show displaying new paintings and sculpture by the artist. With these new works Hirst continues his existential interrogations of existence, death, beauty, and decay, including Butterfly Fact Paintings, a series of diamond studded cabinets, and a life-size human baby skull covered in diamonds. “Diamonds are about perfection and clarity and wealth and sex and death and immortality. They are a symbol of everything that’s eternal, but then they have a dark side as well,” says Hirst in the press release.

Artist Takashi Murakami at the exhibition, via Arrested Motion

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Mike Kelley, Still from Extracurricular Projective Reconstruction #34 (The King and Us/The Queens and Me) (2010). Via Gagosian

Mike Kelley rages ahead at the Gagosian, expanding on projects from his infamous show at the gallery’s New York hub, titled Day is Done, in 2005. Exhibiting for the first time at the L.A. Gagosian, Kelley presents Kandor 10/Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction, #34 Kandor 12/Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #35, a combination of two earlier works, Kandors (1999) and Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction (EAPR) (2006). Recently known for exemplifying what art critic Jerry Saltz coined as “clusterfuck aesthetics,” Kelley continues his explorations of the grotesque pop cultural diaspora. The titling of this new show alone indicates Kelley’s continued interest in clusterfuck art: the scrambled code of his earlier works, barely intelligible key words that read like an internet pop up.

Mike Kelley, Kandor 18 B (2010). Via Gagosian

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Takashi Murakami at Gagosian Gallery Rome, Installation View, via Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery in Rome are two epic paintings by renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. Dragon in Clouds- Red Mutation (2010) and Dragon in Clouds- Indigo Blue (2010) each comprise of nine panels, measure eighteen meters in length and depart from the artist’s usual technicolor palette to revert to more traditional Japanese influences.  Cloud and Dragon paintings are known as Unryūzu and were great influences for the 18th century Japanese artist Soga Shōhaku who has been a source of artistic inspiration for Murakami.

Dragon in Clouds- Red Mutation (2010) by Takashi Murakami, via Gagosian Gallery

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Pablo Picasso, Portrait d’enfant: Paloma, 1952. Via Gagosian Gallery

Titled Important Paintings and Sculpture, Pablo Picasso‘s latest solo exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery on Madison Avenue is a diverse collection spanning roughly 20 years of his work.  Though without a professed exhibition theme, like the landmark Mosqueteros, the works mainly hail from his years spent in the south of France, sharing pieces with his recent London exhibition The Mediterranean Years (1945-1962).

Installation view

More story after the jump…

(more…)

Art dealer Jay Jopling at the White Cube booth

Art Observed was on-site December 1st for the VIP Preview of Art Basel Miami Beach 2010, which opened to the public this morning at 10 a.m. Like most international fairs of its scale and scope, the work presented broadly underscores the trends witnessed across commercial markets and throughout museum and gallery exhibitions over the past several months. It also affords individual institutions an important opportunity to distinguish themselves from their peers, and provide fresh and immediate insight into the nuances and complexities of contemporary taste.

Richard Jackson, Upside Down Duck at the Kordansky Gallery Booth

More story and photo-set after the jump…

(more…)

Art Observed was on site for the launch of the Aquariva Speedboat designed by Marc Newson at the Standard Hotel and Spa in Miami Beach.  This is the same speedboat exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery in New York in September.  Below is a photoset of of the event.

Andre Balazs

More text and related links after the jump… .

(more…)

John Currin, Mademoiselle, 2009. All images via Gagosian Gallery.

On view at Gagosian Gallery’s Madison Avenue venue is an exhibition of new and recent paintings by John Currin. Best known for his provocative, realist pictures inspired by Old Master works and vintage Danish pornography, Currin has expanded his figural repertory of female nudes to include satirical aristocratic portraits and mannerist re-imaginings of advertisements from Cosmopolitan.

John Currin, The Dogwood Thieves, 2010.

Read More…

(more…)

Cy Twombly, Camino Real II, 2010. All images courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

On October 20th, Gagosian Gallery inaugurated its Paris space with an exhibit of five new paintings by Cy Twombly, grouped under the title “Camino Real,”  as well as a selection of the artists’ bronze sculptures.  The opening of Gagosian’s ninth gallery was scheduled to coincide with the start of FIAC, the International Contemporary Art Fair, which took place in Paris from October 21 to 24.  These works will be on display in the gallery’s project room until December 23, 2010.

Cy Twombly, bronze sculptures exhibition view, 2010.

More story and images after the jump…

(more…)

These Days (2008-2009) by Damien Hirst, via Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at the Gagosian Gallery (Davies Street) in London is “Poisons + Remedies:” an exhibition of new paintings by Damien Hirst, in which the artist explores the opposition between life and death through binaries of color and scale. In these works, Hirst expands upon his now-iconic use of the skull, represented starkly here in black and white, contrasting it with colorful, detailed images of scattered pills, which also reflect his ongoing interest in pharmacological motifs.

Passover (2008-2009) by Damien Hirst, via Gagosian Gallery

Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled (Runts), 2007 image courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s large Chelsea space on West 21st street is the first major retrospective of Robert Rauschenberg‘s work since his death in 2008. The artist was represented by Pace Gallery for fifteen years until this past June, when Gagosian gained exclusive commercial representation of the artist’s estate. This exhibition is presented by Gagosian in collaboration with the Estate of Robert Rauschenberg, and is accompanied by a beautifully-illustrated catalogue with essays by art historians James Lawrence and John Young.

Robert Rauschenberg, Aen Floga (Combine Painting), 1962 image courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

All images via Lever House Collection, © Taryn Simon.

Taryn Simon’s “Contraband,” curated by Richard D. Marshall, consists of 1,075 photographs taken at U.S. Customs and the U.S. Postal Service International Mail Facility at John F. Kennedy International Airport.  Simon personally remained on-site at JFK from November 16, 2009 through November 20, 2009, photographing all items detained from travelers entering the country and from packages entering the US from overseas.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (08), 2009. © Gregory Crewdson. All images of courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Sanctuary, the Gregory Crewdson exhibition currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s Madison Avenue branch, further develops the artist’s on-going investigation into the realm of staged photography. With this new body of work, Crewdson addresses questions of format and color, presenting a series of black and white images that offer an intimate entry point into his visual journey through Italy.

Gregory Crewdson, Untitled (06), 2009. © Gregory Crewdson.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Angela de la Cruz, Super Clutter XXL, 2008. All images via Tate Britain.

On October 5, Tate Britain unveiled its Finalist Exhibition for the 2010 Turner Prize. Painter Dexter Dalwood, installation artist and painter Angela de la Cruz, sound artist Susan Philipsz, and film collaborative Otolith (comprised of Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun) represent the shortlist for the coveted annual award. The winner selected from among this group will be announced at the museum on December 6, 2010.

Dexter Dalwood, Death of David Kelly, 2008.

(more…)

Poetry, Dan Colen (2010) via Gagosian

Dan Colen gets past his own (painterly graffiti) writer’s block of a sculptural brick wall (akin to his old urban-artifact based work) and progresses with new strides into the hallowed halls of Gagosian, replete with Gagosian scale, funding, and grandiosity. The gum and grit gestalt gestures are still there but the subject matter has taken a new turn. Namely, Abstraction, and abstraction as abstraction, or “Poetry,” if you will.

The abstract painting at the end of the gallery’s western wall, speaks of a new turn from the artist’s earlier more prosaic if suburbanistic urban-fetish ‘artifactualizations.’ The fashionable bad-boy has entered the brand-building (edifice on 24th street) and even brings with him a painterly painting from the wrong side of the tracks, river, and art history.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Echolalia (2010) by Franz West, via Gagosian Gallery

I see my works as quite compatible with a l’art pour l’art philosophy. One may think that I try to take the art object out into the world since my works sometimes appear to have a practical function, but really it’s the other way around: things in the world can, under certain special circumstances, enter the realm of art.

-Franz West

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery in Rome is Franz West’s “Roman Room,” an exhibition of new sculpture by the Austrian-born artist. In this body of work, West transforms basic shapes into irregular, large-scale structures. He incorporates visual elements derived from performance art, as well as classical art and sculpture.

(more…)