Danh Vo – We The People (detail) – Gallery Chantal Crousel, all photos by G. Hansen for ArtObserved

Copper – tarnished, polished, battered, and even mailed FedEx packages (as with Walead Beshty’s piece at Regen Projects) seemed to make an appearance in many places at Art Basel Miami Beach this year. One amazing example was Danh Vo’s curving, paneled “We The People” at Galerie Chantal Crousel, also perhaps the largest copper piece at the show.

Daniel Buren – Bortolami Gallery

(more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, TGV, inkjet print on paper (2010). All images courtesy Gallery Chantal Crousel.

Wolfgang Tillmans returns for his second solo show at Gallery Chantal Crousel, presenting new works from the past few years. Images of both public and private nature are displayed in typical Tillmans style; unframed works hanging either directly on the wall or by the use of his infamous binder clips.

(more…)

Isa Genzken, Mona Isa III (Elefant), 2010. All images via Galerie Chantal Crousel

In her Mona Isa exhibit at the Chantal Crousel, Isa Genzken draws on iconic historical images and common modern objects to create a collection of works that bring a new relevance to both the monumental and the everyday. Taking from the concept of objective abstraction, even in her sculptures, Genzken’s work brings the surface meaning of an image or object into question.

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)

Rirkrit Tiravanija Untitled (Asile Flottant), 2010. Installation view. Via Galerie Chantal Crousel.

Rirkrit Tiravanija‘s fourth solo show at Galerie Chantal Crousel combines the artist’s interest in social architecture and the intersection between politics and everyday life into an installation entitled Asile Flottant (Floating Asylum). Tiravanija has re-created Le Corbusier‘s barge of the same name (1930), designed for the Salvation Army as a floating refuge for Parisian vagrants and prostitutes in the winter, and as a playground for children in the summertime. Le Corbusier conceived of the work as a model for a new social community for the underclass. Tiravanija’s re-creation of the barge was made by workers in Thailand and is on a half-scale proportion to the original, exploring the barge as a structure for living and socializing in a new context.

(more…)