Carlito Carvalhosa, Possibility Matters (detail), 2014

Carlito Carvalhosa’s works, similar to early Renaissance church paintings, have the potential to make viewers feel equally enclosed and daunted by scale. The artist’s installations look upon the viewers, asking their submission and surrender towards their magnitude in structure and constructive. Utilizing a broad range of materials in conjunction with his work’s scale and size, Carvalhosa’s practice includes wood, plaster, wax or glass in forms that seem challenging or exceedingly fragile to execute.  It’s this delicately immense style that Sonnabend Gallery is currently presenting with Possibility Matters, a two-room installation transforming wood columns into a room-sized piece in Carvalhosa’s hands. (more…)

Jean-Michel Othoniel, Double Collier Autoporté Or (2014), all images courtesy Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong

On view at Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong is a solo exhibition of sculptures by French contemporary artist Jean-Michel Othoniel. For the works, great hanging sculptures composed of glass that Othoniel made in collaboration with a Feng Shui Master. Seeking to create forms that originate in human life, the works seek to achieve a symbiosis with the space that they inhabit.

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Urs Fischer at Lever House, via Art Observed

Running concurrently with his show of new works at two Gagosian exhibition spaces, Urs Fischer is exhibiting a selection of past works in the glass-encased lobby of the Lever House on Park Avenue.  Taking an intriguing approach towards the artist’s own glass-encased objects, the show makes for an intriguing perspective into Fischer’s interests in display, perspective and construction. (more…)

Dan Graham, Slice (2013), via Art Observed

It’s been some time since Marian Goodman has hosted solo exhibitions in New York by Dan Graham, Giuseppe Penone, Danh Vo or Jeff Wall, and the gallery seems to have noticed, opening a four-artist show with a considerable amount of new work from each of the aforementioned, offering a welcome opportunity to catch up on the recent work of these significant artists.

Jeff Wall, Monologue (2013), via Art Observed (more…)

Keith Sonnier, Ba-O-Ba (1970), Caterina Verde, Keith Sonnier/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Pulling works from the beginning and current periods of the artist’s career, Pace Gallery is currently presenting two bodies of work by artist Keith Sonnier, showcasing an extended perspective on the artist’s work and its evolution.  Working alongside fellow post-conceptual artists interested in the capabilities for light and lighting in installations and mounted works, Sonnier first embraced the use of neon in his pieces in the late 1960’s, using panes of glass and wrapped neon lighting to emphasize the interplays and gradual shadings of color caused by reflection and spacing.  A number of seminal works from this period are exhibited here, including  Ba-o-Ba V, and Neon Wrapping Incandescent, influential pieces that marked Sonnier’s newfound interest in the capabilities for light in a sculptural work. (more…)

Jacob Kassay, Untitled (2013), Courtesy 303 Gallery

Now on view at 303 Gallery is the space’s first exhibition of works by Jacob Kassay. Composed entirely of new works, IJK opened on November 1st and will remain on view through December 20, 2013.

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Jeppe Hein, 360Ëš Illusion III (2007), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Currently on view at Saint Agnes in Berlin, Gallery Johann König presents YOU, a striking selection of new works by Danish-born, Berlin-based artist Jeppe Hein, continuing the artist’s unique exploration into the phenomena of the human visual system, and its role in defining a body in space.

Jeppe Hein, YOU (Installation View), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Concerning himself with the perceptual investigations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hein’s work is an investigation into the act of “embodied experience,” expressed not merely through a series of trompe l’oeil  trickeries, but rather in complex optical illusions that force the viewer into a visual and physical relationship with space itself.  Best expressed through his enormous mirrored projects, the body is as much a part of the work as the eye, using its physical presence and the perceptual inputs tied to the brain as a way to subvert an easily codified version of reality.

Jeppe Hein, 360Ëš Illusion III (2007), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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James Turrell, Roden Crater (Sunset) (2009), via Kayne Griffin Corcoran

With concurrent shows opening at LACMA, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, James Turrell is certainly in the spotlight this summer. The Kayne Corcoran Griffin gallery is also joining in on the artist’s ubiquity, filling its new space on south La Brea with an exhibition focused on the Roden Crater project. Aptly named Sooner Than Later, Roden Crater, the show examines Turrell’s unfinished transformation of the crater into a sight-specific masterwork that has been in development since 1974. (more…)

Sou Fujimoto’s Serpentine Pavilion, via The Serpentine

The Serpentine Gallery’s annual summer pavilion opened late last week in London’s Hyde Park, with a presentation by designer Sou Fujimoto and Serpentine Directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Fujimoto, Peyton-Jones, and Obrist, via Bloomberg (more…)

Damien Hirst, Death or Glory (2001)

In conjunction with the events and exhibitions of the 55th Venice Biennale this summer, Le Stanze del Vetro (“Rooms for Glass”), the joint project by La Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Pentagram Siftung, is currently presenting Fragile?, an exhibition dedicated to the presence and use of glass in contemporary art.  Perhaps one of the more interesting conceits for a Biennale exhibition, the show on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore looks at glass as an aesthetic and and figurative medium in current practice, featuring works by Ai Weiwei, Marcel Duchamp, Pipliotti Rist, Joseph Beuys, and many more.

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Roni Horn, Untitled (“Consider Incompleteness as a Verb”), (2010-2012), via Hauser and Wirth Zurich

Currently on view at Hauser & Wirth Zürich is a solo show by American visual artist and writer Roni Horn, encompassing the artist’s signature glass sculptures alongside a photographic series created between 2010 and 2012.

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James Lee Byars, Early Works and The Angel (Installation view) via Michael Werner Gallery, London

Early Works and “The Angel,” currently on view at Michael Werner Gallery in London, exhibits major works from the late sculptor and performance artist James Lee Byars.  Combining a selection of the artist’s early sculptural works, painted scrolls, and performative objects with the impressive glass sculpture “The Angel,” the show provides an interesting look into the artist’s formative influences and practices.  The gallery is an apt location for this collection, as Michael Werner, the German art dealer and gallery’s namesake, historically had close ties with Byars, as well as his contemporary, Joseph Beuys.

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