Jason Rhoades, The Grand Machine / THEAREOLA (2002) (Installation view), PeaRoeFoam, David Zwirner, New York (2014) © The Estate of Jason Rhoades. Courtesy The Estate of Jason Rhoades, Hauser & Wirth and David Zwirner, New York/London

When the notorious Los Angeles artist Jason Rhoades passed away in 2006, he left behind a massive, “messy” inventory, open to various interpretations and institutional contextualizations that are still being untangled and understood today. The current survey at The Brant Foundation Art Study Center in Connecticut serves as both a tightly compacted and ambitious tribute to the West Coast artist’s legacy, reflecting his work in one giant, shifting installation. Focusing mostly on works produced in the early 2000’s just prior to the artist’s death, the exhibition presents Rhoades at the peak of his career and fame. Although My Madinah: in pursuit of my ermitage, a post 9/11 ceiling spanning neon installation of countless words referring to the female reproductive organ, stands out as somewhat troublesome in the current socio-political climate, each work helps fathom an intricate mind that challenges the ideology systems of his viewers, and himself. (more…)

Jason Rhoades, My Madinah. In pursuit of my ermitage… (2004), via Art Observed

Exploring a range of works from the career of Jason Rhoades, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles has assembled a challenging exhibition for its spring calendar, one that feels particularly resonant in the tense geopolitical situations of 2017.  Installations, 1994-2006, drives at Rhoades’s shared language of consumption and mythology, space and commerce, as a fertile site for the investigation of the modern world, and the cultural collisions stemming from its increasing interconnectivity.   (more…)

Toby Ziegler‘s The Cripples, image via Art Observed

Back in 2003 in Frieze’s first year, no major international art fair had ever been hosted in London before. Frieze Art Fair, organized by Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, has helped take London from being a city without a focused art scene to its current state at the center of the European art market. Now in its tenth year, Frieze Art Fair in London’s Regent’s Park has seen around 60,000 visitors, with 264 dealers from 35 countries hoping to sell work (valuing an estimated  £230m) created by more than 2,400 artists within 175 of the world’s leading galleries.

An Aaron Young motorcycle burn out work at Massimo de Carlo in Milan, photo via Art Observed

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“Extremities (smooth, smooth),” Pipilotti Rist’s contribution to “Walking in My Mind,” the Hayward Gallery. via The Guardian.

Currently showing at the Hayward Gallery are the minds of ten artists — or, at least, how the artists feel they can represent the melding of product and creative process.  Ten installation artists from around the world are featured in the show.  Some are relative newcomers who are showing new pieces at the Hayward, like Swedish Bo Christian Larsson and Japanese Chiharu Shiota, who exhibit for the first time in London, and Dutch artist Mark Manders, who shows for the first time in a major British exhibition. Others are more well-established, including Yayoi Kusama and Turner prize-winner Keith Tyson, as well as the late controversial American artist Jason Rhoades.  Also exhibiting are Charles Avery (UK), Thomas Hirschhorn (Switzerland), and Pipilotti Rist (Switzerland).

Related links:
Hayward Gallery: Walking in My Mind
Art Review: Walking in My Mind Hayward Gallery, London SE1 [The Observer]
Thoughts go astray at the Hayward Gallery’s Walking in My Mind show [The Guardian]
Dark delights from the lonely mind of Japanese genius Yoshitomo Nara [The Independent]

Yoshitomo Nara in “Walking in My Mind.” Via The Guardian.

more pictures and story after the jump…

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