Zoe Barcza, Fidelio (2016), via Art Observed

Team Gallery has opened 2017 with a commanding group exhibition, The Love Object, a show curated by Tom Brewer that draws on the writings of Roland Barthes to frame a body of works exploring love and the act of love through a more objective lens, delving into relations of bodies, texts and language as a mode of investigating not only the state of emotional attraction, but equally the frameworks we use to understand these forms. (more…)

Jenny Holzer/Lady Pink, Trust visions that don’t feature buckets of blood (1983-84), via Art Observed

Taking its own unique turn on the group exhibition, Sprüth Magers is currently showing a powerful two-floor exhibition devoted to the female artists on its roster, examining their shared interests in political and institutional critique, and explorations of the art object’s role in relation to the gallery.  Culling together a series of seminal works from Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Rosemarie Trockel, the exhibition is a well-executed work of its in, ultimately welcoming unforeseen material and political connections among this group of artists. (more…)

Jenny Holzer will install a site-specific work on the cliffs of Ibiza this summer, the Art Newspaper reports, created in conjunction with a pair of shows the artist is opening on the island.  “Holzer will undertake her first site-specific commission on the island. Using raw materials from the Ibicencan countryside and coastline, she will engrave poems on cliffs, monumental boulders and on bedrock,” a statement reads. (more…)

Jenny Holzer is collaborating with Google to create an app commemorating HIV/AIDS victims, made in conjunction with her installation for the NYC AIDS Memorial.  “Excerpts from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman will be the text on the granite paving stones. The Whitman poem is a beauty from a man in full and glad possession of his body,” Holzer said. “The app should add content from visitors and from other authors—I’m thinking a lot about David Wojnarowicz, for example—for a rich mix.” (more…)

W Magazine visits Jenny Holzer in the artist’s studio this week, noting her techniques and approaches in realizing her various aesthetic interests.  “Whenever possible I work with the same people. It’s a problem now that I’m getting so old that I’m outliving people,” she says.  “It’s regrettable when we’ve known each other and worked together since the 80s.” (more…)

Jenny Holzer, I was called (2013), via Art Observed

Running in conjunction with the events of the Biennale, and fittingly tying itself to themes of political action and structural instability, Venice’s Museo Correr is opening a new exhibition of works by the artist Jenny Holzer, focusing on the artist’s recent explorations into the aesthetic underpinnings of U.S. interrogation policy, declassified military and governmental documents, and other visual devices of the political war machine.  Titled War Paintings, the exhibition is a welcome examination of the artist’s most recent body of work, a stark departure from previous practice that still feels appropriate in the context of her career. (more…)

Jenny Holzer, Presently in the United States (2014) via Emily Heinz for Art Observed

On view now at Cheim & Read through October 25th, 2014, Dust Paintings is a series of recent paintings by Jenny Holzer, an artist known primarily for her use of language and political investigation. Culled from the ongoing use of political documents from 2004, months after the United States and United Kingdom instigated the invasion of Iraq, Holzer makes a comprehensive “map”, of sorts, from linguistics to action; from intention to execution, stressing importance and the power of language, while providing a kind of physical and aesthetic proof of this idea.

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Jenny Holzer this week began to project randomized sequences of sayings on the façade of L&M Arts in Los Angeles as part of her new exhibition, “Jenny Holzer: THE FUTURE PLEASE”, which will feature her granite benches, 1980s plaques, redaction paintings and LED signs.  The exhibition is organized into two parts: early work from 1970s to the present is on view in the West Gallery; recent work in the East Gallery. Runs through Oct 27th.

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Jenny Holzer, Sophisticated Devices (Gallery View)

On view currently at Sprüeth Magers’s London gallery is a collection of solo works from multimedia artist Jenny Holzer, exhibiting Holzer’s unique interplay of semiotics and text used to create the art object.

Jenny Holzer, WITH BLEEDING INSIDE THE HEAD … TEXT: LIVING SERIES (1980-1982), 1981

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‪‬Jenny Holzer discusses her use of language and new paintings with Kiki Smith in Interview, “Until recently, I felt I had to sneak color, but now I just paint it.”

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Jenny Holzer, Top Secret 21 (2012)

Section 2340 is pain that is difficult for the individual to endure and is of an intensity akin to the pain accompanying serious physical injury. See Section 2340A Memorandum at 6.

Manhattan’s Skarstedt Gallery currently plays host to American artist Jenny Holzer’s first series of paintings in over thirty years. Renouncing the medium in the 1970s in favor of electronic LED lighting, projections, bronze castings, silkscreen, and varied other media for her subversive textual declarations, Holzer returned to painting for this 2010–2012 series, titled Endgame. Made famous by language-based works that provoke arresting responses to serious social and political issues, here Holzer occupies the veneered Upper East Side with Color Field-like swathes of oil on linen that manage to maintain her political bent .

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Jenny Holzer accepts the Outstanding Contributions to the Arts Award.  All photos on site for Art Observed by Nicholas Wirth.

Americans for the Arts held their 2011 National Arts Awards at the grand Cipriani 42nd Street venue on Monday night, honoring “artists and art leaders who exhibit exemplary national leadership and whose work demonstrates extraordinary artistic achievement.” Awards were bestowed upon artists Frank Stella and Jenny Holzer, as well as Beverley Taylor Sorenson, President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Gabourey Sidibe, and Wells Fargo & Company.  The annual gala dinner named Sol Lewitt the featured artist, showcasing his work throughout the space, while guests such as Richard Phillips, Will Cotton, and Jeff Koons mingled in black-tie.

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Installation view. All images courtesy of Cheim and Read unless otherwise noted.

For the first time in its fifteen years, Cheim and Read is showcasing all of its female artists, including Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer, and Diane Arbus, for a celebratory exhibition. Less of a critical show on feminism, the exhibition is more of a simple gathering of varied artists. “The Women in Our Life: A Fifteen Year Anniversary Exhibition” reminds us of the voice and vision of some of these major players in contemporary art.

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But, What Ends When The Symbols Shatter (2009); Caligula (2010). All images courtesy Bonniers Konsthall unless otherwise noted.

Gardar Eide Einarsson is one of the fastest rising Scandinavian contemporary artists, and his exhibition Power Has a Fragrance currently on view at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm is a testament to his momentum. Addressing themes of violence, authority, power, paranoia, and alienation, Einarsson draws heavily on graffiti and street culture, transforming appropriated imagery into sophisticated installations that land like spaceships in a minimalist’s paradise.

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Installation Shot, Jenny Holzer “Retro” at Skarstedt Gallery. All images courtesy Skarstedt Gallery and Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

Currently on view at Skarstedt Gallery, through December 18th, is Retro, an exhibition of truisms by Jenny Holzer. The exhibition, which is comprised of benches, plaques, painted signs, electronic LED signs and a sarcophagus, covers a decade of Holzer’s oeuvre from the late 1970’s to the late 1980’s. It aims to reintroduce the diverse use of media comprising Holzer’s historically iconographic works, as well as explore the use of text and language throughout the artist’s early career.

Installation shot, Jenny Holzer’s “Retro” at Skarstedt Gallery.

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Artist Jenny Holzer, via Artnet

Currently showing at the DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art in Montreal is an exhibition of works by Jenny Holzer, an American artist. The exhibition covers a variety of works by Holzer, ranging from the 1990s to the present, and highlights her ability to use text in her art. Holzer was an abstract artist who turned to painting and finally to including language and words in her art. She is well-known for her large LED art.

Redaction Paintings (2008) by Jenny Holzer, via Art21

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Louise Bourgeois in her Brooklyn studio in 1992. Photo courtesy The New York Times.

Louise Bourgeois, one of the world’s most celebrated sculptors, passed away today at the age of 98. The news was announced by an Italian foundation preparing an exhibition of the artist’s work in Venice, and was confirmed by Wendy Williams, the managing director of the Louise Bourgeois Studio. The cause of death was heart attack, and occurred at the Beth Israel Medical Center. Bourgeois was a leader of feminist art, and is known most recently for her large-scale metal spider sculptures, as well as psychologically-charged roughly-textured depictions of sex organs.

Bourgeois’s 30-ft spider sculpture outside the Tate Modern in 2007. Photo courtesy the BBC.

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Masters of the Universe, Tim Noble & Sue Webster (1998-2000). All photographs by Oskar Proctor for ArtObserved.

“Skin Fruit,” the much-anticipated, Jeff Koons­-curated exhibition featuring million-dollar works by the biggest names in contemporary art continues at the New Museum through June 6, 2010. The New Museum’s questionable decision to exhibit works from the collection of one of its trustees, Greek billionaire Dakis Joannou, resulted in an art world controversy that threatened to upstage the show itself from the very beginning. When a large mix of celebrities and art-world-insiders flooded the Museum for the opening reception – attendees included Cyndi Lauper, U2’s the Edge, and collectors Don and Mera Rubell – the irony of placing the ritzy collection in a museum that was once championed for its promotion of the underdog was only exaggerated. And the critics responded accordingly. Christian Viveros-Fauné lambasted that the show is totally wrong for our times “in just about every possible way.” According to the exhibition press release, the featured works by Franz West, Charles Ray, Matthew Barney, Richard Prince, Robert Gober, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Kiki Smith, Kara Walker, Maurizio Cattelan, Tauba Auerbach, Chris Ofili, Dan Colen and Terence Koh, amongst others, aim to “evoke the tensions between exterior and interior, between what we see and what we consume” – a curatorial spin critics say was invented in an effort to disguise a “rudderless display of art as trophy hunting” as an art exhibition. While this may be true, Skin Fruit essentially offers the common man an opportunity to view important works from one of the finest and most original collections of contemporary art in the world that have rarely, or never been seen in New York.

Revolution Counter-Revolution, Charles Ray (1990/2010)

Photo-essay and full round-up of links after the jump….
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Map (2008) by Jenny Holzer, via The Fondation Beyeler

Currently on view at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel are recent works by American artist Jenny Holzer (b.1950). On display are Holzer’s paintings and sculptures as well as her famous LED installations which portray compelling as well as overwhelming combinations of visual imagery and text. The exhibition also incorporates a selection of works chosen by the artist from the Beyeler collection including those by Giacometti, Picasso, Malevich, and Francis Bacon. The exhibition extends outdoors with light projections onto major suites in Basel, Baselland, and Zurich.

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A glimpse of the Sol LeWitt mural, ‘Swirls and Whirls,’ being constructed in the Columbus Circle subway station, via NY Times

A mural designed for the Columbus Circle subway station in New York by Sol LeWitt in 2007, just before his death, is nearly complete [NY Times]

In related, Turner Prize winner Richard Long designs the cover for the London Tube Map [FAD]
The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid has seen visitor numbers quadruple since the opening of its Henri Matisse exhibit [Art Daily]
Following the success of earlier Beyond Limits exhibitions, Sotheby’s announces its fourth contemporary sculpture exhibit at Chatsworth including works by Henry Moore, Marc Quinn, Zhan Wang, among others [Auction Publicity]

Jeff Koons via the Telegraph UK

Jeff Koons sits for lunch with the Financial Times and discusses his love of inflatables and how the custody battle for his son has affected his work [Financial Times]
MoMA’s PS1 in Queens will soon reprise its Greater New York exhibit, which will be its 3rd [LindsayPollack]
On Miuccia Prada and her still to be built €25 million, 20,500 square meter Prada Foundation in a south Milan industrial complex [ArtNewspaper]
Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht sells 5% of his equity holdings; he retains a 1% stake in the company [Barron’s via Art Market Monitor]

The Starns Brothers’ cover for the fifth anniversary of T Magazine, via NY Times

T Magazine celebrates its fifth anniversary with specially designed covers by Mike and Doug Starns, Jeff Koons, Francesco Vezzoli, Jenny Holzer, and Frank Gehry [NYTimes T Magazine]
Christie’s abandons its plan to establish an art-investment fund and a lending division [Bloomberg]
In related, Leibovitz creditor Goldman Sachs has stepped in to help negotiate the photographer’s financial troubles with Art Capital Group [Artforum]
The recession in the art world has not stopped bartering of valuable works between contemporaries [TimesUK]

Creative Time’s short shorts for sale at Creative Time

Creative Time is selling limited edition short shorts, and the campy video is here [CreativeTime via Artnet on Twitter]
On collecting phenomenon Herb and Dorthy Vogel’s gift of 50 works to 50 US States [Wall Street Journal]
Interpol allows online access to its 34,000 work database of stolen art [ArtDaily]
In related, roughly 1,000 Alberto Giacometti counterfeit sculptures seized in Germany [GlobeandMail]

Dasha Zhukova via Style.com

Dasha Zhukova, rumored pregnant with 2008 top collector Roman Abramovich’s child, as new editor of Pop magazine has a Damien Hirst work on the cover [NYMag]
Russian oligarchs invest enough money in the Constructivist and Suprematist art of the beginning of 20th century to provoke forgeries, more than half of items bought of these movements are reported to be inauthentic [The Independent]
In related, as Princeton Architectural Press claims to have discovered Frida Kahlo’s lost archive, scholars involved with the artist’s work refute the possibility of it being authentic [GuardianUK]
A new high intensity x-ray developed by Cornell University has already revealed a lost NC Wyeth illustration [ArtInfo]

Stephen Power’s Hold My Own Iverson’s Arm

2007 Fulbright Scholar Stephen Powers, known as ESPO, is completing his Love Letter project, comprised of murals by multiple artists stretching across his home town of Philadelphia that can be seen from one train [A Love Letter For You]
Shepard Fairey calls his decision to graffiti-proof the brick walls of his studio personal preference and rebutts claims of hypocrisy [Street Level] and separately he is to unveil a large scale mural produced by the gallery Country Club at Art Basel Miami Beach [ArtDaily]
Are Museums crossing the line by granting curatorship to corporations? [The New York Times]

Terence Koh’s window display at Opening Ceremony which reads “The Whole Family” via this hearts on fire

Terence Koh sends a very Terence Koh letter regarding his latest project with Opening Ceremony, a window installation [Hint]
On the relatively accessible yet potentially financially rewarding decision to invest in the works of MA students [The Guardian]
The Bortolami Gallery building is up for sale at $6.1 million by collector Adam Lindemann as Stefania Bortolami prepares to move to another location in Chelsea [Lindsay Pollack]
Matthew Barney and Bjork buy a four bedroom townhouse in Brooklyn Heights listed for $4.2 million [NYMag]

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Exhibition view, “The Female Gaze: Woman Look at Women,” at Cheim & Read. Pictured works include Victoria Civera’s Searcher (far left) and Vanessa Beecroft’s Blonde Figure Lying (floor).

Through September 19, 2009, Cheim & Read will show “The Female Gaze: Women Look At Women.”  Featured are works by women of women, with aim to reorient the typically-male framing of women in art.  Works range in medium from the paintings of Alice Neel and Lisa Yuskavage to the sculptures of Kara Walker, the text poems of Jenny Holzer and the photographs by Diane Arbus, the installations by Louise Bourgeois and even collage work by Ellen Gallagher.

Related links:
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Cheim & Read – Exhibition – The Female Gaze [Cheim and Read]
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Now Hanging: Girlie Show [The Moment Blog, New York Times]
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The Female Gaze, The Cheim and Read Gallery, New York [Financial Times]
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The Female Gaze: Women look at Women [Artforum]
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“The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women” at Cheim & Reid [Contemporary Art Daily]

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Cindy Sherman, Untitled, at Cheim & Read.

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Jenny Holzer, at Between Bridges.

Fresh off the Whitney Museum of American Art, Jenny Holzer is currently showing at London’s Between Bridges.   The exhibition features two collections of work by Jenny Holzer: “Truisms” and Essays.”  As their names suggest, the series are text-based, so that the exhibition consists of blocs of text mounted on the walls of the gallery.

Related links:
Jenny Holzer [Between Bridges]
Jenny Holzer [the centre of attention]
Jenny Holzer. Biography [Art:21]
Jenny Holzer’s ‘PROTECT PROTECT’ at the Whitney Museum of American Art [Art Observed]

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Anish Kapoor’s ‘Shooting into the Corner’ via The Independent

Britain’s Royal Academy opens its galleries in September to Anish Kapoor for the first single artist exhibition there since 1988 [Independent] and Kapoor’s commission for the Deutsche Guggenheim, ‘Memory,’ opens in October [Guggenheim]

Gilbert and George in Hong Kong via Financial Times

Gilbert and George describe their trip to Hong Kong for the opening of ‘Louis Vuitton: A Passion For Creation’ at the Hong Kong Museum of Art [Financial Times]
Oreg0n art dealer indicted for running gallery as a Ponzi scheme [Artinfo]

Glenn Brown’s ‘Christina of Denmark’ via Art in America

Lynn MacRitchie visits painter Glenn Brown’s studio [Art in America]
Predictions about the future of auction houses following the burst of the art market bubble [CNBC via Art Market Monitor]

Aerial view of Governors Island via Governors Island

Creative Time announces Plot, a public art quadrennial, to take place on Governors Island this summer, with 19 international artists showing in 5 buildings previously closed to the public [Creative Time]

Pablo Picasso’s ‘Homme à l’épée’ via Philippe Sollers estimated to sell for £5-7 million at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sale later this month

Christie’s announces its Impressionist and Modern Art Sale, with important works by Monet, Duchamp, and Picasso as highlights [Auction Publicity] and in other auction news, Latin American sales follow the downward trend [Artinfo]

Terence Koh and Tom Sachs celebrate the release of Koh’s new book at Julian Schnabel’s house via Style

Vito Schnabel holds a dinner party at Palazzo Chupi in honor of Terence Koh’s new book, ‘Flowers for Baudelaire’ [Style]
Eric Fischl is organizing a touring exhibition aimed at involving artists in the evolution of American identity in the wake of post-9/11 politics [LA Times]

Takashi Murakami signing posters for the Vogue Nippon launch via Hint

Comme des Garçons x Vogue Nippon concept shop opens, featuring Takashi Murakami collaborations [Hint]
Controversial modern museum, the Ara Pacis, in the heart of historical Rome, is vandalized [BBC]

Jenny Holzer’s ‘Monument’ via Economist

Daniel Arizona looks at how Jenny Holzer’s early aphorisms stand up now and how her new ‘Redaction Paintings’ capture today’s anxiety [Economist]
Antony Gormley and Sir Peter Blake among judges of Saatchi Gallery-Sunday Telegraph Art Prize for schoolchildren [TelegraphUK]

Suzanne Valadon, “La Chambre Bleue” (The Blue Room) (1932) via Centre Pompidou

For an entire year (May 27, 2009 to May 24, 2010), Paris’ Pompidou Center is dedicating the space its reserves for the Museum’s permanent collection to the work of female artists, effectively re-transcribing the history of art since the beginning of the twentieth century from a gendered perspective.  The exhibit, which spans 6,000 square meters, presents over 500 works by 200 artists.  These works are drawn entirely from the museum’s own permanent collection of modern and contemporary art, the largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world.  Following “Big Bang” in 2005 and “Mouvement des Images” in 2006-7, this is the third time in recent years that the Centre Pompidou chooses to display its collection in an original way.  It is also considered the most polemic, with critics either applauding this marked gesture of support to women artists or disapproving of its segregation.

Related Links:
Elles@centrepompidou [Pompidou Center]
Centre Pompidou Dedicates Exhibition to Women: elles@centrepompidou [Art Daily]
At Paris’ Pompidou Center, the Year of the Women [LA Times]
Pompidou Gets Set to Become Women’s Only Institution [Art Review]

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