Summer Group Show (Installation View), via Marian Goodman

The group exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery revives an excitement for the accomplishments of formal, conceptual and technical art practices during the mid to late 20th century, presenting a lively exhibition that groups together an overlapping group of six prolific artists: Sol LeWitt, Gerhard Richter, Fred Sandback, Anne Truitt, John McCracken and Lawrence Weiner, one is privy to the continuing reverberations of works that defined both minimalist and conceptual techniques in contemporary art practice, often passing from one school to the other while redefining notions of structure, method, dimensionality, and form.  Stoic in its midtown location, the exhibition presents an impressive collection of conceptual and minimalist classics, offering continuing pivots and critically advanced methodological expectations of non-referential visual forms.

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David Hockney, A Bigger Splash (1967). All images via Artnet.

Not only is the Getty the hub of activities for the Southern California-wide Pacific Standard Time (PST) programming, but it is also host to a number of events and exhibitions, including Greetings from L.A.: Artists and Publics, 1950-1980, From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column, In Focus: Los Angeles, 1945-1980, and performances for the Performance and Public Art Festival that will take place later in January. It has also mounted the large-scale, historical exhibition Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950 -1970. With 79 works by 47 artists, the exhibition charts the unique artistic innovations that have come to define the Los Angeles art scene as well as helped to shape some of the most important art movements from the second half of the 20^th century.

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Yutaka Sone Little Manhattan (2007-2009) at David Zwirner Gallery – All images by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

Art Observed remains on site in Basel, Switzerland for Art 42 Basel 2011.  The following is our second of the photosets of the main fair.  Stay tuned for more coverage of the main fair before the end of the week as well as profiles of the satellite exhibitions and events.

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Artist Wim Delvoye before one of his sculptures at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin

more images and links after the jump…

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All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

One of the biggest official collateral events of the 54th Venice Biennale is “Venice in Venice.” The exhibition’s fill title is “Venice in Venice: Glow & Reflection – Venice California Art from 1960 to the Present,” organized by Foundation 20 21 and taking place June 1st – July 31st at Palazzo Contarini Dagli Scrigni. Curated by Tim Nye and Jaqueline Miro, the exhibition include works by seminal Southern California artists Peter Alexander, John Altoon, Charles Arnoldi, Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, Tony Berlant, Wallace Berman, Vija Celmins, Bruce Conner, Ron Cooper, Mary Corse, Laddie John Dill, Joe Goode, Robert Graham, George Herms, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John McCracken, Ed Moses,Kenneth Price, Ed Ruscha, and James Turrell.

Curator Jacqueline Miro, Director of the Getty Image Research Institute Andrew Perchuk, and artists exhibiting in the Venice in Venice show.

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Cosmos (2008) by John McCracken, via Castello di Rivoli

My works are minimalists and reduced, but also maximal. I try to make them concise, clear statements in three-dimensional form, and also take them to a breathtaking level of beauty.

– John McCracken

Currently on view at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin, Italy is a retrospective featuring the works of American artist John McCracken. McCracken believes that the contemplation upon pure absolute forms of beauty as found in his minimalist sculptures, can aid in the obtainment of spiritual liberation. Art can thus be used to enrich the lives of the spectator. The largest retrospective to date of the artist’s work, on display are around sixty historical works including early paintings from the 1960s exhibited for the first time; the artist’s early bichrome sculptural works such as Theta-Two and Mykonos; his rarely exhibited Mandala paintings; and recent works Wonder and Fair both created in 2010 by the artist for the exhibition.

Untitled (Mandala) (1971) by John McCracken, via Castello di Rivoli

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John McCracken, New Works in Bronze and Steel, image courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner

David Zwirner is currently presenting a new body of work by Californian artist John McCracken. McCracken first gained international recognition with his monochromatic geometries placed between flat surfaces and three-dimensional objects. In the present exhibition, he addresses the gallery space as a whole, allowing its architecture and light to participate fully in the installation. In the first room, three bronze planks lean against the wall, in an apparent departure from the materiality of his previous works in fiberglass and resin, while continuing to work in his signature format – the narrow, rectangular, monochromatic panel. Their shiny, reflective surfaces introduce the exhibition’s key motifs, inserting them into a dialogue, both formally and conceptually, with the four free-standing stainless-steel sculptures in the adjacent room: Star, Infinite, Dimension and Electron.

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John McCracken, Swift, 2007. Via David Zwirner Gallery

6 works, 6 rooms is an installation that currently occupies two of David  Zwirner’s gallery spaces. The amount of space that the show affords each work allows for novel consideration of each individual piece and the movements, Conceptualism and Minimalism, to which the works are attributed. The exhibition features the work of Dan Flavin, On Kowara, Sol LeWitt, John McCracken, Fred Sandback and Richard Serra.

6 Works, 6 Rooms [David Zwirner Gallery]

Dan Flavin, Monument 4 for those who have been killed in ambush, 1966. Via David Zwirner Gallery.

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Beauty, John McCracken (2006) via David Zwirner

David Zwirner opened a show of new work by artist John McCracken on September 11th. The exhibition houses nearly 100 pieces made by McCracken, many of which are components of multi-part sculptures. This is McCracken’s fourth solo exhibition at David Zwirner; he has also shown at S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Belgium in 2004 as well as a variety of group shows.  Born in Berkeley in 1934, John McCracken has been showing his conceptual, abstract, and minimalist sculptures since the 1960s. In concurrence with this David Zwirner show, Radius Books is publishing and making available for the first time, John McCracken: Sketchbook. This publication is filled with the artists working sketches from the 1960s. The author of the publication, Neville Wakefield, is an independent curator and has most recently put together a group show at MoMA P.S.1.

John McCracken at David Zwirner [David Zwirner]
John McCracken: Sketchbook [Radius Books]
John McCracken talk & book signing at David Zwirner [Art Slant]
David Zwirner: Press Release [Artinfo]

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