Leo Villareal, Ellipse (2017), via Art Observed

Marking his first exhibition with Pace since joining the gallery this past year, artist Leo Villareal has opened a show of new works at the gallery’s 24th Street exhibition space. Villareal, whose twinkling, shifting LED light installations are iconic parts of the urban landscape from New York to San Francisco and around the globe, has built a reputation for his nuanced understanding of public space, and the capacity for simple light arrays to transform its environment, and brings a series of new installations, light panels and video to the gallery. (more…)

Frieze London, via Art Observed

The doors are open and the 2016 edition of Frieze London is now underway, bringing a wide range of works and artists to bear on the fairgrounds at Regent’s Park in the northern part of the city.  With its VIP Preview concluding today, the fair made its first big push of sales alongside the kick-off for a number of its projects and performance works, which conclude this Sunday.

Samara Golden at Canada Gallery, via Art Observed

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Pace Gallery has announced that it now represents Leo Villareal, marking the announcement with a show of his recent pieces at Frieze London.  Villareal will also be involved with Future/Pace, a public arts partnership that the gallery is currently undertaking with the Futurecity group to examine approaches to urban planning, art and architecture. (more…)

In homage to the late Cornell astronomy professor Carl Sagan, artist Leo Villareal has installed a massive light work at the Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, New York.  Titled Cosmos, the work uses 12,000 LED lights to emit complex patterns of shimmering light.  (more…)

Leo Villareal, The Bay Lights (2013) Courtesy of The Bay Lights; Photography Lucas Saugen

The work of Leo Villareal often operates on grand scales, using bright LED lights to accent and underline the inherent characteristics of human structures around the world.  Frequently using coded algorithms to create complex, shifting patters of light on buildings, walls, and other constructions, his infinite variations of light offer new ways of seeing and viewing already present architectures.

Following up on a number of massively successful public projects (including his popular “Buckyball” installation at Madison Square Park in New York), Villarreal has unveiled his largest installation to date: a string of LED lights running the length of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.  TitledThe Bay Lights, his work highlights the iconic dimensions of the bridge, and projecting its stature into the night sky of the San Francisco Bay.

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Leo Villareal is installing his BUCKYBALL light sculpture (an homage to Buckminster Fuller) in Madison Square Park. The piece is a honeycomb-shaped, 20-foot-tall interactive structure with changing colors. The work will be on view from October 25, 2012 through February 2013. (more…)