The Guardian traces the career of Richard Diebenkorn, and his frequent oscillations between abstract figuration and more concrete landscapes during his lifetime in California and New Mexico.  The article comes in conjunction with Diebenkorn’s recently opened exhibition at the Royal Academy of the Arts.  “I want painting to be difficult to do,” he once stated, revealing his commitment to pushing his work into new territory. (more…)

Paige Powell, a former girlfriend of Jean-Michel Basquiat, has released a series of polaroids of the young artist near the apex of his creative output, and sat down with Wall Street Journal this week to discuss the artist’s life and work. “He was so young and he was almost at the height of—you know, before he died—acknowledgement in the art world of his talent, his genius,” she says. “He had people coming at him all the time.” (more…)

The Independent profiles Celia Paul, a painter who for years has lived in the shadow of her former lover Lucian Freud, and who has worked tirelessly in pursuit of her craft, including sending her young son to live with his grandmother so that she could continue her work.  “An artist has to be very selfish,” she says. “Being ruthless has been painful at times but my son is very close to me, and he has a very close relationship with his grandmother.” (more…)

Cécile Eluard, daughter of surrealist poet Paul Eluard, is interviewed in the Guardian this week, recounting her experiences growing up surrounded by some of the most famous artists of the day, including Max Ernst, Dali, and Pablo Picasso, who would take her to boxing matches.  “He never got old,” Eluard says of Picasso. “I never felt the 40-odd years between us. We would go and have a swim in Vallauris, I would come and visit him whenever I liked in his studio in rue des Grands Augustins in Paris. He would show me his little sculptures made of bric-à-brac. He was so alive, so earthy, so absolutely not abstract!”   (more…)

Jorge Pardo at Petzel Gallery, via Art Observed

Through April 4^th, the work of artist Jorge Pardo will be on view at the Petzel Gallery, stretching the space into a bizarrely disorienting collection of objects and installations.  This is the Los Angeles-based artist’s eighth exhibition at this gallery, and continues Pardo’s investigation of architectural and non-specific spaces that interrogate the limits of the gallery-space, as well as the way the viewer is conditioned into looking at art.

Jorge Pardo, Spare Bedroom (2014), All images courtesy Friedrich Petzel Gallery (more…)

Josh Kline, Forever 27 (2013), Courtesy 47 Canal

Quality of Life is Josh Kline’s first solo exhibition since 2011, and directly follows his having organized this summer’s high-profile Pro-Bio group show at MoMA PS1. The exhibition acts as something of a statement of intent for the New York artist and deals with themes increasingly familiar within Kline’s growing body of work, looking at the commodification of identity and youth, alongside the forging of new, posthuman understandings of the body.

Josh Kline, Quality of Life (Installation View), via Sasha Patkin for Art Observed (more…)

Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893), Courtesy Munch Museet

Edvard Munch is enjoying somewhat of a timely spotlight, having just has his iconic 1895 pastel The Scream set the global auction record at almost $120 million last May, just one year short of what would be the 150th year since his birth.  This correlation is not lost on the Norwegian city of Oslo, where Munch grew up, and 2013 has been dedicated to the pioneering abstractionist, with a pair of landmark shows compiling almost 300 works from Munch’s groundbreaking career in Oslo, Paris, and Berlin.

Edvard Munch, Workers on Their Way Home (1913-1914), Courtesy Munch Museet (more…)

Anish Kapoor spoke with The Guardian this week in the run-up to his new show of work, Kapoor in Berlin at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in the German capital, speaking about the countries’ support of the arts, and its stark contrast to Great Britain.  “In Germany, it seems that the intellectual and aesthetic life are to be celebrated and are seen as part of a real and good education, whereas in Britain, traditionally – certainly since the Enlightenment – we’ve been afraid of anything intellectual, aesthetic, visual.” (more…)

The Financial Times has published a profile on gallerist Daniella Luxembourg of Luxembourg and Dayan, highlighting her early life in Israel, and her new approaches to exhibition outside of her two successful gallery spaces in New York and London.  Luxembourg’s pop-up gallery, titled Oko, has been gaining attention lately, with a recent show of work by Julian Schnabel, and an upcoming show of work by Dan Colen this week.  “It’s a different intellectual dialogue, another way of engaging people,” Luxembourg said. “When I was working in the auction business, so much money was spent on dinners, marketing, publicity and entertaining … this is another way of working.” (more…)

Damien Hirst, Forbidden Fruit (2012-3), via White Cube Hong Kong

White Cube Hong Kong is currently presenting Entomology Cabinets and Paintings, Scalpel Blade Paintings and Colour Charts, a broad exhibition of new work by British artist Damien Hirst. Through the three series on view, Hirst explores life’s dualities through the beauty and horror of both the Natural world and modernity.

Damien Hirst, The Judged (2012), via White Cube Hong Kong

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