Jill Muilleady, Touch Me Not (2018), via Art Observed

A group of young artists takes center stage at Lisson Gallery this month, with an exhibition titled The Rest exploring their respective interests in figurative painting as well as concomitantly capricious and complex approaches to image making.  Featuring the work of Van Hanos, Allison Katz, Jill Mulleady, Jeanette Mundt, Nolan Simon and Issy Wood, the show is a striking inquiry into a range of ideas and concepts in modern image production, and the state of the painted image in the 21st Century.
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Stanley Whitney, In the Color (2018), via Lisson Gallery

Color inspires and informs the work of Stanley Whitney, whose paintings explore the many possibilities for juxtaposition and movement across the canvas, each drawing on irregular rectangles in varying shades of strength and subtlety. His work creates fluctuating series of intensities and reliefs, draw on the composition of adjacent nodes, a structure that seems to welcome exchanges between freedom and constraint, open space and riding control, all bound together by the evolving exchanges in color.   He returns to New York this fall for his fourth exhibition with Lisson Gallery, marking the first solo show of the artist to occupy both of New York gallery spaces. Investigating his profound and nuanced relationship to color and its spatial effects throughout his career, the show includes paintings and drawings dating back to the 1990s in one gallery, and a suite of brand new works in the other.  (more…)

Carmen Herrera, Estructuras (Installation View), via Art Observed

Entering Lisson Gallery’s 24th Street New York space, visitors are greeted with a vibrant, colorful arrangement of works, geometric forms mounted on walls, arranged along the floor, and in some cases, even propped up on tables, creating the impression of momentary voids in the perception of the gallery space, or even that of the viewer’s own visual field.  The show is the first ever large-scale presentation of Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera’s Estrcuturas works, and underscores the artist’s ongoing contributions to the languages of minimalism and conceptualism. (more…)

Tony Oursler, TC: The Most Interesting Man Alive (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery

Tony Conrad stands among the pinnacle of modern artistic practice; a pioneering and influential experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, artist and educator whose body of work can rarely be traced within the framework of just one discipline or school of thought.  A longtime educator in conjunction with his expansive practice, Conrad’s work moves at a sprint through ideas and constructs, and has remained influential on much of the artists who worked around and with him.  One of these artists was Tony Oursler, who met Conrad in 1979 and performed in a number of Conrad’s films, ultimately forging a bond that would lead to a range of collaborations and pieces. Among these is TC: the most interesting man alive, a short biopic piece that incorporates a range of cinematic, graphic, narrative and autobiographical approaches to produce a new form of biopic about the late artist Tony Conrad. (more…)

Difference Engine (Installation View), via Jodie Berman for Art Observed

Meandering into spaces of contradiction and surrealist juxtaposition, artist Cory Arcangel has put on his curator cap for a show organized in collaboration with Art21’s Tina Kukielski, organizing an exhibition of works centered around modernity and technology, and framed equally by ideas of potential and hazard. (more…)

Tedd Stamm (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery

Walking from Ted Stamm’s current exhibition at Lisson Gallery to Dan Flavin: in daylight or cool white at David Zwirner, the sharp angles of the two artists’ works seem to echo each other, representing two bodies of minimalist experimentation with a similar interest in form, and riffing on the shape of their canvas, whether that canvas be paper, neon, or stretcher. Stamm’s show is perhaps the more grounded in the traditional language of art-making, yet equally pushes his works to the semantic breaking points of the art object. (more…)

Ryan Gander (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery

The passage of time is at the center of artist Ryan Gander’s current solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery’s 67 Lisson location in London.  Marking the artist’s sixth solo show with the gallery, Gander’s show has pulled a particularly simple, yet tellingly even-handed quote from his father as the inspiration for the show: “let the world take a turn.”  Taking his father’s words to heart, Gander encourages spectatorship, welcoming the viewer to allow time to take its course within the gallery, and to allow it to work its healing, transformational capabilities to work throughout the show.

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Shirazeh Houshiary, Exuviae (2016-2017), via Ondine Charlesworth for Art Observed

Iranian-born, London-based artist Shirazeh Houshiary returns to Lisson Gallery this month for a show of new works at the gallery’s New York location on 24th Street in Chelsea, continuing her nuanced exploration of architectural and gestural interactions.  Reflecting on physical and immaterial qualities that shape art and human life, the artist’s work in her new show draws on dualities of structure and chance, friction and fluidity, and the nuances of space that both bound and interact with the work itself.

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Stanley Whitney, Drawings (Installation View), via Art Observed

Lisson Gallery’s second New York location kicked off the fall art season this past week with a striking exhibition of drawings and small-scale works by Stanley Whitney, a charged entry in the season’s landscape of exhibitions that rings a powerful chord against the backdrop of the U.S.’s turbulent and increasingly violent, racially-tinged struggles.  Spread across the walls of the gallery’s small project space, the show is an impressive entry in the artist’s oeuvre, combining his energetic, colorful sensibilities with a more cutting socio-political and critical lens, one that brings his work into tight focus against the backdrop of current events. (more…)

Ai Weiwei, Roots and Branches at Lisson (Installation View), via Art Observed

Ai Weiwei has returned to New York City for the first time since the return of his passport from the Chinese government, opening a quartet of exhibitions across its urban expanses that offer a strikingly deep and varied series of perspectives into the artist’s practice over the past few years.  Spread out across both locations of the Mary Boone Gallery, in addition to a show at Lisson, and one at Jeffrey Deitch Projects, the artist’s selection of works presents a nuanced look at his ongoing investment in the defense and articulation of universal human rights, moving from China, to Syria, and beyond.

Ai Weiwei, Roots and Branches at Mary Boone (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Tony Cragg (Installation View) all images courtesy of Lisson Gallery

Spanning both London venues, Tony Cragg’s fourteenth exhibition with Lisson Gallery features a new series of sculptural works that continue and further develop his pursuit of manifesting dynamic energy within the gallery space in conjunction with his keen interest in texture and materiality.  Cragg’s practice begins with simple, yet loaded elements of gestural line, signifying the presence of the artist’s hand in the work, often evolving into morphed, distended form that play on ideas of perception and subjective realities. Cragg works towards uncovering the unseen, both in terms of untapped energy and the unseen rules of the universe, metaphysical manifestations of connectivity and action, layering forms and lines to reshape visions of the contemporary world. (more…)

Ryan Gander, I Be… (x) (2016), via Art Observed

Ryan Gander has opened his first exhibition at Lisson Gallery’s new New York City outpost, spreading his work through a small but tightly selected body of pieces underlining the artist’s enigmatic material interests in play with his uniquely British sense of humor.  In one corner, a piece called I’m never coming back to New York shows a £20 note slowly twisting and pushing its way out of a hole in the wall, playing on dual jokes about fleshing out new coats of plaster with crumpled paper and the commercial core of the gallery environment.

Ryan Gander, Mr. Modern Classical Conceptualist (Dramaturgical framework for structure and stability) (2016), via Art Observed

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The Art Newspaper notes efforts by both Gagosian and Lisson Gallery to extend their influence to Tehran, lending works to an exhibition in downtown gallery Ab-Anbar.  “The galleries were very cooperative; I think they are testing the waters,” gallery director Salman Matinfar says. (more…)

Monika Grzymala, Raumzeichnung (outside/inside) (2016), via Lisson Gallery

Working in close collaboration with The Drawing Room, Lisson Gallery’s has brought together a selection of pieces that explore the more conceptual reaches of the drawing process, not only exploring drawing as a condition of ideation or practice for smaller works, but as a method of experiencing, and segmenting, space itself.  Titled Line, the show is a strong investigation of space and memory, time and flow, extended “off the page,” as the press release reads. (more…)

Lisson Gallery has announced its plans to open a gallery in New York this May, presenting a body of paintings by Cuban-born painter Carmen Herrera.  The gallery will bring its roster of artists, primarily those without prior U.S. reputation, to show in New York.  “This offers an opportunity for audiences here to become better acquainted with our international artists and bring their work into an American curatorial dialogue,” the gallery told Art Observed.  The space will be located at 504 West 24th Street. (more…)

Ryan Gander, Night and Day (2015), via Lisson Gallery

Artist Ryan Gander has returned to Lisson Gallery in London for his third show with the gallery this month, furthering his uniquely witty work with conventional art materials, and their intersections with the objects of the everyday, compounded by the artist’s often ingenious mechanical and technological interjections.

Ryan Gander, Fieldwork (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery (more…)

Tony Cragg,  Installation View (2012), courtesy Lisson Gallery

Tony Cragg is a prominent British visual artist known for his smooth, blobular, almost alien formations. Cragg commonly uses a range of materials to produce smooth, curved surfaces that explore his observations of the surrounding world by challenging form, volume, scale and function through the medium of sculpture. His latest exhibition at the Lisson Gallery features a variety of new works in a continuance of form, yet extending his practice beyond the previous limits with ever more intricate surfaces areas and new formations.

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Anish Kapoor has enlisted Mark Wallinger, Bob and Roberta Smith, Tom Phillips and other art world heavyweights such as Alison Myners, chair of the ICA, and Tamara Rojo, artistic director of the English National Ballet to create a Gangnam Style video in support of Ai Weiwei. “It had to be done,” said Kapoor, “Yes, it is desperately silly, but what is the paradigm of the artist? The artist does stupid things with serious intent.” (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Installation view 2012, courtesy Lisson Gallery

Anish Kapoor’s current exhibition at the Lisson Gallery is a major exhibition of new works. Occupying both the gallery’s spaces on Bell Street, London, the exhibition marks 30 years of Lisson Gallery working together with the Turner-prize winning artist and provides a thorough examination of Kapoor’s most recent work.

Anish Kapoor, Installation view 2012, courtesy Lisson Gallery

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Adrian Searle interviews artist Ryan Gander in the first of a series of artist interviews for The Guardian. Gander discusses his new works: a cast sculpture that resembles marble of his daughter’s secret fort, and a carved bureau that is conceptually about collisions between objects. He discusses his approach to making art in general, which relies on careful observation and the acknowledgement that everything is absurd: “It’s just being interested in the world. It’s enjoying keeping your eyes open and your wits about you.” (more…)

Lynda Benglis sculptures and Hans Hurting paintings at Cheim & Read’s booth at Frieze Masters. All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Frieze Masters and Frieze London concluded on October 14th, with both fairs reporting solid sales on the high end. This year, there was a distinct focus on curated booths and curatorial projects and less of an overt feeling of commercialization. Frieze Masters in particular focused on serious connoisseurship and an academic approach, both of which translated into a successful fair for dealers.

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Forbes interviews Lisson Gallery‘s Nicholas Logsdail about the gallery, the market and the exhibition in London of new works by Anish Kapoor, marking 30 years of the partnership between the gallery and the artist. He says Kapoor’s work is special because “in very simple terms, his work is profound, beautiful, timeless and outside of politics or national boundaries. It is about the very essence of our being – the body, and the human psyche”. (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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Image: Frieze London Courtesy Frieze

Exhibitors are gearing up for the tenth edition of Frieze London, which takes place in London’s Regent’s Park from October 11–14th. The fair kicks off with a vernissage on the evening of Wednesday, October 10th, once again housed in a temporary structure designed by architects Carmody Groarke.

Although mostly composed of UK and US galleries (almost exclusively from London and New York) account for 45% of the main fair, fair organizers are broadening the scope this year, with new sections and exhibitors from 35 countries, making it the most international event to date organized by Frieze.

Image: Mona Hatoum, KAPANCIK, 2012 Courtesy White Cube Gallery

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