Matthew Darbyshire, CAPTCHA No.24 – David (2015)

Lisa Cooley is currently presenting British artist Matthew Darbyshire’s first U.S. solo exhibition, Suite, featuring eleven life size sculptural pieces, that utilize polycarbonate, a material that can be described as a type of thermoplastic polymer known for its practical commercial usage. Composed of narrowly piled half inch sheets of semi-transparent layers, these neatly arranged forms deliver juxtapositions of certain commercial mundane objects and a replica of Michelangelo’s David. (more…)

Paul Chan, Sock N Tease (2013), via Art Observed

For a semi-retired artist, Paul Chan has been busy in past years.  Following his step back from creating video and installation work in 2010, the artist dove headfirst into the world of publishing with Badlands Unlimited, an imprint responsible for a broad variety of works that have included Saddam Hussein’s On Democracy, and even a recent series of erotic works inspired by Olympia Press, the Paris-based smut peddlers that also published some of the Twentieth century’s most significant works of literature (Lolita and Henry Miller’s Rosy Crucifiction Trilogy).

This diversity of practice was what earned him the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize, one of the U.S.’s top honors, and an exhibition at The Guggenheim.  Given his output over the past decade, the artist is presenting a new series of sculptures that combine his recent publishing ventures with his particular approach to ready-made, object-focused sculpture. (more…)

Gabriel Orozco, Cats and Watermelons (1992), all images courtesy MoCA Tokyo

Inner Cycles is an exhibition of new works and historically significant pieces by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, who has been an influential figure in the international contemporary art community since the early 90’s.  Composed of found objects, photographs, and sculptures, the exhibition is meant to show a “universe in flux” as objects are constantly appropriated and re-appropriated for new uses.

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Virginia Overton, Untitled (2015 ), all images courtesy White Cube

On view in London at White Cube in Mason’s Yard is an exhibition of new large-scale minimalist sculptures by American artist Virginia Overton. The exhibition is Overton’s first in the UK.

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A potential ban on cadmium pigments in the EU has many artists concerned in the quality and consistency of their materials.  The ban, favored by the Swedish government, claims that the cadmium in paints ends up in sewage when artist’s rinse their brushes, and ultimately may wind up spread over fields in various fertilizers, but many seem to disagree.  “[Nickel cadmium] batteries are the real problem, it’s just an easy fix to ban everything with cadmium in it,” says Michael Craine, the managing director of Spectrum Artists’ Paints. “Artists are not rotters; they are not tipping this stuff down the drain, it’s an expensive substance.”  (more…)

Rene Ricard, The Archaic Smile (1978)

An artist embracing multiple formats, genres and techniques, Rene Ricard was born into a troubled family in Boston in 1946. Before he was eighteen years old, Ricard had already moved to New York, and immersed himself in its vibrant Downtown scene, appearing in many of Andy Warhol’s films, and becoming a regular in the artist’s “Factory.”  Referred to as ‘the George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world’ by Warhol, Ricard emerged as a highly influential art critic in the early 80’s, playing major a role in launching the careers of artists such as Julian Schnabel, Francesco Vezzoli, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose graffiti works were compared to the wall paintings in Pompeii by Ricard in his famous Artforum essay The Radiant Child. (more…)

Charles Harlan, Pallets (2013)

Seeking to understand the various materials and objects utilized in contemporary art To do as one would is on view at David Zwirner’s 19th street location this month. The exhibition, brought together by three staff members at the gallery, uses the full space provided to host a selection of works aiming to investigate the broad understanding of alternative materials as applied to various bodies of thought and execution. (more…)

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/SOME RISE SOME REST (2014), via Hauser and Wirth

Hauser and Wirth’s current show of works by Sterling Ruby is something of a grab-bag, incorporating a wide swath of the artist’s current practice in sculpture, assemblage and collage spread across the gallery’s vast 18th Street exhibition space.  The large-scale and commanding physicality of the works is offered ample room for viewers to circle and consider, but Ruby doesn’t’ waste the space on a small set of works either.  Sculptures and hanging works take up almost every square inch of the gallery, arranged in close proximity.  It’s easy to miss one work or another, caught up in the commanding presence of a third nearby.

Sterling Ruby, SUNRISE SUNSET (Installation View), via Hauser and Wirth (more…)

The Telegraph takes a look inside the former home of late artist Louise Bourgeois, which will be reopened as a research center and exhibition space next year, and which was the site of the artist’s legendary work ethic.  “She would stay up for three days in a row, hyper,” says her former assistant Jerry Gorovoy. “We tried different sleeping pills, nothing worked. My days would start at ten, and sometimes she’d been sitting there since six waiting for me. ‘You’re late’ she’d say, in the black skirt and shirt she wore every day.” (more…)

Gardar Eide Einarsson and Oscar Tuazon, Liberator I (2014), via Team Gallery

Chez Perv, a group exhibition of work by Oscar Tuazon, Matias Faldbakken and Gardar Eide Einarsson is currently on view through June 1 at the Team Gallery in New York. Concrete slabs and immoveable duffle bags mark this show’s exploration of the hard edges and enormous weight of the physical world, deriving its title from a New York Post cover story on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sex scandal. Politically potent, heavily minimalist, and privileging the alienating, this group show brings the stillness of the physical world to the fore.

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London’s Victoria and Albert Museum has launched a new collection tactic, called “Rapid Response Collecting,” in which the gallery acquires objects and materials as they enter into the public consciousness.  One recent example is a pair of Primark jeans, an emblem of the international trade at the center of the Bangladeshi factory collapse last year.  “Much of the commentary in the media around the Rana Plaza disaster was about international labour laws, building control in Bangladesh and the responsibilities of global corporations and of consumers,” says Corinna Gardner, V&A curator of Rapid Response Collecting.  “But at its heart was a material thing: a pair of jeans that you can buy on any British high street.” (more…)

Artist Marina Abramovic is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing her upcoming retrospective at The Serpentine, where the artist will freely wander the space of the gallery, and will allow visitors to come in and watch her.  “It’s the public and me and nothing else,” she says. “I took the objects away. But the encounter, I’ve never done anything as radical as this. This is as immaterial as you can go.” (more…)

Jordan Wolfson, (Female Figure) (2014), via Art Observed

How does memory function in the 21st century?  How does nostalgia?  These are questions bound up in the work of Jordan Wolfson, on view now at David Zwirner.  Spread along a series of assemblages, video, and the artist’s notoriously eerie animatronic robot, the show is a striking step for the artist, showing his unique approach to art-making in an ever-stronger expressive capacity.

Jordan Wolfson, Raspberry Poseur (2012), via David Zwirner (more…)

Richard Deacon, Struck Dumb (1998), all images courtesy Tate Britain

Tate Britain is currently presenting an exhibition from Turner Prize-winning sculptor Richard Deacon, primarily composed of large works in wood, contorted steel, and highly glazed ceramics that explores the artist’s ongoing interest in the conflation of industrial, sculptural and art historical influences. The exhibition was curated by Clarrie Wallis, Curator of Modern & Contemporary British Art along with Sofia Karamani, Assistant Curator of Contemporary British Art, and is on view through April 27th.

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Richard Tuttle, a work from Looking for the Map, via Art Observed

On view at Pace New York from February 7th through March 15th is an exhibition comprised of drawings and studies artist Richard Tuttle has made to prepare for his large-scale commission at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, opening in October of this year.

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Brendan Lynch, Coming Home (2013), via Art Observed

Located just off the main strip of Lincoln Road, the office building at 1632 Pennsylvania Avenue in Miami Beach has a lot going for it.  Gently curving walls, a white and teal color scheme, and ample space for movement and installation.  It was just this space that Brooklyn collective The Still House Group took over for its annual pop-up show during Art Basel Miami Beach.

Alex Perweiller and Zachary Susskind at Straight II DVD, via Art Observed (more…)

Akio Suzuki, Ku (detail) (2012), via Lisa Cooley

The field of sound art, as trumpeted by the New York Times and the Museum of Modern Art, is currently emerging into the mainstream dialogues of the high art world, exposing what was once seen as a relatively underground practice to the milling crowds of major museums.  Even so, with that sort of focus placed on the medium, a new level of critique, or rather, a reassessment of the techniques, practices and processes inherent in the creation of sound art.

The String and The Mirror (Installation View), via Lisa Cooley (more…)