Lee Ufan, (Installation View), via Bria Cole for Art Observed

If tranquility could serve as a physical construct, rather than a state of mind, then a state of calm could perhaps be considered as a reconditioning of vision, a way to perceive extended relations of time, material and space.  This sense of the perceptual retooling, and its effects, is one reading offered by Lee Ufan’s continuous series Relatum and Dialogue, the most recent version of which is currently on view at Pace Gallery.   The artist tends towards a relationship between philosophy and the objects he creates with artistic significance, in order to provoke subtle perceptual reconsiderations, as proposed in his writings and contributions to the Mono-ha school of artistic practice.

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Robert Motherwell. Opens (Installation View) All Images Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery.

Now through June 20, Andrea Rosen Gallery will host a comprehensive exhibition of Robert Motherwell’s Open series, composed from 1967 through the 1970s, and set to coincide with the centennial of the artist’s birth.  This historical marker exemplifies the gallery’s ongoing commitment to looking to the recent past of contemporary art in order to expand upon trends currently emerging, and to trace the influence of major figures in the art world.  As the gallery’s press release states, “Opens not only allows us to compare these masterworks against the present-day focus on abstraction, but also encourages us to reconcile the breadth of Motherwell’s rigor and clarity.”  This comprehensive exhibition of one of the artist’s lesser-known series provides the opportunity to deepen public understanding of the legacy of Motherwell as an artist and a significant force in mid-twentieth century New York City.

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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…)

Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Yellow Butterfly Orange Mark Grotjahn 2004) (2004), all images courtesy Blum and Poe

Celebrating the inaugural show at its first New York location, Blum & Poe’ is presenting a show of Mark Grotjahn’s Butterfly Paintings, curated by Douglas Fogle at its E 66th Street location.  The show focuses on select works from Grotjahn’s recognizable series, which range in date from 2001 to 2008, and tracing the evolution of the paintings over a period of 7 years.

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Nate Lowman, This Is Your Brain On Drugs Again, via Art Observed

Nate Lowman’s current solo show is notable in its subtlety.  Once a maker of enormous reproductions of vinyl, consumer-grade bullet hole decals and canvases covered with smiley-faces, Lowman’s new work currently on view at Maccarone Gallery takes a different tack entirely.  Lightly painted, cut canvases and pixelated cut-outs dot the works, rendering soft, pastel forms that mark a notable break from the often harsh images of urban decay he so often selected as the subject of his past practice.

Nate Lowman, Rave the Painforest (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

Robert Ryman, Untitled (2010), Photo: Bill Jacobson, Courtesy of the Pace Gallery

The work of American artist Robert Ryman (b. 1930, Nashville, Tennessee), is at once rigorous and experimental, playing with the possibilities of material, scale, brushstroke, and installation itself.  He is most commonly identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art, and frequently explores the classical distinctions between sculpture and painting, as well as concerns with themes of perception, context, and enforced limitations.  Since the 1950s, Ryman has focused on the conceptual nature of his work, exploring the varieties found in primarily white paint on square surfaces. Preferring to be known as a “realist” rather than a minimalist, his work presents compositions at face value, prompting an examination of the optical and material properties of the painting discipline. (more…)

Over 40 years, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel built up a collection of some of the most significant contemporary artworks of the post-war contemporary era, paid for on meager working class salaries as a postal worker and librarian.  By the time of Herbert’s death last year, the couple had amassed a collection well over 4,000 works, half of which they set about donating to 50 institutions in each of the fifty states.  A new film by director Megumi Sasaki, titled Herb and Dorothy 50×50, will be released soon, the second film to focus on the story of the couple’s love for art, and the process of donation to museums across the country. (more…)