Vija Celmins, Ocean Surface Woodcut (1992). Via Museum Ludwig.

The Museum Ludwig is presenting a comprehensive solo exhibition of Vija Celmins‘ works, titled “Desert, Sea and Stars.” This show will run through July 17th, and consists of sixty works by the American-Latvian artist, among them her graphite-on-paper depictions of minuscule subjects as spiderwebs or shells, and fragments of vast landscapes. Celmins’s use of photographies as the models for these drawings, gives a hint into her approach to the ideas of the sublime and transient in nature; where the frailness of objects, and the ongoing movements of wind and sea, render those captured glimpses as irrepeatable.

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Ed Ruscha, Baby Jet, 1998. Photo by Paul Ruscha, courtesy of Moderna Museet.

Currently on view at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, through September 5, is Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting. This exhibition, which is a collaboration with Hayward Gallery in London, shows more than 70 paintings. It spans the period from 1958, five years prior to his debut in 1963 at the legendary Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, to the present day. Curated by Lars Nittve and Ann-Sofi Noring, the installation groups Ruscha’s works in chronological order so as to allow the viewer to see the development of the artist’s various motifs and styles over time.

The exhibition’s overarching theme, of course, is words and their constantly shifting relationships with context and message. As the curators explain, “In all his paintings there are tensions and frictions at play: between foreground and background, between text and image, and between how words look and what they mean.”

Installation shot, Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years Of Painting. Photo by Ã…sa Lundén, courtesy of Moderna Museet.

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From the Sigmar Polke show, “The Editions,” at  Museum Ludwig.

Through September 27, Cologne will be home to the humor, irreverence, painstaking technique and meticulous renderings of Sigmar Polke’s “Editions.”  Museum Ludwig is showing an exhibition of the collection, donated in large part by Cologne collectors Ulrich Reininghaus and Anna Friebe-Reininghaus in 2008.  Curated by Julia Friedrich, the show also includes rare prints and re-workings.

Related links:
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Museum Ludwig
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Sigmar Polke – Profile [artfacts]

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Sigmar Polke’s “Ohne Titel [Griffelkunst],” part of “The Editions,” at Museum Ludwig.

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Detail from Isa Genzken’s “Kinder filmen III” (2005), part of “Sesam, öffne dich!” currently showing at Museum Ludwig.

Isa Genzken’s “Sesam, öffne dich!” moves to Museum Ludwig from a show at Whitechapel Gallery which drew over 50,000 visitors. The exhibition features Genzken’s mixed media pieces from as early as 1970, spanning thirty years of her unique fusion of paint, photography, found art, and architectural installation. Co-curated by Kasper König and Nina Gülicher, “Sesam, öffne dich!” closes at Museum Ludwig on November 15.

Further detail from Isa Genzken’s “Kinder filmen III” (2005), at Museum Ludwig.

Related links:
Museum Ludwig – Exhibitions
Isa Genzken – Open Sesame! [Whitechapel Gallery]
Isa Genzken [Re-title]

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‘Untitled’ by Christopher Wool via Museum Ludwig

Christopher Wool won the Wolfgang Hahn Prize Cologne 2009.  As part of the prize, Wool has a solo exhibition at the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, which has also acquired two silkscreen prints by Wool.  Wool is interested primarily in abstract painting, with ‘Porto-Köln’ focusing mainly on a number of large abstract canvases and silkscreen prints.

Museum Ludwig
Christopher Wool
Christopher Wool Wins Wolfgang Hahn Prize [Artinfo]
Christopher Wool: Porto – Köln / Museum Ludwig, Cologne [VernissageTV]

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