Nicholas Hlobo, Phantsi Komngcunube (2017), via Lehmann Maupin

Artist Nicholas Hlobo’s work has long explored the potentials for using various material sources and referential systems, using a range of elements like metal piping and fabric stitching to create elegant, arcing forms and figures that operate as self-contaned metaphors of sorts.  Free-flowing and adventurous, the artist’s work allows him to work instinctively while drawing his forms directly onto canvas from his subconscious, a mode that invites both critical participation and quick impulse at the same time. His work is presented in some sense as a catharsis or exorcism, purging from himself the indoctrination of cultural dichotomies that set boundaries of either/or, where Hlobo wishes to portray the multitude. (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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All photos by Caroline Claisse.

Currently on view at the Punta della Dogana, housed in the magnificent Palazzo Grassi, is “The World Belongs to You.” Curated by Caroline Bourgeois, the exhibition brings together artists from different generations, geographical locations, and practices to explore history and current realities.

The Punta della Dogana became the official exhibition space of Francois Pinault‘s private collection in 2006, when he purchased the building from the city of Venice. It now houses works from internationally renowned contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons, Urs Fischer, Maurizio Cattelan, and Takashi Murakami.

Urs Fischer’s violet piano at Punta della Dogana.

More text and images after the jump… (more…)