Rachel Harrison, Magnum (2015), via Regen Projects

New York-based artist Rachel Harrison is presenting a multifaceted exhibition at Los Angeles’s Regen Projects this month, exploring notions of representation, perspective and time as they function in both the context of the gallery and in the artist’s own work.  Titled Three Young Framers, the exhibition’s tacit reference to the photography of August Sander points to this notion of the subject as a participant in the act of photography, echoed today in an era of widely proliferating photographic technology. (more…)

Olaf Breuning, Brancusi (2015)

Olaf Breuning, the Swiss-born, New York-based artist who has received wide acclaim for his playful appropriations of the iconography of popular culture, has returned to Metro Pictures for a highly anticipated solo exhibition, titled The Life. Consisting of 25 MDF panels each reaching to 9 feet high, the artist’s lofty, circular panels and free-standing steel sculptures incorporate Breuning’s mix of the humorous, quotidian and idiosyncratic imagery of the contemporary social landscape: emojis, bean bags, beer bottles, human figures and other objects, omitting any hierarchal separation so that each element blends into a somewhat objective examination of reality. (more…)

David Salle, Yellow Fellow (2015), via Art Observed

Painter David Salle is currently presenting a new body of work at Skarstedt’s Chelsea outpost, returning to his previous Product Paintings series in a set of vividly rendered prints and paintings that seem to address not only the artwork as object and commodity, but also that relation to the Post-War canon. (more…)

Lucas Samaras, XYZ 1700 (2015), via Pace Gallery

On view at its 25th Street galleries, Pace is currently presenting Lucas Samaras’s exhibition Albums 2, featuring over 700 digitally enhanced photographs and a mirrored room installation.  Samaras’s exhibition showcases his continued exploration of manipulated imagery as a way of plumbing his own existence, this time playing through his autobiographical accounts with digital technologies. (more…)

Fotografica, all photos via Sabrina Wirth for Art Observed

Every two years during the first week of May, Bogotá, Colombia launches its Fotografica Bogotá, the biennial photography exhibition now in its 10th edition. “Bogotá is photographic,” says Gilma Suarez, the powerhouse curator and photographer who founded the event.  Indeed, from May 2nd to June 15th, the city turns itself into a public museum, with images of the artwork on display for anyone to enjoy, while hosting concurrent events at universities, galleries, museums, and foundations, also open to the public.  The event gives photography enthusiasts the chance to meet with the exhibiting photographers from around the world to either listen to their lectures or participate in portfolio reviews.  (more…)

Yang Fudong, The Light That I Feel 1 (2015) via Marian Goodman Gallery

Artist Yang Fudong is exhibiting his latest series of photographs at Marian Goodman’s Paris location.  Titled The Coloured Sky: New Women II, the exhibition incorporates two bodies of work as well as a high-definition colored video installation that continues his use of dream-like worlds and constructions of fantasy through the female body. (more…)

The New York Times takes a look at the work of Chuck Close this week, as the artist prepares to open a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum, examining his use of exacting photographic techniques and his approach to painting.  “I approach all subjects the same,” Close says. “Of course I can’t collaborate with a flower the same way I can with a human, but there is an inherent sensuality in a flower that relates to the nudes, and the close-up details of the flowers are equally revelatory.” (more…)

The Financial Times profiles Iranian artist Shirin Neshat as she prepares to open a career retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and Baku, Azerbaijan.  “As an Iranian in exile, she has always been very articulate about the idea of a condition of diaspora and, with that, the complexity of feeling connected to a culture, but living outside it,” says Director Melissa Chiu. “It’s a very personal approach to history, through Shirin’s own eyes.” (more…)

Piotr Uklanski, The Nazis (1998), via Art Observed

Currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a retrospective focusing on the work of Polish-born artist Piotr Uklanski, many of which are pulled from the rarely seen Joy of Photography series that the artist executed in the years following his move to the United States following the fall of Communism. (more…)

Marlene Dumas, The Image as Burden (1993) © Marlene Dumas

Currently on view at Tate Modern is Image as Burden, a retrospective looking at the career of the prolific South African painter Marlene Dumas. Adopting its title from an oil on canvas painting in which a male figure is depicted carrying a female figure, the retrospective, considered the most expansive survey of Dumas’ work in Europe so far, sheds a light on the exceptionally subliminal oeuvre of Dumas, who has, for the most part of her career, maintained a humble profile despite the scholarly and commercial recognition her work has achieved globally. (more…)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Cain and Abel (2013)

Currently on view at David Zwirner is East of Eden, Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s latest photographic investigation on contemporary humanity and its position within a complexly interwoven cultural setting.  This series reflects diCorcia’s interpretation of a search for equilibrium after the deep impacts of the Financial Crisis in 2007, both during and after the Bush administration. (more…)

Taryn Simon, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (2007), all images courtesy Jeu de Paume

On view at Jeu de Paume in Paris is a body of conceptual artwork by artist Taryn Simon, combining photography, text, and graphic design to address issues related to the production and circulation of knowledge, as well as the politics of representation.  The works on view, all produced after 2000, include The Innocents, a piece documenting cases of wrongful convictions in the United States, and underlining photography’s role and function as a both a credible witness and an oppositional agent that blurs truth and fiction.

(more…)

Thomas Demand, Backyard (2014), via Matthew Marks

The artifice that drives Thomas Demand’s practice is simple, but the results are impressively commanding.  Utilizing carefully cut and assembled cardboard pieces to create familiar images, scenes and spaces, the artist’s work carries an evocatively nostalgic aura, while emphasizing his own craft in the construction of the scene itself. (more…)

Francesca Woodman, I’m trying my hand at fashion photography (Installation View)

I’m trying my hand at fashion photography is the title of the current Francesca Woodman exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery. Named after one of the many notes the artist inscribed on her photographs, the selection focuses on Woodman’s fashion photographs, a genre the artist worked on during her New York years between 1978 and 1980.  The works are also notable in their oftentimes stark reflection of the final years of the RISD graduate who committed suicide in 1981 following severe depression, possessing elements from her signature photographic style against the backdrop of her own life. (more…)

Alec Soth, Woodville Farm Labor Camp, San Joaquin Valley, California (2013), all images via Sean Kelly

Alec Soth presents an exhibition of over 25 new black-and-white photographs at Sean Kelly, focusing his lens on small-town community events across America. Soth’s work has frequently delved into the modern day folklore of Americana throughout his career, capturing images that are at once familiar and spellbinding.

Alec Soth, Brian. Williston, North Dakota (2012) (more…)

Sturtevant, Duchamp Relâche (1967)

The Museum of Modern Art is hosting the first US exhibition focusing on the work of the late Sturtevant, one of the foremost artists to initiate conversations on commodification and appropriation of artworks, after the late artist was the subject of various solo shows in Europe. Born Elaine Horan in Ohio, Sturtevant always chose to remain discrete about her biography, so much that her year of birth is still a matter of discussion. (more…)

John Waters, Beverly Hills John (2012)

Marianne Boesky Gallery is hosting its third collaboration with John Waters, a pioneer of American camp and “trash culture” since the 1970’s, particularly through his feature breakthrough Pink Flamingos in 1972.  Throughout his career, Waters has constantly redefined the elements that constitute American culture, at a time when the nation was premature to notions such as homosexuality or kitsch, and used these often marginalized cultures within a studied cinematic and artistic framework.

John Waters, Still from Kiddie Flamingos (2014) (more…)

Gillian Wearing, Me As an Artist in 1984 (2014), all Photos Courtesy of Regen Projects Los Angeles.

One of the most prominent members of the Young British Artists, Gillian Wearing, who in the past few decades has established a unique and enduring voice in the contemporary discourse, is presenting her new body of work at Los Angeles’ Regen Projects. The artist’s fourth collaboration with the gallery, everyone, features two new video pieces as well as various multimedia works that juxtapose Wearing’s investigations on personal memory, confrontation with past and unfolding of angst as a direct result. (more…)

Louise Lawler, Dots and Slices (Traced) (2006/2013), via Sprüth Magers

In 2013, Louise Lawler performed a series of “tracings” at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, taking previously executed photographs from Lawler’s broad body of work, and converting the image down to a simple vector graphic in partnership with artist and children’s book illustrator Jon Buller.  These tracings are currently the subject of the artist’s most recent solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers Berlin, as Levine returns to her particularly subtle brand of institutional critique. (more…)

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Birds of the Alps (2012), via Pace London

Hiroshi Sugimoto returns to Pace London this month, presenting a new body of work from his long-running Dioramas series, and exploring notions of the fossil as both an artifact and a contemporary object through his cunningly arranged photographs. (more…)

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via Art Observed

Christopher Williams, the Los Angeles-based artist who just recently closed his major MoMA retrospective earlier this month, is back in New York with a new solo exhibition with David Zwirner.

The artist’s current exhibition of new work at the gallery’s 19th Street space makes up for its minimal catalog in conceptual clout, examining the construction of narrative and spatial interactions through a coyly designed exhibition plan that shifts in theme and semiotic interaction based on the viewer’s position.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

The exhibition is composed of a series of variations on Williams’s ongoing fascination with the value of the image, and its role as a circulator of information and ideology in contemporary capitalism.  During the construction of the show, or rather, the deconstruction of the prior show, Marcel Dzama’s Une Danse de Bouffons, Williams elected to remove several dividing walls, and, rather than remount them seamlessly, left them standing solitary, bearing the scars of their removal.  As a result, the exhibition is divided by a series of walls that seem to have slightly broken free in the exhibition space, a peculiar visual phenomenon that also serves as one of the core conceits for the artist’s work.

Christopher Williams, Untitled (Study in Gray) 1967 Citroen DS Serial number: DS851360a Color code: AC 226 Color name: gris satiné Color year: 1964 Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf November 3, 2013, 2014 Inkjet print on cotton rag paper 20 x 25 inches (50.8 x 63.5 cm ) WILCH0415 (2014) via Art Observed

Regarding the photography itself, the artist follows a set of previously explored techniques with new angles.  In one series, he photographs camera lenses cut cleanly in half, underscoring the complexity of a mechanism often left unseen, but wholly complicit in delivering the image itself to the viewer.  In another, Williams photographs damaged car headlights, but shot after replacing all damaged parts and re-painting the car carefully so that only a peculiar, subtle bent can be detected, an inflection that remains buried underneath the aura of newness.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

The third combines an image of a chicken, inspired by the fringe market for poultry appreciation magazines and the linguistic tropes these magazines have established for themselves, with a carefully manipulated magazine advertisement for dish soap with all evidence of food removed, leaving a clean, confusing pan in a pristine environment.

Christopher Williams, Cutaway model Leica Leitz Wetzlar Tele-Elmar 135/4.0 Focal length: 135 mm Aperture range: 4 – 22 Number of elements/groups: 4/4 Focusing range: 1.5 m – infinity Angle of range: 18 degrees Filter thread: 39 mm Weight: 405 g Dimensions: 53.4 × 122.69 mm Manufacturer part number: 11850 Lens design by Dr. Walter Mandler Manufactured by Ernst Leitz GmbH, Wetzlar, Germany Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf March 14, 2013, 2014 Inkjet print on cotton rag paper 7 1/4 x 21 7/8 inches (43.8 x 55.6 cm) WILCH0427 (2014), via Art Observed

Placing these three sets of pieces along calculated sight lines, Williams’s manipulated walls effectively break the space of the room into various thematics based on the viewer’s position.  Depending on position, the viewer may contend with the camera alongside an image of the chicken, or perhaps the broken headlight in all of its cosmetic interference alongside a shining pan.  In each intersection, the idea of publication and the editorial decision, the act of depiction and its formatting within certain standards, takes a prominent role.

Christopher Williams, Demountable wall panel with panel storage cart from the exhibition The Production Line of Happiness, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, January 24 – May 18, 2014 Wall panel materials: Oak, plywood, metal, cardboard, fabric, rubber, vinyl, and adhesive Wall panel dimensions: 102 x 72 x 4 1/2 inches Storage cart materials: Steel, carpet, rubber, plywood, and paint Storage cart dimensions: 78 x 86 x 18 inches Gallery display system designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), Chicago, 1982 Pedestal materials: MDF, plywood, Douglas fir blocking, screws, lag screws, neoprene rubber spacers and shims, and metal Pedestal dimensions: 134 1/2 x 66 1/2 x 4 3/4 inches Pedestal designed by Mack Cole-Edelsack, Department of Exhibition Design and Production, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in accordance with loan specifications from the Art Institute of Chicago, Department of Photography Exhibited in The Production Line of Happiness, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 27 – November 2, 2014 July 20, 2014, 2014 Selenium toned gelatin silver print 22 x 18 1/4 inches (55.9 x 46.4 cm) WILCH0459 (2014) via David Zwirner

Williams is also exhibiting a series of inversions on the notion of the exhibition catalog, in which images and text are merely replaced with color-coded pages, as well as Printed in Germany, a remarkably comical book that is completely blank saved for the aforementioned words printed on the back cover (apparently a requirement for the books to be shipped out of the country).  Bearing only a single mark of international exchange, the book renders all content visually obsolete, underscoring only its place of origin.

Christopher Williams, For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 19) (Installation View), via David Zwirner

Williams’s exhibition is small, but packs a hefty punch, allowing the construction of the image within a fixed context to underscore and emphasize the methods and modes of image production today.  The show is on view through December 20th.

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Christopher Williams at David Zwirner [David Zwirner]

Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014), all images courtesy Maureen Paley

On view at Maureen Paley is a solo exhibition of single-screen video work by Turner Prize-winner Gillian Wearing. Entitled We Are Here, the artist’s 6th at the London gallery.  The exhibition is conceptually inspired by American poet Edgar Lee Master’s book Spoon River Anthology (1915), in which the people who lived by the titular waterway rise up from the grave and talk about their lives and memories.  Wearing, who grew up in the town of Sandwell, bases her video on people from the West Midlands speaking as if they have returned from the grave.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

We Are Here premiered in the UK at The New Art Gallery Walsall and in the US at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and the work here centers around the production and conceptual planning of the piece, including a series of photographs taken around Sandwell, and other pieces of research.  While the show is rather sparse, the exhibition is a welcome investigation into Wearing’s personal history, giving the area around her home town a certain agency to represent itself while also addressing the conditions and histories that help to define her own life and work.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

In her series of photographs, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, she allows her subjects the ability to express themselves on a series of white placards, with the results running from tender moments of self-honesty to hackneyed expressions about world peace.  Taken as a whole, Wearing’s brand of cultural realism uncovers the the anxiety of her environment and the occasionally fraught contract between the artist and her subjects, occasionally breaking down or leaning into pop culture formats.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997 and was awarded an OBE in 2011.  We Are Here was made possible by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund and the Art Fund with support from Maureen Paley, Shaun Regen and Tanya Bonakdar. The exhibition will remain on view at Maureen Paley through November 16, 2014.

Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014)

— E. Baker

Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Maureen Paley]

John Stezaker, Shadow 5 (2014)

On view at Petzel Gallery is John Stezaker’s new series of screen prints, compiled from appropriated images of  1940’s and 50’s cinema.  Known for his ambitious collages of familiar and vague images from commercials, film posters and magazine pages, Stezaker has always been interested in the notion of silhouette as a tool for mysterious narratives and a metaphor for the representation of the subliminal. (more…)

Stephen Shore at 303 Gallery (Installation View)

Since the early 70’s Stephen Shore has been photographing narratives that never fully reveal their endings, positioning his camera somewhere between a noncommittal viewer and a localized resident of the space he shoots. His current exhibition at 303 Gallery adds another phase to the pioneer photographer’s career, stretching out into two controversial territories, series of work that coincides with the bitter political and social turmoil of their politics: photographs documenting the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian border on the West Bank, and the lives of Ukranian Holocaust survivors. (more…)