Pierre Huyghe, Zoodram 5 (2011)

Following a year of strong solo exhibitions and special projects in the United States and abroad, Pierre Huyghe has opened a the first major retrospective devoted to his work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, pulling together a combination of his most ambitious videos, sculptures and installation environments, allowing a broad few of the artist’s continued interests in fluctuations of time, space and matter as expressed within the gallery environment.  Huyghe’s retrospective, which first opened in Paris, early last year, finally makes it to U.S. soil, bringing with it a group of 50 projects culled from the artist’s 20 year career. (more…)

Tomma Abts, Feke (2013), via Art Observed

Currently on view at David Zwirner’s 519 19th Street Space in New York, Tomma Abts is presenting a body of new paintings and drawings, a new entry in her ongoing practice involving flux, change and construction over the course of the compositional process.  Under formal analysis, Abts’s work is rooted in the history of 20th Century abstraction, colorful shapes and lines converging in a studious and well-executed canvas that exploits its own relations to its surrounding space as much as the picture plane itself, but upon closer inspection, the works on view here often offer a much deeper narrative.   (more…)

Julia Rommel, Comedy Club (2014), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery

Currently on view at Lisson Gallery in London is a group exhibition including paintings, prints, relief objects, and works on canvas from nine different artists, grouped together around a theme of seemingly minimal artistic intervention. Contrasting with the minimal nature of these works, the pieces often required a complex, long and contemplative processes that preceded the works’ final production.  Participating artists include: Allora & Calzadilla, Cory Arcangel, N. Dash, Robert Janitz, Paulo Monteiro, David Ostrowski, Michael Rey, Julia Rommel, and Dan Shaw-Town.

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Sarah Ortmeyer, Sankt Petersburg Paradox (2014)

Among the decision-making factors in set expanse of time, risk plays a crucial part.  Simply described as the potential of losing an owned value upon a taken action, the risk element occupies a noticeable part in economic, social and political dynamics, aside from striking as a noteworthy reality to consider for individuals in the daily routine. The St. Petersburg Paradox, a group show on view at Swiss Institute through August 17th, observes this broad topic through a determined perspective, suggesting an alternative reading based on the reflection of risk elements in artworks.

The St. Petersbug Paradox (Installation View) (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…)

Yves Klein, Painting of fire (1961), via Art Observed

Skarstedt Gallery has joined the crowd in Chelsea this month, opening its  new W. 21st Street space with a selection of unorthodox paintings by Yves Klein and Andy Warhol, created using human urine, oxidized metallic paints, water and fire.  Spread among the high-ceilinged rooms of the new space, the show welcomes an intuitive look into the pair’s interests not only in non-art materials and processes, but particularly those closest to the human condition.

Andy Warhol, Oxidation Painting (diptych) (1978), via Skarstedt (more…)

The Atlantic documents a conservation approach pioneered in the 1980’s by Raymond Lafontaine, using color and lighting theory to hide fading and prevent having to tamper with the surface of the work.  “In human color perception you have a light source, a surface, and a viewer, and the three interact,” says Jens Stenger, a conservation scientist who is using the technique to work on six murals by Mark Rothko at Harvard.  “If you can’t change the surface, you can change the light source to change the color.” (more…)

Pierre Huyghe at Centre Pompidou, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Referred to as “a major figure in the French and international art scene”, Pierre Huyghe, a poet of space and sculptor of time was exposed at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris from September 25th 2013 to January 6th 2014. The exhibition was of retrospective nature, presenting 50 projects spanning over 20 years of Huyghe’s career.

Pierre Huyghe at Centre Pompidou, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed (more…)

Edward Hopper, Study for Nighthawks, (1941 or 1942), via The Whitney

An Edward Hopper painting inevitably leads the viewer to contemplation of the meaning and purpose of the simple and mundane moments that make up the majority of our lives. His scenes depict the usual, the all-too-familiar, and even the occasional melancholy moments of existence.  Empty gas stations, coffee shops, movie theaters, and bedrooms communicate the paradoxical isolation of American society;  while many of the inhabitants are depicted in social settings, in crowds or social establishments, they convey overwhelming feelings of remorse, isolation and resignation. Through his brushstrokes and pencil marks, Hopper provides a commentary on the American life of mid-20^th century, a commentary that is in many cases still applicable to the America of today.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, (1942), via The Whitney (more…)

James Turrell, Roden Crater (Sunset) (2009), via Kayne Griffin Corcoran

With concurrent shows opening at LACMA, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, James Turrell is certainly in the spotlight this summer. The Kayne Corcoran Griffin gallery is also joining in on the artist’s ubiquity, filling its new space on south La Brea with an exhibition focused on the Roden Crater project. Aptly named Sooner Than Later, Roden Crater, the show examines Turrell’s unfinished transformation of the crater into a sight-specific masterwork that has been in development since 1974. (more…)

Chuck Close, Self-Portrait/ maquette, 1975  © 2013 Chuck Close courtesy of Pace Gallery

Eykyn Maclean is currently presenting the first exhibition to focus solely on Chuck Close’s photo maquettes, examining their relation to the artist’s large-scale painted portraits. Not only do the works in the Photo Maquettes series offer the viewer a better understanding of the technical aspects of Close’s paintings, but also offer an interesting probe into the delineations between the practices of painting and photography. (more…)