Tracey Emin’s My Bed has gone back on view at the Tate Modern, following the work’s record-setting auction sale last year for £2.2 Million. “I always admired the honesty of Tracey, but I bought My Bed because it is a metaphor for life, where troubles begin and logics die,” says its new owner, Count Christian Duerckheim. (more…)
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…)
Gabriel Orozco, Cats and Watermelons (1992), all images courtesy MoCA Tokyo
Inner Cycles is an exhibition of new works and historically significant pieces by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, who has been an influential figure in the international contemporary art community since the early 90’s. Composed of found objects, photographs, and sculptures, the exhibition is meant to show a “universe in flux” as objects are constantly appropriated and re-appropriated for new uses.
Brad Troemel, Wall Mount for Vintage Furby Collection (2015), via Art Observed
For the past several years, The Jogging co-founder Brad Troemel has been pushing his focus on commodity consumption, appropriation and use to new highs. There were his works during a residency The Still House Group, vacuum-sealed fish and wild grasses on canvas that pushed notions of the still-life to a shockingly immediate result, not to mention his first show with Zach Feuer last year, when the artist showed a series of Semiotext(e) publications combined with organic raw beans and fake dreadlocks. For his second exhibition with the gallery, Troemel drives his work forward yet again, examining the palimpsestic ideologies of the art world from both inside and out. (more…)
Subodh Gupta, This is not a fountain (2011), via Ross Maddux for Art Observed
Subodh Gupta’s most recent show at Hauser and Wirth is an exercise in the personal. Long known for works combining the intensely personal with broader social constructs and ritualistic approaches to the art object, his current exhibition places an even more central focus on the intensely personal, communal relations life in India, and his emphasis on the unifying, material structures over which daily life proceeds. (more…)
Marcel Duchamp, 3-Mending Standard (1913-1914 / 1964), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
Few artists have left such a mark on the history and direction of 2oth and 21st Century art in the same manner as Marcel Duchamp, the French artist who was at the forefront of revolutions both on and off the canvas in the first half of the century. Taking this impact as a starting point, the Centre Pompidou is currently presenting Marcel Duchamp: La Peinture, Même, an exhibition exploring the artist’s early roots in painting and drawing, and how these stylistic leanings contributed to his later work in the development of the readymade, installation based work, and other conceptual pursuits. (more…)
Andy Coolquitt, 2fer (king raashiid) (2011), via Art Observed
In a humorous blend of sculpture, installation and design, Andy Coolquitt complicates the essence of utilitarianism to examine the ritualistic and imposed purposes of objects. Approaching everyday commodities as physical entities that extend beyond their limited fields of use, the Texas-born artist orchestrates alternate narratives out of materials such as wooden sticks, light bulbs or metal pipes, not just to provoke their aesthetic limitations, but to explore new social dialogues that ultimately encircle these arrangements. (more…)
Nick Cave, Sea Sick (2014), via Henry Murphy for Art Observed
Nick Cave and Jack Shainman Gallery have opened a pair of shows this fall, spanning the gallery’s two Chelsea locations on 20th and 24th street locations. Separately titled as Rescue and Made for Whites by Whites, the exhibitions articulate the artist’s familiar thematic concerns, addressing racial impositions and how they are reflected in everyday consumer culture. Cave delivers the prominent aspects of his practice, such as repurposing of found objects, assemblage of varying textures, and the performance of cultural rituals, with a somewhat stark hand, allowing a fierce critique to emerge from the works themselves. (more…)
Ai Weiwei at Brooklyn Museum, via Art Observed
Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei’s 2012 survey exhibition “According to What?” has made its way to the Brooklyn Museum after showings at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. and the Perez Art Museum in Miami. This blockbuster show is the artist’s first major international retrospective, and one which aims to bring together his ideals about life and art, which inescapably lead him to reflect on the nature of contemporary, and especially Chinese, politics. A balance that is often so hard to achieve through aesthetic means, the exhibition reveals Ai’s poignant installation work, which allows the viewer a rare experience into his world. The Brooklyn Museum show is enhanced by two installation pieces completed in 2013: S.A.C.R.E.D., exhibited at the Venice Biennale last year, and Ye Haiyan’s Belongings, a new piece installed specially in New York. (more…)
Scott Benzel, Counterfeit Nike ‘Heaven’s Gate’ SB Dunks (2011) Photo by Joerg Lohse
For the past several years, Arizona-born, L.A.-based artist Scott Benzel has been mining the mundane objects of capitalism and its reflection in the cultural agenda through his assemblage and display-based works, challenging the designated meanings of everyday objects as they enter into dialogue with each other. Approaching simple and mostly utilitarian commodities as reflections of their collective or individualist identities, Benzel decodes dismissed or undiscovered subtleties in contemporary culture, and allows unspoken connections to come to the fore. (more…)
John Knight, Work, in situ, Galerie NEU:MD72:Gladstone Gallery (2013)
One of Berlin’s most notable galleries, Galerie Neu, is Gladstone Gallery’s guest for this summer, presenting a reflection from the German capital’s vibrant contemporary art scene. Known for its avant-garde art spaces and affordable living conditions for emerging artists, Berlin has been one of the most influential cities for the European art scene, and the selection at Gladstone Gallery, mainly focusing on the notion of place and displacement, gives the opportunity to catch up with the city’s recent art trends. (more…)
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel (1916/64) © Succession Marcel Duchamp / ADAGP, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2014. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo by Philippe Migeat
Cunningly installed just down the street from the monumental Jeff Koons retrospective at The Whitney Museum, Gagosian Gallery is currently presenting a small but impressive exhibition of Marcel Duchamp’s body of readymades, offering a nuanced historical counterpoint to some of the artist’s most distinguished predecessors. (more…)
A Machinery for Living at the Petzel Gallery, installation view, via Art Observed
On view at Petzel Gallery is a group exhibition organized by Walead Beshty entitled “A Machinery for Living.” Composed of over 100 photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptural and installation works, the exhibition approaches a concept of embracing the subversive within everyday life.
Charles Harlan, Pallets (2013)
Seeking to understand the various materials and objects utilized in contemporary art To do as one would is on view at David Zwirner’s 19th street location this month. The exhibition, brought together by three staff members at the gallery, uses the full space provided to host a selection of works aiming to investigate the broad understanding of alternative materials as applied to various bodies of thought and execution. (more…)
Peter Coffin, LIVING (Installation View), via Art Observed
Given the recent string of shows and events opening at Red Bull Studios’ New York location in Chelsea, one has to wonder just who the energy drink brand has recruited to curate it’s well-appointed space. From the recent DISown concept store to Peter Coffin’s just-opened “Living” installation, the selection of works seem wholly of a similar focus and artistic project. (more…)
Anicka Yi, Washing Away of Wrongs (2014), via Kelly Lee for Art Observed
The works at Anicka Yi’s Divorce, which was on view at 47 Canal until Sunday June 8th, felt like something of a series of scenarios: moments of banal chores, sexual trysts and social interaction that work together to create a sense of disjointed narrative. Incorporating many of the art world’s currently popular tropes, particularly household materials and industrial approaches to display and mounting, Yi turned her objects towards a particularly personal subject: that of divorce. (more…)
The Guardian has published an imaginative profile on Marcel Duchamp, noting some of the artist’s quirks and passions, including his avid chess-playing, his daring transportation of his art materials out of Nazi Germany posing as a cheese vendor, and his takes on quickly produced artworks: “Quick art, that’s been the characteristic of the whole century from the cubists on, ” he once said. “The speed that’s being used in space, in communications, is also being used in art. But things of great importance in art have always to be slowly produced.” (more…)
Cyprien Gaillard, Today Diggers, Tomorrow Dickens (Installation View), via Art Observed
Coming off his impeccable retrospective at MoMA PS1 earlier this year, Cyprien Gaillard returns to New York with two series of works that continue his fascination with the complexly layered experience of history, and the forces that keep this process constantly in flux. Moving towards a more active exploration of these phenomena, Gaillard’s show feels as if the artist is taking a more active role in his creative inquiries.
Cyprien Gaillard, Today Diggers, Tomorrow Dickens (Installation View), via Gladstone Gallery (more…)
Richard, First Communion of Anemic Young Girls In The Snow and other works (Installation View), via Interstate Projects
For the past month, Interstate Gallery in Bushwick has acted as the first physical base for Richard, a predominantly Internet-focused catalog of objects and items centered around new possibilities and interpretations of the readymade art object in the 21st century. Turning the work of Marcel Duchamp once more towards a populist, group project, Richard challenges the concepts of labor and potentials for the the readymade in new perspectives of art practice and conceptual operation.
Richard, First Communion of Anemic Young Girls In The Snow and other works (Installation View), via Interstate Projects (more…)
Lucien Smith, A Clean Sweep (Installation View), Photos Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York
Suzanne Geiss Company’s New York’s SoHo neighborhood is currently housing A Clean Sweep, Lucien Smith’s nostalgic exhibition inspired by the changing streets of his home city.
Lucien Smith, Untitled (Pizzerias 001), (2013) Photos by Matthu Placek. Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York (more…)
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Pistoletto Politico (Installation View), via Luxembourg and Dayan
The Years of Lead, between the late 1960’s and early 1980’s, were a divisive, violent time for the nation of Italy, reflecting the severe growing pains of a country recovering from the horrors of World War II while contending with rapidly shifting power flows and political ideologies that split much of Europe. With the economy at a standstill, and bloodshed in the streets, the country was forced to take a hard look at itself, evaluating its own identity and divided society.
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Pistoletto Politico (Installation View), via Luxembourg and Dayan
Gabriel Orozco, Astroturf Constellation (2012), courtesy The Guggenheim Museum
Having just ended its opening run at the Guggenheim Deutsche in Berlin earlier this year, Gabriel Orozco‘s two-part set of taxonomic installations, collectively titled “Asterisms,” is now on view at The Guggenheim in New York City. The eighteenth and final project in the Guggenheim’s commission series, the piece continues Orozco’s ongoing exploration into the nature of environments, and the interactions of humans with these spaces, as well as with each other. (more…)
