Rita Ackermann, Burn Up in Heaven 2014, all images courtesy Hauser & Wirth

On view at Hauser & Wirth Zürich is an exhibition of paintings on chalkboard by Hungarian-American artist Rita Ackermann, representing a step further into the artist’s investigation into the deconstructive process, presenting a series of many images which seem to have been repeatedly executed and expunged by erasure or weathering. The exhibition will remain on view through March 14th.

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The Guardian traces the career of Richard Diebenkorn, and his frequent oscillations between abstract figuration and more concrete landscapes during his lifetime in California and New Mexico.  The article comes in conjunction with Diebenkorn’s recently opened exhibition at the Royal Academy of the Arts.  “I want painting to be difficult to do,” he once stated, revealing his commitment to pushing his work into new territory. (more…)

Luc Tuymans, The Shore (2014), All images courtesy David Zwirner Gallery London.

The Shore, a solo exhibition by Belgian artist Luc Tuymans is on view at the David Zwirner Gallery in London through April 2, a new body of work from the artist credited with helping the revival of painting in the early 1990s.  Since his early work, Tuymans has continued to produce compositions that interrogate and intervenes in the definition of this medium. He was one of the first artists to be represented by David Zwirner, joining the gallery in 1994, and The Shore marks his second solo exhibition in the space since Allo! marked the opening of the gallery’s first European location. (more…)

Mamma Andersson, Behind the Curtain (Installation View)

Currently on view at David Zwirner is Behind the Curtain, a new body of work by one of the most recognized contemporary artists from Sweden, Mamma Andersson. The Stockholm-based artist has gained international acclaim in recent years with her solo shows in Aspen Museum of Art, Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin and a mid-career survey that travelled to Finland and UK after its Swedish premiere several years ago. (more…)

Polly Apfelbaum, HWP 10-20 (2014), via Art Observed

The White Columns Annual offers a particularly resonant opening note for New York’s art world each year.  Refusing an overly objective approach to the curation of a “year in review” style group show, the event encourages, and even emphasizes subjectivity, turning the keys over to one group or person each year.  This year, the all-female art collective Cleopatra’s has been handed the reigns for the Annual’s 9th Edition, with the end result being a colorful, expansive show that is at turns somber, wry and compelling. (more…)

Mary Weatherford, La Noche (2014), via Art Observed

The Museum of Modern Art’s highly anticipated exhibition of contemporary painting, curated by Laura Hoptman, presents a cursory survey of current trends in this ever-evolving medium. Taking the concept of nonlinear time as its conceptual crux, The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World attempts to parse the impact that the daily experience of digital media has had on painting specifically, and on visual culture more broadly.  (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…)

Louise Bourgeois, Arch of Hysteria (1993), all photos via Emily Heinz for Art Observed

The first sight of the Louise Bourgeois Suspension exhibition at Cheim & Read must be the closest simulation available of watching artworks ascending to heaven. There is a sense that each of the pieces are being called upwards, as their weight hangs below them, pulling them back towards the ground. However, the works don’t fight this strange, heavenly magnetism, and in fact, seem to accept to their celestial trajectory.

“Hanging is an ambivalent gesture,” says Jerry Gorovoy, her assistant and close friend of thirty years, who was kind enough to expand upon her works on the opening night of the show.  “It’s as though they’ve given up.” It’s this sense of the works’ submission that makes the tension of their bold physical presence so palpable.

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Neo Rauch, Heillichtung  (2014), via Art Observed

The newest show of work by Neo Rauch, on view at David Zwirner, is a fitting continuation of the German artist’s take on painting, combining surreal imagery with a vaguely familiar technique recalling the intertwined political and cultural history of his German homeland. (more…)

Maurizo Cattelan, Him (2001), via Art Observed

Maurizio Cattelan is back in New York.  It’s been some time since the artist’s retirement from the art world proper, capped by his well-attended Guggenheim retrospective in 2011/2012, a move that the artist has made quite good on.  Despite the occasional appearance high-profile appearance, Cattelan’s work has remained relatively outside of the art world spotlight for the past several years.  But the artist’s commitment to his own absence hasn’t deterred Adam Lindemann, who is currently mounting a pair of exhibitions of the artist’s work at both Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery, and at his own space, Venus Over Manhattan on Madison Ave. (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

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Christopher Williams at David Zwirner [David Zwirner]

Julian Stanczak, From Life (Installation View)

On view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s Chelsea location is a career spanning exhibition of Julian Stanczak, the renowned Polish artist considered to be one of the pioneers of Op Art movement. Starting with his works from the 1960’s until the present, the exhibition celebrates the artist’s long career, starting at a Polish refugee camp in Uganda in the 40’s after the artist permanently lost the use of his right arm due to an infection of encephalitis. (more…)

Gerhard Richter (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Marian Goodman’s freshly inaugurated Mayfair gallery space in London is a new show of paintings and sculpture by Gerhard Richter, works that show the artist expanding his current practice while branching out into new formal space.   (more…)

John Baldessari, Movie Scripts/Art: With a Fly Crawling on It (2014), via Art Observed

One of the most prominent names that defines the past 40 years of West Coast conceptualism, John Baldessari is currently presenting a new body of work at Marian Goodman Gallery. Titled Movie Scripts / Art 2014, the series resumes the pioneer’s investigation on the visual language of artworks and the possibility of a dialogue between images, words and cultural formats like film and literature. Baldessari, who has always been curious about the range text can explore in artistic expression, has not been hesitant about placing images next to sentences and written situations, often directly posing questions to the work or offering sarcastic alternatives to its surface level relationships. (more…)

Thomas Houseago, Moun Room (Installation View), via Ellen Burke for Art Observed

Thomas Houseago is known for his large-scale sculpture work, immense, roughshod works that use cheap materials and a relatively unstable construction process to create immediately impressive, visually stimulating objects that often play on the dissonance between subject and depiction.  Pulling the viewer into the artist’s unique sculptural vision, the works unfold over the course of their creation, physical demands and limitations aiding in the work’s construction. (more…)

El Anatsui, Yet Another Place (2014)

Building himself a uniquely personal technique in which he reforms cast-away materials such as bottle caps and copper wire, El Anatsui has been orchestrating works that go against the definitions of any singular medium and dimension.  Standing between a vague figuration and an expressive abstraction of bright colors, the artist’s constructions from discarded materials resist to classification in any one form as sculpture, installation or painting. (more…)

Paul McCarthy, WS SC (Installation View), all images courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Currently on through Saturday at Hauser & Wirth’s London exhibition space is an exhibition of new paintings by multimedia artist, sculptor, and performance artist Paul McCarthy, marking the artist’s first exhibition devoted entirely to painting since the 1980s.  Continuing his work with the narratives of Snow White, McCarthy delves deeper into the formats and genres of Hollywood film production.

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Manifesto 10, Installation View, all photos courtesy of Manifesto 10

Despite a steady stream of critiques, criticism and outright protest over the current political climate in Russia, Manifesta 10, one of Europe’s leading contemporary art biennials, has pressed on.  The exhibition, which opened late last month, has made much of its presence in Russia, presenting an exhibition that addresses its own political background while using it as a spring board to broader issues. (more…)

A study commissioned by the New York Times this week indicates that the perception of a growing trend towards flipping work by young artists for huge profits may only be part of broader historical trends in the art market.  Reports by two separate art market consultancies indicate that the current rate of growth in the market is on par with the market boom during the mid-90’s, and that the overall state of the market shows that collectors are, on average, holding on to works longer than in recent years.  “After all I had read about flipping, when looking at the market itself, it’s really business as usual,” says consultant Fabian Bocart, whose Tutela Capital S.A., prepared one of the analyses for The Times. (more…)

Richard Long, Four Ways (2014), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery

Richard Long’s first solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery in over three decades brings together photographs, text, and natural elements as records of his walks in England, Switzerland, and Antarctica. Working in conjunction with the materials and forces that make up his surroundings, Long brings the fruits of his lone experiences in nature to the imaginations of a gallery audience. Long made his reputation in the 1970s with his sculptures born of days-long walks to remote locations, acting as bridges between natural design and human creation. His present exhibition reveals his persistence in investigating the themes that run through his lifelong body of work. (more…)

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, L’Ètrange Cité (Strange City), via Art Observed

In 2010, Christian Boltanski spread piles of clothes reaching to fifty tons around the interior of Grand Palais. Three years before Boltanski, Anselm Kiefer brought in cement and metal along with dust and debris into this patriarchal symbol of French industrial awakening. Richard Serra, Daniel Buren and Anish Kapoor are among the other superstar artists who have marked their signatures in this historical building in response to France Ministry of Culture’s annual Monumenta project, which invites an artist to create a new body of work to be exhibited inside the impressive architecture of Grand Palais. On view through June 22nd is this year’s commission L’Ètrange Cité (Strange City) by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, arguably Russia’s most celebrated names in contemporary art.

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, L’Ètrange Cité (Strange City), via Art Observed (more…)

Writer Georgina Adams takes another look at the thriving auction market in The Financial Times this week, and questions just how long the currently astronomical prices at auction for contemporary works can sustain themselves.  Adams, the author of Big Bucks – The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century, offers a cohesive study of the current state of the market, from the art fair explosion to the influence of powerful new international economies, not to mention the role of the new independent curator.  “Their influence on what is good art today has to an extent replaced the artistic agenda once set by museums and art critics,” she writes.

Preorder Here: “Big Bucks – The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century” by Georgina Adams
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Claes Oldenburg, Model for a Mahogany Plug, Scale B (1969), via Art Observed

On view through April 12 at Hauser and Wirth Gallery’s 18^th Street location is a selection of works collected by Reinhardt Onnasch, one of the first German art dealers to open a gallery in New York after World War II, and a skilled curator who helped to launch the career of a number of New York’s most definitive post-war artists. Re-view: Onnasch Collection provides a glimpse into the work done by this collector and enthusiast, reflecting overlapping art movements that bridged the American and German art worlds of the time.

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Cecily Brown, Untitled (The Beautiful and the Damned) (2013), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

A collection of new and recent paintings by London-born artist Cecily Brown, is currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills through October 12. The show includes fifteen paintings primarily focusing on the the human form as an abstraction, and follows up on a previous body of work shown in at Gagosian’s New York gallery earlier this year.

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