Liu Wei, 180 Faces (detail) (2017-2018)All images © Liu Wei Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York and AYE Gallery, Beijing

Sean Kelly’s exhibition of 180 small scale portraits by Chinese artist Liu Wei offers an intimate and thought-provoking survey into the psychological layers of portraiture, a genre almost as archaic as art history itself.  Entitled 180 Faces, the exhibition of modest scale portraits of anonymous individuals are hung akin to the style of the salon, with a twist on the traditional display fashion as the frames’ sleek surfaces blend into the gallery’s contemporary white-cube interior. (more…)

Joseph Kosuth is interviewed in the WSJ this week, as the artist reflects on his work and his current show at Sean Kelly Gallery.  “If you begin with the presumption that artists work with meaning, not with forms and colors, you get a whole other approach for seeing art,” he says. “The idea was to get rid of the aura around the work of art. It’s a burden, and we don’t need it.” (more…)

Joseph Kosuth, Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology (Installation View), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

A preeminent member of the pioneering group of conceptual practitioners that sought to dissolve art making from declarations of objective emotion or feeling, Joseph Kosuth remains a marker stone for the reach and potential for Conceptual Art, still using his work to scrutinize the limits and definitions of contextual meaning, often removed from primarily aesthetic concerns, at age 70.  Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology strikes the viewer as a large-scale installation orchestrated by Kosuth at Sean Kelly Gallery, where the artist, who splits his time between New York and London, is showing his first exhibition since 2011. (more…)

The New York Times Style section has an article this week on the fashionable, yet functional, footwear choices of gallerists at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach.  “A few years ago, there was this thing that everyone was wearing sneakers to try to look cool,” dealer Sean Kelly recalls.  “I think sneakers are fine for installation, but British men pay a lot of attention to footwear; and I think when you are trying to stand on a booth for hours and look elegant for clients, you need a shoe. Sneakers don’t cut it.” (more…)

Idris Khan, Displacement (2015)

Artist Idris Khan is presenting his exhibition, titled Overture, in New York this month, marking his first show in the city since 2010, and his first show with Sean Kelly, adorning the gallery’s two floors with intricate and spectral works stemming from his interdisciplinary approach.  Known for a meticulous aesthetic that draws inspiration from both Eastern and Western cultures, Khan executes a mosaic of various histories, narratives and disciplines in his expansive practice, while primarily leaning towards his work in digital photography. (more…)

Frank Thiel, Perito Moreno #161 (2012/13), via Sean Kelly Gallery

Nowhere is a Place, currently on view at Sean Kelly Gallery, showcases the latest work of German photographer Frank Thiel. For his fifth solo show with the gallery, Thiel presents a grand departure from his best known subject, the disintegrating architectural landscape of Berlin, instead focusing his lens on the glaciers of the Argentine Patagonia. Traveling to Los Glaciares National Park in 2011 and 2012, Thiel captures the colossal ice fields in vivid high definition, printed on a massive scale meant to match his subject’s monumentality.

Frank Thiel, Perito Moreno #91, (2012/13), via Sean Kelly Gallery (more…)

With soaring prices for certain contemporary and modern artists, some say there are signs of a bubble that is about to burst, such as the fact that people are attracted to high prices and “trophy” art. Some say it is similar to “tulipomania” in 17th century Holland, whereby the insiders have already purchased, so the market expands to newer, international audiences to continue growth. One [anonymous] advisor put it like this:  “The market has to come down—because it has to. They don’t call it a market because it only goes up. You call that ‘magic.’” Others such as Mary Boone and Sean Kelly, question whether the frenzy at the top of the market is truly an indicator of a bubble. Kelly says, “Every time you thought the world was ending, this market has confounded that prediction.”  (more…)

Sean Kelly, who just inaugurated his new space at 10th avenue and 36th Street, posits that galleries may migrate north from Chelsea as the Hudson Yards development is completed. The neighborhood formerly known as Hell’s Kitchen, from 28th to 43rd Street and west of Eighth Avenue will have access to the No. 7 subway in 2014, as well as the the High Line extension and new residential investment. Rents are less expensive than in Chelsea and offer large warehouse-style exhibition spaces. (more…)

Gavin Brown and Mark Ruffalo cooking sausages. All photographs by Aubrey Roemer for Art Observed.

The always fresh but now venerable Frieze Art Fair of Regent’s Park, London, has successfully completed its maiden voyage to this side of the Atlantic. The pavilion, designed by Brooklyn-based SO-IL Architects, places Frieze New York on Randall’s Island Park from May 4-7, 2012. The fair is being held in a distinctly snakelike structure that houses 180 leading contemporary galleries presenting works by more than 1,000 artists. There are a number of culinary options as well: Roberta’s, The Fat Radish Café, Frankie’s Spuntino Restaurant, Sant Abroeus Café and the Standard Biergarten.

Entrance to the Frieze Art Fair

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‪‪‬Sean Kelly Gallery moves to new two-story 22,000 square foot space designed by Toshiko Mori at 36th and 10th—as Exit Art vacates the space—more than tripling the gallery’s current square footage as newly signed artists include Alec Soth, Kehinde Wiley, and most recently, Terrence Koh [AO Newslink]

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer.

The Armory Show 2012 hosts 228 international exhibitors, “showing work that realizes the fair’s mission of innovation and discovery.” Split between Piers 92 and 94 on the west side of Midtown Manhattan, the show runs March 8–11, with several new programming initiatives and a re-designed floor plan added to the show’s fourteenth edition. Pier 94 is the larger exhibition hall, the Contemporary section featuring mainstay galleries Lisson Gallery, Sean Kelly, Victoria Miro, Kukje Gallery/Tina Kim Gallery, David Zwirner, Sprüth Magers, Gallery Hyundai, and Kaikai Kiki, among many others—including 19 invited Nordic galleries in the ‘Armory Focus’—while the Modern sector on Pier 92 is home to Marlborough Gallery, O’Hara Gallery, Inc., Pace Prints, Peter Findlay, and many more.

Ai Weiwei, Marble Cube at Lisson Gallery

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