Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens (Installation view), via Sprüth Magers

For the most recent new exhibition in Berlin, Sprüth Magers has brought together work from thirteen artists under the title Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens.  Curated by Goodroom and Johannes Fricke Waldthausen, the exhibition features works by Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Andy Hope 1930, Oliver Laric, Jon Rafman, and Andro Wekua, among others.  Intended to navigate visitors through the intersecting narratives within the realm of surrealist animation, abstraction and the ideas of “New Materialism” as expressed through the greater logistics of the world wide web, the exhibition references the notion of the screen as a critical tool of the conscious and unconscious, as well as a surface for projections of communication and technological abstraction.   (more…)

The Financial Times profiles Ed Ruscha this week, as the artist opens a new show at Sprüth Magers in Berlin.  “Things that catch my attention are things that are usually negligible or forgotten, or overlooked or denigrated in some way or another,” he says. (more…)

Alexandre Singh, The Humans (Still) (2013), via Sprüth Magers 

Sprüth Magers London is currently presenting The Humans, an exhibition documenting the creation and the staging process of Alexander Singh’s play of the same name. Commissioned by Witte de With of Rotterdam and Performa 13 of New York, The Humans marks a tour-de-force in Singh’s career as a visual artist. Blending modern theatre with Greek tragedy, performance art and installation; this three-hour play tells the story of two characters–Tophole and Pantalingua– two vagabond spirits that are striving to prevent the creation of the Earth. Believing that the Creator of such an Earth could only be a vain and self-centered maniac, the duo finds themselves amongst Humans with all of their obnoxiousness and mischievousness–among them sculptor Charles Ray.

Alexandre Singh, Vernon Montgomery Spruce (2014), via Sprüth Magers

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Berlin’s annual Gallery Weekend has just announced its lineup of participating galleries.  The event will feautre a number of major Berlin galleries, including Sprüth-Magers, Konrad Fischer and Max Hetzler, as well as a number of newcomers, including Plan B and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler.  Gallery Weekend Berlin will run from April 26th to April 28th. (more…)

Sterling Ruby will now be represented by Hauser & Wirth in New York. He was previously represented by Pace Gallery, but parted ways with the gallery earlier this year. Prior to that Ruby was with Foxy Production and Metro Pictures. He is currently represented by Sprüth Magers and Xavier Hufkens in Europe.
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Fischli / Weiss, DÜNNWANDIGE RÖHRE AUS TON, LIEGEND, 2012, courtesy of Sprueth Magers

Peter Fischli and David Weiss currently have an exhibition at the Sprueth Magers gallery in London, which displays somber overtones coinciding with Weiss’ untimely death in April of this year.

An array of clean-cut unfired clay and industrial-looking rubber has been meticulously molded and scrupulously carved to mimic everyday objects of construction in the form of “walls, corners and tubes”. The works, executed between 2010 and 2012, and are connected to the group of works that the artists displayed at the 54th Venice Biennial in 2011. The clean, particular presentation of the scaled objects on virgin white plinths is a visual departure from earlier works.

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Lynda Benglis sculptures and Hans Hurting paintings at Cheim & Read’s booth at Frieze Masters. All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Frieze Masters and Frieze London concluded on October 14th, with both fairs reporting solid sales on the high end. This year, there was a distinct focus on curated booths and curatorial projects and less of an overt feeling of commercialization. Frieze Masters in particular focused on serious connoisseurship and an academic approach, both of which translated into a successful fair for dealers.

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Jenny Holzer, Sophisticated Devices (Gallery View)

On view currently at Sprüeth Magers’s London gallery is a collection of solo works from multimedia artist Jenny Holzer, exhibiting Holzer’s unique interplay of semiotics and text used to create the art object.

Jenny Holzer, WITH BLEEDING INSIDE THE HEAD … TEXT: LIVING SERIES (1980-1982), 1981

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Gavin Brown Enterprise. All photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer.

March 8–11 marked the third edition of INDEPENDENT, the alternative exhibition forum held in the former DIA Center for the Arts on West 22^nd Street in Chelsea. Founded by gallerists Elizabeth Dee and Darren Flook in conjunction with White Columns’ Matthew Higgs, Independent has established itself as a thoughtful and ambitious counterpoint to the annual Armory Art Show. This year marked the fair’s largest audience with attendance figures surpassing fifteen thousand. The forty-three participating organizations range from established blue chip galleries to emerging galleries as well as respected non-profits.

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Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild at Galerie Sho Booth, Pier 92

On the third and final day of the Armory Show 2012 both spirits and sales were high amongst the 228 exhibitors. Besides the notable success of David Zwirner’s solo booth by Michael Riedel, which sold out entirely in the first 30 minutes of the fair, many of the other galleries also benefited from the sales of their high-ticket items throughout the three-day exhibition. Art Observed spoke with representatives from various exhibitors including the Susan Sheehan Gallery, Spanierman Modern, Meredith Ward Fine Art, Art in General, Sprüth Magers, and the Gary Snyder Gallery. (more…)

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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Street view of Cyprien Gaillard mural (2012). Via Sprueth Magers.

Situated at the top of Culver City’s gallery row where Venice and La Cienega meet is an automotive garage with a new mural of Caspar David Friedrich‘s tombstone epitaph, the work of Berlin-based artist Cyprien Gaillard, commissioned by the Triple A public art project. Next door in a former muffler shop is François Ghebaly Gallery, one of many galleries along this stretch of Los Angeles road, which houses some of the most important gallery spaces in the city and is also one of the most heavily trafficked by commuters.  The outside wall of this former muffler shop-turned-gallery is now the site of Gaillard’s mural, which is the second of eight projects meant to be realized over the next two years by Triple A, a public art project began by Fançois Ghebaly, Emma Gray, Al Moran (co-founder of OHWOW Gallery), Justin Beal, Flora Wiegmann, and Drew Heitzler (Wiegmann and Heitzler also being co-proprietors of Mandrake Bar, the hip Culver City art bar).

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Donald Judd , Untitled (1965). All images via  Sprüth Magers.

Currently on view at Sprüth Magers London is Working Papers: Donald Judd Drawings 1963–93. The show consists of 33 drawings made when Judd was creating exclusively three-dimensional objects, offering an extended insight into the artist’s work during this period. Judd is considered a central figure of Minimalism, and although he strongly rejected the association, his explorations of volume, space, and the elimination of the artist’s ‘hand’ were pioneering efforts for Minimalists. Judd abandoned painting to work with three-dimensional objects in 1963, exercising a vocabulary of forms that he had established such as “stacks,” “boxes,” and “progressions,” which focused on the relationship between the object, the viewer, and the environment.

Installation view

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Allora & Calzadilla, Umbrella and Bell (2011), front; Anish Kapoor, Untitled (2011), behind. At Lisson Gallery, booth J1. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

International collectors and art enthusiasts filled the Miami Beach Convention Center for the Wednesday preview of Art Basel Miami Beach 2011. While the maze of gallery booths could seem overwhelming, buyers were able to navigate through for a solid day of sales and works placed on reserve. Larger galleries such as Gagosian, David Zwirner, and Sprüth Magers sold several works and editions thereof. Speaking with Neil Wenman of Hauser & Wirth, “We’ve had a great response on the opening day. In particular for works by Thomas Houseago, Rashid Johnson, Paul McCarthy, Matthew Day Jackson, Richard Jackson—all works sold and all available editions.” Jenny Holzer’s new paintings at Sprüth Magers sold for upwards of $300,000, as well as Condos and Krugers at the booth. Lesser-known galleries were pleased to gain the exposure the fair offers; if not selling right away, interest was high and therefore also prospects for the remainder of the fair. Gallery Arratia Beer said the crowd was very engaged and informed, also saying, “The fair feels very international. It’s also good to see young internationals here too.” The newer Latin American presence was reportedly strong, both exhibiting and buying, as expected in Miami as opposed to the Frieze or FIAC fairs across the Atlantic earlier this year. Celebrities on hand included Julian Schnable, Eli Broad, Brett Rattner, Naomi Campbell, and Sean Combs/P. Diddy.

Larry Gagosian

Entrance D at the Miami Convention Center

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Mircea Cantor’s work in FIAC 2011, image by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed, all photos by Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

By the close of FIAC on Sunday evening, some 68,000+ visitors had come through the fair.  These attendance figures represent a 6% increase from the previous year, reports the New York Times.  Housed this year in the exuberant Grand Palais, the fair showed strong sales from the get go. Despite the global economic downtown of recent years, the atmosphere was effervescent. French, American, and German galleries dominated the space (55, 26, and 21, respectively), but participants from Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa showed a strong presence at the fair for the first time. New York newcomers Matthew Marks, Eleven Rivington, Andrew Kreps, Michele Maccarone and Friedrich Petzel did well, and Pace Gallery made a comeback after a long absence. Compared to Frieze the week before in London, many fair-goers felt that the Parisian fair was riskier in content, creating a more exciting and eclectic display of artworks.

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John Baldessari, Double Feature: Sudden Fear (2011). Via Sprueth Magers.

Eighty-year old John Baldessari opens Berlin’s Sprueth Magers fall season with new works in a show titled Double Feature. Baldessari continues his image appropriation, for which he is well-known, with this series of works giving the audience a complex set of collages to view. Baldessari is a pioneer in hybrid art forms, mixing photographic collages, paint, billboards, and performance, remaining outside the confines of a neat categorization.

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Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, 2011, via Sprueth Magers

One hundred of Philip Lorca DiCorcia‘s Polaroid photos have been elegantly installed at Sprueth Magers gallery in London.  The 100 Polaroids, all resting comfortably on a single silver lip trailing the white walls, have been assumed from DiCorcias’s Thousand series (2007), itself selected from 4,000 Polaroids, spanning 30 years of work.  Having been pulled from previous and current projects, both professional and private, this exhibition is deliberately disparate as an entity.

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Anthony McCall, Vertical Works (2004-2010). All images via Sprüeth Magers.

Now on view at Ambika P3 in London is an exhibition of four light projections by Anthony McCall, titled Vertical Works. The installation is presented by Sprüeth Magers, which is displaying a concurrent exhibition of related drawings at their London location. Though the four light works, created between 2004 and 2010, are abstract projections of lines and curves, their titles are purely figurative. Exhibited in London for the first time, Breath, Breath III, Meeting You Halfway, and You can be seen through March 26th at Ambika P3. The works on paper exhibition at Sprüeth Magers is up until March 27th.

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Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 2010. All images via Sprüth Magers

Dressed in anything from a faux-nude suit to a modest red gown, Cindy Sherman stares out from the walls of Sprüth Magers in London. The costumes and odd personas follow in Sherman’s usual tactics, but the large size and unframed wallpaper-like appearance are a step away from her past series. Stretching from floor to ceiling, her photographs dominate the gallery space with surreal characters standing guard over symmetric idyllic backgrounds.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 2010.

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Above: Karen Kilimnik, Me Corner of Haight & Ashbury, 1966, 1998.
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Below: Joseph Cornell, Untitled, c. 1953.
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Image courtesy of the Artists, 303 Gallery New York and Sprueth Magers Gallery Berlin London.

Currently on view at Sprueth Magers London is “Something Beautiful,” a collaborative show by American artists Joseph Cornell and Karen Kilimnik. Curated by Todd Levin, the exhibition features paintings, collages, and mixed-media installations that reflect the influence of the Romantic-era ballet on both artists.

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was an American artist known for pioneering the art of assemblage. Created from found objects, Cornell’s boxes often read like three-dimensional Surrealist paintings. He admired the work of Max Ernst and Rene Magritte, but claimed to have found their work to be too dark.  His work was also inspired heavily by his beliefs in Christian Science, which he adopted in his early twenties. He never received formal training as an artist, but was influenced by American Transcendentalist poetry and French Symbolist painters, such as Mallarme and Nerval. Another motif of his work, 19th century European ballet dancers, comes to life in this exhibition.

Similarly, Karen Kilimnik’s work redeploys discreet objects in a quest for the romantic sublime. Theater and stagecraft have figured strongly in her installations, and her use of particular materials suggests the influence of Cornell. Often making direct references to Degas and other Impressionist painters, Kilimnik’s subjects occupy a nineteenth-century world: one of mystery, drama, and romance.

Anthony Byrt, in his review for Art Forum, refers to Levin’s conceptual approach here as a “bold curatorial statement,” suggesting that the premise upon which the two artists are connected is a precarious one. However, “Ballet aside,” says Byrt, “tangible links do emerge, such as theatricality, quiet spectacle, and ideas of feminine beauty, which both artists explore.”

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Karen Kilimnik, Paris Opera Rats, 1993. Image credited as above.

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Gary Hume, Big Bird, 2009. All images courtesy of Sprueth Magers.

Gary Hume’s first solo exhibition in Berlin in over 15 years is currently on view at Sprueth Magers. The show consists of a selection of new works, including Big Bird (2010), a major large-scale six-panel painting, in addition to a group of six paintings, four sculptures and five works on paper. Painted in Hume’s trademark bright palate, the series of six paintings relate to his earlier American Tan series which explored cheerleaders as an emblem of American society. Elegantly simplistic in appearance, yet endlessly complex in its meaning, Hume’s imagery conveys a potent sense of discontinuity at the heart of representations of beauty.

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The Bus Driver, 2009 ,oil on linen ,71,1 x 60,9 cm via Sprüth Magers Gallery

Sprüth Magers Gallery in Berlin is hosting “Family Portraits” – an exhibition of new works by American contemporary artist George Condo.  Condo’s most recent exhibition at Sprüth Magers took place in 2008, at the inauguration of Sprüth Magers’ new Berlin premises. In 2010, Condo brings to Sprüth Magers a series of figurative oil paintings. His collaboration with this renowned German gallery began as early as 1984 in Cologne, where Condo was briefly a member of the group “The Young Wild” (Die Jungen Wilden), whose colorful palette and highly expressive pictorial style starkly differed from then-popular Conceptual art and Minimalism. Drawing the inspiration from classic art ranging from Diego Velasquez to Pablo Picasso, the members of the group incorporated the elements of graffiti and comic books into their work. Condo’s genre of choice is grotesque portraiture, where Cubist-like distorted facial features successfully co-exist with imposing compositions reminiscent of the 17^th Century Old masters.

Family Portraits, George Condo via Sprüth Magers Gallery

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Cyprien Gaillard’s Cities of Gold and Mirrors (2009)

Currently on view  is the first exhibition of iconoclastic French artist Cyprien Gaillard (b. 1980) to be shown at Sprueth Magers Berlin. Comprised of the 16mm film Cities of Gold and Mirrors (2009) and the photographic works Geographical Analogies (2006-2009), the exhibition follows Gaillard’s concern with the controlled and shimmering demolition of natural and man-made monuments.

Film still of Cyprien Gaillard’s Cities of Gold and Mirrors (2009)

As an artist, “interested in things failing, in the beauty of failure, and the fall in general,” Gaillard has sought to map the human imprint on architecture and geography by vandalizing historical landmarks and receptacles of memory, then slowly retracting his hand from the course of the destruction. Describing his art as “post-entropic – in pursuit of the big moment after the chaos,” the artist has documented in sculpture, painting, etching, photography, video, performance and large scale, public interventions, cataclysmic shifts that engulf time and hasten modern ruins.

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John Baldessari’s Cast/Crutch/Ring (2009)

Currently showing at Sprüth Magers Berlin through January 16 is an exhibition of new work by the highly influential American artist, John Baldessari (b. 1931), entitled Hands And/Or Feet (Part Two). The exhibition, coinciding with a major retrospective at Tate Modern in London (which opened in October 2009 and will travel to MACBA, Barcelona; LACMA, Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York through 2011 after terminating in January 2010), gathers ten large-scale works continuing the artist’s exploit of the body’s expressive potential across a range of diverse media and conceptual means.

John Baldessari’s Arrow/Glass/Duck (2009)

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