AO Art Observed™

‪‬Tino Sehgal commissioned for 2012 Unilever Series at Tate Modern in conjunction with London 2012 Cultural Olympiad [AO Newslink]

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Tate Modern’s Chief Curator Sheena Wagstaff moves to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum Board, in anticipation of appropriating the former Whitney Building on Madison Avenue for contemporary art exhibitions in 2015. [AO Newslink]

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Installation view. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

The Tate Modern‘s exhibition ‘Panorama,’ featuring the work of living German artist Gerhard Richter, will be coming to an end after thee months. The exhibition pays homage to Richter’s variant inspirations, spanning 50 years of work and 14 rooms, providing an all-encompassing display of his oeuvre. Works include photo-realist paintings, landscapes, cloud, squeegee, and history paintings, with less conventionally displayed glass and mirror constructions from the 1980s, as well as his first Color Chart from 1966. One noted work, the 20-meter-long Stroke (on Red) (1980) was developed from a photograph of a brush stroke. This is its first exhibition outside of Germany.

‘Panorama’ gallery view, with curator Mark Godfrey

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Damien Hirst’s £50m skull ‘For the Love of God’ to be shown in Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern during his first UK retrospective opening April 4th [AO Newslink]

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View of the Fair via Marquees First

The ninth annual Frieze Art Fair will be held this week with 173 exhibiting galleries from 31 countries. The event has been held in London every October since 2003, and is known for its highly innovative contemporary gallery and artist showcase. The Frieze Frame and Frieze Projects have evolved to help divide the myriad of international artists into mainstays and up-and-comers. Interactive components, including Frieze Talks, Frieze Film, and Frieze Education, further diversify the aesthetic and conceptual basis of the event. Founding Directors Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover created Frieze magazine in the early 1990s and continue to develop beyond the fall showcase, with plans for an Old Masters’ exhibition at next fall’s fair. A spring plan to host a Randall’s Island venue in 2012 is also in the works.

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‪‬Tacita Dean unveils ‘Film,’ a 35 mm film on a 13 meter tall screen as the 2011 Unilever series commission at the Tate Modern [AO Newslink]

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News that the Tate Modern extension may be delayed with 2nd phase to begin in 2016 due to lack of funds, but also, that the Tate family of galleries had its most successful year ever, making it the second most attended art institution behind the Louvre [AO Newslink]

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Installation view, Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape (2011). All images via Tate Modern.

On view until September 11 at the Tate Modern in London, Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape brings together work spanning six decades of the internationally renowned artist’s career. Organized with the help of the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, this major retrospective is a rare opportunity to see over 150 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper culled from collections around the world, as well as five of his large triptychs in their first ever coincident display. In addition to an exceptional viewing experience, the Tate has set out to provide a political context for Miró’s work and thereby shed light on the esteemed Surrealist’s oft-overlooked engagement with and dedication to the world around him.

Joan Miró, Painting (1927).

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Taryn Simon, excerpt from A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters (2011), via The Guardian.

Young photography star Taryn Simon opened her solo exhibition, “A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters” at London’s Tate Modern on May 25th.  The exhibition is composed of portraits displayed in horizontal rows of family trees according to bloodlines, which Simon researched over a four-year period.  As the artists says, she’s “drawn to projects that end up being incredibly laborious” – though the photos themselves only took two months to complete.

Taryn Simon in front of an excerpt from A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters (2011), photo by Antonio Zazueta Olmos, via The Guardian.

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Michael Clark Company, th (June 2011) via Hugo Glendinning/Tate Modern

Michael Clark Company occupied the Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall last week, continuing last year’s Come, Been and Gone choreography project, in the form of a performance entitled th.  The commission was performed by the dance company’s corps of thirteen as well as forty eight volunteer performers.  Clark’s sell-out choreography was set to an 80′s and 90′s soundtrack of Bowie, Pulp, Kraftwerk and Relaxed Muscle, which pounded through the hall throughout the 90-minute performance.

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Installation view of Miroslaw Balka’s Nonetheless (2011), via Nordenhake.

In a show titled “Nonetheless”, Polish artist Mirosław Bałka presents four recent pieces at Berlin’s Galerie Nordenhake. The works are composed of wood, nails, steel, plastic, concrete, glass, and light, and have titles referencing the pieces’ dimensions.   “Nonetheless” hints at an ability do more than expected, which be said of the exhibition itself.

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Francis Bacon, “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes” (1969). All pictures courtesy of Helly Nahmad Gallery.

New York’s Helly Nahmad Gallery is currently showing the first comparative assembly of works by the painters Chaim Soutine and Francis Bacon. Connections between Soutine, whom de Kooning famously called his “favorite artist,” and Bacon, the subject of two Tate Modern retrospectives in his lifetime and one in 2008, have never before been examined by an exhibition at a museum or gallery. SOUTINE/BACON closes on June 18.

Chaim Soutine, “Autoportrait” (1918).

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All pictures by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

Currently on view at Tate Modern is “Joan Miro: The Ladder of Escape” featuring over 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints in the first London retrospective of the renowned Surrealist artist in over fifty years. Working in a rich variety of styles, Juan Miro (1893-1983) is considered a precursor to Abstract Expressionism. He effectively combined his surrealist style with strong political views to create work which is all at once playful and socially thought-provoking.

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Damien Hirst, Adrenochrome Semicarbazone Sulfonate via The Guardian

Ultra high-profile contemporary artist Damien Hirst will showcase his first retrospective at the Tate Modern during the 2012 Olympics, from April 5th to September 9th 2012. Throughout his career, Hirst has been known for generating wealth by defying the instituted system of art relationships, linking his gallery representation with White Cube and Gagosian to direct independent auctioning with Sotheby’s. In collaborating with the curatorial world, Hirst is reinstating himself in the inter-relational art market, even as he capitalizes on the mass sensationalism of the Olympics in London.

Although Hirst is represented by Gagosian (for whom his most recent showcase in Hong Kong will be on view through March 19th) and White Cube, he is arguably best known for his high grossing auction sales. Most notably, the £50 million 2008 sale beautiful inside my head forever marked a revolutionary means of selling art directly through the auction house.

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Ai Weiwei and his sunflower seeds in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern, via NY Times

Currently on view in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is Sunflower Seeds (2010) a work by Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei for the 11th commission in the Unilever Series.  The work is made up of a millions of small hand-crafted porcelain works each sculpted and painted uniquely by Chinese specialists working in workshops in the small town of Jingdezhen. Hundreds of skilled hands worked together to produce the 100 million sunflower seeds poured into the Turbine Hall’s vast space.

Sunflower Seeds (2010) by Ai Weiwei , via Tate Modern

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Turbine Hall, Tate Modern. Via ArtInfo

Tacita Dean will take over Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall on October 11, 2011. As the 12th artist in the Unilever-sponsored series, she will replace Ai Weiwei‘s floor of Sunflower Seeds. Though she is best known for her work with 16mm film, she uses other mediums as well, including found objects, photography, drawing, and sound. Tate Modern’s chief curator, Sheena Wagstaff, has expressed excitement over the commissioned work’s outcome; in regards to Dean, “Her interest in light, space and history, as well as her keen sense of the cinematic and the sublime, make her a perfect choice.”

Tacita Dean. Via Bloomberg

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Carsten Höller, Soma, 2010. Courtesy Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart

Twelve reindeer, twenty-four canaries, eight mice, and two flies currently reside in Carsten Höller‘s new installation, Soma, in the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin.  Höller’s fantasy land can also be your home for one night – for the price of 1,000 euros (stay includes a nighttime tour of the museum with a guard, as well as breakfast).

Carsten Höller, Soma, 2010. Courtesy Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart

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Two Tahitian Women (1889) by Paul Gauguin, via The Guardian

Currently on view at the Tate Modern is Gauguin: Maker of Myth, the first exhibition devoted exclusively to the work of Paul Gauguin in over half a century. Featuring more than 100 works from private and public collections worldwide, the exhibition examines the artist’s unique approach to storytelling in his compositional practice. The works displayed offer greater insight into the narrative process of one of the most prominent figures of the Post-Impressionist era.

The Ham (1889) by Paul Gauguin, via The Guardian

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John Baldessari, What was Seen, via Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Currently on view at Los Angeles County Museum of Art is “Pure Beauty,” a retrospective of work by John Baldessari. The exhibition features one hundred and fifty objects produced by one of the most influential living American artists, representing over five decades of his storied career. The show is curated by LACMA’s Leslie Jones, with Jessica Morgan, curator of Contemporary Art at the Tate Modern.

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Above: Karen Kilimnik, Me Corner of Haight & Ashbury, 1966, 1998.
Below: Joseph Cornell, Untitled, c. 1953.
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.”

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

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Tornado (2000-2010) by Francis Alÿs, via inglebygallery

Currently showing at the Tate Modern in London until September 5, 2010, is a series of works by artist Francis Alÿs. Alÿs is famous for sacrificing his own comfort and health for the sake of art, as he does with his “Tornado” video (2000-10) on display at the Tate. A still of this video serves as the picture on the museum’s banner of the exhibit, entitled Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception. The picture shows a man, bent against the wind and obscured by dust, essaying to reach the center of the storm. This footage was collected over the course of a decade, as Alÿs struggled both to keep his cameras intact (he reportedly lost six) and to capture the sense of “adrenaline” that he craved. While many works are videos, other media are included, such as paintings.

Re-enactments (2000) by Francis Alÿs, via Tate

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Louise Bourgeois in her Brooklyn studio in 1992. Photo courtesy The New York Times.

Louise Bourgeois, one of the world’s most celebrated sculptors, passed away today at the age of 98. The news was announced by an Italian foundation preparing an exhibition of the artist’s work in Venice, and was confirmed by Wendy Williams, the managing director of the Louise Bourgeois Studio. The cause of death was heart attack, and occurred at the Beth Israel Medical Center. Bourgeois was a leader of feminist art, and is known most recently for her large-scale metal spider sculptures, as well as psychologically-charged roughly-textured depictions of sex organs.

Bourgeois’s 30-ft spider sculpture outside the Tate Modern in 2007. Photo courtesy the BBC.

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Roy Lichtenstein, Still Life with Palette, 1972, oil and magna on canvas, 60 x 96 inches. All images courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Recently opened at Gagosian Gallery‘s location on 555 West 24th Street is Roy Lichtenstein: Still Lifes. This exhibition is the first devoted solely to the artist’s still lifes spanning from 1972 to the early 1980s. The show, which brings together 50 works from prominent private collections and museums worldwide, includes still lifes in three media: paintings, sculptures and drawings.

Installation view, Roy Lichtenstein: Still Lifes

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