Tino Sehgal, Installation view, 2012, courtesy Tate Modern

The Turbine hall has been home to the Unilever series and currently welcomes its thirteenth commission in the form of These Associations by Tino Sehgal. Despite Sehgal being the thirteenth artist to exhibit as part of the series, he far from blends into the crowd of his predecessors. Sehgal gives the inaugural ‘Live Art’ performance of Unilever coinciding with the Olympics as part of London 2012.

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Tino Sehgal via The Independent

Anglo-German artist Tino Sehgal opened ‘These Associations’ in the Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall yesterday. As the 13th Unilever Commission, the performance art installation is the museum’s first live commission. ‘These Associations’ features shifts of around 50 participants at a time, partaking in different games, dances, and social interactions designed by Sehgal.

Turbine Hall, the venue for ‘These Associations’ via BBC News

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Fridericianum in Kassel via dOCUMENTA

Every five years, the city of Kassel in Germany plays host to dOCUMENTA, a colossal, 100-day long exhibition of contemporary art from all over the world.  Participating artists are provided at least two years to complete their work and the results are thus consistently thorough and complex.  This year is dOCUMENTA’s thirteenth edition and is expected to attract more than 750,000 visitors, nearly twice that of last year’s Venice Biennale.

Yan Lei‘s  “Limited Art Project”, a room of works completed daily over the past year.  The room and the art hung on its walls will be sprayed over with car paint, retransforming every piece into a blank canvas.  This image is featured on BBC News’ Big Picture series.

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

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Marcel Broodthaers, Les Portes, 1969. Vacuum-formed plastic, hand painted, 192 x 178 cm. All images courtesy of Michael Werner Gallery.

Currently on view at Michael Werner Gallery is Marcel Broodthaers “Major Works.” The exhibition marks the second this fall of Belgian conceptual artist Broodthaers, who began his career as a poet before turning to visual art at age 40. Stemming from his roots in poetry, Broodthaers’ visual practice involved playful, provocative juxtapositions of word and image, poetry and object, language and art. His work is varied, dabbling in appropriations, film, image and text combinations, and mixed media installations he called decors.

The artist found inspiration in the Surrealists and American Pop artists, citing influence from Oldenburg, Segal, Mallarmé, and Magritte. Unfortunately, the artist’s career was tragically cut short when, a mere twelve years later, he succumbed to liver disease on his 52nd birthday. However, he leaves behind an astounding number of works, many of which have had a profound impact on future artists, including Richard Prince, Rachel Harrison, Philippe Parreno and Tino Sehgal.

Marcel Broodthaers, Dites Partout Que Je L’Ai Dit (Say Everywhere That I Have Said It), 1974. Parrot under bell jar, audiotape, 2 framed works. Variable dimensions.

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A photo taken with a mobile phone, although picture-taking was prohibited during the exhibition via NY Times

When Tino Sehgal‘s work took over the Guggenheim Museum in New York on January 29th it was a quiet experience. There were no opening parties, no fuss and none of that Art World glitter to make one jump from exuberant excitement.  The walls of Frank Lloyd Wright’s majestic rotunda were stripped bare and seem to have newly acquired a long lost naïveté.  The lobby still brimmed with crowds of people clustered around the impenetrable center. The Kiss unfolded, rolled and scattered itself in a graceful poise of a feline. The subtly choreographed sequence of animated poses referenced erotic works from Rodin, to Courbet, to Jeff Koons. Occasionally, a couple or a small group of visitors would creep closer for a brief encounter or settle in contemplative thought on the floor of the proposed stage.

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