Pierre Huyghe, After ALife Ahead (2017), via Art Observed

Placing monumental works and nuanced environmental engagements across the city of Münster once each decade, the Skulptur Projekte touched down in the city again this summer,  spreading its wings over the German city for its fifth edition. Offering yet another take on the massively-scaled European art festivals, biennials and other curated events, Münster’s entry in this summer’s calendar is noteworthy in its engagement with the city itself. Embracing the location-sensitive capabilities of sculpture and public art, Skulptur Projekte welcomes meditations on what art might be capable of when inserted into the fabric of daily life, presenting a city where nuanced, conceptually-rich pieces of art can be encountered and experienced at almost any turn. (more…)

Installation view, Cellblock I, Andrea Rosen Gallery. All photos on site by Erica Simone for Art Observed

The Andrea Rosen Gallery opened Cellblock I at its main space on December 1st, 2012, and simultaneously inaugurated its new, second location–just down the street at 544 West 24th Street–with Cellblock II. Both shows, held together under the theme (and anti-theme) of imprisonment, were curated by the prominent scholar and curator Robert Hobbs.

Robert Motherwell’s Dover Beach III at Cellblock II, Andrea Rosen Gallery

Hobbs is well-known for his work as an art historian and writer. He has been the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair at Virginia Commonwealth University since 1991, and a visiting professor at Yale University for eight years. He is known as the definitive Robert Smithson scholar, and has contributed seminal writings on many of the artists he selected to show, including Alice Aycock, Beverly Pepper, and Kelley Walker. (more…)

Image: Now I am quietly waiting… (Exhibition View), Bortolami Gallery

The long, arresting title of Tom Burr’s first show as a curator for Bortolami Gallery takes its inspiration from the poem “Mayakovsky” by Frank O’Hara.  In the poem, the author delves into the nature of one’s own identity, and the relationship to other, separate, identities that surround us in our daily lives.  Taking this text as a jumping off point, Tom Burr has assembled a selection of works that are interconnected by his relationships to their creators, be they personal, professional, or merely tangential.

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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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