The Museum of Modern Art and Basel’s Schaulager Collection are partnering to present a major retrospective focused on the work of Bruce Nauman, set to open in Switzerland in March of 2018. The show will then cross the Atlantic to MoMA for a September opening. (more…)
Ida Applebroog, The Ethics of Desire (Installation View)
The Ethics of Desire is the title of the currently running Ida Applebroog exhibition at Hauser & Wirth. In her decades long career, the New York native has frequently used her work to dismantle and reform sexual politics and its echoes in society (i.e. the women’s liberation movement, body politics and gender classification, to name a few). Her turbulent biography, from a childhood in a Jewish Orthodox family in the Bronx to her time in Chicago and California, gained further momentum when she relocated in New York in the mid 1970’s. (more…)
Cyprien Gaillard, Where Nature Runs Riot (2015). All Images courtesy Sprueth Magers Berlin.
Now through July 18, Sprüth Magers Gallery in Berlin hosts Where Nature Runs Riot, an exhibition of new work by Cyprien Gaillard, combining film, sculpture, and sound to inform and interrupt each other in the three main pieces that comprise the show. Thematically, Gaillard focuses on the dialogue formed between natural and man-made structures erected at the limits of history and civilization, testing the capacity of sculptural form to illustrate both the esoteric and psychedelic. References to major figures and tropes from art and musical history reveal the artist’s interest in synthesizing seemingly disparate elements towards a type of aesthetic logic to history and dialogue, an often palimpsestic structure of overlapping layers and interpretations. In this exhibition, Gaillard demonstrates and forges relationships between stillness and movement, natural and man-made form, sound and vision.
Former MIT Lecturer and filmmaker Joseph Gibbons is the subject of a Washington Post profile this week, as the performer and artist awaits sentencing for a bank robbery he committed on New Year’s Eve last year. “You never can tell if the character he is playing is actually him or a work of fiction,” says Vincent Grenier, a filmmaker and professor at Binghamton University. “For him, it’s been a fertile arena to play in the boundary between reality and fantasy.” (more…)
Tony Oursler, EUC (2015), All images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.
The new body of work by acclaimed new media artist Tony Oursler is currently on view at Lehmann Maupin’s Chrystie street location. Aligned with his signature style of analyzing high technology and its idiosyncratic tone in correlation to the human body, Oursler delves into the limits of human expression in his new exhibition. Although he was born in New York City, Oursler emerged in late 1970s along with a group of West Coast artists such as Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw after graduating from the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied under John Baldessari. (more…)
Tabor Robak, Drinking Bird (Season) (2015)
Currently on view at Team Gallery is a new body of works by Brooklyn-based artist Tabor Robak, the digitally-focused artist whose LCD video pieces mine the aesthetics and possibilities for interface design in the 21st century. Computer-generated graphics and lifestyle technologies doubtlessly strike as the main threads in Robak’s work, yet his spontaneous employment of ubiquitous cultural icons, and mundane components into his otherwise convoluted compositions expands the array of his statement. The artist’s use of oblique narratives, hinted at through lines of text and simple graphic juxtapositions, fall in line with the phantasmagorical, responding to the utilitarian aspect of high-tech elements, while suggesting a certain submission by the user, a transposition of their role into that of a passive viewer or consumer. (more…)
The Venice Biennale, via Art Observed
As May begins, the city of Venice is preparing for the the 56th edition of the Biennale, set to open doors to press this week. With the sheer scale of events, openings and exhibitions set to open this coming Wednesday through Saturday, the art world will turn its attention to the City of Bridges in earnest. (more…)
The Midnight Moment video art screenings in New York will continue this May, with the showing of Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests on the immense video billboards of Times Square. The screen tests on view will feature a variety of Factory regulars, including Edie Sedgwick, Susan Sontag and Lou Reed. (more…)
Hito Steyerl at Artist’s Space (Installation View), via Art Observed
Currently on view at both the Artist’s Space galleries and its bookstore at 55 Walker Street, Hito Steyerl is presenting a retrospective of recent work documenting the artist’s plotted political and economic topographies, video and sculptural works that make much of their gradual unveiling of socio-economic situations and environments. (more…)
Karl Holmqvist, Here’s Good Looking @U Kid (Installation View), via Art Observed
The current exhibition at Gavin Brown’s West Village exhibition space is abrasive, to say the least. Focused around the life and work of Karl Holmqvist, the three room exhibition is adorned with the artist’s goading vitriol towards New York real estate, gay culture, social media, the art world “star machine,” and what seems to be anything else that crosses his mind, combined with immense, industrial sculptures composed from the letters in words like “Fuck,” “Punk” and “Like.” (more…)
John Baldessari is featured on Vogue this week, discussing the formal and thematic concerns he reads in Philip Guston’s Stationary Figure, part of The Met’s new series featuring contemporary artists discussing their favorite works from the museum collection. “He’s almost a dumb artist, and I’m using dumb in a good way,” Baldessari says. “It’s seemingly clumsy but very sophisticated brushwork. I guess it comes out of Van Gogh’s painting of a pair of old boots: you don’t need to paint a cathedral, you just need to be an interesting painter.” (more…)
Paul Chan, Sock N Tease (2013), via Art Observed
For a semi-retired artist, Paul Chan has been busy in past years. Following his step back from creating video and installation work in 2010, the artist dove headfirst into the world of publishing with Badlands Unlimited, an imprint responsible for a broad variety of works that have included Saddam Hussein’s On Democracy, and even a recent series of erotic works inspired by Olympia Press, the Paris-based smut peddlers that also published some of the Twentieth century’s most significant works of literature (Lolita and Henry Miller’s Rosy Crucifiction Trilogy).
This diversity of practice was what earned him the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize, one of the U.S.’s top honors, and an exhibition at The Guggenheim. Given his output over the past decade, the artist is presenting a new series of sculptures that combine his recent publishing ventures with his particular approach to ready-made, object-focused sculpture. (more…)
Bill Viola, Transformation (Installation View), all images courtesy Farschou Foundation
On view at Farschou Foundation Beijing is a solo show by American video artist Bill Viola. Known for his large-scale, high definition, ultra slow-motion moving images, the artist has served as an innovator in the technological execution and exhibition of video art. His show in Beijing, titled Transformation will continue through March 22nd.
This fall MOCA in Los Angeles will play home to the traveling exhibition focusing on the work of Matthew Barney, as well as a screening of the artist’s most recent film River of Fundament, marking the only time the show will take place on U.S. soil. “I thought it should be seen in America,” says MOCA head Philippe Vergne. (more…)
Mark McGuire, head of Marcato Capital, was on CNBC this week, d for the disclosure of court documents from the case between Third Point and Sotheby’s last year. “We want to make sure that the decisions that are being made at Sotheby’s are decisions that are in the best interest of the company and the shareholders, and not being driven by other motivations that should not be factors in board level decisions,” he says. “The litigation uncovered a significant amount of correspondence and deliberation on behalf of the board, so it’s a unique opportunity to get a real window into the logic and motivations of the board members. (more…)
Charles Atlas, Terri’s Option (2015), all images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed
Luhring Augustine is currently presenting The Waning of Justice, the gallery’s second collaboration with the pioneer video and sound artist Charles Atlas, following 2012’s The Illusion of Democracy at the gallery’s Bushwick location. One of the foremost experimentalists in multimedia, Atlas has pushed the limits of time-based art arguably more than any other artist, challenging the ephemeral natures of both performance and dance incorporated alongside his video work. In doing so, Atlas, not a performer himself per se, has collaborated with legendary names such as Leigh Bowery, Douglas Dunn, Michael Clark and most famously Merce Cunningham, whose partnership with Atlas resulted in video documentations of the late artist’s illustrious performances at levels that adopt further conceptual and contextual levels through Atlas’s frame. (more…)
Allora & Calzadilla, Raptor’s Rapture (2012) all images courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art
On view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is an exhibition of recent work by Puerto Rico-based artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. Entitled Intervals, the projects on display allude to the notion of the interval: “the time between events, the measure between two points in space, or the range between musical notes.”
Allora & Calzadilla, The Bell, The Digger, and the Tropical Pharmacy (2013), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery
Cross Section of a Revolution, on view at Lisson Gallery in London, brings together seven artists and pairs of artists whose work explores questions of trade, contested territory and trauma in a global context. These substantial themes are approached through a variety of mediums that speak to both individual and collective experiences in Central Asia, Pakistan, Kenya, Europe and the United States,opening lines of inquiry into aspects of cultural and political fragmentation, and reveals strategies for art and aesthetics in relation to cultural, geographic and religious division. This group exhibition does not shy away from inspiring or explicitly asking large questions about the nature of globalization and aesthetics. For instance: how is a modern understanding of culture, politics, and religion shaped or impacted by a continual flow of visual information? (more…)
Subodh Gupta, This is not a fountain (2011), via Ross Maddux for Art Observed
Subodh Gupta’s most recent show at Hauser and Wirth is an exercise in the personal. Long known for works combining the intensely personal with broader social constructs and ritualistic approaches to the art object, his current exhibition places an even more central focus on the intensely personal, communal relations life in India, and his emphasis on the unifying, material structures over which daily life proceeds. (more…)
Christian Marclay, Actions: Smak Squish Splsh (No 2) (2013), all images via White Cube
In his most recent solo exhibition at the White Cube Bermondsey space, Christian Marclay presents a number of new works exploring the connection between image and sound, performance and artifact. From static onomatopoeias screen printed on canvas, to words racing around a video projection, to live performances within the gallery, Marclay explores the role of sound in art from numerous perspectives and forms, particularly in how they translate from one medium to the next. (more…)
Yael Bartana, Inferno (2013)
Yael Bartana’s new body of work, containing two video pieces, two photographs and a neon installation, is currently on view at Petzel Gallery. The Tel Aviv and Amsterdam-based artist has become one of the strongest artistic voices from her home in Israel, a territory Bartana, in her own words, aims to ‘treat as a social laboratory’. Living abroad gives the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design graduate the opportunity to maintain a neutral outside perspective towards her country that has always remained embedded in political, religious and social turmoil. (more…)
Rineke Dijkstra, Selected Works (Installation View), all images courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery Paris
On view at Marian Goodman’s Paris exhibition space is the third exhibition from Dutch photographer and filmmaker Rineke Dijkstra, composed of of two new videos filmed in Russia. Dijkstra became internationally known for her beach portraits of teenagers on the beaches of South Carolina, Poland, and Ukraine during the 1990’s, but she has also been producing lesser-known video portraits since 1996. The videos on display here, focusing on young ballerinas, were commissioned by Manifesta (European Biennial of Contemporary Art) for its most recent edition in 2014.
John Waters, Beverly Hills John (2012)
Marianne Boesky Gallery is hosting its third collaboration with John Waters, a pioneer of American camp and “trash culture” since the 1970’s, particularly through his feature breakthrough Pink Flamingos in 1972. Throughout his career, Waters has constantly redefined the elements that constitute American culture, at a time when the nation was premature to notions such as homosexuality or kitsch, and used these often marginalized cultures within a studied cinematic and artistic framework.
John Waters, Still from Kiddie Flamingos (2014) (more…)
Gillian Wearing, Me As an Artist in 1984 (2014), all Photos Courtesy of Regen Projects Los Angeles.
One of the most prominent members of the Young British Artists, Gillian Wearing, who in the past few decades has established a unique and enduring voice in the contemporary discourse, is presenting her new body of work at Los Angeles’ Regen Projects. The artist’s fourth collaboration with the gallery, everyone, features two new video pieces as well as various multimedia works that juxtapose Wearing’s investigations on personal memory, confrontation with past and unfolding of angst as a direct result. (more…)
