UNTITLED Gallery opening, 30 Orchard Street, September 12th, 2010. All images by David Al-Ibrahim for Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

On the evening of September 12th, New York’s Lower East Side was bustling with gallery openings celebrating the onset of fall exhibition season. One of the most exciting events that night was at 30 Orchard Street, where Rental Gallery reopened its doors in a new location under the new name UNTITLED. Formerly located on the sixth floor of a building on East Broadway, UNTITLED’s sleek, recently-renovated pencil tower, designed by Andrew Ong, offers a fresh and more accessible ambiance.

Joel Mesler, gallery owner, with Rashid Johnson, exhibiting artist.

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Strange Attractors, Aki Sasmoto – all photographs by Oskar Proctor for Art Observed.

This week the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York opened its doors for the 75th edition if its defining exhibition: The Biennial. Simply titled, 2010, the show rejects an organizational theme and instead uses time as its marker in a matter-of-fact cross-section of American art today. The show is one of the smallest in the Biennial’s history – works by only 55 artists and collaborative teams are displayed on four floors of the museum’s ‘Breur Building’ in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. This year the entire third floor of the building has been taken dedicated video installation – first exhibited at the Biennial in 1975 – a sure sign that video work has now reached maturity, worthy of recognition as an independent art form. In addition, the museum’s fifth floor is devoted to artists in the Whitney’s permanent collection who have shown in past Biennials.

Francesco Bonami, Curator of Whitney Biennial 2010

Whitney Biennial 2010 – Interview with curator Francesco Bonami via VernissageTV

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