Monday, July 11th, 2011
Jennifer Rubell “worked in food, then wrote about food, and then became known as a ‘food artist'” – via NYMag [AO Newslink]
Archive for July, 2011
Monday, July 11th, 2011
Manhattan art dealers accused of selling forged Motherwell painting – via NYPost [AO Newslink]
AO News Summary – Art dealer Guy Wildenstein charged with possession of stolen goods
Monday, July 11th, 2011
Guy Wildensien via The Independent
The French art collector Guy Wildenstein, has been charged by the French authorities with the concealment and breach of trust in reference to the 30 pieces of art work found in the Wildenstein Institute’s Paris storeroom. Multiple lawsuits against Guy have been taken out by the Wildenstein family, as they continue to fight amongst each other for their fortune.
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Go See – London: David Salle at Maureen Paley through July 24th, 2011
Sunday, July 10th, 2011
David Salle No Hard Feelings (2011), via Maureen Paley, London.
David Salle recently opened his first solo show at London’s Maureen Paley Gallery, and his first solo show in London in more than eight years. In this exhibition the well-known and influential Salle presents a number of new paintings and older photography works. The paintings are large in size, while the photographs are smaller; positioned in Paley’s expansive space, the works clearly display the breadth of Salle’s varied thematic and technical language.
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Go See – Salzburg: Alex Katz "Face the Music" at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac through July 16th
Saturday, July 9th, 2011
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Alex Katz, Dancer 2, (2010), all images via Ulrich Ghezzi for Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.
Alex Katz takes on the subject of dance in a series of paintings, drawings, and cartoons on view at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. The show, titled “Face the Musicâ€, runs until July 16th and features Katz’s signature figurative style. His dancers appear to be suspended in space, each caught in the moment of practicing. The gallery notes that his work lays “somewhere on the boundary between abstraction and realism†and these traits are easily seen in the portraits of the dancers.
Go See – Beijing: Yue Minjun’s “The Road” at Pace Gallery until July 16th, 2011
Saturday, July 9th, 2011
Yue Minjun, The Crowing with Thorns, 2009 via Pace Beijing
The Road, an exhibition of recent paintings by Chinese artist Yue Minjun (born 1962) is on view at the Pace Gallery, Beijing from June 6th to July 16th, 2011. Minjun gained international recognition in the 1990’s for his political allegories, epitomized by rows of figures with grotesque smiles, commenting on Chinese communist ideology. The Road features Minjun’s signature grinning characters with strong reference to Christian iconography.
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Don’t Miss – Cologne: Vija Celmins “Desert, Sea and Stars” at Museum Ludwig through July 17th, 2011
Friday, July 8th, 2011
Vija Celmins, Ocean Surface Woodcut (1992). Via Museum Ludwig.
The Museum Ludwig is presenting a comprehensive solo exhibition of Vija Celmins‘ works, titled “Desert, Sea and Stars.” This show will run through July 17th, and consists of sixty works by the American-Latvian artist, among them her graphite-on-paper depictions of minuscule subjects as spiderwebs or shells, and fragments of vast landscapes. Celmins’s use of photographies as the models for these drawings, gives a hint into her approach to the ideas of the sublime and transient in nature; where the frailness of objects, and the ongoing movements of wind and sea, render those captured glimpses as irrepeatable.
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Go See: The French Riviera РL'Art Contemporain et la C̫te D'Azur Un Terretoire Pour L'Experimentation 1951-2011 through November 7th, 2011
Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
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Ben Vautier, Jeter Dieu à la mer (1962), featured at Exhibition: Le Temps de L’action/Acte 1 at Villa Arson Nice
Saturday, June 25th welcomed thousands of viewers to the French Riviera, where the work of local artists was unveiled for the long-awaited opening of L’Art Contemporain et la Côte d’Azur: Un territoire pour l’expérimentation, 1951-2011. Artists “whose work was built or continues to flourish significantly” on the French Riviera are featured in the region’s major summer event, which features 1,000 works by over 200 painters, sculptors and media artists who have flocked to work in the French Riviera since 1951, including notables such as Yves Klein, Hans Hartung and Ellsworth Kelly.
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AO Breaking News – Obituary and News Summary: Cy Twombly dies at the age of 83 in Rome
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
Image via New York Times.
Celebrated painter Cy Twombly died today at the age of 83. Twombly passed away from cancer in Rome, where he has been living since 1957. Known as somewhat of a recluse, Twombly usually did not write about his work or give interviews. One of the exceptions to this was made in 2008 when Twombly spoke to Nick Serota, director of the Tate. “I had my freedom and that was nice,†he said.
Born Edwin Parker Twombly, Jr. in 1928 in Lexington, Virginia, and nicknamed “Cy†by his father, the artist was known for his calligraphic style. Writer, critic and assistant professor at the San Francisco Art Institute Claire Daigle writes, “Twombly arrived in Manhattan in 1950 while the New York School painting of Pollock and de Kooning was in full swing. Upon Robert Rauschenberg’s encouragement, Twombly joined him for the 1951–1952 sessions at Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina – a liberal refuge [staffed by] influential teachers present at this time [such as] Charles Olson, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell and John Cage.†In 2001, Twombly won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale.
Cy Twombly, Untitled, (Peony Blossom Painting), 2007. Image courtesy Gagosian Gallery.
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Go See – London: Taryn Simon’s “A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters” at Tate Modern until September 6th, 2011
Monday, July 4th, 2011
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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Go See – San Francisco: “The Steins Collect” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through September 6th, 2011
Monday, July 4th, 2011
Gertrude Stein (1905-1906) by Pablo Picasso, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Currently on view at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art is “The Steins Collect†an exhibition devoted the collection of the Stein family, notable patrons of early modernism. The large show covers the entire fourth floor of the museum and contains a variety of pieces spanning the entire history of the family’s collections. The chronologically-arranged exhibition truly makes clear their influence and significance in the emerging world of Modern Art.
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Go See – Los Angeles: Barbara Kruger at L&M Arts through July 9th, 2011
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
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Barbara Kruger (2011) All photos via L&M Arts (Installation Photography: Joshua White/JWPictures.com)
Over ten years have passed since Barbara Kruger has had a solo exhibition in her hometown of Los Angeles. L&M Arts currently presents a long overdue show featuring the artist’s signature text “wrap” as well as a video installation. Kruger’s use of text dates back to the 1980’s when she coined such phrases as “I shop therefore I am” and “Your body is a battleground.” The L&M exhibition continues to spotlight themes of consumerism and desire, money and power.
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AO On Site – New York: Ryan Trecartin “Any Ever” at PS1 through September 3rd, 2011
Friday, July 1st, 2011
Installation view of Ryan Trecartin’s “Any Ever”. All images Ian Hassett for Art Observed.
AO was on site at MoMA’s PS1 outpost in Long Island city for the opening of Ryan Trecartin’s “Any Ever,†organized by Director Klaus Biesenbach and taking place in in the museum’s Main Gallery. “Any Ever†was also recently shown at MOCA Miami and Los Angeles’ MOCA Pacific Design Center, and presents two filmic narratives: Trill-ogy Comp (2009) and Re’Search Wait’S (2009-2010). Between the two series, there are seven crazy looped videos in all, each projected in an individual room with its own installation.
The films, which were shot in Miami and use the artist, his primary collaborator Lizzie Fitch, friends and casted actors as performers, are experiments with the visual culture and language associated with internet technology: frenzies of colors, layers and pop-ups play with techniques of low-end web design and film editing. More than anything else, the show is experiential, while touching on themes of pop-culture, technology, identity, consumerism, gender and indulgence. In his review of “Any Ever”, New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl says “The most consequential artist to have emerged since the nineteen-eighties, [Trecartin] is being hailed as the magus of the Internet century.â€
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