Monday, September 26th, 2011
X-ray of Goya portrait reveals possible portrait by Goya of Joseph Bonaparte beneath Don Ramón Satué [AO Newslink]
Archive for 2011
Go See – New York: Willem de Kooning: A Retrospective’ one of the most important exhibitions of the year, at MoMA through January 9, 2011
Monday, September 26th, 2011
Installation view of Willem de Kooning: A Retrospective at MoMA. Image via New York Times.
Currently on view at MoMA is Willem de Kooning: A Retrospective. Impressive in its depth and breadth, it is the first retrospective since the artist’s death. De Kooning (1904 – 1997) is hailed as one of the most important and prolific artists of the previous century.
Installation view. Via Artinfo.
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AO On Site – New York: Nick Cave 'For Now' at Mary Boone through October 22, 2011
Sunday, September 25th, 2011
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All photos Art Observed by Guillaume Vandame
A festive atmosphere opening night at Mary Boone surrounded visitors while they studied Chicago artist Nick Cave‘s parade of bright and exotic soundsuits. Unique hybrid costumes made from a variety of materials, the works combine antique carpets, fabrics, beads, and everyday kitsch objects. Similar to naming the works Untitled, each piece is called a ‘soundsuit;’ various objects, all under the same title. The artist said of his style, “The world is my inventory,” drawing on roots in Trinidad and Haiti, and gathering resources that are no longer used in order to create something new.
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AO On Site – Williamsburg, Brooklyn: Photoset and Interview with Noémie Lafrance ‘The White Box Project’ Performance at Black & White Gallery Saturday, September 17th; performance runs through September 24-25
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
Running from corner to corner – in a specified order in relation to other corner groups. All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.
Noémie Lafrance’s latest piece, The White Box Project, is full of running and screaming, grouping and awkward exclusivity, exploring audience participation and mob mentality; a “minimalist dance performance [that] challenges the implied separation between the art object and its viewing subject.” Each performance is followed by a discussion with the artist, thus further shaping the remaining performances in an “evolutive” process. Famous for her grand public dance performances, Lafrance has staged shows in places ranging from her home to galleries to McCarren Park Pool to the facades of Frank Gehry, as well as choreographing the award winning video for Feist’s “1, 2, 3, 4.”
Showing three September weekends in the courtyard of the Black & White Gallery in Brooklyn, performances run every Saturday at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 pm, with two additional encore performances added to this last Sunday, the 25th of September, at 6:30 and 7:30 pm.
Art Observed was fortunate enough to sit down with Noémie in her Williamsburg studio for the following interview.
Noémie Lafrance recording the group discussion after a performance.
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AO On Site – Auction Results – “Artists for Haiti” Benefit Auction at Christie’s New York Organized by Ben Stiller and David Zwirner Raises $13.7M For Charity
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
Raymond Pettibon, No Title (From life to…), 2011 (est. $200,000-300,000, realized $760,000), via Christies.com
Ben Stiller and David Zwirner teamed up with Christie’s and hosted a much-hyped auction Thursday night with all proceeds benefiting relief efforts in Haiti. The event brought a little bit of LA to New York – Christie’s flew in Andrea Fiuczynski, president of Christie’s in Los Angeles, to conduct the auction, and a handful of celebrities were seen in the sales room. Fiuczynski reminded attendees, among them Ben Stiller and wife Christine Taylor, Jennifer Aniston and beau Justin Theroux, as well as tennis legend John McEnroe, that Christie’s would not be collecting a premium and that US buyers could claim a tax deduction for anything purchased that evening.
Christie’s Andrea Fiuczynski at the rostrum, via ArtObserved
AO On Site – New York: Opening of Vik Muniz at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. through October 15, 2011
Friday, September 23rd, 2011
Opening night, September 10, 2011. All images by Ana Marjanovic for Art Observed.
Through recycling, reproduction, and repetition, Brazilian-born and New York-based artist Vik Muniz explores contemporary consumerist culture’s interpretations of, and influences by, traditional art subject matter in his show on now at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York. Large scale, color photographs from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series are displayed alongside sculptures of the Relicario series.
Installation view
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AO On Site – London: Adrian Ghenie at Haunch of Venison through October 8, 2011
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.
In the newly renovated eighteenth-century London townhouse, which was its original home, Haunch of Venison opens a solo exhibition of Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie. According to Coline Mailliard of Artinfo, the gallery’s move from a museum-like venue near the Royal Academy to the refurbished space in Mayfair signals an attempt at a rebirth. Mailliard writes, “the move seems like a perfect opportunity for the gallery to reinvent itself — and also to prove to the art world, which has snubbed it since the sale to the auction house [Christie’s], that the artistic program is, more than ever, the top priority.”
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Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Lucian Freud retrospective at London’s National Portrait Gallery in February to include last and unfinished painting, Portrait of the Hound [AO Newslink]
Go See – New York: Do Ho Suh ‘Home Within Home’ at Lehmann Maupin through October 22, 2011
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Do Ho Suh, The Fallen Star 1/5 (2008-2011). All images taken by A. Marjanovic for Art Observed, unless otherwise noted.
Exploring themes of multicultural identity, Do Ho Suh presents installations and drawings at the Chelsea location of Lehmann Maupin in New York. Titled Home Within Home, the exhibition reflects the artist’s personal experiences of moving from Korea—where he was born and raised—to the US. Layering and inserting Korean imagery over and within large-scale architectural installations, Suh conveys his feelings of being “dropped from the sky,” according to the press release.
Do Ho Suh, Home Within Home, 2009-2011.
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Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
Scottish/Trinidadian painter Peter Doig collaborates on the Siegfried + Poster Project at the Metropolitan Opera House, inspired by Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle [AO Newslink]
Go See – Los Angeles: José Parlá ‘Character Gestures’ at OHWOW Gallery through October 22, 2011
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
José Parlá, Character Gestures (2011). Via JoséParlá.com
Miami-born, New York-based artist José Parlá‘s current solo exhibition at OHWOW Gallery in Los Angeles blurs the line between street art and action painting. Entitled “Character Gestures,†the show at OHWOW synthesizes the ‘low’ of the urban graffiti sensibility with the ‘high’ of process-based painting as it emerged out of the material and conceptual legacies of Abstract Expressionism. Rather than reading as personal expression of an interior world, though, the paintings, drawings, and sculptures on view function as an archive of the the visual material that emerges from social-spatial politics of the street, their surfaces palimpsests.
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Monday, September 19th, 2011
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A door at a Williamsburg bodega (a drug front) may be last work of Jean-Michel Basquiat [AO Newslink]
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Monday, September 19th, 2011
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Lehmann Maupin Artist Teresita Fernández appointed to four-year term on United States Commission of Fine Arts [AO Newslink]
Monday, September 19th, 2011
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American artist Spencer Tunick photographs over 1,000 nude Israelis on the Dead Sea [AO Newslink]
AO On Site Photoset — New York: Opening of Richard Serra ‘Junction/Cycle’ at Gagosian Gallery through November 26, 2011
Monday, September 19th, 2011
All photos by Abbey Stone for Art Observed unless otherwise noted
Wednesday evening’s opening of Richard Serra‘s new exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea was abuzz. The huge warehouse space seemed to vibrate as art enthusiasts made their way through the artist’s massive installation. Roughly 15 feet tall, the two separate pieces, Junction and Cycle, create a sloping, weaving maze, inviting and immersing viewers within. Whispering praise as they explored the labyrinthine pieces, one such patron murmured, “It’s like you’re in a whole new world.”
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AO On Site – New York: Perfect Man II Curated by Rita Ackermann at White Columns Gallery through October 15, 2011
Sunday, September 18th, 2011
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Perfect Man 2 at White Columns, opening reception. All photos for Art Observed by Ana Marijanovic, unless otherwise noted.
Artist-curator Rita Ackermann and creative director Parinaz Mogadassi curate the Perfect Man II at White Columns, a group show exploring gender issues within contemporary socio-cultural norms. The exhibition features mostly male artists in different stages of their careers, including Richard Serra, Ken Okiishi, Ed Paschke, Rammellzee, Josh Smith, Dan Graham, Malcolm Morley, and the Bernadette Corporation, among others—a collection of thirty-four multimedia pieces: paintings, installations, sculptures, video art, and photography. The show succeeds Perfect Man I, curated by Ackermann in 2007, which brought together mainly female artists. The idea behind Perfect Man is derived from “a poem written by an American housewife that was originally published in a truck driver’s magazine,†according to White Columns. Less explanatory and highly experimental curatorship of the Perfect Man II allows viewers to draw their own conclusions on the complex gender issues.
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Installation view.
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Saturday, September 17th, 2011
Jackie Wullshlager interviews Michael Craig-Martin: “It is hard to overestimate [his] significance in the revolution in British art and in Britain’s relationship with art, which followed in the 1990s.” [AO Newslink]
AO On Site Photoset – New York: Swiss Institute Opens in former Deitch Projects space with Pamela Rosencrantz and Nikolas Gambaroff ‘This is Not My Color/ The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ and Christoph Schifferli ‘Books on Books’ through October 30, 2011
Friday, September 16th, 2011
All photos for Art Observed by Abbey Stone.
Newly nestled in its new home at 18 Wooster Street, the Swiss Institute (SI) continues to fulfill its mission of fostering “a way of thinking which asks audiences to break with traditional assumptions about art and national stereotypes,” presenting two inaugural exhibitions this fall. Wednesday, September 14, marked the opening of Books on Books, curated by Christoph Schifferli, and This is Not My Color/ The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by artists Pamela Rosenkrantz and Nikolas Gambaroff.
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Friday, September 16th, 2011
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Marina Abramović’s ‘The Artist Is Present’ Goes Virtual with Pippin Barr’s New Video Game [AO Newslink]
Go See – Berlin: Beatriz Milhazes at Galerie Max Hetzler through November 5th, 2011
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
Beatriz Milhazes, Gamboa Seasons Autumn Love (2010). All photos via Galerie Max Hetzler.
Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes begins Berlin Galerie Max Hetzler’s season with four large paintings, collages, and a mobile. The paintings are titled after the four seasons and continue the artist’s engagement with bold, colorful explorations of familiar objects and ideas taken as geometrical abstractions.
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Go See – Wolverhampton: Artist Rooms by Ed Ruscha at Wolverhampton Gallery through October 29th
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011Ed Ruscha, Standard Study (1963). Via Tate Modern
Currently on view at Wolverhampton Art Gallery is an exhibition of works by American artist Ed Ruscha as part of the Artist Rooms On Tour, a project which highlights works donated to the nation from the collection of Antony d’Offay in 2008. The exhibition features a small collection of esteemed paintings and drawings by the Los Angeles-based artist. One of the most renowned American artists of the last fifty years, Ruscha is associated with the Pop art movement. Fascinated by language and American West Coast Culture since the 1960s, he has incorporated his photography, books, painting and drawings with such symbolism.
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Ed Ruscha, BLVD.-AVE.-ST. (2006). Via Tate Modern
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Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
Breaking: Richard Hamilton, the “Father of Pop,” designer of Beatles White album, died this morning at 89. Recently showed at Serpentine Gallery, was working on major retrospective to show next year.  Gagosian gallery confirmed his death, at an undisclosed location in Britain. [AO Newslink]
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
Steve Powers, aka ESPO, is completing A Love Letter to Brooklyn, re-envisioning a mall garage on Hoyt street, part of the Fulton Mall [AO Newslink]
Go See – Salzburg: Anselm Kiefer ‘Alkahest’ at Thaddaeus Ropac through September 24, 2011
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
The show’s title work, Alkahest (2011). Oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, chalk, lead and glass on canvas. 280 x 380 x 19 cm (110.24 x 149.61 x 7.48 in). AKI 2059. All photos Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris/Salzburg. Photos Charles Duprat.
Currently showing at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac‘s Salzburg branch is “Alkahest,” sculptures and paintings by Anselm Kiefer, all of them related to alchemy, and collected under a title that means universal solvent. Explains Kiefer, “The term Alkahest signifies that there is a solution which can dilute any substance.” The exhibition runs through September 24, and is held in the HALLE, a special large-scale exhibition space within the museum.
Anselm Kiefer’s Der Wolken heitere Stimmung (2011). Oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac and lead on canvas
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