AO Newslink
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012‪‬MAXXI, Italy’s national contemporary art museum in Rome, to have board of directors replaced by government-appointed administration following an unresolved 2012 budget
‪‬MAXXI, Italy’s national contemporary art museum in Rome, to have board of directors replaced by government-appointed administration following an unresolved 2012 budget
‪‬Artist Christian Marclay, creator of The Clock, and collector Alice Walton of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art among Top 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine
‪‬Takashi Murakami speaks on several personal and Japanese cultural issues in an edited interview with the Wall Street Journal
Marina Abramović, The Abramović Method: Chair for Man and His Spirit (2012). All photos © Marina Abramović by SIAE 2012, courtesy Marina Abramović and Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan unless otherwise noted.
Known as the “grandmother of performance art,†Serbian artist Marina Abramović has chosen Milan as the setting for the exhibition of her much anticipated new body of work, titled The Abramović Method. Presented at PAC Padiglione d’Art Contemporanea through June 10, 2012 and complemented by an exhibition at Milan’s Galleria Lia Rumma (through May 12, 2012), this is her first major performance since MoMA’s The Artist is Present in 2010, during which Abramović sat in a gallery for 700 hours, silently and motionlessly interacting with a unending parade of museumgoers exclusively through eye contact. Abramović initiated her performance art practice in the 1970s with physically and emotionally demanding trials, aiming to test the limits of her bodily and psychological endurance. More recently, Abramović’s artistic practice has become preoccupied with the concept of duration and an obligation to the public.
Jim Shaw, The Rinse Cycle (2012). All photos on site for Art Observed by Ilhan Kim.
Jim Shaw’s oeuvre maximizes a medley of mediums straddling low art found in a church’s Christmas bazaar to high art befitting a gem gallery. Shaw’s latest exhibition at Metro Pictures continues his tradition of weaving together disparate motifs to create textured compositions with multiple references to American history and a wild reimagining of world religions and mythology. The installation showcases various elements of a narrative trajectory in which two petty thieves, on the run from FBI agents in pursuit, trespass into the fictional Museum of Oist History in Omaha and don wigs that cloak them invisible and deport them to the ancient birthplace of O, the founding deity of Oism.
‪‪‬Model May Andersen becomes assistant director at The Hole gallery following spring internship and is also separately in the press today regarding her dating Julian Schnabel
‪‬Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Thomas P. Campbell earned $1.04 million in pay and benefits in 2010, a number comparable among other museum heads as the Met expanded loan and exhibition programs and attendance reached a forty-year peak [AO Newslink]
‪‬Six works by Gerhard Richter from 1968–93 to be auctioned at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Sale on May 8 in New York, “With an aggregate low estimate of almost $40 million, the six works are primed to be a landmark event in the Richter market.”
Artist Agathe Snow in front of Target Practice (2012). All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.
Maccarone Gallery presents new work by Agathe Snow in the exhibition I like it here. Don’t you? An artist whose visual vocabulary is steeped in the rhetoric of apocalypse, this collection of papier-mâché and fiberglass sculptures represents Snow’s vision of purgatory—a perpetual present constructed from the material refuse of a damned society. Ten totemic mobiles hang from ceiling to floor, each cleverly titled to simultaneously evoke their pop mundanity and allegorical weight, or perhaps, more aptly, weightlessness. This assemblage, a collage of cultural detritus both found and fabricated, hovers silently in Snow’s mythological continuum of hope and despair, conjuring associations of childhood and war, nature and culture, life and death, and everything in between.
All photos on site for Art Observed by Ilhan Kim.
Abstract artist Dan Walsh, known for his colorful geometric paintings, is currently presenting new works at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. Walsh hails from the minimalist tradition, however, the artist now considers himself to be a “maximalist†in the sense that the simple repetition and grid-like patterns of his work embrace the qualities of minimalism yet engage the viewer in a deeper psychological sense.
‪‬Ai Weiwei pens an essay in the Guardian on Chinese censorship, “The internet is uncontrollable. And if the internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It’s as simple as that.”
‪‬Ai Weiwei sues Chinese government over tax issues claiming violations in handling witnesses, evidence, and company accounts
‪‬Eleven Rivington expands to second space at 195 Chrystie street, opening April 29; Maccarone Gallery also opens an additional space around the corner from current West Village locale, set to open in June
Alex Prager, 4:29pm Van Nuys (2012)
Los Angeles based artist Alex Prager is showing internationally for the second time in her rapid rise, showing Compulsion simultaneously at Yancey Richardson in New York, M+B in Los Angeles, and Michael Hoppen Contemporary in London. Paired with a short film titled La Petit Mort (French for ‘the little death’—a euphemism for sexual orgasm) the exhibition is both a substantiation and a deviation of her previous work. Featuring scenes of film noir, tense, and poised-to-erupt, the Hitchcockian damsel in distress and Prager’s unmistakable retro touch are all on view.
Keith Haring, Matrix (1983). All images copyright Keith Haring Foundation.
On now at The Brooklyn Museum is ‘Keith Haring: 1978-1982.’ This dynamic multi-media exhibition provides a comprehensive survey of Haring’s early work. Best known for his “Crack is Wack†landmark mural, “The Radiant Baby,†and other stylistically similar cartoons made with thick lines of black Sumi ink, Haring also produced work in other mediums such as film and print. This show is comprised of 155 works on paper, multiple videos, and more than 150 personal objects of Haring’s, including notebooks, flyers, posters, subway drawings, and photographs; all of which, put together, capture and encapsulate the excitement and energy of New York City’s club and art scenes in the 1980s. The exhibition narrates viewers through the period in Haring’s career immediately following his arrival in New York City through the establishment of his studio space and the beginning of his interest in street art.
All images courtesy the artist and Galerie Lelong, Paris
Following a year in the public eye for Jaume Plensa, the artist’s current show at Galerie Lelong in Paris is comprised of steel and rock creations as well as accompanying drawings. These “modern hermits” follow in the wake attention Plensa garnered last year via large scale sculptural installations in Madison Square Park, M.I.T. and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The mid-sized works and drawings are approachable, “silent observers of the hustle and bustle,” according to the press release.
‪‬Jenny Holzer discusses her use of language and new paintings with Kiki Smith in Interview, “Until recently, I felt I had to sneak color, but now I just paint it.”
‪‬Rob Pruitt to collaborate with Jimmy Choo on 2013 Cruise collection of shoes, handbags, and leather goods slated for a November release. “We sensed that Rob’s twist on Jimmy Choo glamour would yield something very collectible and uniquely beautiful,” said the brand’s creative directors
Curator Chris Stephens. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.
Currently on view at Tate Britain through July fifteenth, Picasso & Modern British Art sets up a large-scale juxtaposition between Pablo Picasso’s legendary oeuvre and its influence and impact on British art of the twentieth century. The exhibition positions over 60 Picassos in dialogue with nearly 100 works by such luminaries as Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Ben Nicholson, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney—in the Tate’s words “seven of Picasso’s most brilliant British admirers.”
Pablo Picasso, The Source (1921), left; Henry Moore, Reclining Figure (1936), right
Michael Snow, Paris de jugement Le and / or State of the Arts (2003)
Michael Snow and Rudolf Stingel are currently showing at Secession in Vienna. While they incorporate different mediums, both Snow and Stingel’s works explore the interplay between art and audience, and utilize the exhibition spaces as fluid, living installations.
‪‬Art historian recognizes possible El Greco work in private collection of Camilla Blaffer: a canvas bought at a Paris auction 20 years ago depicts St. Francis, a common subject of the artist, and was signed with the artist’s proper name (though the signature was lost in the restoration)
‪‬Palais de Tokyo opened its doors on Thursday after a €20m, 10-month renovation, offering an intentionally dusty 237,000 sq feet spread over four floors, the center’s president de Loisy saying, “Nothing is perfectly clean, nothing is perfectly painted on purpose. It is so important in art not to control everything. It’s all in favor of creativity.”
‪‬The Metropolitan Museum of Art publishes guidebook of nearly two million works on 449 pages with 600 color illustrations, distributed by Yale University Press
Walter De Maria, 5-7-9 Series, installation view. All images courtesy of Gagosian Gallery Rome.
Influential American sculptor Walter De Maria is currently exhibiting part of his 5-7-9 Series at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome. De Maria has been involved with numerous historical art movements, including Minimalism, Land Art, and Conceptual Art, and the present exhibition represents a chance to view De Maria’s contribution to some of these. The 5-7-9 Series is one of three large-scale, multi-part installation sculptures. The current Rome exhibition is edition 2 of 2; the first being on permanent view at Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie. This series is preceded by The 4-6-8 Series (1966) and followed by Time/Timeless/No Time (2004).
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