Louise Bourgeois, Anatomy (1998), all images courtesy Galerie Lelong
On view at Galerie Lelong is an exhibition featuring graphic works, sketches and drawings made early the career of the late French-American artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), whose work often incorporated autobiographical elements.
Brad Troemel, Wall Mount for Vintage Furby Collection (2015), via Art Observed
For the past several years, The Jogging co-founder Brad Troemel has been pushing his focus on commodity consumption, appropriation and use to new highs. There were his works during a residency The Still House Group, vacuum-sealed fish and wild grasses on canvas that pushed notions of the still-life to a shockingly immediate result, not to mention his first show with Zach Feuer last year, when the artist showed a series of Semiotext(e) publications combined with organic raw beans and fake dreadlocks. For his second exhibition with the gallery, Troemel drives his work forward yet again, examining the palimpsestic ideologies of the art world from both inside and out. (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.
Aaron Curry, Vertical Wood Sculpture (2013), via Almine Rech
Just one week after The Armory Show closed its doors in New York, the sixth edition of Art Basel Hong Kong is preparing to open halfway around the world, with many familiar names vying to court collectors from Asia, Oceania and abroad. The fair, which shuffled its calendar this year in response to the Venice Biennale opening in early May, is presenting something of a scaled-back experience this year, running just three days from Sunday to Tuesday, but should nevertheless prove successful as one of Asia’s largest art fairs. (more…)
Francesca Woodman, I’m trying my hand at fashion photography (Installation View)
I’m trying my hand at fashion photography is the title of the current Francesca Woodman exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery. Named after one of the many notes the artist inscribed on her photographs, the selection focuses on Woodman’s fashion photographs, a genre the artist worked on during her New York years between 1978 and 1980. The works are also notable in their oftentimes stark reflection of the final years of the RISD graduate who committed suicide in 1981 following severe depression, possessing elements from her signature photographic style against the backdrop of her own life. (more…)
Economist Clare McAndrew gave her annual report on the art market this week at TEFAF, noting an all-time high €51 billion in art changing hands last year, and an increased focus on an ever-smaller number of works dominating these sale figures. “It continues to be a highly polarized market, with a relatively small number of artists, buyers and sellers accounting for a large share of value,” McAndrew says. (more…)
The Met has announced a major redesign plan, with David Chipperfield Architects developing a new design for the museum’s southwest wing, housing its modern and contemporary collections. “The project will run concurrent with the Met’s installations in the Marcel Breuer-designed building that formerly housed the Whitney,” says current director Thomas P. Campbell, “allowing us to regenerate our permanent spaces in the Met’s main building while maintaining a vibrant program for modern and contemporary art just blocks away.” (more…)
Barbara Kruger Untitled (Business as usual) (1987), all images courtesy of Skarstedt Gallery
On view in London’s Skarstedt Gallery is an exhibition of early large-scale, black and white photographic works from artist Barbara Kruger, early entries in Kruger’s ongoing project to challenge the visual language and power structures of consumerist culture and print advertising, always under the understanding that her works will themselves enter the marketplace as commodities.
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…)
Photographer Laurie Simmons is interviewed in Art News this week, as she prepares to open her exhibition of new work this week at The Jewish Museum, and continues production on her first feature film. “My goals are twofold: to present an accurate picture of a 60-something woman—somebody who isn’t either a teenager or on the verge of dementia, which are the two Hollywood polarities” Simmons says, “as she lives in the world and, at the same time, to realistically convey how that somebody might go about making her work.” (more…)
The Art Newspaper notes the developing challenges for museums and curators as video installations and video pieces get longer in length and greater in quantity. The article points to last year’s Turner Prize exhibition in particular, where three of the four nominees presented video works, and some noted a cramped nature to the works’ presentations. (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…)
Untitled Gallery and Zach Feuer will merge to form two similarly titled spaces sharing resources and artists in the L.E.S. this May, Art News reports. The two spaces, Feuer/Mesler and Mesler/Feuer, continue previous collaborations, including 2013’s Jew York show, which was on view at both dealers’ respective spaces. “It’s an interesting time for galleries on the Lower East Side,” says Untitled’s Joel Mesler says. “It’s become an establishment in and of itself.” (more…)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has named Daniel Weiss, the current head of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, as its new president and COO. “The Met is a place that strives in everything it does to set a world standard, including its administration,” Weiss said of the opportunity. (more…)
Two separate directors for major UK museums have spoken out this week in the run-up to the country’s general elections, condemning current cultural funding cuts, and its effects, describing them as “severe.” “Austerity is killing many local museums,” says David Anderson, director general of National Museum Wales. “There is an urgent need for additional funding. The cultural funding model we have is failing.” (more…)
Daniel Buren, Au fur et à mesure, travaux in situ et situés (Bit by Bit: In Situ and Situated Works) (Installation View) (2015), all exhibition images via Kamel Mennour
Daniel Buren presents a new, in situ exhibition at Kamel Mennour this month, a show that demonstrates the form a gallery space lends to the art shown within it. Transforming the space itself into a part of his artwork, Buren instills in his work the tendency to guide the viewer’s perception and sense of location. (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…)
Lynda Benglis is interviewed this week in The Art Newspaper, as she opens an exhibition of works spanning her career at the Hepworth Wakefield. “I’m excited because it’s a huge amount of works, 50 in all, and the works are educating me,” she says. “They remind me of the baby steps that I first took and that you can’t just jump into ideas, you have to slowly develop them.” (more…)
Hans Ulrich Obrist is the subject of a recent interview in The Guardian this week, exploring his view of his work in terms of the long scope of history, his recent publishing endeavors, and his relentless work ethic. “The film director Tarkovsky once lamented that in our society, ritual has disappeared,” Obrist says. “He said we need to invent our own. I thought that was stimulating, and I have always tried to do that.” (more…)
A Mark Rothko painting from 1958 will lead Christie’s Contemporary and Post-War Auction in New York this coming May, the New York Times reports. Estimated at $30 to $50 million, competition is expected to be fierce, and initial indications hint that the work may near the artist’s $87 Million record. “There’s a perception that these kinds of paintings come and they come regularly, but in reality they’re becoming more and more rare,” says Christie’s Contemporary and Post-War Chairman Brett Gorvy. “The year 1958 was probably Rothko’s all-time high as a recognized artist.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal notes a growing trend towards participation in art funds, where a group of investors pool money to buy art, and split the profits from the work’s sale years later. This method of investing dates back to 1904, when Paris-based financier André Level pooled a group of investors to buy a selection of classic works by Picasso, Matisse and others, selling them several years later at a major mark-up. (more…)
New research confirming the painting Moulin d’Alphonse as the work of Van Gogh has led to its exhibition for the first time in 100 years, The Guardian reports. The piece, identified by a series of small numbers on the back of the work (traced to Van Gogh’s sister in law, Johanna), will be unveiled at TEFAF Maastricht, and is for sale for around $10 million. “Johanna was left with the life’s work of this artist, her brother-in-law who, in theory, she had mixed emotions about. But she set about trying to build a legacy for him,” says lead researcher and art dealer James Roundell. “She could have just burned the lot because, at that point, Van Gogh had no real market.” (more…)
Alec Soth, Woodville Farm Labor Camp, San Joaquin Valley, California (2013), all images via Sean Kelly
Alec Soth presents an exhibition of over 25 new black-and-white photographs at Sean Kelly, focusing his lens on small-town community events across America. Soth’s work has frequently delved into the modern day folklore of Americana throughout his career, capturing images that are at once familiar and spellbinding.
Alec Soth, Brian. Williston, North Dakota (2012) (more…)
Rita Ackermann, Burn Up in Heaven 2014, all images courtesy Hauser & Wirth
On view at Hauser & Wirth Zürich is an exhibition of paintings on chalkboard by Hungarian-American artist Rita Ackermann, representing a step further into the artist’s investigation into the deconstructive process, presenting a series of many images which seem to have been repeatedly executed and expunged by erasure or weathering. The exhibition will remain on view through March 14th.