Adam Parker Smith at SPRING/BREAK, via Art Observed

Heavy snow beat down the doors at SPRING/BREAK art show during Armory Week, now in its fourth iteration and housed in the wood-paneled third and fourth office floors of Skylight at Moynihan Station, a unique space that makes for a fitting continuation of the fair’s imaginative, distinct style.  The curator-driven show has more more than doubled in size since last year’s public/private-themed exhibition at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral School in Nolita, SPRING/BREAK’s home for the past several years. The number of participating curators also rose from 39 to 97, bringing an increased number of artists as well, from 100 to over 300 people for 2015.

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Constantin Brancusi, via Art Observed

Set up across town, fittingly enough, in the Park Avenue Armory, the ADAA Art Show offers a yearly counterpoint to the bright lights and dizzying stream of booths that occasionally plagues its cross-town sister on Piers and 94, incorporating a more carefully curated emphasis into the art fair booth format, and encouraging a certain degree of adventurousness among the attendant galleries. (more…)

Mark Flood at Peres Projects,  via Art Observed

Taking up the full 4 floors of Center 548 in Chelsea, the Independent NY fair returns for another year of its annual exhibition offering a slightly smaller, more cohesive take on the fair experience. (more…)

The artist roster for the 2015 edition of the Venice Biennale has been announced, featuring a diverse group of artists selected by curator Okwui Enwezor, and featuring Marlene Dumas, Theaster Gates, e-Flux Magazine, and and many others , as well as a special theatrical performance directed by Kara Walker, and a marathon reading of all three volumes of Marx’s Das Kapital.  “Here, Das Kapital will serve as a kind of Oratorio that will be continuously read live, throughout the exhibition’s seven months’ duration,” the curator says. (more…)

A recent chemistry study by scientists at the University of Antwerp has uncovered evidence showing that the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh have slowly but surely been changing colors over the course of a century due to a rare lead pigment used for red paints that gradually fades when exposed to light.  “Normally, the idea is these paintings are there for a hundred years, or five hundred years, and they’re static – nothing really changes,” says researcher Koen Janssens. “But the opposite is actually true when you look in detail.” (more…)

Critic Jerry Saltz has reportedly been banned from Facebook, over what he says were complaints received by the website over Classical and Renaissance images he had posted featuring gruesome and sexualized scenes.  “It’s a cumulative thing,” Mr. Saltz says.  “The posts are called sexist, misogynistic and abusive, and then I’m called sexist misogynistic and abusive.” (more…)

A self-portrait attributed to Van Dyck has been reconfirmed as a work by the master painter, after a study of the work uncovered a gold watch that was the property of the artist himself.  The work is currently held at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota, and was confirmed by four separate experts on the painter.  It is considered particularly relevant as it was a work the artist had intended to complete as his ideal portrait, and was documented as an etching for his book Iconography. (more…)

Banksy recently traveled to the war-torn Gaza Strip, where the artist has created a new series of works, documented on his website.  Pieces include an immense kitten drawn on the wall of a demolished building, and a crying figure inside the doorway of another leveled site, both documented in a video made during the artist’s time in Palestine.   (more…)

The Armory Show 2015, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The doors are open and the 2015 edition of The Armory Show in New York is underway, kicking off the first major fair week in NY this spring.  Collectors and artists wound throughout the booths, perusing the works on sale and chatting with dealers.  Director George Lucas could be seen examining several works, as was Maurizio Cattelan, both of whom seem to be enjoying their respective retirements. (more…)

A collection of more than 200 prints by Jim Dine have been gifted to the British Museum, The Guardian reports.  “It is very exciting,” said Museum Curator of Modern Prints, Stephen Coppel.  “It was a very generous offer, given that he has made over a thousand prints.  Choosing was fun. It took some time and there was a lot of backing and forthing, but it is a really great group of things.” (more…)

Sarah Sze, Still Life with Desk (2013-2015), via Victoria Miro

Through the month of March, the Victoria Miro Gallery will host a solo exhibition by the artist Sarah Sze that spans all of the gallery’s London exhibition spaces. This is Sze’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and the artist’s first time she has shown in Europe since the Venice Biennale in 2013. (more…)

Rashid Johnson, Smile (Installation View) all images courtesy Hauser & Wirth London

Hauser & Wirth‘s London space is currently presenting Smile, a new body of work by the New York-based artist Rashid Johnson. Known for his hybrid creations blending photography, sculpture and painting, Johnson had his breakthrough with the Thelma Golden-curated Freestyle show at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2001. Johnson’s star has been on the rise since, the subject of solo shows in prestigious institutions such as Sculpture Center in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Rashid Johnson, Smile (Installation View)

His current show at Hauser Wirth London, where Johnson is showing for the first time, continues  the 2011 Hugo Boss Prize finalist’s central themes, while finding its inspiration in the titular photograph by Elliot Erwitt. Portraying an African-American boy with a big smile on his face and a gun that he is holding at his temple, this intense black and white photograph covers the walls of the exhibition space, while a large steel structure, serving as a base for various objects from house plants to brass objects, is positioned in the middle.  Of these objects located on the grid-shaped structure, entitled Fatherhood, is also a series of books, including Bill Cosby’s memoir of the same name.  Drawing a notable potency due to the controversy around Cosby’s recent sexual assault allegations, this memoir represents Johnson’s long time interest in the comedian as a patriarchal figure and a symbol of American middle-class values.

Rashid Johnson, Smile (Installation View)

Additionally, shea butter, a material that Johnson has previously employed for his works, serves here as the main ingredient to various busts that are also positioned on this steel structure. Elements that encompass the nature of African diaspora and the African-American experience abound in Johnson’s intricately constituted composition, narrating an expansive history through entities that seem purposely mundane and silent.

Rashid Johnson, Smile (Installation View)

Johnson’s ability to attribute further content to otherwise mute materials has helped him become one of the key figures of the ‘post-black art movement’, and this exhibition at Hauser & Wirth emphasizes the artist’s interest in his core materials, among which bronze is the most common.  Aside from assemblies of mixed objects, bronze panels hung onto the walls contrast the image of the boy holding a gun with their abstract gestures.  Black soap, another material Johnson constantly returns to, appears on these panels, constituting what Johnson calls a “memorialization” of the creative process.

Rashid Johnson: Smile Is On View at Hauser & Wirth Through March 7, 2015.

Rashid Johnson, If It’s Magic (2014)

All images are Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo by Alex Delfanne

— O.C. Yerebakan

Related Link:
Hauser & Wirth [Exhibition Page]

Francesco Vezzoli, Teatro Romano, all images courtesy MoMA PS1

On view at MoMA PS1 in New York is an exhibition of 5 new works by Francesco Vezzoli – ancient Roman busts painted in the manner in which they were probably originally decorated. Entitled Teatro Romano,” the exhibition, which saw delays after a church Vezzoli had intended to export to the country was blocked by customs, will continue through March 9th, 2015.

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Nancy Graves, Camouflage Series #4 (1971), all images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Currently on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash is a select body of work by artist Nancy Graves, focused around the late artist’s New York-based Foundation, and which promise an expansive look at the pioneer Conceptualist’s bright career before and after her passing in 1995, including a Whitney retrospective that marked her as the first female artist to have a solo retrospective under museum’s roof. (more…)

Anish Kapoor, Monochrome (Garnet) (2014), via Art Observed

On view at Regen Projects is an exhibition of recent sculptures by the Bombay-born, London-based artist Anish Kapoor. The series focuses on terrestrial forms made from resin and earth contrasted, with two of the artist’s signature, mirror-surfaced works.

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Marina Abramovic has announced that she is preparing to publish her memoirs, due for the fall of 2016.  The book will be released in conjunction with the artist’s 70th birthday.  “My experiences have always been a big part of my work — they’re the source of everything I do, they’re my inspiration,” Abramovic said in a statement. “I hope that by sharing my story, I can give people the courage to do the things they’re afraid to do in their own lives.” (more…)

Donald Fisher, the founder of Gap clothing, is preparing to unveil a sizable portion of his collection publicly for the first time next month at Paris’s Grand Palais.  The collection of 20th century works will be shown next year at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which is currently undergoing major renovations to prepare for it.  “I think we will have more works by artists including Richter and Calder on view at one time than anywhere else in the world,” says curator Gary Garrels. (more…)

The Armory Show, via The Armory Show

The first week of March signals another year for Armory Week in New York City, as locations around the city prepare for the annual influx of galleries, artists and collectors that mark the first major art fair events in New York City for 2015.  Building on the Armory Show’s increasingly popular public stature, week offers a wide range of events for both collectors and visitors alike. (more…)

Artists Elmgreen and Dragset will install a commissioned sculpture on the High Line next month, a “dysfunctional” telescope that plays on lines of site for New York landmarks.  “The telescope will be located at a point where it is possible to see with the naked eye landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty,” Elmgreen says. “It is an oversized black structure with very thin legs; it looks a little like an insect.” (more…)

The Guardian traces the career of Richard Diebenkorn, and his frequent oscillations between abstract figuration and more concrete landscapes during his lifetime in California and New Mexico.  The article comes in conjunction with Diebenkorn’s recently opened exhibition at the Royal Academy of the Arts.  “I want painting to be difficult to do,” he once stated, revealing his commitment to pushing his work into new territory. (more…)

Artist Hans Haacke’s commission for London’s Fourth Plinth is the subject of an article in The Guardian this week, examining the work’s ties to money, power and speculation in the arts.  “The reason I thought it would not be accepted was that I knew what would have happened in New York,” Haacke says. “There is no way that something that plays with Wall Street in this fashion would ever be approved under the auspices of the mayor.” (more…)

Jeff Koons has reportedly been given an $8 million commission from the government of Sacramento to build one of his Coloring Book works at the city’s new basketball arena.  This is the most the Californian capital has spent on a public work of art to date. (more…)

Marina Abramovic is in Bloomberg this week, reviewing her current market value, and the difficulties in selling her works despite her immense recognition as an artist.  “There is this contradiction,” says Abramovic. “I’m very high on every art list or whatever, but as for market value, I’m less than any mediocre, how do you call it, young art.” (more…)

Frank Benson, Juliana, via Art Observed

If the New Museum Triennial is to be believed, 2015 might in fact be the year that artists put the pervasive notions of “cyber-dread” to death in the contemporary discourse.  Curated by Ryan Trecartin and New Museum Curator (and former Rhizome head) Lauren Cornell, the exhibition combines aspirational commodities, linguistic play and digital microcosms into a fascinatingly deep exhibition, one that feels particularly appropriate as the 21st century turns 15. (more…)