Hernan Bas, Champagne Corks Bobbed in the Pool That Morning, 2016

Bright Young Things is Lehmann Maupin’s ongoing exhibition for a new body of work by Detroit and Miami-based painter Hernan Bas.  Amongst the most particular and earnest contemporary figurative painters, Bas has established himself over the past years as a craftsman of distinctive visual narratives, in which the lavish and relentlessly indulgent daily life of western aristocracy meets the styles of mannerist painting, employing passionate color spectrums and surreal architectural forms. (more…)

Raoul De Keyser, Bern-Berlin hangend (2012), via Art Observed

Compiling a selection of works from the career of Belgian painter Raoul De Keyser, David Zwirner’s exhibition Drift is a notably rich entry in the gallery’s relation with the late artist.  Mixing a series of late works from just before his death in 2012 with a series of pieces working on a longer scale across his career from the 1990’s onward, the show is a subdued, yet rewarding offering, allowing the artist’s variations in interest and technique to converse across several decades. (more…)

Hollywood Agent Ari Emanuel’s WME-IMG has confirmed that is investing in the British art fair and publishing brand Frieze, and will advise on more effectively incorporating digital strategies into their offering for clients.  “We will be able to create better value not only for our galleries but also for our sponsors and their broader business goals,” says co-founder Amanda Sharp. (more…)

David Hammons’s Stone Head has been removed from the artist’s Mnuchin Gallery exhibition for Christie’s May 8th curated sale in New York, estimated at $800,000 to $1.2 million.  The move is “nothing very unusual, the Mnuchin show is a commercial show,” says sale curator Loic Gouzer.   (more…)

The WSJ looks at artist Cornelia Parker’s Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) installation on the roof of The Met, a careful re-creation of the house from the Hitchcock classic Psycho, built from materials harvested from a barn upstate.  “It’s two objects together. One is a fictional object, which is the ‘Psycho’ house, and the other is a real thing, which is the barn,” Parker says. “It’s all fake but all real at the same time.”

(more…)

Massive renovations to the Pergamon Museum has sent a selection of 73 Hellenistic artworks and artifacts to The Met for a rare exhibition set to open next week.  We lent very, very liberally, “ says Dr. Andreas Scholl, the director of the Staatliche, which oversees the Pergamon. (more…)

The U.S. Senate has voted to ban the importation of any Syrian art and artifacts, following months of delay and debate on U.S. action.  “The lack of action has kept the United States market open to the import of Syrian antiquities, making it a potential source of funding for extremist organizations,” a task force report on the issue reads. (more…)

As the Art Cologne fair opens today in Germany, The Art Newspaper looks at the shadow cast by The Kulturgutschutzgesetz (Cultural Assets Protection Law), which will make the sale and export of high-valued art works from Germany increasingly difficult. (more…)

Glenn Ligon, What We Said The Last Time (Installation View), all images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.

Artist Glenn Ligon has embarked on an ambitious exhibition schedule this spring, showing at both New York locations for Luhring Augustine this month.  The show, which closes next week, runs through a range of Ligon’s body of work.   What We Said The Last Time is the Chelsea leg of a two part exhibition, and sees the influential multimedia artist commemorating the literary work of James Baldwin, whose writings had tremendous impact on many other authors and artists. (more…)

The Art News notes Christie’s sales announcement for Basquiat’s Untitled (Devil) 1982, a work the publication speculates may smash the artist’s $48.8 million auction record, and which is likely being sold from the collection of Adam Lindemann.   (more…)

Elmgreen and Dragset have been tapped as curators for the 2017 Istanbul Biennial.  “In light of the current global geopolitical situation, in which we’re experiencing a new rise of nationalism, it will be important for us to curate a biennial based on collaborative efforts and processes,” the artists said.  “Collaboration is something that feels natural to us, since we have been working together as an artist duo for more than twenty years. A biennial can be a platform for dialogue, and a format in which diverse opinions, perspectives, and communities can coexist.” (more…)

The National Portrait Gallery in London and the Museu Picasso in Barcelona are co-organizing a show of Picasso portraiture, set to open late this year.  “Picasso is variant to many of the painters in the NPG who were paid to paint historic figures as he painted his entourage without commissions. But there are recurring strategies of classic portraiture in Picasso’s work,” says curator Elizabeth Cowling. “It was my aim to display the different modes of Picasso’s portraits but also their relationship to the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on Magnus this week, a smart-phone app designed to recognize paintings and artists through photographing and analyzing their work with special recognition software.  The app also bundles in price information and data on the artist’s representation and provenance.  “A lot of people are left out of the market who have the potential to buy,” says founder Magnus Resch. “The No. 1 reason for this is the lack of transparency.” (more…)

A pair of monumental Jackson Pollock works will be reunited at the Royal Academy’s landmark show on abstract-expressionism.  “In a sense the time has now come, the monographic displays have been made, now it is time to put it all together,” says Tim Marlow, RA director of exhibitions.  (more…)

Oscar Murillo was deported from Australia last month, after the artist destroyed his British passport in the middle of a flight to Sydney.  The destruction was in protest the privileges afforded certain Western societies.  “The action of destroying the passport was to create a blockage situation, to create the point in which I am no longer that individual,” Murillo told a French journalist.  “I gave a proposal, I went and made a proposal with a curator, and we were both really happy with it. At the same time, I was feeling uncomfortable because, despite the agenda for the biennale, which wanted to propose a strong situation, there seemed to be a lot of conservative attitudes toward allowing an artist to be really freely expressive.” (more…)

Rhizome has announced the participants for this year’s edition of its annual Seven on Seven conference, including artist and lecturer Hito Steyerl collaborating with Grant Olney Passmore, cofounder, Aesthetic Integration; and Miranda July working with writer Paul Ford. (more…)

The New York Times summarizes the recent controversies surrounding art work ownership and provenance in light of the Panama Papers leak, examining the various stories, from the Nahmad/Modigliani seizure, to the massive flip of the Ganz collection in 1997. (more…)

The Art Newspaper previews next year’s Antarctic Biennale, which will launch next spring with an expedition of artists to the continent, where they will install a series of temporary projects.  “But every two years? Who will go? Do we really have the resources? And even if we do, isn’t our plan just another assault on the last great wilderness? Fear not,” says organizing curator Nadim Samman.  “Ours is a topsy-turvy biennale, so perhaps we will only go once.” (more…)

Artist Theaster Gates has been recognized as the recipient of Germany’s Kurt Schwitters Prize this year, an honor which will present the artist with his first exhibition in Germany, held at Hannover’s Sprengel Museum in 2017.   (more…)

The British Museum is considering a new space at London’s Olympic Park, the Art Newspaper reports, just as the Smithsonian Institution also considers a outpost in the East London neighborhood. (more…)

Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, (Installation View), all images  © Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, Photos: Pierre Le Hors

For their first exhibition at Andrea Rosen Gallery following the announcement of their representation by the New York dealer, Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin have delivered an ambitious debut, translating typical gallery experiences into a staggering, surreal encounter with cultural formats and blurred informational structures. Puzzling for those familiar with the gallery’s original architecture, the artists have realized a maze-like structure, composed of four conjoined chambers that usher visitors through a range of senses and perceptual exercises. Absorbingly eerie in their arcane interiors and radiant colors, each room installation compliments an equally disorienting video on view. Balanced between a corporate office room and suburban movie theater, one room suggests a considerably more traditional viewing experience, while another one asks viewers to perch on bar stools alongside faux rocks.

Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, (Installation View)

While the prevailing architectural tone of each chamber channels the iconography and aura of humdrum Americana, from generic mid-western malls, to abandoned arcades once echoing neons and chatter, to cabins in the woods; a degree of infused wretchedness supplements the moving images. Unburdened by linear narratives, cogent dialogues and consistent editing, the films Trecartin has been making over the years portray the generation-specific angst of early-millennial youth, from which Fitch and Trecartin first and foremost emerge. Beaming hues and abrupt screeches of ‘90’s TV, outbursts of Internet culture and chronic procrastination are molded into abstracted narratives and exuberant performances.

Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, (Installation View)

Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, (Installation View)

While the films often scrap narrative coherence, the viewing experience itself feels particularly focused around driving the content of each film forward.  Ever-shifting landscapes and overtly camp acting counter the changing physical contents of each viewing space, implementing vague auto-biographical references dispersed throughout each video, while also blending in references to teen slasher flicks, high school romantic-comedies, and the like, although loyalty to one genre or plotline rarely seems to limit the duo’s linguistic scope and formal inventions in narrative, character and setting.

Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, (Installation View)

Since their graduation from Rhode Island School of Design in the early 2000s, Fitch and Trecartin have continued one of the most original and consistently strong collaborations in the contemporary art scene, while each maintains uniformly intriguing solo careers. The strength and reception for their collaborations, however, has been particularly enthusiastic, proven by their participations in some of the leading global venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and the 55th Venice Biennale.

The exhibition closes April 16th.

Ryan Trecartin, Temple Time  (video still), 2016

Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin is on view at Andrea Rosen Gallery through April 20, 2016.

— O.C. Yerebakan

Related Link:
Andrea Rosen Gallery [Exhibition Page]

Philippe Parreno, Li Yan, (2016). all images Courtesy Gladstone Gallery

IF THIS THEN ELSE marks French artist Philippe Parreno’s first exhibition with Gladstone Gallery, on view at two of the gallery’s New York spaces (21st and 64th street).  The shows are separate in theme and bodies of work, yet intricately connected, as Parreno continues his exploration of the exhibition as a temporal experience involving architecture, art and the public. (more…)

A set of Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup Can prints have been stolen from the Springfield Art Museum in Missouri.  “There hasn’t been an incident in any recent history,” says spokesperson Cora Scott.  “We are constantly working on improving security measures and find it a challenging balance with keeping art accessible to the community. We appreciate the outpouring of support we are already receiving from our art patrons.” (more…)

The Brooklyn Museum has incorporated recent protest flyers and art from a protest over affordable housing outside the institution into its current show, Agitprop!, The New York Times reports.  “I’m actively thinking about what might be out there to support affordable housing, live-work spaces for artists and contribute to a kind of community vibrancy,” Anne Pasternak told the paper. “This is not normally a thing that I think most museum directors actively engage in or think about, but because of the conversations I have had with these artists, it is actively on my mind.” (more…)