Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild at Galerie Sho Booth, Pier 92

On the third and final day of the Armory Show 2012 both spirits and sales were high amongst the 228 exhibitors. Besides the notable success of David Zwirner’s solo booth by Michael Riedel, which sold out entirely in the first 30 minutes of the fair, many of the other galleries also benefited from the sales of their high-ticket items throughout the three-day exhibition. Art Observed spoke with representatives from various exhibitors including the Susan Sheehan Gallery, Spanierman Modern, Meredith Ward Fine Art, Art in General, Sprüth Magers, and the Gary Snyder Gallery. (more…)

Cindy Sherman, Murder Mysteries, at Metro Pictures. All photos on site for Art Observed by Ryann Donnelly.

Running through March 11 at the Park Avenue Armory on New York’s Upper East Side is the 24th annual Art Show organized by the Art Dealer’s Association of America (ADAA). Benefitting The Henry Street Settlement, the show features 35 solo-exhibit booths, and 37 thematic installations from a select array of galleries including Metro Pictures, Cheim & Read, Pace, David Zwirner, Marian Goodman, Anton Kern, and Gladstone Gallery, to name a few. With a steady, if not entirely bustling crowd Thursday afternoon, the gallerists reported positively about sales and client traffic at a show carrying a heavier contemporary selection than in years passed. (more…)

Situated within the western reaches of Times Square, between an advertisement for Jesus Christ Superstar, a multistory parking lot, and the Playwright Pub, stands New York-based artist Josephine Meckseper’s Manhattan Oil Project. The work, supported by the Art Production Fund and Sotheby’s, is the second installation in The Last Lot project space, an initiative sponsored by The Shubert Organization for the Times Square Alliance’s public art program. Occupying one of the few remaining vacant lots in this seat of American commercial culture since Monday, the two hulking red and black structures rhythmically swing up and down, reaching 25 feet at their highest points. Meckseper explains, “The critical placement of the pumps is a conceptual gesture that raises questions about business and capital; land use and resources; wealth and decay; decadence and dependence.”

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All photos courtesy David Zwirner.

Michael Riedel’s solo site-specific installation of silk-screened posters and wallpaper sold out within the first thirty minutes of the Armory Show preview at David Zwirner’s booth. Art Observed spoke with Riedel that very afternoon in the following interview.

Art Observed: I was really taken by your work and its interaction with systems. I felt that to be a foundational aspect of how you interact with art and what your art-making process is about. How did you get interested or involved with systems?

Michael Riedel: Well, there is a big German writer on systems, and it’s interesting because I found his writing after I produced a lot of works, and then I could say, ‘Wow, this is exactly what is in my work.’ So there is a strong relationship to his writing. I think he is a sociologist… anyway, I think this is something which makes total sense for me—as a product. It’s something that’s ongoing and changing, but also in the same time it is a fixed form somehow. Yet inside there are a lot of interests. You can also touch on the word reproduction; a lot of people like to talk about reproduction in reference to my work, yet there has been a shift in meaning of reproduction—it isn’t about a product anymore, but the process of production. Which means, in the process of producing works, they are only done to produce the next step, to recycle, to transform, to translate. So it’s an ongoing thing.

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Installation view. All images via Metro Pictures Gallery.

John Miller’s exhibition Suburban Past Time at Metro Pictures Gallery combines several mediums in “a continuation of the artist’s ongoing sociological investigation into so-called middlebrow culture, which focus on artifice in Western consumer societies,” according to the press release. Art Observed was fortunate enough to visit with Miller in the following interview.

Art Observed: After looking over the photos of the work and seeing it in person, there’s this sense of the everyday that comes out but there is also this pervasive strangeness that you seem to capture. It’s akin to the experience one has in a public space, when you walk through and notice a glimmer of strangeness that you see or feel for just a second—the absurdity of the everyday. Are you concerned with capturing that strangeness?

John Miller: A little bit, yes. A couple things on that note: One inspiration or source for the show was a show by Michelangelo Pistoletto at Luhring Augustine 2 or 3 years ago. Like many of his works he created silkscreens on mirrors, but I had never seen him do anything like this where he had a bunch of images and things that connoted public space like traffic cones and construction webbing, all coupled with images of ordinary looking women, but then they were made slightly uncomfortable because they were with traffic cones in public spaces—and you had to ask, was this an ordinary woman or a street walker? I got into this idea of public space, when a woman waited too long she looked suspect, and it showed a kind of genderedness of space. When a man stands on a corner you think he’s just waiting around, he’s less suspicious. I also liked the idea of overlaying two spaces—the gallery space, which is commercial space, like a store, and this staging of public space.

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer.

The Armory Show 2012 hosts 228 international exhibitors, “showing work that realizes the fair’s mission of innovation and discovery.” Split between Piers 92 and 94 on the west side of Midtown Manhattan, the show runs March 8–11, with several new programming initiatives and a re-designed floor plan added to the show’s fourteenth edition. Pier 94 is the larger exhibition hall, the Contemporary section featuring mainstay galleries Lisson Gallery, Sean Kelly, Victoria Miro, Kukje Gallery/Tina Kim Gallery, David Zwirner, Sprüth Magers, Gallery Hyundai, and Kaikai Kiki, among many others—including 19 invited Nordic galleries in the ‘Armory Focus’—while the Modern sector on Pier 92 is home to Marlborough Gallery, O’Hara Gallery, Inc., Pace Prints, Peter Findlay, and many more.

Ai Weiwei, Marble Cube at Lisson Gallery

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Gearing up for a performance piece on the fourth floor.  All images for Art Observed by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand.

The festive albeit politically charged atmosphere at the 2012 76th annual Whitney Biennial‘s pre-show event was practically interdependent, with the political climate not only informing the sentiments of viewers, but arguably the art itself. While protesters outside encouraged entering guests to “Occupy the Whitney,” antagonizing Sotheby’s and Deutsche Bank for withholding benefits from workers and developing financial strategies to benefit the ‘one percent,’ art indoors at the biennial also challenged artistic convention against the same political scale, with over 50 artists showing work.

Chuck Close touring the second floor

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Serkan Özkaya, David (Inspired by Michelangelo) (2005). All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

Istanbul-born artist Serkan Özkaya’s 30-foot golden foam sculpture, David (Inspired by Michelangelo) is parked outside Storefront for Art and Architecture in SoHo today at Kenmare and Centre Street. The sculpture will tour New York tomorrow, passing by the Armory Show, before its final destination of 21c Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. The work was shipped from Turkey, acquired by the American museum in 2011. Özkaya originally created it for the 9th International Istanbul Biennial in 2005, though it collapsed six days before the event began. After restoring the original, two additional copies were cast. The artist grew up producing small replicas of sculptures he was unable to actually see in person; the double-sized David also has no current plans to visit its original in Florence. At the Storefront for Art and Architecture tonight from 6:30 to 9:30 pm is a Manifesto Series presentation and discussion “on the topic of Double,”—doubling, replicating, copying—paneled by artists, architects, critics, historians and theorists, including MoMA PS1 and Art International Radio founder Alanna Heiss, among others.

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Adrian Villar Rojas, A Person Loved Me (2012)

The New Museum debuts its second Triennial exhibition ‘The Ungovernables,’ a show dedicated to representing international artists, many of which are under 40 and have never been represented in the United States before. There are over 50 participants in the exhibition including 34 individual artists, multiple-artist groups, and a few temporary collectives. The exhibition begins in the back of the lobby, the rest distributed between four full floors, a stairwell, and the basement. Nearly every type of artistic media is represented, from sculpture, to painting, to video, to installations. The range of styles and philosophies is vast as well, including figuration, abstraction, and conceptual art.

Curator Eungie Joo with ‘The Ungovernables’ artists

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Moto (1963). All photos on site for Art Observed by Elene Damenia.

John Chamberlain: Choices opened at the Guggenheim on February 24th, and will remain on view through May 13th, after which it will travel to Bilbao, Spain. Chamberlain was preparing for the current Guggenheim retrospective from his studio in Shelter Island when he passed away this December, aged 84. Although the exhibition officially began to coordinate in 2010, Senior Curator Susan Davidson told the press conference that the idea had been brewing for over a decade. The museum currently showcases almost 100 works from a lifetime of aesthetic development, garnered from private collections in America and Europe, as well as more recent works by the artist before his death.

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All photos by Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer

The “Third and a half” Brucennial opened last night in New York City, the 2012 edition titled, “Harderer. Betterer. Fasterer. Strongerer.” At 159 Bleecker Street, the high-ceilinged art-filled space reached its capacity of 15,000—with a line around the block—shortly after opening its doors at 6 PM. Organized by the anonymous Bruce High Quality Foundation and Vito Schnabel, a large main room, balcony, and basement, were covered with paintings, sculptures, video-works, and other installations by artists both established and less so. Running the gamut from friends of the Bruces to a Damien Hirst spot painting, exhibiting artists of note include Mike Kelley, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, Sigmar Polke, Julian Schnabel, Anselm Reyle,  Francesco Clemente, Aurel Schmidt, Dan Colen, David Salle, George Condo, Rashid Johnson, Dash Snow,  Terence Koh,  Richard Prince, Joseph Beuys, Scott Campbell, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tom Sachs, Andy Warhol (collaboration), and Dustin Yellin.

Francesco Clemente

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Dan Flavin, in honor of Harold Joachim in pink, yellow, blue and green fluorescent light 8′ high and wide (1977)

The Morgan Library & Museum is currently exhibiting Dan Flavin: Drawing, a retrospective of the Dan Flavin’s works on paper, from pencil to charcoal to watercolor. Primarily comprised of pieces made by the artist himself and a group from his personal collection, this body of work demonstrates Flavin’s abilities as a draftsman, as well as an installation artist. More than one hundred of Flavin’s own pieces are on view, starting with his abstract expressionist watercolors from the 1950s and ending with pictures of sailboats made with conté crayon in the late 80s and early 90s. Also included in this collection are a series of plans that the artist made in preparation of his renowned fluorescent light installations.

Dan Flavin, untitled (in honor of Harold Joachim) 3 (1977)

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Tony Cragg, opening night. All photos for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer.

Tony Cragg’s latest body of work is currently on display at the Marian Goodman Gallery through March 10. The show consists of 15 of the sculptor’s pieces, all of which were made in the last five years utilizing a wide variety of materials including plywood, bronze, and stone. Accompanying this exhibition are several large-scale pieces by the artist in The Sculpture Garden at 590 Madison Avenue.

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Elmgreen & Dragset with Joanna Lumley All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

This morning in London the newest commission for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square was officially unveiled. This year’s winning entry is titled Powerless Structures, Fig. 101, by Scandinavian artistic duo Elmgreen & Dragset. The bronze sculpture of a young boy atop a rocking horse stands four meters high, and joins the solemn company of Trafalgar Square’s other large-scale memorial statues—dedicated to King George IV and two famous generals respectively. A gentle pun on the tradition of the equestrian military monument, Powerless Structures, Fig. 101 playfully subverts notions of strength and power, instead celebrating their absence. Unlike most monuments, Elmgreen & Dragset’s child is not intended to commemorate history, but rather symbolizes a hope for the future, a fitting choice for one of London’s most famous public spaces as the city prepares to host the 2012 Olympics this Summer.

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Elene Damenia.

French graffitist and clubster André Saraiva has set up shop inside Half Gallery for his first solo New York exhibition, having also shown at Colette, Palais de Tokyo, and Air de Paris. Bright yellow French letter boxes tagged with Saraiva’s signature “Mr. A” smiling face line one wall, love letters and colorful drawings cover the other in a loose salon style. The letter boxes were first painted in the streets of Paris—from whence they were shipped—with the artist making a few re-touches to the six boxes chosen for the New York show; Saraiva had attempted to paint every box he could there. The letters are “a somewhat anachronistic celebration of communication so closely tied to the romantic,” says the press release; watercolors of nostalgic letters impart the artist’s poetic side, some quoting Jacques Prévert or Henry Miller. Alternatively, dollar bill-based works elicit sex more graphically, one scripted, “In Pussy We Trust,” replacing George Washington’s center placement accordingly. Art Observed was fortunate enough to speak with Saraiva and gallerist Bill Powers in the following interview before the small Forsyth Street gallery earned a waiting line outside, Powers forced to turn away an additional news crew for lack of arm room.

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Joyce Pensato, 2012 Batman (2012). All images via Friedrich Petzel Gallery

The Friedrich Petzel Gallery presents Batman Returns by New York-based artist Joyce Pensato, a blend of old and new work based around the Batman motif that Pensato has been working with since the mid 1970s. Drawing, painting, and photography are her chosen mediums in this exploration of pop culture past, with clowns, Homer Simpson, Groucho Marx, Mickey Mouse, and her own creation, “The Juicer,” on display in dripping hues of black, white, and gray to create a transmutation of this distinct cartoon culture. The trajectory of Pensato’s use of color is also evident; she has only recently began to incorporate color into her otherwise black-and-white world and this will be the first time this addition is on display.

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Joyce Pensato, Installation View (2012)

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Marilyn Minter and Massimiliano Gioni at the opening. All photos on site for Art Observed by Rachel Willis and Samuel Sveen.

Maurizio Cattelan, who recently swore off his career as an artist, has taken a large step into the business side of the art world. The famed artist has teamed up with longtime friend and project partner—and notable curator—Massimiliano Gioni for a new exhibition space, Family Business. Located in the front of the Anna Kustera Gallery in Chelsea, at 520 West 21^st Street, Family Business is a small non-profit venue geared towards both the making and showing of conceptually and aesthetically experimental art. The inaugural show, appropriately titled “The Virgin Show,” consists of a group of artists whose work has never been exhibited in New York before. There are a few exceptions to the rule however, with established artists like Laurel Nakadate and Mika Rottenberg showing some of their earliest works. The show was curated by Marilyn Minter who, in line with the theme of the show, has referred to herself as a “Virgin Curator.” To top off the theme, the band The Virgins played a short acoustic set, with visitors shuffled out to make room in the small space.

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Rashid Johnson, The Sweet Science (2011). All images for Art Observed by E. Damenia.

Chicago-born multi-media artist Rashid Johnson brings Rumble, an exhibition of new works, to the Hauser & Wirth uptown gallery in New York City as a precursor to his upcoming solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, opening this spring. Rumble is inspired by prizefight promoter Don King and takes its name from the legendary 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, the Rumble in the Jungle. Hauser & Wirth’s Upper East Side townhouse is a fitting home for Johnson’s exhibition—the space was previously owned by King himself.

Installation view

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Jean Dubuffet, Fluence (1984). All photos on site for Art Observed by Rachel Willis.

On January 19 The Pace Gallery debuted its newest exhibition, Jean Dubuffet: The Last Two Years. The show is made up of approximately 20 paintings chosen from the artist’s final body of work, from the years 1983-4. Viewers are immediately confronted with a yellow wall and a red neon sign, written in Dubuffet’s script, with the title of the show. The colors of the sign are evocative of the highly saturated primary colors present within the exhibition. The paintings are divided amongst the gallery’s two rooms; the front room is filled with the artist’s large, more cheerful paintings, while the back room hosts smaller, dark, more intimate and brooding works. These expressive acrylic paintings, with their minor figurative references, are adamantly abstract and indicative of Dubuffet’s uncompromising creative mindset during the last years of his life.

Front room at the Jean Dubuffet Opening at Pace Gallery

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Elene Damenia.

Uri Aran loves cookies. In his current show, by foot, by car, by bus at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, the artist explores the eminent childhood snack from a variety of media, discussing them in video, capturing them in photograph, and incorporating them into his large-scale tabletop sculptures, creating a motif of seemingly childish innocence that spans Aran’s vocabulary as a sculptor, illustrator, video, and performance artist.

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Judy Chicago collaboration with Materials & Applications, Disappearing Environments (2012). All images on site for Art Observed by Megan Hoetger.

January is a notoriously busy time here in Los Angeles when the two major art fairs in the city, the LA Art Show and Art LA Contemporary, set up shop across town from one another, daring fair-goers to make the arduous trek back and forth across one of the lifelines of the urban sprawl, the dreaded 10 freeway. The opening night performances at both fairs also marked the start of the much-anticipated Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, which itself encompasses over 30 performances and events across the city.

Myths of Rape (1977/2012)

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David Hockney, A Bigger Splash (1967). All images via Artnet.

Not only is the Getty the hub of activities for the Southern California-wide Pacific Standard Time (PST) programming, but it is also host to a number of events and exhibitions, including Greetings from L.A.: Artists and Publics, 1950-1980, From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column, In Focus: Los Angeles, 1945-1980, and performances for the Performance and Public Art Festival that will take place later in January. It has also mounted the large-scale, historical exhibition Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture, 1950 -1970. With 79 works by 47 artists, the exhibition charts the unique artistic innovations that have come to define the Los Angeles art scene as well as helped to shape some of the most important art movements from the second half of the 20^th century.

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Elene Damenia.

Five tons of porcelain sunflower seeds—made in China—cover the floor of Mary Boone Gallery in Ai Weiwei‘s latest installment of Sunflower Seeds. Ai Weiwei employed nearly 1,600 artisans for two years in the traditional porcelain-producing city of Jingdezhen in northern Jiangxi, China, to individually craft and paint each actual-size seed by hand. Proclaimed one of the most influential artists of 2011 by several authorities, the work explores social, political, and economic issues of contemporary China. The seemingly uniform floor covering is composed of millions of the unique seeds, drawing attention to the role of the individual versus the masses, as well as China’s history of mass-production and export.

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