James Turrell, Carn White (1967). Photo on site for Art Observed by Megan Hoetger.

The James Turrell exhibition, Present Tense, is currently showing at Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Santa Monica. Presented in conjunction with the Pacific Standard Time (PST) programming, the exhibition includes some of Turrell’s most recognizable works, ranging from the 1960s to today. Although the official opening weekend of PST is the first weekend in October, many participating galleries across Los Angeles have already begun to open their doors to exhibitions, many which explore the development of an art capital in Los Angeles from 1945 to 1980. In addition to the solo exhibition at Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Turrell’s work will also be included in historical group shows, including Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and Best Kept Secret: UCI and the Development of Contemporary Art in Southern California, 1964-1971 at the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach.  As the list of exhibitions makes clear, Turrell’s work is some of the most important to come out of the Los Angeles scene since its early years in the 1960s. And indeed the sparse but powerful installations on view at the gallery deliver all that we would expect of such an influential body of work.

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Rob Pruitt’s graffiti wall of zebras. All photos on site for Art Observed by Giffen Ott.

Art Observed was on site again this year for the RxArt + Chanel Beauté 11th Annual PARTY Benefit. Imbibing works by contemporary artists such as Nate Lowman (who’s Reverse Snowman Holding His Own Head was the highest going piece, at $24,000) and Dan Colen, Miranda July, and Yoko Ono, guests bid via silent auction, the proceeds going toward a good cause. According to their website, “RxArt is a non-profit organization dedicated to placing original fine art in patient, procedure and examination rooms of healthcare facilities. Our mission is to improve otherwise sterile environments through contemporary art, promote healing, and inspire hope in patients, families and staff.” Held at the Highline Stages in Chelsea, party-goers included artists KAWS, Terry Richardson, Aurel Schmidt, and José Parlá, among other celebrities and organizers such as Bill Powers and Jen Brill.

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Installation view of Willem de Kooning: A Retrospective at MoMA. Image via New York Times.

Currently on view at MoMA is Willem de Kooning: A Retrospective. Impressive in its depth and breadth, it is the first retrospective since the artist’s death. De Kooning (1904 – 1997) is hailed as one of the most important and prolific artists of the previous century.

Installation view. Via Artinfo.

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All photos Art Observed by Guillaume Vandame

A festive atmosphere opening night at Mary Boone surrounded visitors while they studied Chicago artist Nick Cave‘s parade of bright and exotic soundsuits. Unique hybrid costumes made from a variety of materials, the works combine antique carpets, fabrics, beads, and everyday kitsch objects. Similar to naming the works Untitled, each piece is called a ‘soundsuit;’ various objects, all under the same title. The artist said of his style, “The world is my inventory,” drawing on roots in Trinidad and Haiti, and gathering resources that are no longer used in order to create something new.

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Detail of Soundsuit

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Running from corner to corner – in a specified order in relation to other corner groups. All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

Noémie Lafrance’s latest piece, The White Box Project, is full of running and screaming, grouping and awkward exclusivity, exploring audience participation and mob mentality; a “minimalist dance performance [that] challenges the implied separation between the art object and its viewing subject.” Each performance is followed by a discussion with the artist, thus further shaping the remaining performances in an “evolutive” process. Famous for her grand public dance performances, Lafrance has staged shows in places ranging from her home to galleries to McCarren Park Pool to the facades of Frank Gehry, as well as choreographing the award winning video for Feist’s “1, 2, 3, 4.”

Showing three September weekends in the courtyard of the Black & White Gallery in Brooklyn, performances run every Saturday at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 pm, with two additional encore performances added to this last Sunday, the 25th of September, at 6:30 and 7:30 pm.
Art Observed was fortunate enough to sit down with Noémie in her Williamsburg studio for the following interview.

Noémie Lafrance recording the group discussion after a performance.

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Raymond Pettibon, No Title (From life to…), 2011 (est. $200,000-300,000, realized $760,000), via Christies.com

Opening night, September 10, 2011. All images by Ana Marjanovic for Art Observed.

Through recycling, reproduction, and repetition, Brazilian-born and New York-based artist Vik Muniz explores contemporary consumerist culture’s interpretations of, and influences by, traditional art subject matter in his show on now at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York. Large scale, color photographs from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series are displayed alongside sculptures of the Relicario series.

Installation view

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All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

In the newly renovated eighteenth-century London townhouse, which was its original home, Haunch of Venison opens a solo exhibition of Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie. According to Coline Mailliard of Artinfo, the gallery’s move from a museum-like venue near the Royal Academy to the refurbished space in Mayfair signals an attempt at a rebirth. Mailliard writes, “the move seems like a perfect opportunity for the gallery to reinvent itself — and also to prove to the art world, which has snubbed it since the sale to the auction house [Christie’s], that the artistic program is, more than ever, the top priority.”

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Do Ho Suh, The Fallen Star 1/5 (2008-2011). All images taken by A. Marjanovic for Art Observed, unless otherwise noted.

Exploring themes of multicultural identity, Do Ho Suh presents installations and drawings at the Chelsea location of Lehmann Maupin in New York. Titled Home Within Home, the exhibition reflects the artist’s personal experiences of moving from Korea—where he was born and raised—to the US. Layering and inserting Korean imagery over and within large-scale architectural installations, Suh conveys his feelings of being “dropped from the sky,” according to the press release.

Do Ho Suh, Home Within Home, 2009-2011.

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All photos by Abbey Stone for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Wednesday evening’s opening of Richard Serra‘s new exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea was abuzz. The huge warehouse space seemed to vibrate as art enthusiasts made their way through the artist’s massive installation. Roughly 15 feet tall, the two separate pieces, Junction and Cycle, create a sloping, weaving maze, inviting and immersing viewers within. Whispering praise as they explored the labyrinthine pieces, one such patron murmured, “It’s like you’re in a whole new world.”

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All photos for Art Observed by Abbey Stone.

Newly nestled in its new home at 18 Wooster Street, the Swiss Institute (SI) continues to fulfill its mission of fostering “a way of thinking which asks audiences to break with traditional assumptions about art and national stereotypes,” presenting two inaugural exhibitions this fall. Wednesday, September 14, marked the opening of Books on Books, curated by Christoph Schifferli, and This is Not My Color/ The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by artists Pamela Rosenkrantz and Nikolas Gambaroff.

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All images by Peter Tiso for Art Observed, unless otherwise noted.

The experience of entering Cosmic Voodoo Circus, a new exhibition by Sanford Biggers that opened last night at SculptureCenter, is somewhat like entering a flea circus. A large sculpture inspired by traditional African spirit sculpture towers above the dwarfed crowd as an empty, motorized trapeze occasionally swings overhead.

A video entitled Shake (2011), is the center of the show; it stars Brazilian-born, Germany-based choreographer/clown/stuntman/DJ Ricardo Castillo as he journeys through Brazil. With his skin painted silver and his feet clad in knee-high platform boots, Castillo shines against a background of favelas, colonial palaces, and the roaring ocean. Funded by a Creative Time travel grant, Shake is the second portion of a trilogy, the first part of which will be on view in Biggers’ upcoming exhibition at Brooklyn Museum, opening September 23.

Artist Sanford Biggers, on the right, greets a friend.

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Teengirl Fantasy at MoMA PS1 Warm Up. All photos for Art Observed by Joachim Azoulay.

For the summer’s final ‘Warm Up’ at MoMA PS1, the all-afternoon courtyard party kept entertained by music from Kenny Dope, Tanlines, Syd tha Kyd, Teengirl Fantasy, and Physical Therapy. Some of the acts had been rescheduled from their earlier performances slated for August 27th, due to Hurricane Irene. Aside from dancing, art enthusiasts enjoyed drinks throughout the space, admiring a room of mirrors or playing ping pong. And while the anticipated 9/11 exhibition was off limits, the first floor shown the works of Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception.

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Subodh Gupta, Ali Baba (2011)

The major exhibition Paris-Delhi-Bombay, currently on view at Centre Pompidou through September 19th, displays work by nearly 50 artists mainly based or born in India. Many emerging and high-profile Indian artists have been showing recently in Paris—both the work at Indian Summer, organized at Ecole des Beaux Arts, and Anish Kapoor‘s monumental intervention at the Grand Palais, have included work by Indian artists both already established in Europe as well as those still up-and-coming.

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Detail of Dog head from Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2011) All photos by Megan Hoetger for Art Observed.

The installation of the first major public sculpture work by well-known Chinese artist Ai Weiwei opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on August 20th, its West Coast stop on a global tour. Encircling the elevator up from the parking structure in the North Piazza of LACMA’s sprawling campus, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads functions as a marker of a heavily trafficked threshold. Its position outside the parking is particularly suited to the car-dominated geography of Los Angeles, but it also allows multiple points of approach for those visitors ambling between the Ahmanson and Broad buildings, or just arriving through the Chris Burden street lamps.

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AO was on site Saturday, August 6th for the opening of James Franco‘s new project at Terence Koh‘s Asia Song Society. The exhibition features installations of three films: “Three’s Company: The Drama,”  a reconsideration of the popular television show (previously shown at Sundance), “Road Trip,” in which Franco reads excepts from Rob Lowe’s autobiography West Wing aloud as he visits notable land art sites in the United States, and “High/Low, Rob Lowe”installed on fifty monitors and showing footage recorded by the artist/actor/student, etc., moving throughout his daily life.  Despite the rain, the opening was well attended, with appearances by PS1 director Klaus Biesenbach, artist Laurel Nakadate and, of course, James Franco himself.

James Franco: High Low/Rob Lowe at ASS – Asia Song Society from Art Observed on Vimeo.

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All images on site at NADA Hudson 2011. Courtesy of Ian Hassett for Art Observed.

Art Observed was on site for the first NADA Hudson, described by its organizers, the New Art Dealers Alliance as “not an art fair, but rather a site-specific project”. The surrounding area has been known as a site to which New York art expatriates flock, with their numbers especially heavy this weekend around the 8,000-square-foot Basilica Hudson, a former foundry and railway wheel factory built in 1884. Hudson itself is a former whaling town, with its access to the Hudson River providing a berth during wartime that was less exposed to raids than coastal towns such as Nantucket and Boston.  As a result, the town has a rich architecture base that is reflective of irregular boosts in industry over its history.  As it has become a destination for food, antiques and second homes, Hudson is an understandable venue for NADA, which has been known to pioneer in its chosen locations (the NADA Miami art fair located in the Deauville Beach Resort, is about 40 blocks north of the main epicenter of activity yet is consistently a must-visit part of the general offering during the week of Art Basel Miami Beach).

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Ai Weiwei, Washington Square Park Protest (1988), all photos courtesy of Three Shadows Photography Art Centre and Chambers Fine Art, via Asia Society.

Art Observed was on site at the Asia Society’s Ai Weiwei retrospective, which comprises over 200 photographs taken by the artist in some of his most pivotal years. Between 1983 and 1993, Weiwei documented protests of system, political, gender, and artistic. The show is a collection of black and white photographs, numbered simply and elegantly. The titles are Weiwei’s own, scrawled at the bottom of each piece. A visitor follows Weiwei through his life in the East Village. “New York Photographs” chronicles Weiwei’s interest in transformations, as they manifest through the artist’s perspective, and closes August 14.

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Ai Weiwei, Robert Frank & Allen Ginsberg (1989)

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All images installation views of Jake or Dinos Chapman at White Cube, 2011. Courtesy Coco Bayley for Art Observed.

Jake and Dinos Chapman – The Chapman Brothers – reinstated themselves in the London art scene last week, across the twoWhite Cube galleries.  Both the Mason’s Yard and Hoxton gallery spaces are used in this double act, double venue exhibition.  The show, Jake or Dinos Chapman, runs from the 15th of July to September 17th and is alarmingly extensive.  The brothers are infamous for their elaborate teasing, deliberate vulgarity, and mocking of aestheticism- this show is no different.  However, for the White Cube exhibition, Jake and Dinos Chapman, who have consistently worked together professionally and are known as a gruesome twosome double act, have this year separated and worked alone.  Using different studio spaces, they have been working independently on the content of this exhibition, only having revealed their pieces to one another a few weeks ago.

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Willem de Kooning, via The Pace Gallery.

Midtown New York’s Pace Gallery is hosting its first exhibition of art by Willem de Kooning, of which it gained exclusive representation in the fall. Like much of the late artist’s own work, “The Figure: Movement and Gesture” is focused on and around the human body, as it is translated by different methods and techniques of representation. The show closes on July 29.

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All images by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

AO was on site for the second exhibition of Jules de Balincourt, “Worlds Together, Worlds Apart ” at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris.  The opening began with a private talk given by art critics Nicolas Bourriaud (best known for his seminal book “Relational Aesthetics”) and Judith Benhamou-Huet, and focused on de Balincourt’s influences and ways of processing. The New York based artist explained his recent work, which moves between abstraction and figuration, and compared it to a “big zapping.” Jules de Balincourt worked 6 months on the set of paintings, which were created specifically for this show.

Jules de Balincourt

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Rickshaw-style pedicabs parked on Orchard street. All photos by L. Streeter for Art Observed

In his latest endeavor, maverick graffiti artist Kenny Scharf has launched a project entitled “The Gates Project” produced in part by Anonymous Gallery.  In the project Scharf will paint roughly 100 roll-down storefront gates focused in the burgeoning Lower East Side.  Boldy painting in the middle of daylight, Scharf has already completed murals at 2 Delancey street, 132 Orchard street and most recently, a massive mural stretching for blocks on the Bowery. Scharf is teaming up with Anonymous Gallery for the project, and getting permits for each of the spaces he paints on. Art Observed was lucky enough to have the chance to take a pedi-cab tour of the lower east side visiting each location of Scarf’s work, led by Anonymous director Joseph Ian Henrikson.

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Kenny Scharf and friend at his Cosmic Cavern a Go Go

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All images by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

“Manet, the Man Who Invented Modernity,” is currently on view at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.  This is Édouard Manet‘s first ever solo retrospective at the museum, and his first in France after almost 30 years. Since a 1983 show at the Grand Palais, which marked the 100^th anniversary of the artist’s death, appreciation of his biography and boundary-breaking impressionism has been reshaped.

Le Fifre (1866)

During his lifetime, Manet was a widely known and chronicled personality.  Poet Théodore de Banville described him as a “laughing blonde,” considered a charismatic Casanova who frequented cafes. Renowned impressionist painter Edgar Degas once fought with him so bitterly that Manet slashed a gifted work- the story goes that Degas forgave him for being so charming. Manet died of syphilis in 1883, following a prolific 20-year career.

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