Douglas Gordon, Happy Birthday to Me (2008-ongoing), via Eva Presenhuber

Presenting a range of works continuing his interest in cinema and the collective memory, the construction of images on the screen and in our heads, artist Douglas Gordon returns to Eva Presenhuber in New York City with a selection of works centered around his ongoing installation Happy Birthday To Me…, accompanied by a new 24-part burned print work titled Self Portrait of You + Me (Neighborly Love), a film installation titled Video Diptych, and more, compiling the artist’s respective works into both a portrait of his own practice, and that of the concepts described above. (more…)

Charlap Hyman & Herrero, Shell Lamp I, Moulded plastic, and Astrologia Zodiac Black Natural Abaca Round Rug, Hemp, 2018; Chiarastella Cattana, Dune, Jacquard woven textile, 2019; Yali, Vignole Table, Glass top, iron base, 2019. © Annie Schlecter.

Currently on view for the week at 109 Thompson Street is the pop-up exhibition ‘Conversation Piece: Design is Dead’, a shoebox of a gallery space that designer Adam Charlap Hyman has dramatically transformed into an underwater grotto. The eponymous title of the show is the frequent tagline of Enzo Mari, a maverick Italian designer highly critical of modern design with a host of catechisms to prove it. He attributes the solipsism of design—namely, its death—as ‘the overlaying of icons without any reference to history… In most cases the essence becomes a confusing mess, created without logic.’ (more…)

Ed Ruscha, Hurting the Word Radio #2 (1964), final price: $52,485,000, via Christie’s

With the closing of sales last night in New York, the major auction houses have drawn the curtain on a busy year on the secondary market, capping a trio of strong outings for Post-War and Contemporary Art that have once again underscored the state of the art market currently.  A number  of guaranteed sales and high estimate prices seem to have eradicated much of the surprise at the higher end of the market, but its value-setting functions remain intact, as a number of records fell over the course of the past two evenings, and a group of artists made the jump from heritage prizes to certified blue-chip bets. (more…)

Claude Monet, Charing Cross Bridge (1903), final price: $27,600,000  via Sotheby’s

Marking their entries of the week’s packed calendar of Impressionist and Modern Evening Sales, the Impressionist and Modern Sales have concluded in New York, rounding out the first half of a bustling week of sales that also caps off the second half of the year’s major secondary market sales. (more…)

Willem de Kooning, Untitled XXII (1977), via Sotheby’s

Capping off the events of the fall art market before one last blowout in Miami, New York City will play home to a last series of major art auctions, offering a last look for the year on just how the contemporary market is faring. Considering relatively unpredictable sales in London this past month, and and more uncertainty on the global horizon, it should make for an intriguing picture of how U.S. dealers are preparing for the months to come. (more…)

Mai-Thu Perret, Agua Viva (Installation View), via Galerie Barbara Weiss

Currently on at Galerie Barbara Weiss in Berlin, artist Mai-Thu Perret has opened an exhibition of new works drawing on a range of conceptual vectors to explore modernity in conversation with a range of disparate timelines and frames of reference. Drawing its title from writer Clarice Lispector’s book of the same name, the work seems to explore a similar exploration of time as atomic, as suspended along a series of varied singularities that converge and break apart, each moment a collision of varied possibilities and probabilities. (more…)

Mona Hatoum, Hot Spot (stand) (2018), via Chantal Crousel

Currently on at Chantal Crousel in Paris, artist Mona Hatoum continues her incisive, challenging work reflecting on world conflicts, migrations, and surveillance, using materials as varied as steel, brick, concrete, and human hair to create spaces of tension, paradox, and ambiguity. Using these materials as a way to explore and elaboration on political systems of oppression and destruction, the artist’s work is a poetic and often startling challenge to power. (more…)

Urs Fischer, Leo (George & Irmelin) (2019), via Gagosian

With the opening of FIAC this past month, Gagosian Gallery filled its ground-floor space in Paris with new work by Urs Fischer, including an impressive new candle work by the artist depicting actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio. Continuing the artist’s enigmatic engagement with the aura of fame and fortune, his new candle sculpture marks a return to his interest in collectors and art world influencers, turning their visages into slowly melting piles of wax. (more…)

Henry Taylor, NIECE COUSIN KIN LOOK HOW LONG IT’S BEEN (Installation View), via Blum & Poe

Los Angeles-based artist Henry Taylor touches down at Blum & Poe in New York this month, bringing with him a body of new portraits and large-scale compositions under the title NIECE COUSIN KIN LOOK HOW LONG IT’S BEEN, his sixth exhibition with the gallery.  (more…)

Bunny Rogers, A Very Special Holiday Performance in Columbine Auditorium (2017), via Performa

With the turning of the seasons and the first tastes of brisk fall weather, this year’s edition of the Performa Biennial is set to open in New York.  Marking the 8th edition of an event founded by art historian and curator RoseLee Goldberg, Performa is dedicated to exploring the critical role of live performance in the history of twentieth-century art and to encouraging new directions in performance for the twenty-first century.  A favorite among the New York art world, the fair offers a deep look at a range of performing practices and perspectives spread across the city, inviting adventurous art lovers to dive into the fabric of the city to seek out inspiring and energetic new work.

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Roy DeCarava, Bill and Son (1962), via David Zwirner

Marking its first presentation of the work of photographer Roy DeCarava since announcing exclusive representation of his estate last year, David Zwirner has opened an impressive pair of shows devoted to divergent bodies of work. Exploring the artist’s expansive vision and unique sense of the image, the pair of shows highlight why Zwirner was so devoted to representing the artist’s work. (more…)

N. Dash, Untitled (2019), via Casey Kaplan

Currently on view at Casey Kaplan’s exhibition space, artist N. Dash presents a selection of new works delving into process, time, material and the act of representation, a series complex silkscreen arrangements that seem to reference space and time, production and material as bound up in an ongoing exchange. The works, spread throughout the gallery space, serve as an intriguing meditation on the concept of production, and how the continued extension and elongation of the productive process can create an ever more expansive range of works.

N. Dash (Installation View), via Casey Kaplan

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Raymond Pettibon, Frenchette (Installation View), via David Zwirner

With the days of FIAC now fading into the distance, the art world has settled down a bit in Paris, but some of the fresh energy and excitement of the week remains, particularly in the Marais, where David Zwirner’s brand new exhibition space at 108, rue Vieille du Temple has now opened permanently. The well-appointed space is christened by American artist Raymond Pettibon, who marks his first solo show in the city since 1995. (more…)

Jim Shaw, Strange Beautiful (2019), via Praz-Delavallade

It’s hard to avoid the bizarre poignancy of Jim Shaw’s work in the modern era. The artist’s incisive and often hysterical engagements with the language of modern U.S. politics, moments of historical violence, pop culture and even commodity capitalism (usually all at once), makes him one of our era’s most erudite cultural critics, even if he may, simultaneously, be one of our most ribald. His work, on view now at Praz-Delavallade in Paris, makes the most of our current historical moment, putting the full weight of the current era into a new series of works. (more…)

Ed Clark, Untitled (2005), via Hauser & Wirth

Pioneering painter Ed Clark, the African-American painter known for his use of a push broom to spread bold colors across his canvases to create energetic and engaging comments on the state of the world, has passes away at the age of 93.  His death was announced by his gallery, Hauser & Wirth. (more…)

Jeppe Hein, Moon Mirror (2019), via 303

Artist Jeppe Hein rounds out a new show of works at 303 Gallery this month, a selection of works that continue a frank, emotive sensibility and a meditative approach towards perception and understanding in his work.  The show, including neon works, LED-lit sculptures and painted canvases, seems to reflect and rework a range of expressive tendencies from the contemporary canon through a colorful, subdued lens. (more…)

Jonathan Lyndon Chase, watch shopping (2019), via Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Currently on view at its Chelsea exhibition space, Mitchell-Innes & Nash is currently presenting Embodiment, a group exhibition of works by Pope.L, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Cheyenne Julien and Tschabalala Self that explores the different ways in which corporeality is envisioned and depicted within the spatial confines of the two-dimensional picture plane. Focusing on a selection of works that tease and turn the human form through a variety of perspectives and varied iterations, the show is a fascinating investigation of how the human form exists in contemporary art, and how it might be incorporated in the future. (more…)

Yayoi Kusama at Victoria Miro, via Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

Spread out along the spacious aisles and picturesque dome of the Grand Palais in Paris, the Foire internationale d’art contemporain, also known as FIAC, has returned once again for another year of sales and exhibitions in the French capital. With Wednesday evening slowly dragging into the late hours, the fair’s VIP opening is now concluded, once again garnering strong praise and enthusiastic response from its attendees. This year, the list of galleries brings together exhibitors from 25 countries, marking its 46th edition with a fitting reflection of its storied history, one echoed by the prestigious locale of the Grand Palais. With an exacting selection of modern art, contemporary art, and design galleries, among the most emblematic of the international scene, the fair’s opening hours once again underscored its vitality in the modern fair circuit. (more…)

Sadie Benning, Blow Up #26 (2018), via Kaufman Repetto

Returning to the French capital for another year of exhibitions inside the iconic expanses of the Grand Palais, the Foire International Art Contemporain, or FIAC, opens its doors today in Paris.  The fair, which has operated for over 45 years in the city, has undergone several facelifts over the course of its lifetime, with its most recent editions courting a healthy mix of contemporary and modern works alongside more classical and historical modes, making it one of the world’s more ambitiously curated programs. (more…)

John Giorno, via Sperone Westwater

Artist John Giorno, the poet and artist whose practice turned poetry towards a living, breathing mode of art, separated from the page, has passed away at the age of 82 in his home in Lower Manhattan.  A longtime fixture in the New York art scene, Giorno would explore a range of techniques and modes for promoting his work outside the book or magazine.  He founded Giorno Poetry Systems, a nonprofit foundation, and designed a mass communication system called Dial-A-Poem, which allowed for people to call in and hear orated poetry over the phone.   (more…)

Paul Chan, Khara En Tria (Joyer in 3) (2019), via Greene Naftali

On view this month at Greene Naftali in Chelsea, artist Paul Chan makes his fourth solo entry in the gallery program, featuring a new series of works Chan calls “Bathers.” Marking new iterations and elaborations on his prior work, the show explores space and movement through simple materials. (more…)

Janiva Ellis, Wokey Doke (2019), via 47 Canal

There’s a remarkable concept of balance and duality in the work of Janiva Ellis, moments of sublime beauty and fragile, held states that seem to make the moments of bizarre surrealism and sinister iconographies all the more unnerving.  For her most recent show, ‘Tip Drill,’ on view at New York’s 47 Canal Gallery through October 20th, the artist continues her practice of elaborate systems of tension and release. (more…)

Sophie Kitching, Untitled (Plume) (2019), via Kiosk

Known for its shop selling a range of meticulously curated and enigmatic products, the online platform Kiosk has traveled widely, orchestrating various projects and pop-ups, not to mention an inclusion in MoMA PS1’s Greater New York show that spotlighted its daring vision and unique approach to the fine lines traditional distinctions between shop and art gallery, product and art object.  (more…)

Dan Graham, via Art Observed

After a whirlwind few hours in London, the Frieze Art Fair is underway, and the doors are open for the public. Opening its doors this week for its 17th edition in Regent’s Park, Frieze London has once again turned the art world’s collective eye towards the British capital for the next week, as sales and installations across its spacious halls make for a fitting center to one of the city’s busiest art events. (more…)