Claire Fontaine, Caught (2016), via Galerie Neu

Working along a similar thread as Reena Spaulings (a faceless project by several Bernadette Corporation collaborators), the French “artist”/collaborative Claire Fontaine works at the margins of the 20th Century’s most iconic artistic modes: readymades, monochromes, and perhaps more broadly, the studio artist-assistant relationship itself.  Throughout each of its formats, the group delves into the space of production for the artist in modern society, a field plagued by contradictions, imbalances of power, and capitalist tendencies that they seek to outline while operating within them.

Claire Fontaine, May Our Enemies Not Prosper (Installation View), via Galerie Neu

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Berlin Biennale at the Kunstakademie, all photos via Anna Corrigan for Art Observed

While the DIS-curated Berlin Biennale is spread across a range of exhibitions and venues in the German capital, the beating heart of this year’s show is arguably the Academy of the Arts, a sleek modernist building located adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate and perched over a square heaving with tourist activity and history.  Walking into the foyer of this building, one immediately encounters a series of large, high-resolution photographs depicting warped, fragmented nationalities and identities.  Further upstairs, the cluster of screens, plastic and digital games that have come to define this Biennale buzz take over, creating a clustered, albeit striking experience of the post-digital arts landscape.  The location is densely packed with artists and works whose nationalities and political concerns range from brand-name art projects to a poignantly honest confessional rap about the refugee experience in Berlin.

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An Installation by Puppies Puppies

The 9^th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, curated by DIS (the New York art collective formed by collaborators Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso and David Toro), has long promoted a vision of the future as now.  Steeping their work in the ambitious task of interrogating relationships between the human and the digital, the collective has been turned loose on the prominent art biennial, using their unique brand of commentary on politics, happiness, commercial branding and the paradox of the modern age to frame the show as a brand, a tourist trap, and a materialization of the virtual in tandem. The Present in Drag channels the discomfort and drastic uncertainty that is a product of uncertain links and porous borders established by technological advancement.  Expanding beyond its traditional venue at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, additional sites for this Biennale are scattered throughout the city in various buildings and institutions. Its main point of departure is the Academie der Künst, located off Pariser Platz, and to the tourist mainstay Brandenburg Gate, and moves through the fabric of the city with its humorous, haunting and at times grotesque commentary on contemporary art in the digital age. (more…)

Roy Lichtenstein, Entablature (1975), via Quincy Childs for Art Observed

The Entablatures represent my response to Minimalism and the art of Donald Judd and Kenneth Noland. It’s my way of saying that the Greeks did repeated motifs very early on, and I am showing, in a humorous way, that Minimalism has a long history … It was essentially a way of making a Minimalist painting that has a Classical reference. – Roy Lichtenstein

Sometimes a show strikes a perfect balance between surprise and expectation, even more so when the works selected coincide so effortlessly that the artists seem presented anew. Castelli Gallery’s show, Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, Kenneth Noland: A Dialogue, does exactly that.  Taking inspiration from a quote by Roy Lichtenstein on his Entablature paintings, the show examined each artist’s work at the intersections of the architectural and the purely aesthetic, the functional and the pictorial. (more…)

Martha Rosler, If You Can’t Afford to Live Here, mo-o-ove!! (Installation View), all photos by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Adopting its title from Ed Koch’s response to complaints regarding New York’s rising housing concerns, Martha Rosler’s current Mitchell-Innes & Nash exhibition If You Can’t Afford to Live Here, mo-o-ove!! promises a compact look at the artist’s influential 1989 exhibition If You Lived Here…, which was exhibited at Dia Foundation as a three part show.  Similarly, this current interpretation is a trilogy, culminating in this grand finale at the Chelsea gallery and proving the relevance of issues raised almost thirty years ago in the original version. (more…)

Trevor Shimizu, Sophia’s Teddy (2016), via Art Observed

Currently on view at 47 Canal, Trevor Shimizu has realized a swirling fantasia of parenthood, a series of paintings, sculpture and video that turn the act of parenting into an otherworldly, almost surreal experience through his ragged, often comedic sensibility.     (more…)

Henry Moore, Reclining Figure Festival (1951), via Christie’s

Adding one final sale to the end of a long two weeks of auctions, Christie’s “Defining British Art” Sale this past evening notched an impressive last set of sales for the spring season, pushing a 29-lot sale of works ranging from Impressionist Masterpieces to Modernist Sculpture to Contemporary pieces to an impressive £99,479,500 final tally.  The sale saw only two works go unsold over the course of the evening, and offering an exclamation point at the end of a week that did much to challenge assumptions over the impact of the Brexit on market health in Europe.

John Constable, View on the Stour near Dedham, full-scale sketch (c. 1821), via Christie’s

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Gavin Brown’s New Exhibition Space, Ed Atkins at Gavin Brown’s, via Art Observed

Gavin Brown has headed north, finally opening his long-rumored Harlem exhibition space with an expansive show of work by British artist Ed Atkins.  Culling a diverse series pieces from the artist’s recent output, the exhibition’s awareness of its context, and its presence in this former brewery turned exhibition space, makes for a strangely surreal experience, and a striking perspective on the gallery itself.

Ed Atkins at Gavin Brown’s, via Gavin Brown’s

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Terence Koh, Bee Chapel (Installation View), via Art Observed

Since his departure from the New York art scene several years prior, Terence Koh has appeared in the art context at fits and starts; a performance here, a reading there, or an unexpected appearance at the PS1 Art Book fair in 2014, where the artist sold materials from his farm in upstate New York.  His momentary appearances implied the artist was continuing his work while living far from the madding crowd, but rarely was his work on view, or presented within the gallery context.  This changes with Koh’s Bee Chapel, a powerful install at Andrew Edlin Gallery on the Bowery that hints at Koh’s increasingly nuanced practice.

Terence Koh, Bee Chapel (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Jean-Michel Basquiat, Self-Portrait (1981), via Christie’s

This week’s Contemporary Evening Sales have concluded, following Christie’s stolid outing in London this evening, as only 4 of the auction house’s 40 lots went unsold to reach a final total of £39,566,000.  Sales were consistently focused over the course of the evening, with few works falling under estimated price.  While an early warning note was sounded with the withdrawal of the sale’s leading Gerhard Richter lot, the auction house’s commitment to placing works this evening ultimately drove it towards a strong bottom line, even if the sale held back from ambitious benchmarks or marquee lots. (more…)

Jenny Saville, Shift (1996-97), via Sotheby’s

The post-Brexit contemporary sales continued in London this past evening, as Sotheby’s capped a 47-lot offering of contemporary and post-war works, seeing all but 7 works find a buyer, and bringing in a sales tally of £52,194,000 that exceeded its initial $35 million estimates. (more…)

Anselm Kiefer, Für Velimir Khlebnikov: Die Lehre vom Krieg: Seeschlachten (2004-2010), via Phillips

The first of June’s Contemporary Art sales in London has wrapped up in London this evening, as Phillips concluded its 20th Century and Contemporary sale to mixed results and a final sales total of £11,873,000, within the evening’s sales estimate.  The 31-lot sale saw 10 of its works go unsold, while a handful of other pieces brought impressively strong prices, ultimately casting ominous, albeit foggy indications of the European market in the wake of the Brexit vote.

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Nicole Eisenman, Under The Table 2 (2014), via Art Observed

On view through this past weekend at the New Museum, painter Nicole Eisenman was showing a striking exhibition of pieces on the third floor, spanning the artist’s output over the past several decades, and underscoring her impressive creative investigations into the modes of sculpture and painting.

Nicole Eisenman, Hanging Man (2016),via Art Observed

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Yayoi Kusama, Chandelier of Grief (2016). All images via Victoria Miro.

Now through July 30th, Victoria Miro in London is presenting new works by Yayoi Kusama, spanning the gallery’s three locations and waterside garden across the British capital.  The work featured here was created exclusively for this show, including the artist’s iconic pumpkin sculptures, immersive mirror rooms, and her ongoing My Eternal Soul series. Across the work exhibited, the artist’s ongoing investment in themes of the infinite and the sublime is explicit. (more…)

Imi Knoebel, Bild 16.02.2016 (2016), via Thaddaeus Ropac

Comprised of 22 new artworks, Imi Knoebel’s current exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac’s Paris Marais exhibition space offers a new direction for the German painter, whose decades of practice in the intersection of color field painting, shaped canvases and minimalist serialism offer a new point of departure for a series of loosely rendered, yet exceptionally vital new works, pushing his honed stylistic practice towards new experiments within the art historical lexicon. (more…)

Jean Dubuffet, Late Paintings (Installation View), all images via Timothy Taylor

Now through July 2, London’s Timothy Taylor Gallery presents an exhibition of Jean Dubuffet’s late works, featuring paintings, sculpture, and works on paper completed from the late 1960’s through to the 1980′.  Works from his L’Hourloupe cycle, pieces from the Théâtres de mémoire, as well as a selection from the Psycho-sites, Mires, and Non-Lieux series join together in the gallery space, marking the artist’s transition from traditional painter to sculptuor and conceptual architect in the late years of his prolific career. (more…)

Walter de Maria, Truth/Beauty series (detail) (1993 – 2016), © The Estate of Walter De Maria, Photo Joseph Asghar. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Comprising two separate series created by the artist during the course of his career, Gagosian Gallery on London’s Britannia Street has opened an exhibition of work by renowned minimalist Walter de Maria, opening a dialogue within the artist’s own body of work across decades of practice, and through a range of materials that underscore the artist’s particular approach to questions of space, subjectivity and time. (more…)

Amedeo Modigliani, Madame Hanka Zborowska (1917), via Christie’s

Early warnings about this week’s sales in London seem to have some weight to them following the sales outcome at Christie’s this evening.  The auction house’s summer Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale wrapped in London tonight with a dreary outing, closing the 36-lot auction to the paltry tune of £25,612,500, with almost one third of the works offered failing to find a buyer.

Claude Monet,  L’Ancienne rue de la Chaussée, Argenteuil (1872), via Christie’s

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Amedeo Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne (Au Foulard) (1919), via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s logged its entry in the Impressionist and Modern Evening sales last evening, with a healthy, brisk sale that reached a final tally of £103,280,000, beating initial estimates with only three works unsold.  Despite a small selection of lots, the evening’s offerings saw healthy competition, and several top lots that commanded hefty final prices, even if prices tapered off quickly after several marquee works.

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Sigmar Polke, Rotter Fisch (Red Fish) (1992), via Sotheby’s

As the sales and events surrounding Art Basel begin to wind down this weekend, many collectors will turn their attention to London, where two weeks of auctions will mark the final major sale of the first half of 2016.  Spread across five auctions, the sales seem notably subdued in comparison with last month’s attempts to shoot the moon in New York, perhaps in part due to concerns about Britain leaving the EU blunting collectors’ willingness to invest in the pound, yet strong works and seemingly hearty interest may manage to keep the them interesting. (more…)

Nicole Eisenman, Weeks on the Train (2015), via Art Observed

Blurring together vastly divergent styles, historical epochs and scenes, painter Nicole Eisenman’s work has defined itself as some of the era’s most stylistically inventive, moving from hyper-stylized abstraction and almost absurdist arrangements through to impeccably rendered portraiture and often lyrical arrangements of figures in space.  Offering a counterpoint to the artist’s current exhibition at the New Museum, Anton Kern is currently playing home to a series of new works by the artist, underscoring the artist’s ever-changing stylistic approaches, and aesthetic interpretation of image-making in the 21st Century.

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Haegue Yang, Sol LeWitt Upside Down – Structure with Three Towers, Expanded 23 Times, Split in Three (2015), all photos via Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

With the early hours of Sunday morning comes the last sales of Art Basel’s flagship fair in Switzerland, as dealers begin to close up shop and begin their treks home from the Messe Basel, beginning the more relaxed summer months.  This recess begins on something of a high note, as the contemporary market pushed onwards in the face of foreboding predictions for a weak buying market.  Sales remained consistently strong across the course of the event, with a number of major sales occurring both in the early hours of the VIP Previews (which saw an impressive line of collectors outside the exhibition, patiently standing through the rainy weather), onwards throughout the rest of the week.

Yoshitomo Nara, MIA (2016)

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Martin Creed, Work No. 2721: Shutters Opening and Closing (2016), via Art Observed

The long-awaited Martin Creed retrospective at the Park Avenue Armory has opened its doors, bringing an almost exhaustive survey of the artist’s work to New York for one of the summer’s more peculiar, and ultimately, more striking exhibitions.  Pulling from the artist’s 20+ year career, the exhibition offers a fascinating and adventurous exhibition, that asks as much from the viewer as it presents, allowing free-roaming exploration and rewarding it with a range of shocks and surprises.

Martin Creed, Work No. 548 (2006), via Art Observed

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Meg Webster, Solar Grow Room (2016), via Paula Cooper Gallery

Currently on view at Paula Cooper’s West 21st Street space, Meg Webster is currently presenting a selection of new works, continuing her focus on sculptural works that encourage viewer participation while engaging subtly with the space around it.  In Chelsea, Webster has injected the pristine gallery with natural elements, fostering a deeper sensory examination of the spatial and relational interactions among viewers and the space they pass through, in turn revealing the always-existing power and beauty of nature through the individual’s relationship with it, and within it. (more…)