Isa Genzken, Mach Dich hübsch! (Installation View), via Art Observed

Isa Genzken is one of Germany’s most notable contemporary artists. Born in 1948, her work spans sculpture, installation, film, photography, collage, and painting, and she has continued to drive the German arts community forward with an inventive approach to digital media and created computer-designed sculptures that dates to the 1970’s.  Drawing on influences of American minimalism and conceptual art, alongside pop art, Genzken’s ready-mades and mannequin-based works also enter into conversation with Dadaist and Surrealist influences. (more…)

Friedrich Kunath, My Loneliness Shines (Installation View) all photos via Daphné Mookherjee for Art Observed

This past month, VNH Gallery opened German artist Friedrich Kunath‘s first solo exhibition in France.  Titled My Loneliness Shines, the artist’s new paintings, drawings, and neons contributed to an installation specially conceived for the space, exploring themes of melancholy, existentialism, loneliness and romance. Blending cultural codes and histories of composition, while mixing various narrative worlds and historical epochs with pop forms and kitsch, the show further cemented Kunath’s already unique approach towards free-ranging inventiveness.

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Lucas Blalock, An Other Shadow (2014-2016), via Art Observed

Artist Lucas Blalock’s Low Comedy is currently on view at Ramiken Crucible on the Lower East Side, weaving digital and traditional photography into a hybridized form to create surreal and often comedic images and prints.

Lucas Blalock, Low Comedy (Installation View), via Ramiken Crucible (more…)

Richard Tuttle, Red Dots, Deep Maroon Over Green (1986), via Art Observed

If there’s one thing to be said for Richard Tuttle’s work, there’s at least 26.  That’s the argument Pace Gallery is making with its newest exhibition of the artist’s work, which compiles 26 works from his 50-year career into a single gallery show, offering a unique opportunity to re-evaluate both Tuttle’s continuous and consistent output alongside his focused approach to art-making. (more…)

Robert Longo, Bullet Hole in Window (Detail), All Images courtesy Galerie Thaddeus Ropac

Now through May 22nd, 2016, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris is hosting Luminous Discontent, an exhibition of new work by American artist Robert Longo. Spanning three floors of the gallery’s Marais exhibition space, Longo is presenting a series of large-scale charcoal drawings and sculpture, constructed by the artist specifically for this space. This new work follows from Longo’s production of large-scale monochromatic, photorealist compositions, engaging with historical and political themes in new ways. (more…)

Elmgreen & Dragset, Van Gogh’s Ear (2016), Courtesy of the artists and K11 Art Foundation, Galerie Perrotin, Galleria Massimo de Carlo and Victoria Miro  Gallery Photo: Jason Wyche, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY

This month, the Public Art Fund unveiled Van Gogh’s Ear, the organization’s ambitious collaboration with artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset.  Presented to the public on a fittingly drizzly wet April morning (considering the sculpture’s subject matter), the completely drained pool recalls those of 1950’s Los Angeles.   The impressive 354-inch high sculpture, designed and crafted by the duo in the form of an ear, makes explicit reference to Van Gogh, whose dismembered ear has been the subject of various speculations in art history, stands on the hectic corner of 5th avenue, showing off its intricately detailed aqua blue interior, stainless steel ladder, glowing lights and accompanying diving board.  (more…)

Tom Sachs, Waiting Arbor (2014), via Art Observed

For the first time in the museum’s history, an artist other than Isamu Noguchi will present work for the Noguchi Museum, as Tom Sachs brings his Tea Ceremony installation to the museum for its 30th Anniversary.  Sachs, who previously worked on other sprawling, conceptually-unified installation projects like Space Program 2.0: MARS, and Hello Kitty Nativity, here turns his interests towards chanoyu, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony.  Complete with a tea house, tools, and a garden, the exhibit features all the pieces necessary for the ceremony, each time realized through Sachs’s unique formal perspective.  Among the items incorporated within the installation include a bronze bonsai tree made by wielding together over 3,600 individual parts, a full koi pond complete with living orange and gray fish, wooden and metal gates, a full tea house, and many other structures made of everyday objects.

Tom Sachs, Pond Berm (2016), via Art Observed

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David Hammons, Untitled (2014), via Art Observed

When it was announced that Mnuchin Gallery would host an exhibition of artist David Hammons’s work this year, anticipation was understandably high.  The reclusive artist’s work is rarely given this expansive stage for historical examination and the contextual impact of his work.  Spread out across the gallery’s two-floor townhouse exhibition space, Five Decades examines just that, Hammons’s expansive and formally elusive career working at a unique juncture of the avant-garde. (more…)

Jessi Reaves, Muscle Chair (Laying down to talk) (2016), via Art Observed

Artist Jessi Reaves takes Bridget Donahue Gallery into the summer months with her show of new work, transposing the styles and forms of high design into the framework of fine art, and examining the interplay of languages that results.  Having opened in early April, the exhibition, comprised of vividly executed furniture, shelving and cabinets, “suitable for use,” as the press release states, sees Reaves pushing her chosen forms towards new territories, substituting hard angles and flat planes for loping, curving lines, or inverting the often concealed material elements of each form. (more…)

The Modigliani Sells, via Art Observed

After a long week of sales that has seen both ups and downs for the two main auction houses, Christie’s has concluded its week with a consistently solid Impressionist and Modern sale, with 7 of the 54 lots at auction going unsold for a final tally of $141,532,000.   The auction house saw its momentary stumbles over the course of the sale, with several pieces falling well below estimate, and a few high-profile lots going unsold.  Even so, Christie’s managed to keep the bids moving, and keep works selling, a point that surely is not lost on those watching Sotheby’s occasionally disheartening sale earlier this week. (more…)

Mike Cooter, MacGuffin: some archetypes towards a definition (2016)

Swiss Institute’s Fade In: Int. Art Gallery-Day is a group exhibition featuring an ambitious array of contemporary artists, including Cindy Sherman, Allan McCollum, Christian Marclay, Dora Budor and Jamian Juliano-Villani, interpreting the ubiquitous relationship of moving images to the field of visual art. Comprised mostly of commissioned works, the exhibition transforms the gallery’s spacious interior into a vigorous stage, expanding outwards from the gallery entrance towards a deep corner of the storage room on the lower level. (more…)

Francois Morellet, via Art Newspaper

François Morellet, the pioneering French artist who explored interrelations of optical phenomena, light, space and performance, has passed away at the age of 90.   (more…)

A new world record set for Sam Francis tonight, via Art Observed

Another night of sales has come and gone at Sotheby’s, with an unexpectedly robust outing from the auction house that moved quickly through the 44-lot sale to a final total of $242,194,000.  The sale was a short but impressive affair, as the auction house’s early lots consistently beat out estimates in the early lots, and ultimately saw only a small handful of lots go unsold.  The sale makes for an impressive response to market alarmists and critics of the auction house, showing there seems to still be strong enthusiasm in the contemporary market. (more…)

Jussi Pylkkanen and Brett Gorvy in front of the Record-setting Basquait, via Art Observed

Christie’s has wrapped its Post-War and Contemporary auction last night in New York, continuing a strong performance that contrasted sharply with the lackluster sales last night at Sotheby’s, including an impressive new record for Jean-Michel Basquiat.  All told, the sale saw 9 unsold lots out of a total 61 (counting a single withdrawn lot), and a final total of $318,388,000. (more…)

Paul Signac, Maisons du Port, Saint-Tropez (1892), via Sotheby’s

Having just announced a loss of over $25 million for the first quarter of 2016, Sotheby’s needed a strong performance this evening to alleviate concerns over its recent shakeups and acquisitions, but there were few reassurances in sight for the house’s New York Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale tonight, as it concluded a 62 lot outing with almost a third of the works going unsold, bringing a final sales tally of $144,434,000. (more…)

Mike kelley, The Thirteen Seasons (Heavy on the Winter) #13: Art (1994), via Art Observed

This week, Skarstedt Gallery opened a show of Mike Kelley’s shaped paintings at its Chelsea exhibition space, the first time that the artist’s work in this series of egg-shaped, abstracted canvases has been compiled at one time.  Taking the artist’s interests in psychoanalytic techniques, trauma, and their intersections with the structures of mainstream American culture, the exhibition offers a close look at Kelley’s interests, juxtaposed through a series of pictorial relationships, or contrasted from work to work in a single room. (more…)

Omer Fast, 5,000 Feet is the Best (film still) (2011)

Offering a cinematic experience comprised of particularly constructed viewing rooms, Omer Fast’s inaugural exhibition at James Cohan saw the premier of the artist’s three most recent films for a New York audience. On view through this past weekend, the exhibition, which challenged the typical context of the theater, complicates notions of script and reality as well as of documentary and fiction.   (more…)

William Kentridge, Mantegna 2016, via Art Observed

1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair opened its second edition at Pioneer Works in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook this weekend, presenting over 60 artists from 27 countries to cement its reputation as the premier platform for the representation of the multiplicity and diversity of contemporary African art.  Referencing the  fifty-four countries that constitute the African continent, 1:54 is a vital addition to the selection of fairs across the city during Frieze Week, presenting myriad perspectives on the contemporary African art context through a ambitious, yet focused lens. (more…)

Brice Marden, Star (for Patti Smith) (1972-74), via Phillips Auction

Following in the footsteps of an early evening auction at Christie’s just an hour prior, Phillips has logged a staid but consistent auction into the books for its sole evening sale of the spring auction week.  The auction house’s 20th Century Sale achieved moderate success with a final tally of $46,576,000, with only 3 of the 38 lots going unsold.

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Maurizio Cattelan, Him (2001), via Christie’s

This week’s marathon series of art auctions is underway in New York City, as Christie’s launched a rare, specially-curated Sunday sale, ending its 39 lot Bound to Fail auction with a final tally of $78,123,250, with only a single lot going unsold.  The fair, which followed hot on the heels of the last hours of Frieze, saw modest bidding and consistently dependable sales, although several works sold for final prices below estimate. (more…)

   
Revolution in the Making (Installation View), all photographs courtesy Thisbe Gensler, via Art Observed

This past month has seen the much-anticipated opening of Hauser Wirth & Schimmel’s new gallery space in Los Angeles’ Arts District. The scale of the former flourmill—totaling over 100,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, book store, Printed Matter Lab, courtyard and garden, forthcoming restaurant, as well as offices—rivals the real estate of many museums, as do its curatorial aspirations.  Swiss couple Iwan and Manuela Wirth have partnered with former MOCA curator Paul Schimmel, a definitive fixture of Los Angeles art history and pioneering figure in its contemporary art scene. In his opening remarks during the press opening, Schimmel described his vision of the gallery as a community-driven, public-oriented space that would proffer a seamless urban experience for the creative downtown demographic, not only focused on changing the traditional relationship of the gallery to its public, but also between art and life.  In partnering with Hauser & Wirth, lauded for its museum-caliber exhibitions and dedication to scholarship and publications, Schimmel announced this new institution’s role in serving and revitalizing the arts of Los Angeles. (more…)

Sarah Peters and Marsha Cottrell, via Art Observed

NADA has returned to its now familiar haunt at the Basketball City sports complex at Pier 36, continuing its more relaxed counterpoint to the proceedings at Frieze just a short ferry ride up the East River. The fair, which is now in its fifth year, has continued to pioneer its own take on early May’s bustling selection of shows and exhibitions, and continued its strong performance this year with a roster of 105 Galleries and a diverse selection of works on display. (more…)

Fausto Melotti, Scultura n. 11 (Sculpture No. 11) (1934), all photos via Quincy Childs for Art Observed

A central figure in the history of twentieth-century art, Fausto Melotti’s body of work is revered throughout Europe, with critical successes, major exhibitions, and awards all conferred on his ambitious and stylistically diverse oeuvre.  Yet the artist’s catalog has long eluded American viewers, a point that Hauser and Wirth is seeking to change as it takes over representation of his work worldwide.  First presented at the gallery’s ADAA Art Show booth, Melotti’s work is on view at the gallery’s 69th Street exhibition space, exploring a practice that spanned sculpture, painting, ceramic, low reliefs, and works on paper, evoking the artist’s craftsmanship and inclinations towards “weightlessness,” and exploring his desire for geometric balances beyond mere figuration.

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Francis Bacon, Two Studies for a Self-Portrait (1970), via Sotheby’s

Just as Frieze closes its doors on a week of contemporary sales, the New York auction houses are opening theirs for a second week of major U.S. market activity.  Spreading the offerings across a marathon series of sales in the coming days, the New York spring/summer auctions will mark the last test of buyer interest before the summer recess. (more…)