Ed Ruscha, Metro Mattress #4 (2015), via Sprüth Magers Berlin

Currently on view at Sprüth-Magers in Berlin, artist Ed Ruscha is exhibiting a body of new color drawings, under the title Metro Mattresses, an exhibition that takes the cast-off mattresses of his native Los Angeles as an inspirational ground for an exploration of intertwined physical and imagined narratives, objective and subjective experiences of the urban environment. (more…)

Gerhard Richter, 180 Farben (180 Colours) (1971) Photo: David Brandt, all photos © Gerhard Richter

The relentlessly inventive Gerhard Richter is the subject of a meticulously crafted exhibition at Dominique Lévy in London this month, shedding light on a less recognized body of work from the early years of his decades long career.  Dating back as far as 1966, Richter’s works in the Color Charts series promise a unique and disparate offering, juxtaposed with his eminent and contemporaneous Photo Paintings, which brought the German artist massive global recognition.   This selection, compiled from a number of different collections globally, reunites a handful of earlier examples from the Color Charts  series for first time since they debuted at Munich’s Galerie Friedrich & Dahlem in 1966. (more…)

Camille Henrot (Installation Pictures), via Art Observed

Camille Henrot’s first solo show with Metro Pictures is something of a story in three parts, bringing the artist’s loosely flowing, cartoonish drawings to bear against her interests in environmental installation, digital artifacts and an interest in the modes and experiences of banality to bear across a broad selection of pieces. The artist’s work, presented here, offers a considered, meandering pathway through the iconography and subtle psychologies of modern life. (more…)

Robert Gober, Untitled (1997), all photos via Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

Taking the fraught emotional landscape of early childhood as its central focus, Skarstedt Gallery’s London location is currently presenting a subdued but emotionally poignant group show, exploring the use and manipulation of the objects, scenarios and symbolism of youth as a productive force for a group of the gallery’s artist.  Exhibiting work from Robert Gober, the late Mike Kelley and Vija Celmins, the stripped-down exhibition carries an impressive punch. (more…)

Rineke Dijkstra, The Gymschool, St. Petersburg (2014)

Rineke Dijkstra’s new three channel video, The Gymschool, St. Petersburg, is currently on view at Marian Goodman Gallery. Originally commissioned for Manifesta in 2014, this 15-minute video was shot at an acclaimed gymnastic school in St. Petersburg, Russia, utilizing the minimal, pale atmosphere of the rehearsal studio.  (more…)

Cy Twombly, Untitled (New York City) (1968), via Sotheby’s

Tonight Sotheby’s has logged its response to Christie’s moderate outing last evening, as the auction house’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale saw steady, albeit occasionally slow proceedings, bringing a final sales tally of $294,850,000 with 13 of the 57 lots offered going unsold. (more…)

Louise Bourgeois, Spider (1997), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Christie’s continued its impressive run of record-setting sales last night, with a steady, competitive sale tonight that ultimately brought a final tally of $331,809,000, with 13 of the 70 lots offered passing (barring several withdrawn, high-priced lots).  (more…)

BHQF Presents Arcadia, via Art Observed

Last week, the ever-shifting collective Bruce High Quality Foundation kicked off its annual fall fundraiser in style, opening the doors at Industry City in South Brooklyn for an evening of performances, music, and art, including a new show of works by the artists who have long remained focused expressly on the Bruce High-Quality Foundation University, a free, experimental art school in the East Village. (more…)

Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché sells at Christie’s, via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Dashing through a 34-lot auction in style, Christie’s has entered the November auction week in impressive style, bringing a flurry of sales during its curated “The Artist’s Muse” auction tonight that saw several world records fall, and achieved an impressive tally of over $491 million for the evening, especially considering the 10 lots that failed to sell.

Amedeo Modigliani, Nu Couché (1917-18), via Christie’s (more…)

Robert Rauschenberg, JayWalk (Anagram) (1996), via Art Observed

Marking the first exhibition of the work of Robert Rauschenberg since the late artist’s Foundation joined Pace Gallery earlier this year (and the artist’s 9th in total), Anagrams, Arcadian Retreats, Anagrams (A Pun) brings a body of Rauschenberg’s later works to the institution’s 25th Street location in Chelsea, documenting the artist’s artistic evolution and interest in increasingly complex methods of dye transfer, plaster and paper in his compositions.

Robert Rauschenberg, Anagrams, Arcadian Retreats, Anagrams (A Pun) (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

Pablo Picasso, La Gommeuse (1901), all photos via Sotheby’s

The first week of sales is in the books in New York, as Sotheby’s concluded its Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale last night, following up on a somewhat lackluster sale the prior evening with a briskly paced sale and solid results that lost momentum in the late minutes of the event, ultimately selling 36 of 47 lots for a final tally of $306,712,000. (more…)

Sara Friedlander

RxArt‘s annual benefit gala took place Tuesday night at Stephan Weiss Studios in the West Village, honoring Swiss artist Urs Fischer. The ceiling was decked out in colorful elephant mobiles designed by the artist, tying into RxArt’s mission of transforming the often sterile halls of children’s healthcare facilities and hospitals into engaging visual environments for young patients.

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Frank Stella, Harran II (1967), via Art Observed

Upon entering Frank Stella’s career retrospective at the Whitney, one is immediately assailed by a flourish of color and form, with the artist’s massive mural work Das Erdbeben in Chili spanning almost the full length of the fifth floor wall.  The show, which marks one of the largest for the artist in the US since his 1987 MoMA Retrospective, is a fitting introduction to his work, spanning his nearly seventy year career. (more…)

Frank Stella, Delaware Crossing (1961), via Sotheby’s

The New York auction weeks are underway in New York, following the conclusion of a lackluster sale at Sotheby’s this evening, where the premier works from the estate of Alfred A. Taubman took the block, spread across a 77-lot auction that saw 8 works fail to find a buyer, including several top lots, while reaching an underwhelming auction tally (given the presale estimate of $500 million) of $377,034,000, with a considerable percentage of works selling well below estimate. (more…)

Amedeo Modigliani, Paulette Jourdain (circa 1919). All photos by Rae Wang for Art Observed.

A marathon auction calendar is set to open in New York this week, bringing a massive trove of premier works to the city’s top auction houses.  With 7 major sales over the course of the next week and a half, spectators can expect an almost unprecedented number of high value works changing hands, with major records already forecasted to fall during the proceedings at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips. (more…)

Richard Bell, Embassy (2015), via Performa

Performa, New York’s iconic and ongoing performance art Biennial has returned to the city this month, kicking off this past Sunday with a full calendar of events running through the 22nd.  The 15th edition of the event, Performa is offering a particularly strong calendar of events over the coming weeks, mixing high art stage performances, conceptual exercises, live poetics and confrontational pieces across the city’s range of venues, institutions and galleries. (more…)

Liam Gillick, A Broadcast from 1887 on the Subject of our Time (1996)

On view at Maureen Paley through November 22nd is a solo exhibition by prominent British conceptualist Liam Gillick, continuing the artist’s vastly interdisciplinary practice mining fluid and interconnected social norms, and scrutinizing the overt or arcane methods that agents of society pursue in response to such dynamics. (more…)

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Josh Smith, Untitled (2014), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Luhring Augustine is currently hosting its sixth collaboration with New York based artist Josh Smith. Having emerged in the early 2000s alongside a group of critically challenging and occasionally irreverent artists including Kelley Walker, Sterling Ruby and Seth Price, Smith is one of the foremost representatives of a genre that delivers spontaneity and audaciousness in presence, yet asserts a depth that is subliminal and immaculate.  Here, the artist takes his signature penchant for deconstruction to one of many natural conclusions, executing minimal compositions that tie his interest in gesture and hand to an almost free-associative exchange with the art historical. (more…)

Alex Hubbard, (to be titled) (2015), via Maccarone

Maccarone Gallery has tapped Alex Hubbard for its inaugural show in Los Angeles, opening the doors on its impressively spacious South Mission Street exhibition space with a series of large-scale paintings that lean on a diverse set of materials including urethane, resin, and fiberglass in their challenging, polymorphous constructions.   (more…)

Isa Genzken, Nefertiti Sculpture (2015), via Art Observed

David Zwirner has opened the front door on its elusively large, hangar-style exhibition space on 19th street for a show of new sculptural work by Isa Genzken, continuing the artist’s ongoing interests in the intersections of fashion and sculpture, and an engagement with the  human form in a particularly explicit manner.  The show is the artist’s third with the gallery in 10 years. (more…)

Nam June Paik, 359 Canal Street (1991), © Nam June Paik Estate, Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Launching its newly announced representation of the prolific and influential Korean artist Nam June Paik, Gagosian Gallery Hong Kong has opened an exhibition of the artist’s works during the last decade of his life, including a selection of video sculptures, paintings, and drawings that mark a refined yet diverse series of interests and formal languages for the artist, particularly when placed alongside the more classic works on view. (more…)

Berlin Metropolis: 1918 – 1933 (Installation View), via Art Observed

Opening its fall exhibition this week, the Neue Galerie looks to Weimar Berlin, with an exhibition that takes an in-depth look at the German capital’s shifting cultural, political and social threads as it recovered from near obliteration into a stable economic power, before descending into the violence and genocide of World War II. (more…)

Billy Childish, birch wood (2015), all photos by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Lehmann Maupin’s new 22nd street location is currently hosting  flowers, nudes and birch trees: New Paintings 2015, the gallery’s fourth exhibition of work by British poet, musician, author and artist Billy Childish.  Carrying a certain anticipatory note towards the coming fall weather, Childish’s exhibition manifests a dense feeling of autumn and its occasionally melancholy aura through his distinct painting style. (more…)