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…)

Martin Creed, Work No. 2209, Woman with a dog at a table (2015), Photo: Todd White © Martin Creed Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth London

Martin Creed is the subject of a solo exhibition of recent work at Hauser & Wirth Zurich this month, once again delving into his signature, multimedia-based interdisciplinary practice.  Among the most controversial contemporary British artists, Creed came into global recognition with his 2001 Turner Prize winning installation Work No. 227: The lights going on and off, presenting, as its self-descriptive title suggests, a vacant room in which the lights go on and off in five second breaks.  Like much of the artist’s work, the minimal gesture drew staunch criticism due to Creed’s endorsement of such a simple act in endless repetition. (more…)

PAVILLON DE L’ESPRIT NOUVEAU: A 21st Century Show Home (2015), all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The interior of Swiss Institute is coated in Chroma key green this month, as the gallery opens the 2^nd Edition of its Annual Architecture and Design Series entitled PAVILLON DE L’ESPRIT NOUVEAU: A 21st Century Show Home, curated by Felix Burrichter, the editor and creative director of architecture and design magazine PIN–UP.  Taking a hearty investment both in design and its correlative practices in contemporary art, the exhibition plays on the ever-increasing slippage between delineations of interior design, environmental assemblage and pure installation. (more…)

Ugo Rondinone, clouds + mountains + waterfalls at Sadie Coles HQ (Installation View), via Art Observed

Sadie Coles HQ is currently presenting a vibrantly colorful exhibition, clouds + mountains + waterfalls, by Swiss born artist Ugo Rondinone, an artist already recognized by his idiosyncratic and often whimsical works in a wide range of media. Rondinone, whose oeuvre has been subject to numerous exhibitions and national museum shows globally since the mid ‘80s, here presents three independent yet narrative-driven and interconnected series of pieces, following the artist’s signature bright color palette and fascination with natural landscapes and materials.

Ugo Rondinone, clouds + mountains + waterfalls at Sadie Coles HQ (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Idris Khan, Displacement (2015)

Artist Idris Khan is presenting his exhibition, titled Overture, in New York this month, marking his first show in the city since 2010, and his first show with Sean Kelly, adorning the gallery’s two floors with intricate and spectral works stemming from his interdisciplinary approach.  Known for a meticulous aesthetic that draws inspiration from both Eastern and Western cultures, Khan executes a mosaic of various histories, narratives and disciplines in his expansive practice, while primarily leaning towards his work in digital photography. (more…)

FIAC 2015, all photos by Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

Having established itself as the second leg of Europe’s fall tour of art fairs, following hot on the feels of Frieze London, Paris’s FIAC fair has built itself into one of the art calendar’s more impressive exhibitions, and is now expanding even further, pushing for a place as one of the market’s premier selling events.  Boasting an attendance list of 175 galleries from 23 countries, the 42nd edition of the fair continues Paris’s push for a place in the international fair circuit that matches its century long prominence in the modern and contemporary avant-garde.

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Gardar Eide Einarsson, Utah to Resume Use of Firing Squads for Executions (2015), all photos by Elene Damenia for Art Observed

Returning to the United States for his first solo exhibition since leaving the country for Tokyo, Gardar Eide Einarsson has once again brought his particular brand of appropriation-based practice to Team Gallery for a solo exhibition of new work, taking aim this time at the United States’ often twisted ideological rhetoric, and the iconography that often carries it. (more…)

Katherine Bernhardt, Sharks, Plantains, and Cigarettes (2015) all photos courtesy Venus Over Manhattan

Painter Katherine Bernhardt has created an exhibition of work inspired by her recent residency in Puerto Rico, taking inspiration and encouragement from the landscape and artists of the city as her muse, and translating them into the artist’s signature hand.   (more…)

Tracy Emin, You Made Me Feel Beautiful again! (2015), at White Cube, all photos by Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

As the weekend arrived, Frieze London shut its doors on another week of strong sales, live projects and installations taking up the yards of Regent’s Park, with the fair reporting an impressive 260% increase in attendees during the VIP hours.  Even after the rush of buyers in the fair’s early hours, sales continued steadily through the rest of the week, concluding yesterday as the last vistors left the space. (more…)

Gordon Matta-Clark, Energy & Abstraction (Installation View)

Mystery, stemming from associations with the notion of void, always played a crucial role in opulent practice of Gordon Matta-Clark.  Differing from the often massively-sized voids he created in or between buildings before their demolition throughout his career, however, the pen and ink works currently on view at David Zwirner’s 20th street location appears as an almost direct response, although on a much more manageable scale.  Blank paper surfaces submit to restless marks of ink in splashes of color or stark black hues, signaling complex narratives behind the artist’s demanding projects, while deep carvings on gesso expose concealed layers that otherwise would go unnoticed when compared to his immense carvings through the architectural skeletons of buildings. (more…)

Robert Irwin, 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 (Installation View), via White Cube

White Cube Bermondsey is currently playing home to a slight, albeit impressive exhibition by Robert Irwin, taking the artist’s interest in environmental sculpture, space and light to arguably its most minimal conclusions.  Taking up two rooms at the London Gallery, the exhibition continues Irwin’s exploration of objects in space, and their relationships to the site in which they reside. (more…)

Peter Doig, Cabin Essence (1993-1994), via Christie’s

The sales have concluded in London tonight, after Christie’s capped a tightly run 54-lot auction that saw a final tally of £35,562,500, with 9 lots going unsold. (more…)