Pablo Picasso, Studio with Plaster Head (1925).  © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY.

Modern Antiquity at the J. Paul Getty Museum displays the works of four iconic Modern Art masters who combined ancient objects with 20th-century aesthetics to create what are now seminal artworks. From Picasso’s post-cubist womanly forms to Picabia’s “transparencies,” one can experience the relation of these modern works to their classic counterparts in the setting of the Getty Museum, famous for its antiquities collection. Picasso, de Chirico, Léger, and Picabia each uniquely found inspiration in the antique classical objects in museums that they frequented. Despite the fact these ancient objects belonged to other times and cultures, these artists felt a contemporary affinity towards them as they made up part of their everyday life. This major exhibition focuses on the works these four artists made between 1905-1935.

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Lichtenstein, Landscapes in the Chinese Style, installation view. All images via Gagosian Gallery.

Most recognized for his 1960s output of super-sized pulpy comic book prints and cartoon imagery explosions, Roy Lichtenstein‘s work continued to span an additional 30 years, in which he explored a number of styles and motifs that he is not commonly associated with. The current show at the Gagosian in Hong Kong seeks to exhibit some of Lichtenstein’s lesser-known works and, in particular, a number of pieces that re-interpret the style of Chinese landscape paintings.

Roy Lichtenstein, Landscape With Scholar’s Rock (1996)

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Carsten Höller, Double Carousel with Zöllner Stripes. Image via Enel Contemporanea.

Well-known Belgian artist Carsten Höller is the recipient of the 2011 Enel Contemporanea Award. Now in its fifth year, the Enel Contemporanea is sponsored by the Italian power company Enel, also sponsor to the 54^th Venice Biennale. In an effort to explore the connections between energy, a lifeline for contemporary society, and current art production, Enel annually commissions an original work that takes on themes around power and energy. Höller, oft associated with what Nicolas Bourriaud coined as Relational Aesthetics in the 1990s, contributed Double Carousel with Zöllner Stripes, now on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Rome (MACRO). Selected by a committee of curators from around the world, past projects have included The Butterfly House by Dutch duo Bik Van der Pol (2010), an open-air installation on Tiber Island by US artist Doug Aitken (2009), and a lunar eclipse by Canadian artist Angela Bulloch above the Arc Pacis (2007).

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Installation view of Uta Barth at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. All images via Tanya Bonakdar.

In her current solo exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, the German-born and Los Angeles-based photographer Uta Barth presents works from her recent partner projects, …and to draw a bright white line with light (previously shown in her 2011 solo exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago) and Compositions of Light on White. Both series carry the themes of atmospheric flux, the passage of time, and ephemerality that have come to characterize Barth’s practice. Long recognized for her rigorous examination of the conventions of photography and the poetics of visual perception, Barth takes on the role of the observer at the window in these most recent series.

Uta Barth, …and to draw a bright white line with light (Untitled 11.2) (2011)

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George Condo, Purple Compression (2011). All images via Skarstedt Gallery.

George Condo is currently showing eleven new works from his ongoing series Drawing Paintings at the Skarstedt Gallery in New York. Combining techniques of spontaneous drawing and more calculated painting, the series blends charcoal lines with pastel acrylics in Condo’s signature figurations. The large colorful canvases are busy with eyes and teeth, bowties and breasts, with the series-within-a-series, Compressions, leaving small stretches of blank canvas outside the compressed scenes. Condo says of the series, “They are about freedom of line and color and blur the distinction between drawing and painting. They are about beauty and horror walking hand in hand. They are about improvisation on the human figure and it’s consciousness.”

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Ugo Rondinone, ERSTERJUNIZWEITAUSENDUNDELF (2011). All images courtesy of Almine Rech Gallery.

New Horizon is the sixth solo exhibition by Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone at Almine Rech Gallery Brussels. For the first time since 1997 the artist’s iconic “horizon paintings” are being presented along with a series of watercolors. The now New York-based multi-media artist has continually questioned the relationship between viewer and artwork as well as the role of the artist and his place in the world. This series of works offer an entry point into the artist’s personal meditations around these inquiries while challenging the notion of public versus private domains.

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Nan Goldin, Swan-like embrace, Paris (2010). All images courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.

Nan Goldin: Scopophilia at Matthew Marks Gallery is the artist’s first exhibition in New York since 2007. Scopophilia, referring to the love of looking, contemplates Goldin’s images gathered from throughout her career, presenting them alongside recent photos shot at the Musée de Louvre. Her unprecedented after-hours access to the Louvre’s collections gave rise to new pairings and new interpretations of older work, as well as a 25-minute slide show.

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Spencer Sweeney at Gavin Brown’s enterprise. All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

Alongside owning and operating the well-known downtown venue Santo’s Party House, Spencer Sweeney divides his time among music, visual arts, and event promotion. Accordingly, his current show at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, The Pharaoh’s Lounge, explores the intersection of these interests, with a show that blurs the lines between art installation, night club, and, quite literally, a hookah lounge. Dara Friedman also presents separately a black and white film, The Dancer, in an additional space of the gallery.

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Neo Rauch, Heilstätten (2011). All images via David Zwirner.

Wedding a definitively German identity with a surrealist perspective and an unmoored historical context, Neo Rauch’s current show of new work, Heilstätten at David Zwirner in New York, provides an intriguing view of an artist and country coming to terms with its own past. A frequently cited practitioner of hauntological symbolism, Rauch’s paintings are heavy with the weight of their own implications. Strangely distended figures culled directly from the history books of German art inhabit evocative and surreal scenes that blend Communist art propaganda with German history and a disambiguation of perspective. The result is a collection of paintings that are equally nostalgic and political, and occasionally tragic.
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Michaël Borremans, The Knives (2010)

Michaël Borremans: The Devil’s Dress is the artist’s fourth solo exhibition at David Zwirner in New York. Borremans’ art is heavily influenced by 18^th and 19^th century artists, including Édouard Manet and Diego Valázquez, and his painterly style recalls works from both the Romantic and Realist periods. “One of the reasons I consciously chose to work in painting is that you can’t use it only as a medium. It has this historical connotation, and either you want [that connotation] or you don’t want it. So if you paint, you should make use of that. It’s inherent to the medium, and it’s very important. If you don’t want it, take another medium. It’s as simple as that. Therefore this dialogue with other painting is to me very essential,” Borremans said in an interview in 2007.

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Installation view

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Allora & Calzadilla, Under Discussion (2005); still. All images courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery.

Collaborative duo Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla’s interdisciplinary body of work permeates the realms of sculpture, photography, video, social interventions, and performance, engaging with both art and activism. Now at Lisson Gallery in London is “Vieques Videos 2003–2010,” three video works addressing the island of Vieques, shown together for the first time. From 1941 until 2003 Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, was occupied by the US Military and used as a weapons testing range. A grassroots civil disobedience campaign, led by inhabitants of Vieques, gained international support and led to the eventual evacuation of the military, though environmental and political concerns remain largely unresolved. Informed by and engaging with weighty political, historical, and social issues, Allora & Calzadilla often employ the absurd, creating a more approachable framework for confronting overwhelming material.

Allora & Calzadilla, Half Mast\Full Mast (2010); still.

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Paul McCarthy, White Snow Cake (2011). Bronze  Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

Multimedia artist Paul McCarthy brings fairy tales to Hauser & Wirth‘s New York gallery space in a second installation of the series. Works included in “The Dwarves, The Forests” are based on the drawings that made up the 2009 show “White Snow.” The exhibition series will continue, as Hauser & Wirth’s Andrea Schwan tells Art Observed, with a third installation, in which pieces from “The Dwarves, The Forests” will serve as sets for video art, to be hosted by the gallery sometime in 2013.  On view until December 17, “The Dwarves, The Forests” includes pieces cast in bronze and wrapped in gauze, and one, White Snow and Dopey, Wood (2011), that is McCarthy’s first wood sculpture.

Paul McCarthy, White Snow and Dopey, Wood (2011). Black Walnut.

More images, story, and related links after the jump…

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Martin Boyce, Turner Prize award ceremony, December 5, 2011 via Daily Mail

After much anticipation, the Turner Prize winner has been announced.  Martin Boyce won with a series of installed sculptures that was originally shown in the Venice Biennale in 2009. He is one of three Scottish artists to accept the prize within the last three years. The exhibition transformed a room at the Baltic Arts Center in Gateshead, who held the competition for the very first time. The well known photographer Mario Testino presented the £25,000 award last night. Karla Black, another Scottish artist, along with Hilary Lloyd and George Shaw were the other shortlisted artists to be nominated.

Martin Boyce, Do Words Have Voices, 2009 via Daily Mail

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Renowned Italian art dealer Mossimo De Carlo is hosting a series of solo shows from three prolific American artists known collectively as Three Amigos. Centered in Rome, the project features exhibits from Nate Lowman, Dan Colen, and the late Dash Snow, who passed away in 2009. United by their artistic ideas as well as nationality, the ‘Three Amigos’ first made waves as part of the so-called Bowery Collective in New York City.

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Artist Erwin Wurm in attendance at the Bass Museum of Art for his opening of Beauty Business. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

Erwin Wurm: Beauty Business held its opening reception at the Bass Museum of Art Wednesday night, along with several other Art Basel Miami Beach related events. The adjacent Collins Park displayed the Art Public sculpture park sector of the fair, and across the street Mr. Brainwash‘s 2nd annual “Under Construction” building takeover held its own party. Inside the Bass, crowds wandered through Wurm’s large gray architectural experiments and distorted sweater sculptures. Walls at each end of the ramp up to the exhibition space were dressed in sweaters themselves, covered in knit cotton with a neck hole and sleeves. Drinking Sculptures were arguably the main attraction and the most literally interactive. Wooden desks elevated or turned sideways invited viewers to open drawers and consume the bottles of vodka and whiskey stored within. One large wooden box on the floor had two holes in which to climb into and place one’s feet, shoulder width apart for a drink.

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Allora & Calzadilla, Umbrella and Bell (2011), front; Anish Kapoor, Untitled (2011), behind. At Lisson Gallery, booth J1. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

International collectors and art enthusiasts filled the Miami Beach Convention Center for the Wednesday preview of Art Basel Miami Beach 2011. While the maze of gallery booths could seem overwhelming, buyers were able to navigate through for a solid day of sales and works placed on reserve. Larger galleries such as Gagosian, David Zwirner, and Sprüth Magers sold several works and editions thereof. Speaking with Neil Wenman of Hauser & Wirth, “We’ve had a great response on the opening day. In particular for works by Thomas Houseago, Rashid Johnson, Paul McCarthy, Matthew Day Jackson, Richard Jackson—all works sold and all available editions.” Jenny Holzer’s new paintings at Sprüth Magers sold for upwards of $300,000, as well as Condos and Krugers at the booth. Lesser-known galleries were pleased to gain the exposure the fair offers; if not selling right away, interest was high and therefore also prospects for the remainder of the fair. Gallery Arratia Beer said the crowd was very engaged and informed, also saying, “The fair feels very international. It’s also good to see young internationals here too.” The newer Latin American presence was reportedly strong, both exhibiting and buying, as expected in Miami as opposed to the Frieze or FIAC fairs across the Atlantic earlier this year. Celebrities on hand included Julian Schnable, Eli Broad, Brett Rattner, Naomi Campbell, and Sean Combs/P. Diddy.

Larry Gagosian

Entrance D at the Miami Convention Center

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‪‬Gordon Matta-Clark 1976 film ‘City Slivers’ to screen on 22nd street building via High Line Channel [AO Newslink]

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The Pace Gallery‘s current exhibition, Surface of the Third Order presents a collection of cerebral sculptures and objects by Hiroshi Sugimoto. The exhibition features two groups of work: small crystal pagodas and larger aluminum sculptures. Surface of the Third Order is on view through December 23, 2011, displayed concurrently with an exhibition of twenty-four of the crystal pagodas at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.

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Raymond Pettibon, Desire in Pursuyt of the Whole, 2011. Image via Re-Title.

In his current solo exhibition at Regen Projects, Desire in Pursuyt of the Whole, Los Angeles-based artist Raymond Pettibon shows a range of his works, from the more recent densely-woven collages to his well-known heroic surfers. Pettibon is one of the few artists whose work moves fluidly between the pages of Juxtapoz magazine and the walls of the Whitney Biennial, sustaining both the criticality of a conceptually-oriented practice and the cool ease of a graphic novelist.

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Installation view. All photos via Pace Gallery Site and the New York Times.

1941 marked both a beginning and ending for Alexander Calder. The artist was forced to give up aluminum as one of his key materials in support of the war effort—but not before having one of the most productive years of his life. That year, Calder dug into a number of approaches and techniques he had explored over the past ten years to create some of his best work. Now, the Pace Gallery in Manhattan is hosting a large-scale retrospective on Calder’s work from 1941, featuring some of his most well-known pieces as well as some rarely shown.

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Frank Stella, Red Scramble (1977). All images courtesy of Haunch of Venison.

Frank Stella: Connections is a mini-retrospective of Stella’s extensive career currently on display at the Haunch of Venison in London. Covering over 50 years of work characterized by dramatically changing styles, the exhibition could easily be mistaken for one of multiple artists on display.

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Wolfgang Tillmans, TGV, inkjet print on paper (2010). All images courtesy Gallery Chantal Crousel.

Wolfgang Tillmans returns for his second solo show at Gallery Chantal Crousel, presenting new works from the past few years. Images of both public and private nature are displayed in typical Tillmans style; unframed works hanging either directly on the wall or by the use of his infamous binder clips.

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Martin Boyce, Do Words Have Voices, installation view (2011). All images courtesy of BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art Gateshead.

The Turner Prize, began in 1984 to honor an outstanding British artist under the age of fifty, has announced the 2011 shortlisted artists: Karla Black, Martin Boyce, Hilary Lloyd, and George Shaw. Judged on work from the previous year, the four nominees also present an exhibition from October through January, this year at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Gateshead— the first time outside a Tate venue. A program featuring the live announcement of the winner, decided by jury, will be broadcast on the British Channel 4 on December 5, 2011.

Karla Black, Doesn’t Care In Words, installation view (2011).

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Installation view of Tracey Emin, The Vanishing Lake (2011). All images by Stephen White courtesy of White Cube.

The Vanishing Lake, Tracey Emin’s White Cube-curated exhibition housed at 6 Fitzroy Square, is a meditation on personal metamorphosis. A new series of self portraits that were inspired by her novel of the same name provide the exhibition’s focal point while other works—including textual light installations and large-scale tapestries of her provocative paintings—help create an overwhelming sense of romantic melancholia.

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