Fred Sandback, Broadway Boogie Woogie (Sculptural Study, Twenty-part Vertical Construction), 1991/2011. Courtesy of Abstract Critical.

Whitechapel Gallery is exhibiting work of the late artist Fred Sandback, who passed away in 2003. Departing from the somewhat mystical notions of the unreality of objects and the malleability of empty spaces, Sandback’s yarn sculptures slice the gallery’s spatial emptiness with straight angles, mimicking geometrical shapes, which, to the observer’s eye, appear and disappear into thin air.

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Michelangelo Pistoletto, Installation view (2011), all images via Serpentine Gallery

Currently showing at the Serpentine Gallery is Michelangelo Pistoletto‘s sprawling labyrinth of one continuous roll of corrugated cardboard. Custom made for the space, the chest-high installation snakes in and out of each room, constantly diverting the viewer’s course and occasionally taking them to one of several main focus points at which large mirrors (a motif repeatedly used by the artist) are located.

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Nicolas Poussin, Seven Sacraments: Confirmation, ‘Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters’ (1637-1640), all images via Dulwich Picture Gallery

Dulwich Picture Gallery in London exhibits the recently deceased American contemporary artist Edwin Parker “Cy” Twombly  (April 1928-July 2011) with 17th century classical French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) in an exploration of the Arcadian style. The exhibition opened on June 29th, just 6 days before Twombly’s death on July 5th, 2011, and will run through September 25th, and is exhibited alongside Tacita Dean‘s Film “Edward Parker”.

Cy Twombly, Quattro Stagioni: Inverno, ‘Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters’ (1993-5)

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Installation view of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Caro on the Roof”, 2011. All images via The Metropolitan Museum

Currently on view at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art is “Caro on the Roof”, an installation featuring selected works of renowned British sculptor, Anthony Caro (b.1924). The installation culls together five large scale steel sculptures spanning the artist’s sixty year career, and will be open until October 30th, 2011. The Met’s roof has in the past shown work by Jeff Koons and Doug and Mike Starn, whose popular Big Bambú installation is currently showing at the Venice Biennale.

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Robert Longo, The Haunting (2005), all images via Kunsthalle Weishaupt

On display at Kunsthalle Weishaupt through September 25 is Robert Longo’s first solo exhibition in a German museum since 2005. Covering two floors, the exhibition presents over forty drawings from the museum’s collection — including pieces from his Magellan series — as well as works from Longo’s estate. Longo is known primarily for his drawings and sculpture, though he also works in film. More recently, Longo has been working with charcoal to make photorealistic drawings of images taken from the media which highlight such themes as environmental disaster, violence, and kitsch – a cynical look at modern American life.

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Gregory Crewdson, Railway Children, ‘Beneath the Roses’ (2003-2007), all images courtesy C/O Berlin

Gregory Crewdson‘s solo exhibition In a Lonely Place, which opened at C/O Berlin on July 1st, encompasses 3 separate series separated into different rooms: Fireflies (1996), Beneath the Roses (2003-2007) and his most recent work Sanctuary (2009-2010).  The artist is known for his large-format photos, often depicting empty, stagnant, desolate landscapes with solitary, introspective characters. Extreme detail and sheer size make the viewing experience nearly simulate the real setting in reproduction.

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James Turrell, Aloka’s Flower (2009), photo by Florian Holzherr, via Garage Center.

American artist James Turrell’s first exhibition in Russia is a retrospective at Moscow’s Garage Center for Contemporary Culture. The exhibition consists of works that span Turrell’s long career, from early pieces to a site-specific piece, ‘Purusa.’  The exhibition is curated by the former director of the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Richard Andrews.

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Charles Ledray, Bone Rocker (1995), with Robert Gober, Untitled (1984-88) (left) and Luc Tuymans, Plates (2011), right. All images Nicolas Linnert for Art Observed.

David Zwirner‘s summer exhibition, The House Without the Door, makes a curatorial departure from Emily Dickinson’s poem of a similar name. The works center around themes of interiority and domesticity, alluding to both the poet’s reclusive personality and her writing’s exploration of issues stemming from such a lifestyle, which moved past memories and objects towards intense introspection and deep-seated feelings of anxiety and trauma.

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Installation view of New Work, via Stuart Shave/Modern Art

Stuart Shave/Modern Art in London is currently showing an exhibition of new work by Barry Mcgee through August 13. McGee gained notoriety in the mid 1980’s for his work as a graffiti artist in San Francisco, California (produced under the tag “Twist”) and has captured a wide following in major contemporary galleries and museums over the last decade. In the series of untitled sculptural, wood panel and paper works on view at Stuart Shave/Modern Art, McGee attempts to negotiate the social message and aesthetics of street art with the commercial sterility of the gallery space. His geometric forms draw upon a Latin-American mural and decorative arts tradition while also paying tribute to a contemporary legacy of abstraction.

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David Dawson, David and Eli in progress, 2004

The relationship between master and apprentice is evident in the works from painter Lucian Freud and his assistant David Dawson now on view at Faurschou Beijing through August 14th. Dawson has worked as Freud’s assistant since 1991 and has been one of the few people allowed to photograph Freud in his studio as he works. The exhibitions pairs Freud’s painting David & Eli, (2003-04) with ten photos taken by Dawson at Freud’s studio between 2004 to 2006.

Installation view of Lucian Freud and David Dawson at Faurschou Beijing

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Ai Weiwei, Washington Square Park Protest (1988), all photos courtesy of Three Shadows Photography Art Centre and Chambers Fine Art, via Asia Society.

Art Observed was on site at the Asia Society’s Ai Weiwei retrospective, which comprises over 200 photographs taken by the artist in some of his most pivotal years. Between 1983 and 1993, Weiwei documented protests of system, political, gender, and artistic. The show is a collection of black and white photographs, numbered simply and elegantly. The titles are Weiwei’s own, scrawled at the bottom of each piece. A visitor follows Weiwei through his life in the East Village. “New York Photographs” chronicles Weiwei’s interest in transformations, as they manifest through the artist’s perspective, and closes August 14.

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Ai Weiwei, Robert Frank & Allen Ginsberg (1989)

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Joe Bradley, Duckling Fantasy (2011) installation view, courtesy Almine Rech.

Joe Bradley’s “Duckling Fantasy” is currently on show at Paris’s Almine Rech Gallery.  The exhibition consists of new, somewhat large-scale paintings from oil, oil sticks and pencils, that continue Bradley’s interest in color and dirt.

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André, Love Graffiti: Annabelle (2011).  All images by S. Zabrodski for Art Observed, unless otherwise stated.

MOCA’s exhibition, ‘Art in the Streets’ has proven to be a hugely popular, if not highly contentious, addition to L.A.’s summer arts scene. Located at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo, the massive space includes the work of around 50 artists in a range of media including murals, photography, installations, graffitied vehicles, and re-created cityscapes. The show has come under fire for its glorification of what many perceive as vandalism. Indeed, the area surrounding Geffen Contemporary saw a spike in graffiti following the opening of ‘Art in the Streets’ in mid-April. As with any survey show, there have been many objections relating to both the inclusion and exclusion of certain artists. Even before the opening, MOCA Director, Jeffrey Deitch, drew criticism for the museum’s censorship of Italian street artist Blu’s mural depicting coffins covered with dollar bills. The mural was painted over after Deitch deemed it insensitive given its location near a veteran’s memorial. Both in spite of and because of these debates, the show has sparked a discourse that is significant for both artists and audience- since the show has opened, Banksy, one of the artists included in the exhibit,  has begun sponsoring free admission on Mondays to pull in even more viewers to an already record-breaking show. Bansky is quoted as saying, “I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it.” The exhibition was slated to travel to the Brooklyn Museum in 2012, but was recently cancelled due to financial constraints.

Swoon, Ice Queen (2011)

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Thomas Struth, Pantheon, Rome (1990), via Whitechapel Gallery.

London’s Whitechapel Gallery is showing a survey of German photographer Thomas Struth’s photographs, spanning over thirty years – 1978-2010.  The exhibition consists of early black and white photos to more recent, large-scale photos, over seventy in total.  Struth is undoubtedly one the most important photographers of the past forty years, and this exhibition shows the artist’s talent for highlighting our global interconnectedness through themes like technology, religion, and art itself.

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Glenn Brown, Layered Portrait (After Rembrandt) 7 (2008), via Gagosian Gallery

On display through July 23^rd 2011 at Genevas’s Gagosian Gallery, are etchings by the artist Glenn Brown.  Known for his appropriation of images, here Brown employs portraits by Lucien Freud, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Urs Graf. By first digitally altering the source images and then layering his reworked interpretations, Brown creates composite paintings which serve as the basis for his etchings.

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Dan Colen, Disappearing Act (2011) via Carlson Gallery

New York based artists Dan Colen is currently showing a small but wide-ranging collection of work at the intimate Carlson Gallery. ‘Come Out Come Out Wherever you Are!’  is a multifaceted selection of the artists’ sculptural and photographic work and dedicated to Dash Snow, who died from a heroin overdose in 2009. Exhibited in two conjoining rooms inside a tower block right at the heart of the city, the show’s designation as remembrance of a friend lost injects the work with a poignant endurance. The show also features work by Hanna Liden, a friend and collaborator who is also known as part of the definable group of New York based artists that have been active in the city for the past few years. The show is listed as focusing on the following themes: Religion, Kids Stuff (Death Stuff), Idols and Assholes, Bullshit Magic, Death Stuff (Kids Stuff), Heroin, Erstwhile Boners and/or a Nostalgic Fisting and Re-intarnation.

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Tobias Wong with his glass chairs (2002). Image courtesy NYT.

Last year, New York lost one of its most cherished up-and-coming artists and designers, Tobias Wong. Only 35 at the time of his death, Wong was known as a provocateur, his practice most often described as “paraconceptual” and “postinteresting.” A year after his death, he is remembered in an intimate exhibition at SFMOMA. Curated by Henry Urbach, the exhibition highlights some of Wong’s poignant works, and mark the loss of a unique voice.

Accompanying the exhibition is a touching podcast featuring interviews with Wong’s classmates, collaborators, and his fiancé Tim Dubitsky. Among those included in the podcast are Curator of Architecture and Design at SFMOMA, Henry Irbach; Pablo Griff, who worked with Wong in the early 1990s; Paola Antonelli, Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA New York; Amilia Bauer, Wong’s studio-mate at the Cooper Union; Philip Wood, founder and creative director of online retail space CITIZEN: Citizen; and Beijing-based writer, curator, artist Aric Cheng.

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Alice Neel, Ned McCabe (1964), all images via Victoria Miro Gallery

The Victoria Miro Gallery has staged an intimate selection of portraits by Alice Neel, focusing on her work with male subjects. Titled “Men Only”, the show highlights Neel’s relationship with the different men who posed for her over the years. Some are close friends, others are blood relatives, some were strangers that caught her eye, but each portrait gives a glimpse into the personality of the sitter.

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Elizabeth Peyton, Isa (2010), courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

The recently opened Paris branch of the Gagosian Gallery presents a collection of recent work by the much loved American contemporary artist Elizabeth Peyton. The small presentation of paintings and drawings represents the artist’s first solo exhibition in Paris.

Peyton’s work, consisting mostly of small “jewel-like” portraits, is surprisingly immediate and fresh although her subjects maintain a considerable distance from the viewer. Her works present both contemporary and historical subjects, some of whom have been rendered from photographs and others from life, often Peyton’s own friends.

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Omer Fast from “De Grote Boodschap” (2007), via NIMK.

American trained, Israeli born artist Omer Fast is currently showing three installation pieces for which he has become known; “Nostalgia” (2009), “The Casting” (2007), and “De Grote Boodschap” (2007), all at the Netherlands Media Art Institute.  All three works show Fast’s interest in the cinematic construction of narrative via documentary and film reenactment.

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