The Three Shades (1881-1886) by August Rodin via Gagosian Gallery

Currently on view at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris is an unprecedented exhibition pairing the works of acclaimed nineteenth-century sculptor Auguste-Rodin (1840-1917) with acclaimed present-day Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto (b.1948).  The exhibition features three monumental works by the late French sculpture including The Three Shades (c.1880), Monument to Victor Hugo (1897), and the Whistler Muse (1908). Sugimoto’s work revolves around the relation of images to sculpted light. Seen side-by-side Rodin’s powerful works is his series Stylized Sculptures (2007) in which he selected distinct garments by some of the world’s most celebrated fashion designers and photographed them in such a way as to reveal their inherent sculptural qualities.

Stylized Sculpture 008, designer: Yves Saint Laurent (2007) by Hiroshi Sugimoto, via Gagosian Gallery

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Ellsworth Kelly, Black Curve Diagonal (2010). Via Two Coats of Paint

In this series of thirteen new paintings, a new sculpture, and twenty small drawings from the 1950s, all at the Matthew Marks Gallery, Ellsworth Kelly demonstrates his dedication to the concept to which he has adhered for his time as an artist.  Simple in form and color, the new paintings and the sculpture in the ‘Reliefs’ show emphasize the bold shapes and hard edges characteristic of Kelly’s work. The twenty drawings of ‘Black and White Drawings’ from early in his career show a continuity of vision in their similarity to Kelly’s newest works.

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Jim Dine, The Dahlias, The Cherries, The Swiss Chard (2010). Via Pace Gallery

In ten large-scale paintings, Jim Dine’s familiar heart comes back in a new splash of color. The Pace Gallery’s show of new paintings from 2010 continues Dine’s tradition of centrally displaying the heart, and includes a 5’ x 12’ triptych titled The Dahlias, The Cherries, The Swiss Chard. Despite the continual reuse of the heart as a prominent shape in his paintings, Dine maintains integrity of the image by revisiting it with varying techniques and always a high level of attention to detail.

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Kai Althoff, Punkt, Absatz, Blümli (period, paragraph, Blümli) (2011). All images via Gladstone Gallery

Kai Althoff‘s most recent effort Punkt, Absatz, Blümli (period, paragraph, Blümli), currently on view at Barbara Gladstone, consists of work in all media yet reads as one cohesive installation.  Partitioned off with a lush red velvet curtain, the installation interrogates the evocative, highly intimate quality of private spaces.  Althoff’s facility with working in multimedia is highlighted in Punkt, which features an artificial ceiling, handmade carpet and life-sized paper-mâché figures, as well as the artist’s iconic two-dimensional painted works. The critic Linda Yablonsky aptly equates the installation to “a walk-in painting.“

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Thomas Houseago, All Together Now, Installation view. All photos via L&M Gallery

A native of northern England, Thomas Houseago brings his hulking, brutish sculptures to the L&M Gallery in Los Angeles through March 5. The 18 sculptures vary in both style and material, composed of wood, aluminum, plaster, bronze, rebar, hemp, and more, drawing on influences from tribal art to Picasso to Rodin. These new works are some of the artist’s largest, lending an architectural air to the exhibition, positioning pieces both inside and outside the gallery.

Installation view, outside the gallery

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Installation view. Dangerious Book Four Boys. Photo by Zain Burgess, Art Observed

Peres Projects presents James Franco‘s now infamous foray into art, The Dangerous Book Four Boys, initially shown at the Clocktower Gallery in NYC. The press release mildly proclaims that this is Franco’s first European solo show.  While technically true, this seems a wholly redundant statement as Franco takes over the cultural world, his films almost constantly being released, a 2011 Oscar nod and, as for art, his General Hospital work at LA MoMA last year still might be the crossover leap heard ’round the world. “I’ve been spending most weekends in L.A. shooting pre-taped stuff for the Oscars and this is the first weekend I wasn’t doing that,” Franco said at The Dangerous Book Four Boys opening.  The continued critical acceptance of Dangerous Boys, while not yet universal critical acclaim, is solely one facet of Franco’s creative dispersion.

James Franco, Untitled (Double third portrait polaroids); (detail of 15 photos) (2009). Via Peres Projects

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Luc Tuymans, Interior Nr. III (2010). Via Zeno-X Gallery

Currently on view at Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp is The Twenty Seventh of January Two Thousand and Eleven by Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. The artist’s fourteenth solo show at the Antwerp gallery, the artist’s new works explore the use of light as a claustrophobic element in indoor intimate domestic spaces.

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Will Cotton and Katy Perry at the exhibition opening, via People

Will Cotton‘s new paintings at Michael Kohn Gallery depict beautiful women caught inside dreamlike, manufactured fantasies.  In a show that tethers Cotton’s natural mastery of painting to the undeniable pull of popular culture and mass consumption, Cotton seems to be struggling to walk the line between the empowerment and overpowering his subject matter.  Contextualizing the female icon within a candy-coated dream world, Cotton is no newcomer to traditional subject matter, and his large-scale paintings straddle exaltation and exploitation.

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Dan Colen, Me, Jesus and the Children (2001-2003)

The aftereffects of Dan Colen’s highly publicized, and certainly polarizing breakout show at Gagosian Gallery last fall still resonate.  Though some saw Colen’s show as Icarian, it certainly put the artist on the map for a broader audience.  Astrap Fearnley gallery in Oslo now presents a show that, while displaying works that are certainly less grand and ambitious than the inverted life sized skateboard ramps and toppled motorcycles of the Gagosian show, still has a nicely broad scope of the artist’s works over time.  Chewing gum, oil paint imitating bird droppings, graffiti tags, stills from Disney movies: these are what Dan Colen uses to create his art. Part of the “Bowery School” from downtown New York, Colen creates art from everyday objects and experiences. His painstaking reproductions of recognizable scenes undermine perception, as in The Cloud and the Ghost (The Birds and the Bees), where an impossible ghost rises out of a glass on the bedside table towards a hand holding out pills from a cloud. At the same time, his purposeful randomness takes away the control most expect in art. Astrup Fearnley brings together a collection of a wide range of Colen’s work in his exhibition, Peanuts.

Dan Colen, Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover (Another Country) (2010)

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Francesco Vezzoli, Jesus Christ Superstar, Light box (2011). Photo by Sei Eun Lee, Art Observed

Francesco Vezzoli holds his first solo exhibition Sacrilegio in New York at the 21st Street Gagosian Gallery through March 12th. Vezzoli has enlarged several Madonna and Child paintings by 15th and 16th century artists Giovanni Bellini, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea Mantegna, and Sandro Botticelli, reinterpreting them within a contemporary context by replacing the virginal faces with supermodels Claudia Schiffer, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, Naomi Campbell, and Kim Alexis.

Francesco Vezzoli, Crying portrait of Kim Alexis as a Renaissance Madonna with Holy Child (after Giovanni Bellini) (2010). Via Gagosian Gallery

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Mona Hatoum, Current Disturbance (2010) via www.aliraqi.org

Current Disturbance is a singular installation that fills a room at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, the third in a series of four displays from the Daskalopoulos Collection in Greece. Using Marcel Duchamp’s infamous “Fountain” as a starting point, “Keeping It Real: An Exhibition in 4 Acts” seeks to explore the line between art and reality and the relationship between the artist and the tactile world.  British – Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum‘s light-filled creation was first shown in 1996 at the Capp Street Project, San Francisco and is now being shown through March as a part of Whitechapel Gallery’s initiative to open private collections for public viewing. The installation is comprised of stacked wire cages, a multiplicity of light bulbs and the amplified sound of the electric currents coursing through the enclosed system. The interminable low buzz emitting from the structure, combined with the arbitrary flickering of light bulbs conveys a certain sense of discomfort and oppression that provides an open-ended commentary much in keeping with Hatoum’s widely political body of work.

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Laurel Nakadate, Exorcism in January (2009). Via New York Times

But, is she exploitative? This has been the defining question of Laurel Nakadate’s roughly decade long, hotly discussed career. Nakadate is primarily known for her infamous early videos in which she invited herself into the homes of the single, middle-aged men that approached her in public, bringing her video camera and a scenario that tested the limits of the new relationship. In one Nakadate plays dead while the men play ‘doctor’ and in another they pretend it’s her birthday, singing and eating cake. Some venture further—one sees Nakadate and the participant play a stripping game, the artist taking off articles of clothing one by one, matched by a man in his 50s, moles covering his back. Nakadate’s work in-variously produces the same chain of reactions from critics: first, is this a safe practice? How did the artist know she would remain safe? The threat of violence is a common concern for the artist, which some argue lessens the effect of her work. After viewing one of Nakadate’s videos for a few minutes, it becomes clear the men she works with are docile. Then, the second question is almost always: is she laughing at them?

Only the Lonely, Installation view. Via P.S. 1

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Agathe Snow, Arc de Triomphe (2010). Via Deutsche Guggenheim

Through All Access World, Agathe Snow invites her audience to make historical monuments their own. All Access World represents a fictional company that shrinks the Berlin Wall, the Eiffel Tower, and other such structures, down to a human scale. Its goal is to promote “a more democratic approach to monument ownership and distribution.” Snow’s gallery space at Deutsche Guggenheim is full of interactive sculptures that dissect the importance of monuments and their locations.

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Installation view of Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures at The Museum of Modern Art, 2010.

Currently on view at the MoMA is a tightly curated sampling of Warhol’s Screen Tests, shot between 1964 and 1966, as well as his films: Kiss, Sleep, Empire, Eat, and Blow Job. The show was conceived of in 2003 by MoMA curator Mary Lea Bandy and was exhibited as Andy Warhol: Screen Tests. After moving to Berlin’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art in 2004, the show traveled internationally for five years as facilitated by PS1 Director Klaus Biesenbach.  All films have been transferred to video for the installation but there is still something archival—“filmic,” as Bisenbach says—about the footage.

Andy Warhol. Screen Test: Edie Sedgwick (1965). 16mm film (black and white, silent). 4 min. at 16fps. © 2010 The Andy Warhol Museum

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George Condo, Homeless Harlequins (2004). Via New Museum

Over eighty paintings and sculptures fill two floors of the New Museum with a survey of George Condo’s work from the past thirty years, the opening drawing celebrities like Marc Jacobs and Kanye West, for whom Condo recently painted an album cover. The characters in Condo’s portraits maintain a human quality despite their oversized ears and exaggerated expressions. He attributes his ability to draw up absurd yet empathetic portraits to his mimicry of classic techniques—careful color choice, appropriate brush strokes. Through his impeccable technique, he has gained a follower: Eneas Capalbo is marking his tenth year of copying Condo’s work. His exhibit, a token of how much he admires the artist’s work, opened at the Half Gallery the same day as Condo’s.

Installation view. Via New York Times

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Richard Phillips in front of Most Wanted, via Telegraph

Richard Phillips is blowing up pop art onto two-meter canvases full of celebrity in his new exhibition Most Wanted, on now at White Cube through March 5. In a saturated, Technicolor hyperrealist style, complete with Richard Bernstein-esque neon outlines, Phillips has painted in oil ten current pop-culture icons: Chace Crawford, Kristen Stewart, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Momsen, Dakota Fanning, Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, and Robert Pattinson.

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Alfred Gilbert, Jubilee Memorial to Queen Victoria (1887). Via The Guardian

It is understandable that critics are particularly divided in their reviews of Modern British Sculpture, at the Royal Academy of Arts through April 7. It attempts to question “What is British, what is modern and what is sculpture” ranging as far and wide as the African and Asian colonial influences of 20th century British sculptors, to the transitions between figurative and abstraction, to the work of Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst. The show runs the gamut of well-known names but has fun throwing in the odd obscurity, like Alfred Gilbert’s Jubilee Memorial to Queen Victoria, a baroque piece by a classic British artist that is decidedly out of context in this exhibition. More familiar are Anthony Caro, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, who are newly contextualized in this first exhibition in 30 years to focus on 20th century British sculpture—its origins, evolution, and impact.

Damien Hirst, Let’s Eat Outdoors Today (1990). Via The Guardian

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Joe Bradley, Struth (2010). Via Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

American artist Joe Bradley is showing his work simultaneously at two New York Galleries: Gavin Brown’s Enterprise and Canada Gallery on the Lower East Side. Each gallery exhibits works by the artist in a completely different style. For his first show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Bradley shows large colorful abstract paintings made with oil sticks instead of paint brushes. The canvases are full of the artist’s footprints, dirt, dust, references to comic book characters, and abstract expressionist and primitivist symbolism. At Canada, his longtime art gallery, he gives viewers large black and white silkscreens of male silhouettes.

Joe Bradley, Human Forms (2011). Via Canada Gallery

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Wade Gutyon, Installation view (2010), Capitain Petzel. All images via Capitain Petzel, Berlin.

Currently on view at Capitain Petzel in Berlin is the gallery’s first solo show of American artist Wade Guyton.  Having once been quoted by New York Times Magazine as saying “I am too lazy to paint,” Guyton continues to press the boundaries of creating art in a digital age by making heavy use of an Epson ink jet printer.  This installation features 86 pieces of paper displayed under glass in fifteen vitrines.  A continuation of an installation at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany in 2010, Guyton has expanded the project to an entire series of blue-tiled vitrines and works on paper.  Although these papers have the appearance of a handcrafted painting, each underwent a process involving multiple printings and digital additions or “drawings.”

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Martin Creed, Mothers (2010). Via Time Out London

Martin Creed’s Mothers at Hauser & Wirth nearly beats viewers over the head with his exploration of relationships. The centerpiece, a huge sculpture bearing the same title as the exhibition, bears the word “MOTHERS” in neon above the heads of the audience. Creed is also releasing a new single and music video, Thinking/Not Thinking, at this show.

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Piotr Uklański, Jupiter Glow (2010). All images via Gagosian Gallery

In his new series on display at the Gagosian Gallery, Discharge!, Piotr Uklański stretches the boundaries of what can be called painting. Rather than add color to a blank canvas, the artist removes color by applying bleach to cotton sheets treated with fiber reactive dyes. This discharge of the bright pigments brings the creative process of painting into question by using an act of removal, rather than addition, to generate images. His method in this series produced vivid images often reminiscent of astronomical photographs in their bursts of color, or cellular patterns in their organic repetition.

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Gilbert and George, Buses (2009). Via The Independent

“They made themselves,” Gilbert and George reassure of the 564 postcard works that comprise the Urethra Series, only 155 of which are currently on view at White Cube, Mason’s Yard in London. Since their first exhibition of postcard works in 1972, Gilbert and George have continued methodically collecting postcards, phone box cards, fliers and other ephemeral, everyday modes of communication—two collections of which make up the Urethra Series. The Urethra Postcard Pictures represent 30 odd years of English visual culture, with images of Parliament and St. Paul’s Cathedral shown alongside S+M adverts and other such handouts that litter London’s phone boxes.

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Gilbert & George, with installation behind. Via SlamXHype

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The Fair’s logo, via VIPArtFair.com

Contemporary art buyers and admirers, many undoubtedly slippered in the comfort of their own homes, logged in for the opening of the VIP Art Fair on Saturday at 8:00AM (EST).  The online Fair was three years in the making, but until Saturday the website consisted of little more than a list of participating galleries and organizations, a brief overview, and a promotional video. Though the galleries had also been publicizing featured works to be offered and screenshots of their virtual booths, those not lucky enough to attend the fair’s opening party were still gripped with curiosity about the kind of experience the site would offer.

Zoomed in on Neo Rauch’s Haus de Lehrers, 2003 (est. over $1 million), via VIP Art Fair

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Carl Andre, Sum Roma (1997). Via Sadie Coles HQ

Now on view at Sadie Coles HQ in London is TRAVERTINE/BASALT, featuring the American sculptor and minimalist, Carl Andre. This show marks Andres’ fifth at the gallery, the current exhibition a sequence of sculptures made from Icelandic basalt and two works of travertine (a form of limestone). Made throughout his career, the artist’s work conveys qualities of linearity, repetition, and geometry. The three installments on display, the basalt Altbase series and the two travertine works, Grecrux and Sum Roma, reinforce Andre’s appreciation for the material physicality and aesthetic qualities of structural—and architectural—forms of sculpture.

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