Pure Beauty 1966-1968, Acrylic on canvas © John Baldessari, Courtesy of Baldessari Studio and Glenstone

Tate Modern are currently exhibiting the largest ever UK retrospective featuring the work of the prolific Californian artist, John Baldessari, through January 10. Tate Modern’s exhibition, John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, acts as a parallel to the Ed Ruscha exhibition only minutes away at the Hayward Gallery in London’s Southbank Centre; both artists employ humor and a compulsion toward language and American pop culture in their works.

Bloody Sundae 1987 Black and white photographs, vinyl paint © John Baldessari, Courtesy of Baldessari Studio

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Los Angeles County Museum on Fire,(1965 – 1968) Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution © Ed Ruscha 2009 Photography: Lee Stalsworth. All images in this article are by Ed Ruscha.

The Hayward Gallery, in London’s Southbank Centre, is currently hosting the UK’s first major retrospective of the leading Californian artist Edward Ruscha. The exhibition is comprised entirely of paintings – by highlighting this medium in a multidisciplinary oeuvre testifies to Ruscha’s influence on it.  After all, in 1956 Ruscha enrolled at the Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, intending to train as a commercial artist, but this course was diverted somewhat after taking complementary fine art classes: this truth is made greatly evident in this exhibition in which the works hover at an interesting crossroads where graphic design meets Conceptualism in painting.

Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights (1962) via The Guardian

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Anthony McCall’s ‘You and I Horizontal’ via Moderna Museet

Now on view at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm are two light installations by Anthony McCall. McCall’s first “solid light” piece was the 1973 film, ‘Line Describing a Cone,” a work that is now legendary. The 16mm film projected a white circle that, over the course of half an hour, grew to a conical sculpture of light. For the 2004 Whitney Biennial, McCall recreated that work using newer technology that gives the projected image greater visibility and complexity. The new piece, ‘Doubling Back,’ was recently acquired by the Moderna Museet and is one of the works on view.

Anthony McCall’s ‘Doubling Back’ via Moderna Museet

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Barbara Kruger’s installation at the Lever House on Park Avenue in New York via Lever House Collection
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Whether we realize it or not, our daily lives are filled with multitudes of graphic and visual information. While reading a newspaper, watching television, walking on the street past countless advertisement, we constantly absorb information. It is this aspect of social and public sphere that Barbara Kruger exploits in her current installation at the Lever House in New York. A project commissioned by the real estate  mogul Aby Rosen, whose collection features such names as Jeff Koons, George Condo, John Chamberlain, Keith Harring, and Barnaby Furnas, holds tight to its message of “an image is worth a thousand words.” The text as art exhibition, titled “Between Being Born and Dying” runs through November 21st, 2009.

Related links
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Barbara Kruger “Between Being Born and Dying” installation [Lever House]
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Barbara Kruger Bio [PBS]
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Barbara Kruger at Lever House [Lindsay Pollock]
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Helvetica at 50 [BBC News]
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50 Years of Helvetica exhibition [MoMa]

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Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

Currently on view at Haunch of Venison in London is an exhibition that explores the connections between four seminal artists; Enrico Castellani, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, and Günther Uecker. The exhibition includes works from 1964 to today from these four artists who were born within six years of each other and shared aesthetic objects while working on different sides of the Atlantic.

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Installation view of Castellani/Flavin/Judd/Uecker via Haunch of Venison

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Untitled (detail), Neckface via O.H.W.O.W.

Opening this Halloween at O.H.W.O.W. gallery in Miami is what some may call a 10,000 square feet haunted house, and others may refer to as a large-scale site-specific installation leading to the exhibit by Neckface.  “Devil’s Disciple”, the artist’s first solo show in Miami, already has, and will undoubtedly continue to contribute to the ongoing dialectic that revolves around Neckface. As the masked idol of thousands repeatedly breaks the boundaries of acceptable, he simultaneously manages to maintain and excite the curiosity of art historians and climb the rigid hierarchy he so opposes. Perhaps, it is the innocence in the immediacy of expression that makes charming what otherwise is conceived as revolting; perhaps art world misses the documented urge of expression.
When asked about his inspiration and creative process Neckface answers: “Somtimes its just fucked up situations that i think of in my head, sometimes its what i would really like to do to someone, whether it would be an ex-girlfriend or somebody who pissed me off earlier in the day …” It is the brutal, almost primal and ironically- the unmasked, that pulls the viewer in Neckface’s world.  Sartre writes “I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire: the hatred, the disgust of existing, these are as many ways to make myself exist, to thrust myself into existence”. Neckface’s step into the realm coined as “aesthetic of disgust” is endearing and effective for it is uncalculated and raw. “Devil’s Disciple” will be opening at O.H.W.O.W. on October 31, 2009. “Halloween is my day. Some people like Christmas, I like Halloween” explains the artist.

Neckface creates a dummy in the window of O.H.W.O.W. via NBC Miami

More text, pictures, video and excerpts from Neckface’s answers to AO after the jump…

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Ghosts X, Sam Taylor-Wood (2008) via White Cube

Ghosts – an exhibition of photographs by Sam Taylor-Wood – is currently in its last days at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in West Yorkshire, England. The Ghosts series was originally exhibited as part of Taylor-Wood’s most recent show, Yes I No, at White Cube in October 2008. Now exhibited in the former home of the famed Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne – a new emphasis is brought to the series which should be apparent to any reader of Emily Brontë’s passionate novel, Wuthering Heights. All of Taylor-Wood’s photographs were shot in a four-mile radius of the supposed backdrop of Wuthering Heights and capture the bleak and unremitting landscape of the moors which echoes the brutal portrayal of heightened passion and suffering found in the fictional novel.

Ghosts IV, Sam Taylor-Wood (2008) via The Independent

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Untitled, Gerhard Richter (1985) via mima

Currently on show, through November 15, at Middlesbrough’s Institute of Modern Art (mima), is Gerhard Richter: Modern Times. Gerhard Richter is undoubtedly one of the most significant artists of our time; with works held by almost every major museum in the world, and is said to have brought ‘painting back to life.’  This exhibition covers all aspects of the artist’s complex practice and is particularly important as it includes unique works in many different media. Gerhard Richter: Modern Times comes close on the heels of a number of exhibitions that have widened the public’s view of Richter including a major retrospective at The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, a groundbreaking survey of his portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the unforgettable 4900 Colours: Version II at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

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11 Schieben [11 Panes], Gerhard Richter (2004) via mima

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Installation view of Subodh Gupta’s ‘Common Man’ via Hauser & Wirth

Called both the “Damien Hirst of Delhi” and the “Marcel Duchamp of Asia,” Subodh Gupta currently has an exhibition on view at Hauser & Wirth in London.  Known for creating iconic works that reference both his Indian background and Western art, this exhibition, ‘Common Man,’ includes a number of large works that playfully use famous works as well as pieces that reference the artist’s own oeuvre. Gupta, who has called himself “the idol thief,”  took Marcel Duchamp’s infamous ‘L.H.O.O.Q.,’ a postcard of the Mona Lisa upon which Duchamp drew a mustache, and turned it into a bronze bust. Many of the works appear to composed of ready made commodities, but are actually newly fabricated out of traditional materials like bronze in a nod to the weight such materials carry in an artistic context.

Subodh Gupta’s ‘Et tu, Duchamp?’ via Hauser & Wirth

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Arshile Gorky’s “Waterfall” (1942-43). Image courtesy of the museum. © 2009 Estate of Arshile Gorky / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently showing a retrospective of Arshile Gorky’s work. Closing in January, the exhibition includes “creative chambers” which explore thirty years of Gorky’s artistic evolution in still-life, from Cubism to Surrealism. After it closes in Philadelphia, the show will travel to Tate Modern and LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Gorky’s “Water of the Mill,” courtesy of PMA. © 2009 Estate of Arshile Gorky / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

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Glenn Brown, “Christina of Denmark” (2008). Via Gagosian Gallery.

On view now until November 26, 2009, the Gagosian Gallery in London features several paintings and sculptures by Glenn Brown. This exhibition focuses on the evolution of the images that Brown borrows from other works as well as the titles he uses for his paintings, which deliberately reference pop culture. The museum describes Brown’s borrowing of images as “a slow and intuitive process over many months, by which the subject of and medium of each painting slowly morph and accumulate into ‘replicant’ versions of their former selves.”

Glenn Brown, “If you know how to get here, please come” (2009). Via Gagosian Gallery.

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How it is (2009) by Miroslaw Balka, via The Guardian

Currently on view at the Tate Modern is the latest commission in The Unilever Series: How It Is by Polish artist Miroslaw Balka. The piece, named after the 1961 prose work by Samuel Beckett where characters are crawling continuously through mud and darkness, is a giant steel structure standing on two-meter stilts. At thirteen meters high and thirty meters long it appears to be a big dark looming chamber while also reflecting the architecture of the Tate Modern itself. Guests can walk inside the pitch-black interior and listen to the echo of their footsteps on the steel above.

Entrance into the installation by way of the ramp, via The Guardian

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Gavin Turk, Pop (1993), showing with Tate Modern’s “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” through January 17. Image via The London Paper.

Tate Modern is currently showing works by artists that embrace mass media and popular culture. Its motto is Andy Warhol’s proclamation that “good business is the best art,” and artists such as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, and more present works that are, accordingly, a blend of popular and left of center culture. “Pop Life: Art in a Material World,” which also features a new piece by Takashi Murakami, closes on January 17.

Foreground, House of Martin Luther King (1990), by Rob Pruitt and Walter Early; background, Damien Hirst’s False Idol (2008). From “Pop Life,” images via The Guardian.

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Remembering, Ai Weiwei’s installation of 9,000 backpacks conceived for the façade of Haus der Kunst reading “She lived happily for seven years in this world” via Monoculaire

Ai Weiwei’s work is currently showing at Haus der Kunst in Munich. The major solo exhibition titled “So Sorry” is authenticating the artist’s move towards increasingly political realm. Older works by Ai Weiwei will be shown at the German art house along with two newly commissioned ones. Chris Dercon, the curator of the show, and Ai Weiwei conceived of the large-scale collaboration almost three years ago.

One of the most important Chinese artists of 20th century, Ai Weiwei does not allow place for contextual involvement that surpasses his artistic intentions. This is not to say that any possibility of “third meaning” is denied, yet it is manipulated to an extent that the relationship between the work and the space of the museum becomes parallel to the dynamics of a dictatorial system. The history of Haus der Kunst –  the Third Reich’s first monumental propaganda building commissioned by Hitler to display German art – is put into the servitude of Ai Weiwei’s political message masterfully, thus symptomatic of accordingly the artist’s achievement and curatorial ideal- one where the curator achieves the illusion of absence.  Ai Weiwei’s show at Haus der Kunst runs through January 17, 2010.

Soft Ground and Rooted Upon, Ai Weiwei via Artdaily

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Richard Wright’s untitled wall painting, via Times UK

Now on view at Tate Britain is an exhibition of the four artists shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize, Britain’s most prestigious – and most controversial – art prize. Featuring Enrico David, Roger Hiorns, Lucy Skaer, and Richard Wright, the exhibition showcases both works for which the artists were nominated as well as new works. The winner of the prize will be announced on December 7, 2009, via a live televised broadcast. Though the Turner Prize has been awarded to well-regarded artists including Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, and Wolfgang Tillmans, it has been the source of controversy for its attentions to unconventional YBAs like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. This year’s nominees, however, have been noted for their lack of shock tactics. Gone are Emin’s dirty sheets and used condoms, replaced by Wright’s delicate wall drawing and Skaer’s archaeological assemblages.

Lucy Skaer’s ‘Black Alphabet’ via Tate

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Damian Ortega, “Cosmic Thing” (2002). Via Institute of Contemporary Art.

On view now until January 18, 2010, the Institute of Contemporary Art is hosting the first-ever survey of Mexican artist Damian Ortega’s work. The exhibition will include selections of Ortega’s sculptures, installations, photographs, and videos with a focus on the breadth of his artistic output over time.

Damian Ortega exhibit at the ICA via NECN(Click to view video on NECN site)

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Three Color Curl (CMY: Irvine, California, August 24th, 2008, Fuji Crystal Archive Type C). 2008. Walead Beshty via MOMA

A vanguard showcase of contemporary photographers – Walead Beshty , Daniel Gordon, Sara VanDerBeek, Carter Mull, Leslie Hewitt, Sterling Ruby – is currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. An annual program that aims to bring cutting-edge artists to the attention of novelty-craving public has acquired a new thematic dimension. As the Associate Curator and the organizer of New Photography 2009, Eva Respini observes that this year’s select artists come from varied backgrounds and most “actively work in other disciplines” and draw inspiration from “drawing, sculpture, video, and installation.” The exhibit runs through January 11, 2010.

Related links:
New Photography 2009 Press Release [MOMA]
Pictures Generation Roundtable: After Materiality and Style [Art in America]
Artists that Push the Boundaries of Photography [PDN Pulse]
Tate Triennial 2009 [Frieze Magazine]
Who is Sterling Ruby? [Frieze Magazine]
Words Without Pictures Review [ArtForum]
Art in Review: Leslie Hewitt [NY Times]
The Whitney Biennial 2008: About the Artist – Leslie Hewitt [The Whitney]
Daniel Gordon [ArtForum]
Sara VanDerBeek Review [ArtReview]
Marc Foxx Gallery: Carter Mull

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Der diagnostische Blick V (The diagnostic view V) (1992) by Luc Tuymans, via Wexner Center

Now on view at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio is the first US retrospective of the work of Belgian contemporary artist Luc Tuymans. The largest presentation of the artist’s work to date, Tuymans (b. 1958) is considered to be one of the most significant European painters of his generation, drawing on both the historical traditions of Northern European painting while appropriating contemporary developments of photography, cinema, and television. The artist often addresses issues of history and memory found in works that depict the postcolonial situation in the Congo and the global aftermath of 9/11.

Press Release [Wexner Center]
Video Discussion of Luc Tuymans Retrospective at Wexner Center [Art Forum]
The Tuymans Effect [Art Forum]
Luc Tuymans Captures the Moment [WSJ]
Open to Interpretation [Columbus Dispatch]
Fall’s Best Art Shows [Vogue.com]
Behind the Blur: Curator Helen Molesworth on Luc Tuymans [Artinfo]
Risks and Retreats [NY Times]
Luc Tuymans on his New Body of Work [TimesUK]

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Skull with Ashtray and Lemon, Damien Hirst (2006/07) via Wallace Collection

Currently on show at the relatively traditional Wallace Gallery in London is, “No Love Lost: Blue Paintings,” an exhibition of 25 paintings by the multi-millionaire artist Damien Hirst.  Not only is this exhibition unusual in its location, but it, most importantly, sees Hirst steer dramatically away from the work for which he is best known.  Through this exploration Damien Hirst has placed himself a bit in the firing line and faced an significant amount of hard-hitting criticism.

Damien Hirst reflects amid his exhibition at the Wallace Collection via The Londonist

Related Links:
The Wallace Collection Homepage
Damien Hirst – The Blue Paintings at the Wallace Collection review [The Telegraph]
Dark days for Damien Hirst [Reuters]
Insult to Old Masters [TimesOnline]
Hirst abandons sharks, butterflies for oil painting: Interview [Bloomberg]
Are Hirst paintings any good? No. They are not worth looking at. [The Independent]
Damien Hirst: Dead on arrival [TIME]
Damien Hirst enters his Blue Period with imitations of mortality [The Guardian]
Stop it Damien Hirst. You’re just embarrassing yourself [The Evening Standard]
It couldn’t get worse for Damien Hirst [The Telegraph]
Hirst sets sights on joing Old Masters [Financial Times]
Damien Hirst at the Wallace Collection – review [Londonist.com]
Damien Hirst might have forgotten that he couldn’t paint [The Telegraph]
Damien Hirst at the Wallace Collection, W1 [TimesOnline]

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Vincent van Gogh, “Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night” (1888). Via How Stuff Works

Beginning in January 23, 2010, the Royal Academy of Arts will host a landmark exhibition of Vincent van Gogh’s work with a focus on his private correspondence through letters. Over 35 original letters penned by Van Gogh will be showcased in this exhibition along with approximately 65 paintings and 30 accompanying drawings. The letters, as the centerpiece of the exhibition, will tie together the principal themes found in the actual artwork.

Related Links:
The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters [Royal Academy of Arts]
Van Gogh’s letters: the definitive edition [The Art Newspaper]
What Van Hogh’s letters reveal of his life [Financial Times]
The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters [Art Museum Journal]

Vincent van Gogh, “Van Gogh’s Room at Arles” (1889). Via Scituate.

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Installation view of Sol LeWitt’s ‘Forms Derived from a Cube’ via PaceWildenstein

Currently on view at PaceWildenstein‘s East 57th Street location is Sol LeWitt‘s ‘Forms Derived from a Cube,’ an exhibition featuring wall drawings, gouaches, and sculptures from the 1980s.    LeWitt used the form of the cube to create a vocabulary that formed the basis of his practice throughout his career. As a universal form, the cube requires no interpretation on the part of the viewer and allowed the artist to create a multitude of figures and images using only an essential idea.

Sol LeWitt: Forms Derived from a Cube [PaceWildenstein]
Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective [MASS MoCA]

Installation view of Sol LeWitt’s ‘Forms Derived from a Cube’ via PaceWildenstein

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Kathy Grayson, center, at the opening of ‘New York Minute’ via Depart Foundation

New York City has been the center of the contemporary art world for over half a century, and while contemporary art production and dissemination has been influenced by globalization, with new centers of of activity gaining recognition around the world in cities such as Berlin, Moscow, or Shanghai, there’s still something about New York that attracts new and established artists alike. ‘New York Minute’ is an exhibition produced by the young Italian philanthropist Pierpaolo Barzan’s DEPART Foundation to bring the energy and sense of community found in New York’s downtown art scene to Rome, hosted by Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma (MACRO).

‘New York Minute’ brings together sixty artists who live and work in New York, or are involved in its extended network, and showcases new tendencies in art that have developed out of that community. Curated by Kathy Grayson, director of New York’s Deitch Projects, the exhibition groups those new tendencies under three headings: the brash and gritty street punk aesthetic of artists such as Dash Snow, Terence Koh, Aurel Schmidt, the rainbow inflected wild figuration of Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Paper Rad, or Jules de Balincourt, and the new abstractions of artists including Tauba Auerbach, Xylor Jane, and Dan Colen.

The opening night brought thousands of young Romans looking to vibe on the energy brought to the city by the New York contingent. Kathy Grayson answered ArtObserved’s questions about what makes the New York scene so special, how ‘New York Minute’ is spreading its infectious communal energy, and what the plans are for the future.

DEPART FOUNDATION BOWS WITH “NEW YORK MINUTE” [Artnet]
New York Minute [Art in America]
Minute Made [Artforum]
Sixty New York-Based Artists Featured in Exhibition at Museo D’Arte Contemporanea Roma [ArtDaily]
The Heart of the New York Art World Beats in Italy at the “New York Minute” Show [Paper Magazine]
It’s a New York Art ‘Renaissance,’ Argues Upcoming Show [NYMagazine]
Wine-Maker Uncorks New York in Rome [Bloomberg]
New York Minute with Dash Snow, Aurel Schmidt, Barry McGee and Others [The Fader]
“New York Minute” exhibition [SLAMXHYPE]

The logo of ‘New York Minute’ by Chris Johanson via Depart Foundation

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Silver Lake Operations #15 (Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, 2007) – one of Burtynsky’s industrial landscapes in Hasted Hunt Kraeutler show via Edward Burtynsky Studio

Edward Burtynsky: Oil has opened at Hasted Hunt Kraeutler on October 1st to compliment the concurrent show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibits showcase the profound work of a socially conscious Canadian photographer who has dedicated his career to documenting the changing landscape of our planet. “Oil” is series that encompasses the various stages in life of the controversial substance – petroleum, from its extraction from the depths of the Earth’s deposits to human widespread consumption to possible depletion. Burtynsky’s epic landscapes and personal efforts to bring a discussion on sustainability to the public eye were a subject of “Manufactured Landscapes” shown at Sundance Film Festival in 2007.  The show runs until November 28th, 2009.

Edward Burtynsky: Oil from Corcoran Gallery of Art on Vimeo.

Related links:
Edward Burtynsky Studio
Oil Exhibition [Hasted Hunt Kraeutler]
Burtynsky Profile [TED]
Burtynsky’s Fuel for Thought [Washington Post]
Oil Exhibition at Corcocan Gallery [Foreign Policy]
Eco Documentaries – Manufactured Landscapes: The Green [Sundance Channel]
Artist of the Month [Slate]
Framing Global Capitalism [The TYEE]
China: Photographs and Audio commentary [Lens Culture]

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Andy Warhol, “Camouflage” (1986). Via The Warhol.

Before going on national tour, the Milwaukee Art Museum will be showcasing the later works of Andy Warhol in an exhibition titled “Warhol’s Last Decade.”  The exhibition promises to be the first United States art show to focus exclusively on Warhol’s last pieces. Containing around 50 works lent by private collectors and institutions including The Museum of Modern Art in New York and The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the exhibition is divided into thematic sections like abstract works, collaborations, black-and-white ads, camouflage patterns, oxidation paintings, death and religion pieces, self-portraits, and Warhol’s Last Supper series. This exhibit is one of three shows with a focus on Warhol’s life and career. The others, which are currently on display, are “Andy Warhol: Pop Star” and “Figurative Prints: 1980s Rewind.”

Related Links:
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Andy Warhol: The Last Decade
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Joseph Ketner on Andy Warhol’s Last Decade
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Milwaukee Art Museum Displays Works from Andy Warhol’s Last Decade [Washington Examiner]
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Recap: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade [The Decider]
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Milwaukee museum displays Warhol works [SF Chronicle]
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Warhol: The Last Decade [Capitol Times]
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Exhibit of Warhol’s Late Work Opens at Milwaukee Art Museum [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]

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