Angus Fairhurst’s ‘A Couple of Differences Between Thinking and Feeling II’ via Sadie Coles HQ

Angus Fairhurst was one of the orignianl “YBA’s” or Young British Artists, whom some feel was overshadowed perhaps by his peers Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, et al.  Fairhurst attended Goldsmiths College at the same time as Hirst and participated in the seminal exhibition Freeze in 1988, which brought the soon to be labeled YBAs to the attention of London collector Charles Saatchi and the art world at large.  Notably, Fairhurst organized a similar show of student work six months earlier, which served as a precursor to Freeze.  Since that initial burst of attention, Fairhurst exhibited internationally, including a well received group show in 2004 at the Tate Gallery with Hirst and long-time collaborator (and former girlfriend) Sarah Lucas. Working with a range of media and styles, Fairhurst’s work has been difficult to categorize – except perhaps by his idiosyncratic preoccupation with gorillas.

Angus Fairhurst [Arnolfini]
Angus Fairhurst at Arnolfini [Sadie Coles HQ]
Angus Fairhurst: the gorilla in the room [Times]
Angus Fairhurst, Arnolfini, Bristol [The Guardian]
Angus Fairhurst: The forgotten man [The Independent]

more story and images after the jump…

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The Long Way Home the show’s title work by KAWS via Honor Fraser.

Now on display at Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles is street artist KAWS’ solo show The Long Way Home. The show marks the artist’s first solo show in Los Angeles and follows previous solo shows at Gering and Lopez in New York City and Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Miami. On display are both paintings and sculptures that re-contextualize familiar pop culture. Paintings that feature the Smurfs and SpongeBob SquarePants are displayed along with sculptural works that resemble the Michelin Man and bronze casts of the artists head in a number of colors. Unique to this show are several new acrylic works that are encased in plastic packaging. KAWS began his work as a graffiti artist in Jersey City, New Jersey in the 1990’s defacing billboards, freight trains, and water towers and has recently expressed surprise at his own success in the gallery world. “When I grew up, I never thought I could enter a gallery,” KAWS stated in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, “I looked at them as these pretentious places that did not welcome me.” KAWS gallery achievement follows the artist’s commercial success with both his own line OriginalFake, and a number of collaborative efforts including work with Marc Jacobs, A Bathing Ape, and most recently KAWS worked with Kayne West to create the cover art for the hip-hop artist’s most recent album.

Press Release [Honor Fraser]
Tag, this artist is definitely it [LA Times]
KAWS documentary airs on CBS [Supertouch]
KAWS’ “The Long Way Home” at Honor Fraser Gallery [Supertouch]

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Untitled (1967) by Roberto Matta, via LatinAmericanart.com

Matta: Five Decades of Painting features work from the collections of Federico Matta and Ramuntcho Matta at the PaceWildenstein Gallery in New York City. It is the first major exhibition of the work of Chilean-artist Matta (Real name: Roberto Sebastian Antonio Matta Echaurren) in New York since his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1957. The show is comprised of around fifteen oil paintings from the collections of Matta’s daughter Federica and son Ramuntcho. The works span fifty years of Matta’s career but are heavily weighted toward the end of his life. They nevertheless show Matta’s engagement with the Surrealist Movement.

Exhibition Page: Matta: Five Decades of Painting
Matta: Five Decades of Painting [NYmagazine]
Matta: Five Decades of Painting, Works from the Collections of Federico Matta and Ramuntcho Matto [Artinfo]
Art Review [NY Times]

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BMW Art Car designed by Frank Stella

First commissioned by the company and racecar driver Herve Poulain in 1975 and completed by the likes of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Alexander Calder, BMW’s art cars have toured the world and featured in exhibitions in the most renowned museums and public spaces worldwide. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art currently hosting four of the sixteen cars as an installation through February 25th, including Warhol’s Black and White Disaster, Stella’s Getty Tomb, Lichtenstein’s Cold Shoulder, and Rauschenberg’s print, Booster.

They will be on display as an installation at the BP Grand Entrance, an admission-free area, and will also feature rare, behind-the-scenes footage of Frank Stella and Robert Rauschenberg discussing their inspirations and influences in creating their cars, Warhol building his car, and Herve Poulain, the racer and initiator of the Art Car Project.

Poulain first approached BMW in 1975 with the idea of using his car as a canvas. A few months later, the race car driver and BMW commissioned Alexander Calder to create the first car. The most recent cars were done by David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, and Oliafur Eliasson, with a seventeenth under consideration by the German carmaker. The company uses a panel of prestigious judges culled from all over the art world to select the artists who will conceive and paint the cars.

Following their stint in Los Angeles, the Art Cars will be on display in New York at Grand Central station starting March 24th, and will continue to make pit stops through 2010.

BMW Art Cars [LACMA]
Four wheel art appreciation [W Magazine]
Art that moves [Telegraph UK]
BMWs and Beyond [ArtInfo]
LACMA Hosts Four BMW Art Cars by Warhol, Stella, Lichtenstein, and Rauschenberg [ArtDaily]
Snippets of footage of the artists creating and discussing the cars [MetaCafe]

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Francesco Vezzoli’s ‘Greed’ via Gagosian

The opening night of Francesco Vezzoli’s ‘GREED’ at Gagosian Gallery in Rome on February 6th was a timely spectacle marking the end of an era of excess and decadence. Vezzoli is well known (and well criticized at times) for his use of celebrities in his work, and ‘Greed’ is no exception. The exhibition centers around a faux perfume, called Greed, and features a 60-second commercial directed by Roman Polanski and starring Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams, and a serious of needlework ‘endorsements’ by several female artists (and art world hangers-on) such as Georgia O’Keeffe and Leonor Fini.  At the opening, appearances were made by the elite of the art and fashion worlds, including Miuccia Prada and Dasha Zhukova.

GREED, A New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli [Gagosian]
Francesco Vezzoli interview [Artinfo]
Roman Polanski interviewed by Francesco Vezzoli [Interview]
Eau de Hype: Francesco Vezzoli’s “Greed” at Gagosian in Rome. [C-Monster]
Francesco Vezzoli’s Eau de Faux [NYTimes]
The Smell of Success [Kempt]
‘Greed’ by Francesco Vezzoli, Rome [Wallpaper]
Rrose Sélavy’s Baby [ArtForum]

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Work No. 660, 2007 via Hauser & Wirth.

On display now at Hauser & Wirth is a collection of new and recent work by conceptual artist Martin Creed. The works were created using simple materials such as paint, boxes, masking tape, and human excrement. Typical of all of Creed’s work it is the materials that inspire and determine the final product.  Several new paintings are on display all mirroring each other in that they are all composed of a single color and consist of horizontal brush-marks. The paintings are intended to be a visual homage to the different brush sizes Creed uses and is clearly displayed as the brush-marks decrease in width as they climb the page.  Also included is a sculpture made of cardboard boxes that similarly explores size, and a short film that  reflects Creed’s interest in producing that shows a woman defecating in an empty room.

Press Release [Hauser & Wirth]

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Painting (1954) by Philip Guston, via Artnet

Philip Guston 1954-1958 at L&M Arts in New York features a select group of seven paintings from this exceptional period in the artist’s career. The exhibit captures a moment of growth and discovery in Guston’s career. The artist’s fascination with gestural brush strokes and marks of color that seem to float within the picture frame constitute a delicate balancing act between composition and expression.  Such a new style of painting was a formative development at the time and led Guston to become one of the renowned first generation Abstract Expressionists.  The show also includes loans from the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and other private collections.

Exhibition Page: Philip Guston: 1954-1958
Philip Guston: 1954-1959 [Artnet]
“Philip Guston: 1954-1958” at L&M Arts[Reuters]

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Akt (Nude) (1952) by Joseph Beuys, via Hauser & Wirth

Joseph Beuys’s early works on paper from the collection of Helga and Walter Lauffs are currently on display at Hauser & Wirth in London. The works date from the 1950s, a period of crisis and introspection yet necessary for Beuys’s growth as an artist he later said.  Beuys produced the drawings in solitude drawing continuously in order to create a new language for art with both human and spiritual qualities.  Made with various mediums, the drawings are at once delicate and strong.  The works explore a new form of organic depiction that would serve as a basis for future sculptural creations.

Exhibition Page: Joseph Beuys’ Early Works on Paper
Joseph Beuys [Artnews.org]
Joseph Beuys Early Works on Paper [Artnet]
Joseph Beuys at Hauser & Wirth [Timeout London]

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Still from Bill Viola’s ‘Transfigurations’ via Haunch of Venison

Haunch of Venison is now showing video artist Bill Viola’s first solo exhibition in Berlin in six years. The show runs in conjunction with the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale. Two of Viola’s early films, ‘Hatsu-Yume (First Dream)’ and ‘The Passing’ will be screened in the gallery’s main space as part of the Berlinale in the beginning of February. The exhibition ‘Installations’ on view now presents a number of video and sound installations, including ‘The Messenger,’ first commissioned for London’s Durham Cathedral in 1996, and new works from the “Transfigurations’ series, the first of which, ‘Ocean Without a Shore,’ was created for the 2007 Venice Biennale.

Bill Viola at Haunch of Venison
Artist’s Page
Viola’s Video Altarpieces to Grace St. Paul’s [Bloomberg]
Nightclubbers Meet Collectors at Berlin Warehouses’ Art Parties [Bloomberg]
Legal Drama [Frieze]

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On Kawara One Million Years volunteers reading passage at David Zwirner Gallery via Interview Magazine

On display now at David Zwirner is a new presentation of Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara’s work in progress, One Million Years (Past and Future). The work serves to document the passage of time and lists all of the annual individual dates from 998,031 BC to 1,001,995 AD in a 20-volume collection of hard-bound books. The work is divided into two parts. The first half, which Kawara begin in 1979, One Million Years (Past) contains the years 998,031 BC to 1969 AD. The half is subtitled “For all those who have lived and died.” The later half of the project entitled One Million Years (Future) contains the years 1969 AD to 1,001,995 AD and was completed in 1998. The work is subtitled “For the last one.” The piece is presented both in text and as audio. In addition to the text presentation of the work Kawara embarked on an audio recording of the work in 1993. The audio recording continues within the David Zwirner Gallery inside a recording booth that houses readers of the work and a sound technician. Volunteers recite the consecutive dates during hour-long sessions.  Males read the odd numbers and females read the even numbers.  The intent is to record, edit, and package CDs of the work on site.  Previous recordings sold for $1,000 per CD box set.

On Kawara One Million Years Press Release [David Zwirner]
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On Kawara One Million Years [Chelsea Art Galleries]
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On Kawara: David Zwirner Gallery, New York [International Contemporary Art Magazine via BNET]
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Reeling In the Years [NewYorkMag]
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My Brief Career in Conceptual Art [W Magazine]
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On to a Million [Interview Magazine]

 
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Untitled from the Like Everyday Series (2000-2001) by Shirin Ghadirian, via The Saatchi Gallery

The Saatchi Gallery’s new show “Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East” showcases work completed by more than 20 contemporary artists from the region, including from Iran, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Algeria.  Avant-garde painting, sculpture and installations from emerging Middle Eastern artists adorn the space of the Chelsea gallery.  The works exhibited are hard hitting and graphic yet aim to touch upon the sensitive subjects of the region including the horrors of conflicts in the past and present exploring suppressed sensuality and the examination of a woman’s place in the Muslim world.

Exhibition Page: Unveiled: New Art From the Middle East
Saatchi and Middle Eastern Art [FT]
Saatchi Show Unveils Vibrant Middle Eastern Arts Scene [Reuters]
Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at the Saatchi Gallery [The Telegraph]
In Pictures: Middle Eastern Art [BBC]
Art Review: The veil is Lifted on Hidden Talent [Timeout London]

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Hermitos Children by Spartacus Chetwynd via Art Daily.

This week the Tate Modern has unveiled its 2009 Triennial, Altermodern. The museum’s fourth Triennial highlights fewer British artists than previous exhibitions and has instead aimed its efforts at highlighting a new movement in art. The exhibition is curated by Nicolas Bourriaud who defined the “Relational Esthetics” art movement and is now using the Tate’s Triennial as a showcase for his most recently conceived movement: Altermodernism. The exhibition which comes with a manifesto in tow declares foremost that Postmodernism is dead.  In its place is a new movement defined by ever-increasing globalization and the heightened communication, travel and migration that is the result.  As Bourriaud explains “If early Modernism is characterised as a broadly Western cultural phenomenon, and Postmodernism was shaped by multiculturalism, origins and identity, Altermodern is expressed in the language of global culture.” In short today’s artists are now starting from a globalized state of culture where the origins of  any one person have become increasingly similar to the origins of any other given person.

Altermodern is a swarm of drawings, sculptures, videos, photographs, slide shows, installations, soundtracks, documentaries, and performances. Many works included are several mediums at once as the pieces tend to be a collage of related matter as opposed to a single defined piece; reflecting the idea of Altermodern as complex fusion of ideas and influences. The artists producing these pieces are mostly thirty-somethings that live or work in Britain, though keeping with the globalized theme of the show a  notable number are identified as ‘passers-by.’ Along with up and coming artists such as Tris Vonna-Michell and Ruth Ewan the exhibit includes some bigger names who have been shortlisted for the Turner Prize including Bill Nelson and Darren Almond.

Altermodern Tate Triennial [Tate]
Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Modern [Times Online]
Altermodern, Tate Triennial 2009, review [Telegraph]
Tate Triennial 2009 Interview With Curator Nicolas Bourriaud [Frieze]
New sensation: The next generation of Young British Artists [Independent UK]
Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009 Presents Some of the Best New Contemporary Art in Britain [Art Daily]
Art in search of a label [Financial Times]

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Christian Marclay, Untitled, 1987 via Art Daily.

Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix is on display now at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. The exhibition explores the collaborative works of the historic experimental band Sonic Youth and the artists, filmmakers, designers, and musicians they have worked with since their formation in 1981. The exhibition illustrates the history of the New York City band through records, posters, T-shirts, instruments, and photographs which serve to encourage the audience to consider the division between “high” and “popular” art. The works themselves, much like the music of Sonic Youth, document an alternative coming of age including teenage rebellion, restlessness of youth, the search for fame, identity, gender roles, sexuality, and religion. The show features the work of notables Jenny Holzer, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Wall, among others., and will conclude with a sold-out Sonic Youth performance on April 24, 2009. Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix has previously been displayed at LiFe in Saint-Nazaire, France and the Museion Bozen in Italy, and will move to Malmö Konsthall in Sweden, and the Centro Huarte de Arte Contemporaneo in Spain following its current stay in Düsseldorf.

Press Release [Kunsthalle Düsseldorf]
Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix [Sonic Youth Media]
Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix [Art News]
Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf [Art Daily]
Fountain of Sonic Youth [Hint Mag] (more…)

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Installation view of  “Panagiota: Conversation #1, Variation 1” (left) and “Panagiota: Conversation #1, Variation 2,” (right) (both 2006-7), on display at Evan Penny exhibition at Sperone Westwater. Image via Sperone Westwater.

Sperone Westwater will be exhibiting works by South African born, Toronto-based sculptor Evan Penny through February 14th, 2009. Penny is renowned for his sculptures crafted from silicone, hair, aluminum and pigment that are both photorealistic and stretched, skewed and otherwise manipulated beyond the ‘real’ human form.

The sculptor’s newest show features 10 pieces and marks the first time he incorporates time-based photography, introducing time and motion as considerations in his works. Two sculptures, “Panagiota: Conversation #1, Variation 2″ and “Panagiota: Conversation #1, Variation 1,” both from 2008, reflect his exploration of these formal elements. The basis of the sculptures are photographs of Penny’s friend Panagiota engaging him in conversation–instead of sculpting a bust based on each individual photograph, they are instead melded and portrayed in a single bust, enabling us to visualize the subject moving through time and space.

This is the artist’s second solo show at Sperone Westwater, who also represents the artist in the United States.  A full color catalogue with an essay by Kenneth Silver, Professor of Modern Art at New York University, accompanies this exhibition.

Exhibition Page : Evan Penny at Sperone Westwater
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Press Release : Evan Penny at Sperone Westwater
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Gallery Page : Sperone Westwater
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Picks: Evan Penny at Sperone Westwater [ArtForum]

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Fred Sandback’s ‘Untitled (no. 48, Three Leaning Planes, from 133 Proposals for the Heiner Friedrich Gallery)’ via David Zwirner

Fred Sandback, who died in 2003, is known best for his yarn sculptures that fall somewhere between Minimalist and conceptual art. On view now are two concurrent solo exhibitions at David Zwirner in Chelsea and Zwirner & Wirth in the Upper East Side. Sandback’s sculptures create large planes using colored yarn, outlining a shape and using walls, floors, and ceilings to create a perception of depth and space. The sculptures present an optical illusion of boundaries, of planes cutting across space that look like they may not be crossed but in fact do not exist. It is in that illusion that the theatricality of Sandback’s work lies. Using only the sparest of material he creates a vast, imposing presence.

Fred Sandback at David Zwirner
Fred Sandback at Zwirner & Wirth
Art in Review: Fred Sandback [NY Times]

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Fashion 4 (2008) by Alex Katz, via Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery

Alex’s Katz’s most recent works, focusing on the world of style, are currently exhibited at the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery in Paris through February 14th, 2009.  Fashion is a recurring theme for the American artist.  The sitters of Katz’s paintings are not the subjects of his work; they serve merely as a way for him to focus on what is considered glamorous and fashionable.  Style thus takes on a dimension of its own in Katz’s work serving as an undeniable catalyst for social commentary.  He paints people that he often encounters in his circle such as celebrities, models, actors, and artists as well as his long time muse and wife, Ada.

Alex Katz: Fashion Studies
Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery
7, rue Debelleyme 75003 Paris France
through February 14, 2009
Exhibition Page: Alex Katz Fashion Studies

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New York Stock Exchange After Bond Rally 1919 (2006) by Rosson Crow, currently on display at the White Cube Gallery, Hoxton Square, London; picture via White Cube

Rosson Crow’s ‘Texas Crude,’ which explores themes from American history and myth, is on display at Jay Jopling’s White Cube Gallery in London through February 21st, 2009.

Crow’s paintings depict locations set during historical periods or evocative of culturally significant events, devoid of people yet retaining vestiges of their presence–or rather, theatrical vestiges of their most Dionysian, excessive behavior. The settings tend to be large rooms at bars, hotels, or theatres, painted on a scale that inserts the viewer into the space.

‘Texas Crude’ continues in the vein of her previous works, with the titles of the paintings serving as a guide to their contents: ‘Wildcatting in Paradise’ serving as an exploration of the early days of Texas oil prospecting and its impact on the physical and economic landscape of Crow’s home state, while ‘New York Stock Exchange after Bond Rally 1919’ conjures the moment between the end of World War I and the Roaring 20s. Similarly, ‘Lincoln’s Funeral’ references the death and assassination of the President; a somber hearse carriage is the background to an explosive palette of red, white and muted blackish blue found in flowers and ribbons intersecting the painting. Crow’s style incorporates a wide array of influences, from Impressionism to Las Vegas to Baroque interior design.  The paintings in this show, like her oeuvre as a whole, reflect these influences and inspirations while tying them together in a very unlikely fashion, creating a very original and unmistakable aesthetic.

Crow, who graduated from Yale’s MFA program just over two years ago, and being born in 1982 is relatively young amongst those represented by the gallery,  is showing at White Cube for the first time.  Crow is also represented by Honor Fraser in California and CANADA in New York.  The artist, who was born in Texas, currently resides in California.

TEXAS CRUDE
by Rosson Crow on display through Feb 21, 2009
White Cube Gallery
48 Hoxton Square
London, England

Exhibition page: Texas Crude
Artist page: Rosson Crow

more images after the jump…

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Installation view, Plant Lithographs by Ellsworth Kelly, at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland, via Ingleby Gallery

One of the greatest living artists, Ellsworth Kelly, 85, was a founding protagonist of the abstract expressionist movement that emerged in 1950s America.

Kelly was once a contemporary of Pollock and Rothko, developing his own minimalistic compositions where line, color, form and space are thoughtfully crafted into abstract visual compositions, bearing a very distinctive and identifiable sensibility that has become his trademark. The works on display at Edinburgh’s Ingleby Gallery span his career from the 1960s to as recently as 2004, and show a persistence and consistency that is surpassed only by the purity and deceptively simple beauty of the pieces. The lithographs have the effect of appearing more figurative than they actually are–upon closer inspection, the lines in the composition become less obviously configured to represent its subject, and more abstract.

Kelly began to explore the form of plants and other subjects culled from nature while living in Paris in the 1940s.  He moved back to the U.S. in 1954, and began making prints ten years later. The lithographs in the show are from the artist’s personal collection and several have never been exhibited before. They are available for sale and will be on display through January 31st.

PLANT LITHOGRAPHS FROM THE ARTIST’S COLLECTION
Ellsworth Kelly
on display at the Ingleby Gallery
through February 7th, 2009
15 Calton Road, Edinburgh, Scotland

Exhibition page: Ellsworth Kelly
Gallery page: Ingleby Gallery
Pick of the week: Plant Lithographs by Elsworth Kelly [Times UK]
Exhibition preview: Ellsworth Kelly, Edinburgh [Guardian]

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Diamond Mind Circle of Tears Fallen All Around Me via Peter Freeman.

Peter Freeman presents for the first time in the United States Bruce Nauman’s 1970’s installation Diamond Mind Circle of Tears Fallen All Around Me. The piece was first displayed at the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1975 and then at the S.M.A.K in Gent, Belgium in 1992. The work, which is intended to explore the visual discernment of the viewer, consists of six sandstone blocks distributed in a rhomboid shape.  The presentation of the cubes creates a sense that the room itself is slightly aslant forcing the viewer to take a closer look at the work and its surrounding expanse. The installation is one in a series of seven the artist created in the 1970’s consisting of rhomboid cubes aimed at examining human perception. On display as well are the large drawings that served as Nauman’s blueprint for the work.

Press Release [Peter Freeman]

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Jubilee Operations #1 (2007) by Edward Burtynsky, via Flowers East

Australian Landscapes by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, now on view at Flowers East in London, captures various landscapes of Australian mines. They document iron ore operations at Mount Whaleback, salt mining in the Pilbara regionm the Kalgoorlie super pit, and various open cut nikel mines in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.

Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in Burtynsky’s work. “I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning,” he says. Burtynsky has explored China’s Three Gorges Dam Project, Italy’s marble quarries, and the open-pit copper mining procedures in Western Australia that appear in these photographs.

Edward Burtynsky: Australian Landscapes
Flowers East
82 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DP
through February 9, 2009
Exhibition Page: Edward Burtynsky: Australian Landscapes

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Invitation to Jonathan Meese’s ‘Casinoz Babymetabolismn’ via re-title

Showing now at Stuart Shave Modern Art in London is Jonathan Meese’s solo show ‘Casinoz Babymetabolismn.’ It is comprised of paintings, sculptures, and collages, and centers around a rather unlikely subject: Scarlett Johansson. Giving a tour to Art Review, Meese said, ‘This exhibition is a total homage to metabolismn Scarlett Johansson. There you see the mouth of Scarlett Johansson eating a human strawberry, and that is wonderful. If this mouth says that art will rule the world soon, all politicians have to go home…all politicians have to leave the parliaments so that art can rule the world totally.’

Jonathan Meese at Stuart Shave Modern Art [Modern Art]
Jonathan Meese, Casinoz Babymetabolismn [Art Review]
Jonathan Meese – “CASINOZ BABYMETABOLISMN” (Put DR. NO’S MONEY in your mouth, Baby) [Artnet]

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Opening night for New Paintings by Peter Doig at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise photos by Art Observed

New Paintings by Peter Doig, opened at Gavin Brown’s enterprise and Michael Werner Gallery on January 17th. Doig, a Scottish artist who grew up in Canada and Trinidad, where he currently lives, has not had a solo show in New York since 2002, when Michael Werner Gallery exhibited a survey of his works on paper. ‘New Paintings’ feature several works painted by Doig over the last two years in his studio in the Caribbean.

Man dressed as a bat (2008) by Peter Doig, via Gavin Brown’s enterprise

NEW PAINTINGS
January 17th to February 21st, 2009
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St
New York, NY
Open Tues – Sat, 10am to 6pm.

Exhibition page: New Paintings
Profile: Peter Doig at Saatchi Gallery

My life in art: How Peter Doig taught me to pay attention [Guardian UK]

Previously on ArtObserved:
Go See: Peter Doig Retrospective at the Tate Britain
Go See: Peter Doig Retrospective at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

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Installation view of Will Ryman’s ‘The Bed’ via Saatchi

Will Ryman’s sculptural installation ‘The Bed’ is on view at Saatchi Gallery in London through May 6, 2009. The work is constructed out of papier mâché and is centered around a 26-foot-long bed with a sleeping man, surrounded by empty malt liquor cans, cigarette butts and various debris from a night of lonely indulgence.  It depicts a scene described as ‘somewhere between Sunday morning lie-in bliss and nervous breakdown.’ The exaggerated scale and clumsy construction depicts a cartoonish world while also presenting a formidable spectacle.  In his artist’s statement, Ryman said that ‘The Bed’ originated with his childhood impression of his parents’ bed being much bigger than it actually was, and is an exploration of one’s distorted perspective of one’s place in the world and relationship to surroundings.

Will Ryman [Saatchi]
Huge bed sculpture installed at gallery [Worthing Herald]
Another unmade be receives the Saatchi treatment [Evening Standard]

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‘Untitled’ by Wallace Berman, via NY Times

Opening tomorrow at Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles is ‘She,’ an exhibition featuring the works of Richard Prince and the late Wallace Berman, centered around both artists’ love of women. Prince and Berman ostensibly have little in common. Berman, who died in 1976, was influential in the Beat community in San Francisco and Los Angeles and well known for for his verifax collages and hand-made magazine, ‘Semina,’ mailed only to his friends.  Prince, an often controversial contemporary art star whose works fetch high prices, has long been drawn to Berman and his work, collecting many of those ‘Semina’ magazines. The artists’ work both explore the sexuality and carnality of women while aiming to avoid explicit pornographic undertones, though both been accused of obscenity.

‘SHE’ works by Wallace Berman and Richard Prince [Michael Kohn Gallery]
Two Artists United by Devotion to Women [NY Times]
Richard Prince and Wallace Berman ‘She’ Exhibition [SLAMXHYPE]

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