Barbara Jatta, the pioneering curator of the Vatican Museum in Rome, is profiled in the Art Newspaper, as she prepares to open a show of works by Andy Warhol. “These are the Pope’s museums,” Jatta says of her work with the Holy See. (more…)

Mark Grotjahn has caused a broader discussion over diversity at MOCA in LA, after the artist declined an award from the museum, citing a lack of diversity among recent honorees. “Since the day you extended your invitation to me, our country and the world have changed in ways that were difficult to anticipate.There is a new urgency to change the power dynamic and we have an opportunity to do so,” he said in a statement. (more…)

Artist Bjarne Melgaard is causing controversy in Norway over his chosen location for a new home designed by architectural firm Snohetta, which will impede on views from the home of painter Edvard Munch. “I believe this talk about the legacy of Munch is ridiculous,” Melgaard said. (more…)

Women’s History Museum, OTMA’s Body (Installation View), All images courtesy of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise.

Now through February 25, the Women’s History Museum presents OTMA’s Body, their first solo show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise. Women’s History Museum, established in 2014, is the moniker of Amanda McGowen and Mattie Rivka Barringer, who often work in close collaboration with friends and other artists. The group typically combines performance, image making, and clothing design in their work, and recently began to incorporate sculpture, music, and video as well. This exhibition, on view through the end of the month, features clothing, jewelry, prints, and sculptural pieces. (more…)

David Maljkovic, Alterity Line (2002-2017), via Metro Pictures

Continuing his interest in reconfigured and re-appropriated sculpture and painting that runs throughout the length of his career, Croatian-born artist David Maljkovic has returned to his New York exhibition space, Metro Pictures, for a show of new works.  The exhibition, titled Alterity Line, is a fitting summary of much of his earlier work, transforming pieces  from various stages of his practice into new ones to obfuscate hierarchies between media and artworks, and considering the relationship between art’s autonomy and its formal developments. (more…)

Robin Rhode, Black Friday – 1 Billion (2016)  all images Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

Utilizing socially-engaged practice and urbanism to reflect on prevalent socio-political climates, artist Robin Rhode is known for his work in photography and film, chronicling everyday life through cityscapes and urban architecture. His current exhibition at Lehmann Maupin aligns with his work about the post-apartheid South Africa.  In this show, however, the territory he looks to for inspiration is the Middle East. After spending time in the region on the occasion of his exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Rhode witnessed the dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians in terms of power, opportunity, and freedom, and sought to represent these situations here. (more…)

Terry Adkins, Akhenaten (2013) all images courtes of the Estate of Terry Adkins, New York. © The Estate of Terry Adkins

Soon after Lévy Gorvy announced representation of Terry Adkins’ estate, the gallery has opened its first solo exhibition, The Smooth, The Cut, and The Assembled, dedicated to the late artist’s multimedia work spanning various decades. With his unexpected passing in early 2014, Adkins left behind an expansive body of work, focused primarily around sculpture, while meditating on the medium’s relation to ephemerality and sound. Known for his interest in musical scores and physicality, the artist captured immateriality on three dimensional levels, with mundane objects placed in often unfamiliar forms. This focused selection of works, organized by Adkins’ long-term collaborator Charles Gaines, assembles works from different eras to demonstrate the artist’s commitment to narratives that ran throughout his practice, including socio-political topics in addition to artistic methods. Doing justice to its title, the exhibition manifests tactility, rupture and composure, encapsulating both Adkins’ interest in manual production and utilization of surfaces for poetic language. (more…)

Last night, during a talk in Berlin, collector Ronald Lauder presented demands that Germany address Nazi-era art theft more thoroughly. “The fact that we are still dealing with this topic is simply not acceptable,” said Lauder. “If Nazi-Germany had not stolen so much Jewish owned art in the first place, we would all be doing something else tonight.” (more…)

Jamie Fobert Architects will embark on an ambitious £35.5m renovation plan for the National Portrait Gallery in London. “This is the perfect time to work with Jamie as we take the National Portrait Gallery into one of the most exciting chapters in its history,” says director Nicholas Cullinan. (more…)

Margaret Lee, Waiting is for lovers (detail) (2017), all images via Marlborough Contemporary

In the landscape of New York’s current contemporary arts scene, few figures have left such a subtle, yet enduring impact in the way that artist Margaret Lee has, both for her own work, and for her advocacy for the downtown arts community through her work with 47 Canal Gallery. Lee’s work is a perfect representation of the sort of all-in cosmopolitanism that defines her varied practices as both artist and gallerist, blending historical forms and an attentive use of formal minimalism to arrive and enigmatic, impressive installations and works.  This framework is particularly well-illustrated in …banana in your tailpipe, an exhibition currently on view at Marlborough Contemporary’s London exhibition space. (more…)

London’s Serpentine Pavilion project is expanding to Beijing, the Architect’s Journal reports. The final plans are set to be announced later this year.   (more…)

Artist Adam Pendleton has joined Galerie Max Hetzler, which will present a first show with him in 2019.  Pendleton will also continue to show with Pace and Eva Presenhuber. (more…)

Collector Roman Abramovich is included in the “Kremlin Report” a list of 220 people compiled by the U.S. Treasury that reports on influential economic and political agents in Russia. Abramovich is listed as having a net worth of about $11.2 billion. (more…)

The UK Government has placed an export bar on a JMW Turner painting under threat of leaving the country.  The piece carries an asking price of £18,533,750.  “I very much hope that it can remain in the UK, where it can be admired and appreciated by future generations for many years to come,” says arts minister Michael Ellis. (more…)

The Vatican is organizing a show of works by Andy Warhol, exploring the artist’s spiritual ties to Christianity and its iconography throughout his career. “It is very, very important for us to have a dialogue with contemporary art. We live in a world of images and the Church must be part of this conversation,” says Barbara Jatta, the director of the Vatican Museums. (more…)

In one of the more unusual stories to come out of US politics in recent months, the New York Times reports that the Guggenheim denied a request from the Trump White House for a Van Gogh painting, instead offering the divisive leader Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous gold-plated toilet. “It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care,” curator Nancy Spector wrote in an email to the White House. (more…)

Jamian Juliano-Villani, October, 2018 (2018), via Art Observed

Over the last several years, few young painters have continued to present work as consistently engaging, imaginative and original as Jamian Juliano-Villlani.  Twisting a range of iconographies and approaches to modern painting through an endlessly shifting hall of mirrors, the artist’s works are exuberant outings and explorations of just where surrealism can take us in the 21st Century.  Moving from ventures through the styles of 20th Century studio cartoons and graphic arts on to early computer graphics, bloated hyperrealism and back, the artist’s work always leaves space for a nuanced interest in how reality shapes itself from its contingent parts, and how one can explore the landscape of the world around us through its varied images and iconographies.   (more…)

Christo will create one of his Mastaba sculptures for London’s Hyde Park this summer, Art Newspaper reports.  The work will float on the park’s sizable lake, and corresponds with a show of the artist’s work at the Serpentine. “In parallel with this exciting exhibition, Christo hopes to create his first large-scale temporary sculpture in the UK in the middle of the Serpentine Lake. Many years in the planning, this will be funded entirely by the artist,” a Serpentine spokeswoman says. (more…)

Andreas Gursky is profiled in the New York Times this week, as the artist prepares a new body of work, and reflects on his continually evolving practice.  “I’m just interested in making images,” he says. “And, of course, you have to reinvent yourself.”  (more…)

Genieve Figgis, Happy Accidents of the Swing (2018), via Almine Rech

Part of the challenge of the current exhibition of work on view by painter Genieve Figgis on view at Almine Rech’s Paris location lies in the deciphering of her press release.  With only a single paragraph on the genesis and economic boon caused by the “Monster Jesus” phenomenon (in which a woman’s disastrous restoration of a fresco depicting the Christ in the North of Spain became the city’ main tourist draw), the show makes Figgis’s paintings a bit more confounding.  For an artist whose body of work consists of deconstructed, loosely rendered interpretations of Rococo and Classical masterpieces, the comparison is a strange one.  Are we being led to understand Figgis’s work as a degradation of these works?  Is she presenting them as an economically-motivated path away from such classic images?

Genieve Figgis, Wish You Were Here (Installation View), via Almine Rech

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Mark Verabioff, Concerned Women For America Rim Glue Pour Cultural Confinement Rundowns Pool Side (2017) (detail), all images by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Entering Mark Verabioff’s first exhibition with Team Gallery, the audience encounters expansive, full-wall images of entertainment industry figures symbolizing generations of American pop culture, such as the controversial photos of child actress and model Brooke Shields, iconic fashion editor Diana Vreeland (photographed by Francesco Scavullo), and teen heartthrob Nick Jonas. Known for his image and text based practice in which he cross-references words and pictures in relation to their abundant presence and status in visual culture, Verabioff mines the archives of art history, feminism, gender politics, and pop. The L.A.-based artist’s riff on language and pictures stems from his exhibition title, TEARS, brewing two distinct meanings and pronunciations of the word “tear” in contextual and performative levels. Other words with versatile meanings and utterances, such as “rim” and “pour” extend his play on language.

Mark Verabioff, TEARS at Team Gallery (Installation View)

The act of ripping off a page, and the drops shed by the eye encapsulate two avenues Verabioff takes with the word “tear” throughout the exhibition. Conveyed through tear drops adorning various eyes are notions of guilt, shame, and redemption; they appear around the eyes of many celebrity photos amassed by the artist, both in wall-spanning vinyl decals and small prints off of magazine pages. The vast collection of photographs shows woman celebrities at the prime of their careers include Grace Jones, Cher, Madonna, Candy Darling, and Diane Ross, with the word “ANTIFA” reading on the top left corner of each image.

Mark Verabioff, TEARS at Team Gallery (Installation View)

Although “antifa” calls to mind political activism and vocal opposition, the artist’s appropriation of the word in the company of glamorous celebrity photography furthers his approach to language as a social phenomenon and political tool. Either posing for Scavullo’s lens or featured in an anonymous magazine, these women, among which are also unknown models, overall constitute a transcendental aura within the gallery as they stare into our eyes with glamour and confidence. Yet they challenge the limitations and expectations imposed by the society and media due to age, sexuality, and their career.

Mark Verabioff, Concerned Women Rundowns Poolside (2017)

The artist utilizes a torn piece of tape to create the typical paisley pattern or a rectangular shape at the edges of these famous eyes. Strength and vulnerability, two opposites embedded in the act of crying, complicate these figures’ recognition in society as icons and victims, recalling Warhol’s use of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor photographs. The performative gesture of ripping “things,” pages or tapes in this case, imbue an archivist but also anarchist nature to Varabioff’s process, which expands to his mixed-media acrylic paintings blending various pictorial and textual traits onto canvas.

Mark Verabioff: TEARS is on view at Team Gallery through March 3, 2018.

Mark Verabioff, TEARS at Team Gallery (Installation View)

—O.C. Yerebakan

Related Link:
Team Gallery [Exhibition Page]

Rachel Feinstein, The Lake House (2018), via Gagosian Gallery

Shattering the illusion of the effortless beauty, elegance, and frivolity surrounding the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show, New York-based painter and sculptor Rachel Feinstein’s current exhibition at Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills centers around The Secrets, eight lingerie-wearing figurative sculptures made of wood, epoxy resin, foam, and clay referencing this much-anticipated fashion extravaganza’s angel-like supermodels. (more…)

Stephen Shore, New York, New York, May 20, 2017 (2017), via Art Observed

Few photographers have left such an enduring impact on the practice of contemporary photography, and arguably on the state of contemporary art making as Stephen Shore.  Exploring a mix of taut, close cropped examinations of modern civilization alongside the varied textures and scenes that marks its intermingling with natural environments and varied foreign agents, Shore’s interest in the present condition is frequently bound up in a series of variations and interpretations along shared themes.  Working in series with varied materials and cameras, his work is ever-shifting and precise in its statements, making him an endlessly compelling artist to view. (more…)

Paddle8 is merging with The Native, a Swiss technology and e-commerce company, and will use blockchain technology in its pitch to wealthy millennial buyers. “Last year was a horrible start to the year,” founder Alexander Gilkes. “There were very many salient reasons for doing it, but we didn’t see how the events would unfold.” (more…)