Rob Pruitt’s graffiti wall of zebras. All photos on site for Art Observed by Giffen Ott.

Art Observed was on site again this year for the RxArt + Chanel Beauté 11th Annual PARTY Benefit. Imbibing works by contemporary artists such as Nate Lowman (who’s Reverse Snowman Holding His Own Head was the highest going piece, at $24,000) and Dan Colen, Miranda July, and Yoko Ono, guests bid via silent auction, the proceeds going toward a good cause. According to their website, “RxArt is a non-profit organization dedicated to placing original fine art in patient, procedure and examination rooms of healthcare facilities. Our mission is to improve otherwise sterile environments through contemporary art, promote healing, and inspire hope in patients, families and staff.” Held at the Highline Stages in Chelsea, party-goers included artists KAWS, Terry Richardson, Aurel Schmidt, and José Parlá, among other celebrities and organizers such as Bill Powers and Jen Brill.

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Metropolitan Museum of Art unveils new website with priorities of ‘scholarship and accessibility’ [AO Newslink]

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White Cube to open third gallery this October 12, in a restored warehouse in Bermondsey area [AO Newslink]

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X-ray of Goya portrait reveals possible portrait by Goya of Joseph Bonaparte beneath Don Ramón Satué [AO Newslink]

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All photos Art Observed by Guillaume Vandame

A festive atmosphere opening night at Mary Boone surrounded visitors while they studied Chicago artist Nick Cave‘s parade of bright and exotic soundsuits. Unique hybrid costumes made from a variety of materials, the works combine antique carpets, fabrics, beads, and everyday kitsch objects. Similar to naming the works Untitled, each piece is called a ‘soundsuit;’ various objects, all under the same title. The artist said of his style, “The world is my inventory,” drawing on roots in Trinidad and Haiti, and gathering resources that are no longer used in order to create something new.

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Detail of Soundsuit

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Running from corner to corner – in a specified order in relation to other corner groups. All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

Noémie Lafrance’s latest piece, The White Box Project, is full of running and screaming, grouping and awkward exclusivity, exploring audience participation and mob mentality; a “minimalist dance performance [that] challenges the implied separation between the art object and its viewing subject.” Each performance is followed by a discussion with the artist, thus further shaping the remaining performances in an “evolutive” process. Famous for her grand public dance performances, Lafrance has staged shows in places ranging from her home to galleries to McCarren Park Pool to the facades of Frank Gehry, as well as choreographing the award winning video for Feist’s “1, 2, 3, 4.”

Showing three September weekends in the courtyard of the Black & White Gallery in Brooklyn, performances run every Saturday at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30 pm, with two additional encore performances added to this last Sunday, the 25th of September, at 6:30 and 7:30 pm.
Art Observed was fortunate enough to sit down with Noémie in her Williamsburg studio for the following interview.

Noémie Lafrance recording the group discussion after a performance.

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Opening night, September 10, 2011. All images by Ana Marjanovic for Art Observed.

Through recycling, reproduction, and repetition, Brazilian-born and New York-based artist Vik Muniz explores contemporary consumerist culture’s interpretations of, and influences by, traditional art subject matter in his show on now at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York. Large scale, color photographs from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series are displayed alongside sculptures of the Relicario series.

Installation view

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Lucian Freud retrospective at London’s National Portrait Gallery in February to include last and unfinished painting, Portrait of the Hound [AO Newslink]

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Do Ho Suh, The Fallen Star 1/5 (2008-2011). All images taken by A. Marjanovic for Art Observed, unless otherwise noted.

Exploring themes of multicultural identity, Do Ho Suh presents installations and drawings at the Chelsea location of Lehmann Maupin in New York. Titled Home Within Home, the exhibition reflects the artist’s personal experiences of moving from Korea—where he was born and raised—to the US. Layering and inserting Korean imagery over and within large-scale architectural installations, Suh conveys his feelings of being “dropped from the sky,” according to the press release.

Do Ho Suh, Home Within Home, 2009-2011.

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Scottish/Trinidadian painter Peter Doig collaborates on the Siegfried + Poster Project at the Metropolitan Opera House, inspired by Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle [AO Newslink]

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José Parlá, Character Gestures (2011). Via JoséParlá.com

Miami-born, New York-based artist José Parlá‘s current solo exhibition at OHWOW Gallery in Los Angeles blurs the line between street art and action painting. Entitled “Character Gestures,” the show at OHWOW synthesizes the ‘low’ of the urban graffiti sensibility with the ‘high’ of process-based painting as it emerged out of the material and conceptual legacies of Abstract Expressionism. Rather than reading as personal expression of an interior world, though, the paintings, drawings, and sculptures on view function as an archive of the the visual material that emerges from social-spatial politics of the street, their surfaces palimpsests.

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A door at a Williamsburg bodega (a drug front) may be last work of Jean-Michel Basquiat [AO Newslink]

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Lehmann Maupin Artist Teresita Fernández appointed to four-year term on United States Commission of Fine Arts [AO Newslink]

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American artist Spencer Tunick photographs over 1,000 nude Israelis on the Dead Sea [AO Newslink]

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All photos by Abbey Stone for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Wednesday evening’s opening of Richard Serra‘s new exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea was abuzz. The huge warehouse space seemed to vibrate as art enthusiasts made their way through the artist’s massive installation. Roughly 15 feet tall, the two separate pieces, Junction and Cycle, create a sloping, weaving maze, inviting and immersing viewers within. Whispering praise as they explored the labyrinthine pieces, one such patron murmured, “It’s like you’re in a whole new world.”

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Perfect Man 2 at White Columns, opening reception. All photos for Art Observed by Ana Marijanovic, unless otherwise noted.

Artist-curator Rita Ackermann and creative director Parinaz Mogadassi curate the Perfect Man II at White Columns, a group show exploring gender issues within contemporary socio-cultural norms. The exhibition features mostly male artists in different stages of their careers, including Richard Serra, Ken Okiishi, Ed Paschke, Rammellzee, Josh Smith, Dan Graham, Malcolm Morley, and the Bernadette Corporation, among others—a collection of thirty-four multimedia pieces: paintings, installations, sculptures, video art, and photography. The show succeeds Perfect Man I, curated by Ackermann in 2007, which brought together mainly female artists. The idea behind Perfect Man is derived from “a poem written by an American housewife that was originally published in a truck driver’s magazine,” according to White Columns. Less explanatory and highly experimental curatorship of the Perfect Man II allows viewers to draw their own conclusions on the complex gender issues.

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Installation view.

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Jackie Wullshlager interviews Michael Craig-Martin: “It is hard to overestimate [his] significance in the revolution in British art and in Britain’s relationship with art, which followed in the 1990s.” [AO Newslink]

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All photos for Art Observed by Abbey Stone.

Newly nestled in its new home at 18 Wooster Street, the Swiss Institute (SI) continues to fulfill its mission of fostering “a way of thinking which asks audiences to break with traditional assumptions about art and national stereotypes,” presenting two inaugural exhibitions this fall. Wednesday, September 14, marked the opening of Books on Books, curated by Christoph Schifferli, and This is Not My Color/ The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by artists Pamela Rosenkrantz and Nikolas Gambaroff.

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Marina Abramović’s ‘The Artist Is Present’ Goes Virtual with Pippin Barr’s New Video Game [AO Newslink]

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Beatriz Milhazes, Gamboa Seasons Autumn Love (2010). All photos via Galerie Max Hetzler.

Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes begins Berlin Galerie Max Hetzler’s season with four large paintings, collages, and a mobile.  The paintings are titled after the four seasons and continue the artist’s engagement with bold, colorful explorations of familiar objects and ideas taken as geometrical abstractions.

Installation view

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Breaking: Richard Hamilton, the “Father of Pop,” designer of Beatles White album, died this morning at 89. Recently showed at Serpentine Gallery, was working on major retrospective to show next year.   Gagosian gallery confirmed his death, at an undisclosed location in Britain. [AO Newslink]

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Steve Powers, aka ESPO, is completing A Love Letter to Brooklyn, re-envisioning a mall garage on Hoyt street, part of the Fulton Mall [AO Newslink]

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Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ed Ruscha drive around, talk about art, in multi-gallery project Pacific Standard Time’s newest ad [AO Newslink]

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