Eddie R. Aparicio, Holbein En Crenshaw (Washington Blvd. and Crenshaw Blvd., LA, CA) (2018), all images via Aidan Chisholm for Art Observed

Hauser & Wirth presents “The New Bend,” a group exhibition exploring the intergenerational legacy of quilting as a gendered, raced and classed mode of social practice. Curated by Legacy Russell, Executive Director & Chief Curator of The Kitchen, the exhibition brings together twelve contemporary artists engaging with the Gee’s Bend Alabama quilting tradition: Anthony Akinbola, Eddie R. Aparicio, Dawn Williams Boyd, Diedrick Brackens, Tuesday Smillie, Tomashi Jackson, Genesis Jerez, Basil Kincaid, Eric N. Mack, Sojourner Truth Parsons, Qualeasha Wood, and Zadie Xa.

Tomashi Jackson, Among Fruits (Big Shane and the Farmer) (2021)

The New Bend renders apparent the enduring influence of the Gee’s Bend quilters, underscoring the weighty historical role of Black American women including Sarah Benning (b. 1933), Missouri Pettway (1902-1981), Lizzie Major (1922-2011), Sally Bennett Jones (1944-1988) and Mary Lee Bendolph (b.1935). Rooted in the hamlet of Gee’s Bend along the Alabama River in Wilcox County, this textile tradition extends from the 19th and 20th centuries to the present era, with contemporary artists mining the visual rhetoric and technical framework of quilting, while paying homage to the collective ethos of the communal practice. “The New Bend” highlights contemporary engagement with the Gee’s Bend legacy to posit the centrality of this tradition within Modernist art historical narratives of abstraction.

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the pivotal exhibition “The Quilts at Gee’s Bend” at The Whitney Museum of Art (2002-2003), “The New Bend” attests to the continued relevance of this textile practice in the context of twenty-first-century digitization. Russell evokes the rhetoric of digitization and computation to understand the cooperative networks enacted through quilt-making today, in this era of the Web 2.0 marked by the proliferation of participatory platforms within the decentralized internet domain. “The New Bend” does not position textile art as a reversion to the handmade in our digital era, but rather harnesses the rhetoric of computation and coding to appreciate the layered dynamics of quilting as simultaneously personal and communal, conjuring collective memories while perhaps envisioning alternate futures. In Qualeasha Wood’s work, the artist reflects upon the dynamics of surveillance and control within non-neutral digital infrastructures to explore the polemics of hypervisibility of Black female subjectivities.Ctrl+Alt+Del (2021), views the dynamics of surveillance and control within non-neutral digital infrastructures to explore the polemics of hypervisibility of Black female subjectivities.

Qualeasha Wood, Ctrl+Alt+Del (2021)

The gallery statement underscores the legacy of Gee’s Bend extending beyond art historical discourse: “What the quilters of Gee’s Bend reveal via their transformative cooperative work is that they are both artists and technologists, contributing simultaneously to art history, as well as to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) practice. This duality exists in the work of each artist featured in this exhibition and many more beyond who continue to grow in this tradition.”

Anthony Akinbola, Jubilee (2021)

Basil Kincaid, Four Eyes One Vision (2021)

Entering the intimate, second-floor space of the Chelsea gallery, viewers encounter Dawn Williams Boyd’s The Right to (My) Life (2017), a mixed media tapestry capturing an anti-abortion rally. This vibrant figurative work situates textile art as a mode of political intervention, conjuring the legacy of quilting as a mode of political conscious-raising amidst the Civil Rights Movement, particularly following the emergence of The Freedom Quilting Bee in Rehoboth, Alabama in 1966. Anthony Akinbola builds upon the sampling tactics of Gee’s Bend quilters through his use of the Du Rag, a vernacular emblem of Black American culture, in his Jubilee (2021). From the architectural paneling of Eric N. Mack’s boy on the edge of the shoreline in DES HOMMES ET DES DIEUX (2018) to the incorporation of soil from a former potato field in Tomashi Jackson’s Among Fruits (Big Shane and the Farmer) (2021), the vibrant works in “The New Bend” are enmeshed within a creative network encapsulating rich cultural heritage.

Dawn Williams Boyd, The Right to (My) Life (2017)

Diedrick Brackens, survival is a shrine, not the small space near the limit of life (2021)

– A. Chisholm

Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Hauser & Wirth]
Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers [Souls Grown Deep Foundation]

Ashley Bickerton, 0°36’06.2″N, 131°09’41.8″E 1 (2022), via Lehmann Maupin

This month, Lehmann Maupin presents Seascapes at the End of History, artist Ashley Bickerton’s sixth solo exhibition at the gallery, continuing the artist’s bold and expressive use of sculpture and natural iconographies to create striking, illusory effects. Posed as a reappraisal of the seascape genre, the exhibition features work first conceived of while living in New York City prior to the artist’s relocation to the Indonesian island of Bali in 1993. An avid surfer, Bickerton’s work here draws on resin, fiberglass, corten steel and other materials to blend industrial material with natural iconographies.  (more…)

You Find Yourself Alone in the Middle of a Forest, curated by Nora Lucia Boyd and featuring Opal Mae Ong and Tyler Krasowski

Continuing its own intriguing and honed perspective on booth its surroundings in Los Angeles and on the model of the art fair, SPRING/BREAK has once again made arrived in the California city, launching a supplementary event that offers an ample supply of artists and galleries presenting in a concept that stands as a stark contrast to the traditional fair model. Launching this year in a new location in Culver City that continues the fair’s collaboration with the Skylight group of properties, the new space continues the scrappy, raw atmosphere of past years in a location that places the fair in closer proximity to the goings-on at Frieze Los Angeles (more…)

Tony Matelli at The Ranch, all images by Art Observed

As Frieze opens up shop for the week on the West Coast, the bevy of satellite fairs and event openings are underway across the city, including the always hotly anticipated Felix LA Art Fair, the brainchild of collector Dean Valentine that spreads works across the halls and rooms of the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. The show allows a unique mixture of intimate exhibitions and adventurous concepts that felt well-suited to the well-heeled patrons of the contemporary art market, both looking for a good piece of work and a unique experience while buying it.

Cynthia Talmadge at 56 Henry

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Chris Burden at Gagosian, all images via Art Observed

With the sun setting over the sprawling expanse of the Californian metropolis, the early hours of the third Frieze Los Angeles Art Fair are in the books, marking a much anticipated return after several years marked by logistical issues and the challenges of the pandemic. Opening this year at a new location on Wilshire Boulevard, the fair has doubled down on its vital engagement with the city, and with its thriving art scene, launching another strong event.   With strong sales reported and an energetic atmosphere across the fair, it would seem that the small-scale and focused approach of the fair had once again seen the fair brand making its case as an arbiter of thoughtful, curated approaches towards the market and its participants. (more…)

Pedro Coronal, Galeria de Arte Mexicano, all images by Anfisa Vrubel for Art Observed

The post-pandemic edition of ZonaMACO, the largest art fair in Latin America, came back this year with a revitalized and vibrant energy. Its location, Mexico City, has become a focal point in the art world and a haven for artists looking for creative possibilities. The Art Week brought together a dynamic assortment of art world insiders—emerging galleries and established cultural institutions, young artists and designers, and the usual cool kids on the scene. Surrounding the fair, the satellite events were bursting with activity, from gallery and museum openings to performances and parties, and the classic lunches at Contramar. (more…)

Alvaro Barrington, Win or lose/choose (2021), via Blum & Poe

Following several years of uncertainty raised by the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Frieze Art Fair returns to the sprawl of Los Angeles for a third year under the sunny skies of the Golden State. Having capped a pair of sold out editions before the pandemic began, this year’s edition takes up a new location and renewed vigor, emphasizing its role as a major part of the early weeks of the annual fair calendar. (more…)

Caroline Larsen at The Hole NYC, all images by Anfisa Vrubel for Art Observed

Taking over the Centro Citibanamex for another year of exhibitions, the Zona Maco art fair opened this week to packed crowds and enthusiastic response. The fair, which marks its 18th year this year, has continued to grow and evolve since its early years, and this year’s edition was no different, with a strong list of exhibitors that made the excitement of a full edition after several years of challenges posed by Covid-19 all the more palpable. Aisles were packed for much of the early hours of the fair, with gallerists and museum directors, collectors and advisors weaving through each booth.  (more…)

Zhivago Duncan, Shield of Thought (2019 – 2020), via Zhivago Duncan

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (November) (2020), via Gagosian

As winter coasts into the early weeks of February, the art world returns once more to the sprawling Mexico City metropolis for another year of art week, centered around the proceedings at Zona Maco Art Fair, and the surrounding areas. With Mexico City’s stature growing each year as a central hub of the global arts community, the week once again promises a range of impressive shows and openings alongside the thriving sales events at the main fair. (more…)

Pavilions (Installation View), via Lisson

Marking a particularly unique investigation of modern sculptural and installation practice, Lisson Gallery is currently hosting Pavilions at its New York space, presenting a group of artists who engage with various forms and concepts surrounding the use of pavilions, ranging from physically-realized structures to designs conceived as ideas or sketches. Though the works in the exhibition vary in medium and scale, all are centered around the interaction with the viewer, together creating an environment that explores individual memory, identity and experience. (more…)

Bill Lynch, No Title [Bird on Branch and Three Plates] (n.d.), via The Approach

On view now at The Approach in London, the gallery has assembled an exhibition of paintings and drawings, never shown until now, by the late American artist Bill Lynch (1960-2013) united under the title I am a Bird from Heaven’s Garden. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lynch immersed himself in making drawings and paintings for over three decades, creating lyrical, expressive gestures on salvaged plywood that would mix abstraction and concrete iconographies in striking ways.

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Mary Obering, Works from 1972 – 2003 (Installation View), via Bortolami

This month at Bortolami Gallery, the work of artist Mary Obering takes center stage. Surveying Obering’s prolific output from 1972 to 2003, the exhibition focuses on the artist’s singular approach to Minimalism and geometric abstraction, spanning both floors of the gallery, with the Upstairs dedicated to artworks from the 1970s, a nod to the artist’s SoHo studio in which she took residency in 1971. (more…)

Petra Cortright, YAMAHA CDRW-4260T_vampire erotica archives TYPOGRAPHY MICROSOFT (2021), via Foxy Production

On view this month at Foxy Production, the gallery has assembled a show of new works by the artist Petra Cortright, marking her third solo exhibition with the gallery. Presenting images framed as “distillations” of the imagery that dominates our every day, this  new series of digital paintings uses Angel Wing Clematis, a white narrow-petalled climbing-vine flower—thought to symbolize knowledge and aspiration—as its central motif. (more…)

Rose Wylie, Battle in Heaven (Film Notes) (2008), via Zabludowicz Collection

Currently on view this month at the Zabludowicz Collection, a selection of the institution’s holdings are presented as a look at the progression and evolution of figuration in modern practice. The Stand-Ins brings together 19 artists who deploy autobiographical elements and a cast of imagined characters in the construction of their paintings and narratives, and maps lines of influence across generations, featuring seminal figures alongside important new voices. (more…)

Anicka Yi, In Love With the World (2021) All images by Aidan Chisholm for Art Observed.

Setting forth her floating biomorphic machines, artist Anicka Yi has reinvigorated Turbine Hall as visitors return to the iconic London site after a two-year pandemic-induced pause. The latest Tate Modern Hyundai Commission, In Love With the World explores the nexus between nature and technology, integrating the biological and the algorithmic. (more…)

Robert Janitz, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 2 (2021), via Canada

Currently on at Canada Gallery in New York, artist Robert Janitz returns to his particular style of abstraction, utilizing unique tools and techniques to create geometrically-inspired, colorful compositions. The artist, who has long used loping, gestural forms in his work, here draws new inspiration from the confines of the canvas as a defining element in the production of the pieces. (more…)

David Shrigley, Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange (Installation View), via Stephen Friedman

Approaching Stephen Friedman’s Mayfair gallery, one is greeted with a large glowing green neon reading “Mayfair Tennis Ball Exchange.” Just beyond the glass, row upon row of gentle green orbs peer back at the viewer, making up artist David Shrigley’s newest exhibition at the gallery. The show, which shares the title with that neon work, makes for a fascinating look at relational work and simple, comical iterations, long a hallmark of the artist’s work. (more…)

Alex Katz, Yellow House (2020), via Gladstone

At the age of 94, Alex Katz is still painting, creating more works in his signature style of elevated coolness. The artist, who continues to paint between Pennsylvania, Maine and New York, marks his first exhibition this month with Gladstone Gallery, where he opens a show of 7 new landscapes that underscore his continued exploration and misery of light, space and balance. (more…)

Caitlin Keogh, Waxing Year 2 (2020), via Bortolami

Currently on at Bortolami’s Tribeca exhibition space, Caitlin Keogh marks her third exhibition with the gallery with ‘The Waxing Year,’ a continuation of the artist’s investigations of space, materiality and time. Rendered through a series of intricate acrylics on canvas, the works speak to her ability to fuse imagined states and historical epochs with a deft sense of lyrical dialogue. (more…)

Claire Tabouret, Offrande (pink and brown) (2021), via Perrotin

This month in Paris, Galerie Perrotin presents a series of new landscape paintings and interiors by the artist Claire Tabouret, continuing a practice of careful historical study and taut, expressive compositions. Painted on colored synthetic fur, the show sees Tabouret continue a practice rooted in dialogue between historical modes and a distinct line of conceptual practice that challenges and reframes the act of painting. (more…)

Luke O’Halloran, Ace of Clubs (2021), via Art Observed

Bungalow’s inaugural pop-up space on Orchard Street presents a show of young artists that is equal bits fest and flesh. As you enter the gallery, a re-CAPTCHA inspired work by Mira Dayal cryptically sets the tone. Imbibe, it reads, as if a catechism for absorbing the bounty that awaits. A vertiginous work nearby, presented by Thomas Blair (2021) seems to wink at you with its illusory moiré hatchings. Adjusting your eyes beyond the painting’s edge reveals a beguiling charade of subversion and submission. This is nowhere more apparent than in an untitled work of Justine Neuberger’s where blushing pastels attempt to soften the taut brawn of a BDSM tussle. The deftness in draughtsmanship is something to marvel at, as equally are the brawling scenes of domination on display. Shards of pink and yellow by Kiyoshi Kaneshiro (2021) resound with unexpected harmony as the porcelain shrapnel inheres a composition that is at once fragile and fraught.  (more…)

Nicolas Party, Trees (2020), via Karma

Currently on view at Karma’s New York exhibition space, artist Nicolas Party is presenting Watercolor, a solo exhibition of around fifty recent watercolor paintings by the artist that underscores his commitment to the medium and his interest in expanding its grammar and possibilities. The show, which marks a specific focus in the artist’s broader output, offers a fascinating look into Party’s more subtle and small-scale compositions. (more…)

Vivarium (Installation View), via Anfisa Vrubel for Art Observed

Tucked away on a quiet side street in the heart of Mexico City’s San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood, the new JO-HS Gallery is a stone’s throw away from the frenetic energy of the city, and yet a world apart. Draped by a cascade of ivy, the two-story modernist building that houses the gallery was designed by the architect Carlos Herrera in 1981, and served as his studio and workspace for several decades. It was recently taken over and renovated by Elisabeth Johs, curator and owner of the eponymous gallery. Inspired by the vibrant art and culture scene in Mexico City, Johs set out to create a new type of cultural space that would be a hybrid between a gallery, studio space, and artist residency. (more…)

Jenny Morgan at Mother Gallery

With the proceedings of Art Week Miami winding on, the halls at the Miami Beach Convention Center continue to draw massive crowds of both buyers and visitors, its luxe appointments and impressive stock of established blue chip works commanding big headlines and even bigger price tags. But across Biscayne Bay, the New Art Dealers Alliance had kicked off its annual take on the Miami Fair Week. NADA Miami, set up inside the Ice Palace Film Studios, puts itself forward as showcasing new art and to celebrating the rising talents from around the globe, exploring new or underexposed art that is not typical of the “art establishment,” by their words. NADA Miami is also the one of the only major American art fairs to be produced by a non-profit organization, and is recognized as a much needed alternative assembly of the world’s youngest and strongest art galleries dealing with emerging contemporary art.

Hou Zichao at Downs & Ross

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