Fabio Mauri, Oscuramento (Darkening) (1975), all photos via Art Observed

Fabio Mauri’s work is defined by trauma.  The Italian artist spent his early years growing up alongside the rise of the Italian Fascist Party.  His childhood was defined by the images of war and violence, not merely through the scope of WWII, but in the violent political structures of the era that sent his family and countrymen to war.  In his maturity, the late artist frequently returned to the sites and encounters with the images and iconography of that era in the Italian Nation, staging sculptural environments that placed domestic signifiers and human actors into contact with the objects of war: uniforms, helmets, weapons and scenes of twisted metal or military planning.

Fabio Mauri, Picnic o Il buon soldato (Picnic or The Good Soldier) (Installation View) (1998)

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Asad Raza with work by Jordan Wolfson, Jessica Dickinson and bedsheets from his childhood selected by Rachel Rose, via Art Observed

“Hey, I’m Asad,”  Asad Raza greets the viewer at the ground floor of his apartment building on Spring Street, before leading them up the stairs to his modest one-bedroom.  Over the past month, Raza has brought a number of visitors through the space for Home Show, a group exhibition of site-specific and performative works that he compiled from a close group of friends, including Tino Seghal, Camille Henrot, Rachel Rose and many more, guiding them through the show with an enthusiastic flair that intertwines his own personal history and life with the work of his friends and collaborators.

A heart pump loaned to the artist from his father, via Art Observed

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Tom Sachs, Crawler (2003), all photos via Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

The group exhibition Space Age, which closed yesterday at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris-Pantin, took up all four of the gallery’s spacious halls to examine historical and commissioned works by twenty contemporary artists, drawing on the astrological, the exploratory, and the untapped potential of outer space.  The artworks on view explored one of humanity’s most archaic collective dreams: the conquest of the skies and the immersion in the cosmos.

James Rosenquist, An Intrinsic Existence (2015), via Art Observed (more…)

A CNN article looks at the factors causing astronomical jumps in price in the art market recently, and the extended efforts of the auction houses to entice buyers.  “You bring as many people as you can into the headquarters through dinners and cocktail parties, and your global specialists center there and try to sell the work,” says Lisa Dennison, Chairman of Sotheby’s North and South America. (more…)

Brice Marden, Eastern Moss (2012-2015)

Brice Marden is the subject of a solo exhibition that spans three all three 22nd street locations for Matthew Marks Gallery, unveiling a new body of paintings and drawings that continue a number of the artist’s ongoing interests with the narrative potential for color.  The works on view here possess a demure yet captivating appeal, underlining the New York-based artist’s continued interest in the intersections of 20th Century abstraction, broader art histories, and the use of color-field composition in varying applications. (more…)

Jeff Koons, Gazing Ball (Fragonard Young Girl Playing with her Dog) (2014-2015)

Challenging the established notion of history as linear entity, art history often manifests itself as an intergenerational pattern, embedding variant heterogenous theories, movements and phenomena onto compound structures, while just as often disregarding its most sound chronological hierarchies. Jeff Koons, whose current exhibition at Gagosian Gallery continues his entries in his series of Gazing Ball works, takes this opportunity to scrutinize the constellation of art history, drawing his own threads and theories through a diverse and complexly interrelated series of works. (more…)

Mark Bradford, Deimos (2015)

Over the past several years, Mark Bradford has had something of a meteoric rise in the art world, garnering impressive recognition, critically and commercially for his exhilarating painterly style and vivid shifts in form and technique . Committed to creating uncompromisingly grandiose and ambitious works of art, Bradford has been the subject of rightfully increasing acclaim, most recently proven by his solo exhibition Scorched Earth at the Hammer Museum in his hometown Los Angeles, and his recent commission for a massive installation to accompany his upcoming retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. (more…)

George Baselitz, Untitled (2015), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Intertwining his own personal artistic process with distinct threads of historical reference, wry humor and disparate aesthetic threads, Georg Baselitz is currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s 980 Madison space for a small exhibition of new works, positioning the artist’s drawings and watercolors as a “visitation,” as the artist terms it, by Japanese ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai.

Georg Baselitz, Visit from Hokuskai (Installation View)

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Willem de Kooning, Clamdigger (1972), via Art Observed

It’s an interesting trajectory to follow when an artist, late in their career, strikes out into new media, carrying over a fully articulated, steady aesthetic sensibility that has been honed over decades of work.  The results are often dynamically contrasted against the artist’s broader body of work, and often evinces a renewed creative energy and a fresh vigor for formal investigation or subversion.

Willem de Kooning, Seated Woman on a Bench (1972), via Art Observed (more…)

Joseph Kosuth, Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology (Installation View), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

A preeminent member of the pioneering group of conceptual practitioners that sought to dissolve art making from declarations of objective emotion or feeling, Joseph Kosuth remains a marker stone for the reach and potential for Conceptual Art, still using his work to scrutinize the limits and definitions of contextual meaning, often removed from primarily aesthetic concerns, at age 70.  Agnosia, an Illuminated Ontology strikes the viewer as a large-scale installation orchestrated by Kosuth at Sean Kelly Gallery, where the artist, who splits his time between New York and London, is showing his first exhibition since 2011. (more…)

Rudolf Stingel (Installation View), Copyright the artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London

Italian artist Rudolf Stingel takes over both of Sadie Coles HQ’s locations in London this month, bringing with him a typically enigmatic body of work that combines the artist’s interests in the role, transformation and translation of the painted image, taken in conjunction with its relation to photographic context, time and the natural world. (more…)

Marina Abramovic and Igor Levit, Goldberg (2015), photo by Marco Anelli

Over the course of the past two years, Marina Abramovic’s work has shifted towards the meditative, and the participatory simultaneously, a seemingly dissonant set of parameters that have resulted in a range of peculiar performances experimenting with sensory deprivation, mediated experiences of space, and gentle brushes with the artist’s person, as she acts as a guide through her own created environments.  Her practice continues this month at the Park Avenue Armory, where the the artist has partnered with pianist Igor Levit for Goldberg, a meditative concert of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. (more…)

Nari Ward, We the People (2011), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Positioned just off the MacArthur Causeway in downtown Miami, the Perez Art Museum stands as a striking icon of Miami’s new art world caché, and seems to be a favorite auxiliary stop among Art Basel fairgoers each December.  Its lush, airy Herzog de Meuron design and expansive gallery spaces host one of Art Week Miami’s more popular evening events with its annual commission performance.  This year, the museum has opened its doors to a series of impressive exhibitions during Miami Art Week, including a group exhibition titled Global Positioning Systems, and a retrospective dedicated to Jamaican-born artist Nari Ward.

Nari Ward, We the People (2011), detail, via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

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Ai Weiwei, Free Speech Puzzle (2014), via Art Observed

It’s been a whirlwind year for Ai Weiwei, as the artist’s staunch opposition and fierce criticism to government censorship of his work and life brought both new challenges (the alleged bugging of his studio and the arrest of his lawyer and friend Pu Zhiqiang) and new victories, including relaxed limits on his ability to show in China, and ultimately, the return of his passport, allowing the artist to leave the country for the first time since his arrest in 2011.  This last event underscores the artist’s triumphant exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, where he has mounted an expanded version of his traveling solo exhibition, including a series of new works for the show. (more…)

Camille Henrot at Johann Konig, photos via Sophie Kitching, Andrea Nguyen and Rae Wang for Art Observed

The doors closed Sunday on the last hours of the Art Basel Miami Beach fair, bringing the season’s international calendar of fairs to a close after a long week of focused sales and openings in the sweltering, rain-soaked locales of Miami Beach.

Tracy Emin at Lehmann Maupin (more…)

Tony Tasset, Deer (2015)

Positioned outside of the Bass Museum of Art on Collins Ave between 21st and 22nd Street, Collins Park’s wide sidewalks and meandering pathways make for the perfect centralized location for Art Basel Miami Beach’s annual sculpture park, positioning a selection of 24 works across the park grounds for interested viewers and visitors.  This year’s selection continued the event’s annual public outreach with a group of works that included scrolling video pieces (Rikrit Tiravanija’s confounding traffic notifications screen) and massive neons (courtesy of Sylvie Fleury), positioned against hyperrealist sculpture (Tony Tasset’s massive Deer) and other minimalist pieces.

AO was on site at the park, and captured this photoset from the install.

Athena Papadopoulos, Two Serious(ly) (young) Women, (Hubba Hubba Trouba and Ouchy Waa Waa Mama) (2015) (more…)

The Granby Four Estates, via Assemble

The 2015 Turner Prize has been announced, with the 18-member London-based architectural collective Assemble taking home the £25,000 prize for its ambitious redesign and assistance in socially re-engineering a series of derelict residences in the Liverpool neighborhood of Toxteth.  The award was presented this evening at the Tramway in Glasgow. (more…)

Julie Schenkelberg at SiTE:LAB

Positioned south of the Convention Center at 10^th and Ocean Dr., the Untitled Art Fair returns to its prime beach real estate this year, bringing with it another year of tightly-curated booths, installations and special projects. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the bustle of ABMB, complemented by the fair’s signature tent design, which boasts wide aisles and spacious booth for exhibitors that gave the exhibition a distinctly relaxed air, while offering ample light to emphasize the works on view.

Dominique Petrin at Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran

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Roy Lichtenstein at Gagosian Gallery

The doors opened this morning on the 14^th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, as the VIP Preview saw collectors, dealers and artists flocking to the Miami Beach Convention Center for another year. The fair, which this year boasts a sizable 267 exhibitors spread across the Convention Center’s sprawling floor plan, saw strong early attendance, and sightings of Eli Broad and Melissa Chiu wandering the fair in the early hours, while advisors and consultants sped past, locked in negotiations. (more…)

Work by Pawel Althamer at Unrealism, via Rae Wang for Art Observed

With the Miami Beach Convention Center opening its doors this morning, the early arrivals to Art Basel Miami Beach decamped to Miami proper this past evening for a series of openings and exhibitions in the city’s thriving Design District. Spread across a several block radius, the neighborhood’s simultaneous hosting of the ICA Miami’s temporary installation space (which opened just one year ago during Miami Art Week 2014), the joint Larry Gagosian/Jeffrey Deitch exhibition, and a number of other projects made it a central location for the first major night of Art Week Events. (more…)

Greater New York at MoMA PS1, all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

America is Hard to See, the Whitney recently proclaimed, opening the doors on a space that made the city around it part of its exhibition program.  For the most recent iteration of MoMA PS1’s Greater New York exhibition, the museum and its curators attempt a similar program, turning to the artists living and working in and around New York to present a deep, nuanced exploration of life in the metropolis. (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, Freischwimmer 229 (2012), via Regen Projects

As the month of December approaches for the art world, attention turns once again to Miami Beach, as the 14th American edition of Art Basel brings its only U.S. franchise back to the Miami Beach Convention Center, along with 267 galleries from around the globe, a strong selection of talks, events and projects, as well the numerous satellite fairs, one-off exhibitions, and of course, the parties up and down Collins Ave and the surrounding areas. (more…)

Teresita Fernández, Viñales (Reclining Nude) (2015), Rae Wang for Art Observed

Conceptual artist Teresita Fernández continues her incisive investigations into the connections between the subterranean and the cosmos, materialization and transcendence in her new solo exhibition, on view at Lehmann Maupin in New York.  Fernández’s work often focuses on the transformation of unconventional materials into malleable forms, imbuing them simulataneously with a human narrative and historical geography. Here, the artist draws in on the uncanny semblance between the interiors of malachite mineral rocks originating from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the karstic landscape of the Viñales Valley in rural Cuba.

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Caroll Dunham, Now and Around Here (1) (2011-2015), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.

A new body of work by painter Carroll Dunham is currently on view at Gladstone Gallery, resuming the artist’s ongoing investigation of the bather motif, which he has pursued, modified and continued to explore since 2009.   The large scale paintings on view depict lavish nude figures positioned amidst phantasmagorical landscapes, loyal to Dunham’s exuberant signature painting style. The artist’s work here does little to depart from his familiar forms and techniques throughout the series, and instead focuses on delivering his particular set of arresting images with a degree of uncompromising consistency.  Even so, some fresh elements in these works, such as male nudes and animals join the spectrum. (more…)