Global contemporary art events and news observed from New York City. Suggestion? Email us.

Los Angeles – Anne Imhof: “EMO” at Sprüth Magers Through May 6th, 2023

February 27th, 2023

Anne Imhof, EMO (Installation View), via Art Observed
Anne Imhof, EMO (Installation View), via Art Observed

Marking the largest presentation of the artist’s work to date in the United States, Anne Imhof’s solo exhibition EMO, which opened this month at Sprüth Magers’s Los Angeles exhibition space, brings together several bodies of work across multiple mediums, putting each in dialogue with found objects in ways that implicate visitors’ bodies as they move through the space, at turns exalting and frustrating the viewing experience. Imhof, who has pioneered a visceral and impassioned body of work over the past decade, has long drawn on discourses of youth culture, repressed energies, pop signifiers and a range of cultural and social frameworks to explore the body’s relation to society, and the contingent effects each have on the other, here returns to the labyrinthine structures of previous shows to explore these notions once again.  Read More »

NEW YORK — SOPHIE KITCHING: “NOCTURNE” AT 3A GALLERY THROUGH FEBRUARY 26TH, 2023

February 25th, 2023

Sophie Kitching / 3A Gallery
Sophie Kitching, Nocturne, 3A Gallery, all photos by Migle Staniskyte

For her latest exhibition on view at 3A Gallery, Sophie Kitching presents new paintings from her Nocturne series, a shadowy and dreamy companion to her Invisible Green series, started in 2019. Both the Nocturnes and the Invisible Green paintings incorporate images of bright flowers and leaves as their main subject matter, but the former is painted onto a background made of black ink mixed with Payne’s gray whereas the latter is on a white canvas. The contrast of both and indeed the title itself—Nocturne—alludes to the opposites representing night and day versions of one another, but moreover they tell a subtle tale of light versus shadow and express entirely different temperaments and moods.

Read More »

Los Angeles – Peter Fischli: “Ungestalten” at Reena Spaulings Through April 1st, 2023

February 24th, 2023

Peter Fischli, Ungestalten (Installation View), via Reena Spaulings and Gaga
Peter Fischli, Ungestalten (Installation View), via Reena Spaulings and Gaga

In his wide-ranging oeuvre, artist Peter Fischli carefully observes and draws from the everyday world to create sculpture, installation, video and works on paper that address similar concerns to those explored as part of his collaborative practice with his late collaborator David Weiss. The artist’s work, so often centered around often overlooked, quotidian aspects of everyday life, sees him posing that same in an experimental and humorous way. For his current show, on now at the shared Reena Spaulings and Gaga exhibition space in Los Angeles, Fischli takes that interest towards a specific set of models: traffic lights.  Read More »

Los Angeles – Llyn Foulkes: “Bombs Away” at Gagosian Through February 25th, 2023

February 23rd, 2023

Llyn Foulkes, Birthington (2022), via Gagosian
Llyn Foulkes, Birthington (2022), via Gagosian

On view currently at Gagosian’s Beverly Hills exhibition space, artist Llyn Foulkes brings a body of works that continues his wry, expressive and often caustic sense of humor. Highly diverse, tough to categorize, and often wickedly confrontational, Foulkes’s landscape and portrait paintings, mixed-media constructions, and narrative tableaux are presented as a continuation and expansion of his ongoing challenges and critiques of the American mass-media landscape. Read More »

Los Angeles – Rita Ackermann: “Vertical Vanish” at Hauser & Wirth Through April 30th, 2023

February 22nd, 2023

Rita Ackermann, Vertical Vanish (2021), Rita AckermannCourtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo Thomas Barratt
Rita Ackermann, Vertical Vanish (2021), © Rita Ackermann, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo Thomas Barratt

On this month in Los Angeles, artist Rita Ackermann has brought forth a series of new canvases at Hauser & Wirth’s expansive Los Angeles exhibition space, showcasing the artist’s continued exploration and reinvention of the painterly language. Composed primarily of large-scale oil paintings that intuitively recast the interplay of line, color and form, Vertical Vanish makes a game of repeated gestures, figures and motifs.

Read More »

Los Angeles – Refik Anadol: “Living Paintings” at Jeffrey Deitch Through April 29th, 2023

February 21st, 2023

Refik Anadol, Living Paintings (Installation View), via Art Observed
Refik Anadol, Living Paintings (Installation View), via Art Observed

Opening during the run of Frieze Los Angeles this past week, Turkish artist Refik Anadol has installed a body of new works at Jeffrey Deitch’s expansive 925 N. Orange Drive exhibition space, continuing his exploration and elaboration of datasets, visualization models and densely layered digital compositions. Titled Living Paintings, the exhibition will showcase the complete series of Anadol’s artworks that are based on California-related datasets, and explore his fascination with the environments – physical, public, virtual, and multidimensional – that play an instrumental role in shaping his artistic vision. Read More »

Los Angeles – Alex Katz: “Sunrise” at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture Through March 12th, 2023

February 20th, 2023

Alex Katz, Sunrise (Installation View), via Art Observed
Alex Katz, Sunrise (Installation View), via Art Observed

Marking another intriguing iteration of satellite programming over the course of LA Art Week and the run of Frieze Los Angeles, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in West Hollywood is currently presenting Sunrise, a show of new works by painter Alex Katz that underscores the artist’s continued innovation and exploration of the painted canvas and his own, carefully-honed techniques.  Read More »

AO On-Site – Los Angeles: Spring/Break Art Show at Skylight Culver City, February 15th – 19th, 2023

February 19th, 2023

Emily Silver
Emily Silver, all images via Hannah Zhang for Art Observed

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. Returning this year to its location in Culver City, new space continues the scrappy, raw atmosphere of past years. Read More »

AO On-Site – Los Angeles: Felix Art Fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, February 15th – 19th, 2023

February 17th, 2023

Liza Lacroix at Magenta Plains, via Art Observed
Liza Lacroix at Magenta Plains, via 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.

Cameron Clayborne at Moran Moran, via Art Observed
Cameron Clayborne at Moran Moran, via Art Observed

Read More »

AO On-Site – Los Angeles: Frieze Los Angeles at the Santa Monica Airport, February 16th – 19th, 2023

February 16th, 2023

Alvaro Barrington at Blum & Poe, all images via Art Observed
Alvaro Barrington at Blum & Poe, all images via Art Observed

After several weeks of fairs in San Francisco and Mexico City, marking the early notes in another year of busy contemporary art fairs around the globe, Frieze Los Angeles, one of the premier events of the early year, has once again opened in the sprawling California metropolis, this year setting up shop amid the gleaming sun and striking expanses of the Santa Monica Airport. Taking place for the first time at this location (previously known as a former site for the Art Los Angeles Contemporary fair), the fair expands to feature more than 120 galleries, including new specialists in 20th-century art, alongside restaurants and Frieze Projects spread across the multiple sites. Read More »