May 23rd, 2016
Philip Guston, Untitled (1958), via Art Observed
In one of the season’s more historically resonant offerings, Hauser and Wirth has opened its 18th Street Gallery to a rare exhibition of Philip Guston’s 1950’s abstractions, collected as a presentation of his impressive output as a member of the New York School. Exploring the artist’s varied investigations of the canvas and mark in tandem, the show presents Guston’s work as a fascinating historical progression towards his more honed, expressive figuration of the late 1960’s and onward.
Philip Guston, Painter, 1957-1967 (Installation View), via Art Observed
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May 22nd, 2016
Isa Genzken, Mach Dich hübsch! (Installation View), via Art Observed
Isa Genzken is one of Germany’s most notable contemporary artists. Born in 1948, her work spans sculpture, installation, film, photography, collage, and painting, and she has continued to drive the German arts community forward with an inventive approach to digital media and created computer-designed sculptures that dates to the 1970’s.  Drawing on influences of American minimalism and conceptual art, alongside pop art, Genzken’s ready-mades and mannequin-based works also enter into conversation with Dadaist and Surrealist influences. Read More »
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May 20th, 2016
Friedrich Kunath, My Loneliness Shines (Installation View) all photos via Daphné Mookherjee for Art Observed
This past month, VNH Gallery opened German artist Friedrich Kunath‘s first solo exhibition in France.  Titled My Loneliness Shines, the artist’s new paintings, drawings, and neons contributed to an installation specially conceived for the space, exploring themes of melancholy, existentialism, loneliness and romance. Blending cultural codes and histories of composition, while mixing various narrative worlds and historical epochs with pop forms and kitsch, the show further cemented Kunath’s already unique approach towards free-ranging inventiveness.
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May 20th, 2016
Lucas Blalock, An Other Shadow (2014-2016), via Art Observed
Artist Lucas Blalock’s Low Comedy is currently on view at Ramiken Crucible on the Lower East Side, weaving digital and traditional photography into a hybridized form to create surreal and often comedic images and prints.
Lucas Blalock, Low Comedy (Installation View), via Ramiken Crucible Read More »
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May 19th, 2016
Richard Tuttle, Red Dots, Deep Maroon Over Green (1986), via Art Observed
If there’s one thing to be said for Richard Tuttle’s work, there’s at least 26.  That’s the argument Pace Gallery is making with its newest exhibition of the artist’s work, which compiles 26 works from his 50-year career into a single gallery show, offering a unique opportunity to re-evaluate both Tuttle’s continuous and consistent output alongside his focused approach to art-making. Read More »
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May 18th, 2016
Robert Longo, Bullet Hole in Window (Detail), All Images courtesy Galerie Thaddeus Ropac
Now through May 22nd, 2016, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris is hosting Luminous Discontent, an exhibition of new work by American artist Robert Longo. Spanning three floors of the gallery’s Marais exhibition space, Longo is presenting a series of large-scale charcoal drawings and sculpture, constructed by the artist specifically for this space. This new work follows from Longo’s production of large-scale monochromatic, photorealist compositions, engaging with historical and political themes in new ways. Read More »
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May 17th, 2016
Elmgreen & Dragset, Van Gogh’s Ear (2016), Courtesy of the artists and K11 Art Foundation, Galerie Perrotin, Galleria Massimo de Carlo and Victoria Miro  Gallery Photo: Jason Wyche, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY
This month, the Public Art Fund unveiled Van Gogh’s Ear, the organization’s ambitious collaboration with artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset. Presented to the public on a fittingly drizzly wet April morning (considering the sculpture’s subject matter), the completely drained pool recalls those of 1950’s Los Angeles.   The impressive 354-inch high sculpture, designed and crafted by the duo in the form of an ear, makes explicit reference to Van Gogh, whose dismembered ear has been the subject of various speculations in art history, stands on the hectic corner of 5th avenue, showing off its intricately detailed aqua blue interior, stainless steel ladder, glowing lights and accompanying diving board. Read More »
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May 16th, 2016
Tom Sachs, Waiting Arbor (2014), via Art Observed
For the first time in the museum’s history, an artist other than Isamu Noguchi will present work for the Noguchi Museum, as Tom Sachs brings his Tea Ceremony installation to the museum for its 30th Anniversary.  Sachs, who previously worked on other sprawling, conceptually-unified installation projects like Space Program 2.0: MARS, and Hello Kitty Nativity, here turns his interests towards chanoyu, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony.  Complete with a tea house, tools, and a garden, the exhibit features all the pieces necessary for the ceremony, each time realized through Sachs’s unique formal perspective.  Among the items incorporated within the installation include a bronze bonsai tree made by wielding together over 3,600 individual parts, a full koi pond complete with living orange and gray fish, wooden and metal gates, a full tea house, and many other structures made of everyday objects.
Tom Sachs, Pond Berm (2016), via Art Observed
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May 15th, 2016
David Hammons, Untitled (2014), via Art Observed
When it was announced that Mnuchin Gallery would host an exhibition of artist David Hammons’s work this year, anticipation was understandably high.  The reclusive artist’s work is rarely given this expansive stage for historical examination and the contextual impact of his work.  Spread out across the gallery’s two-floor townhouse exhibition space, Five Decades examines just that, Hammons’s expansive and formally elusive career working at a unique juncture of the avant-garde. Read More »
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May 14th, 2016
Jessi Reaves, Muscle Chair (Laying down to talk) (2016), via Art Observed
Artist Jessi Reaves takes Bridget Donahue Gallery into the summer months with her show of new work, transposing the styles and forms of high design into the framework of fine art, and examining the interplay of languages that results.  Having opened in early April, the exhibition, comprised of vividly executed furniture, shelving and cabinets, “suitable for use,” as the press release states, sees Reaves pushing her chosen forms towards new territories, substituting hard angles and flat planes for loping, curving lines, or inverting the often concealed material elements of each form. Read More »
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