Adam McEwen, Harvest (Installation View), via Art Observed
Embarking on winding pathways through the landscape of modernity, Adam McEwen’s work frequently dwells on the structures and representations of cognition, discovery and intellectual unraveling, mixing consumer objects, banal materials and re-inscriptions of symbolic systems to create interconnected bodies of work that are as mysteriously compelling as they are varied. Read More »
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Renowned architect Dame Zaha Hadid has passed away at the age of 65. Hadid has been a foundational voice of contemporary architecture over the course of the early 21st Century, including London’s Olympic Aquatic Centre, the Guangzhou Opera House, and the MAXXI in Rome. Read More »
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Carroll Dunham, Mound A (1991-1992), via Art Observed
Flexing his curatorial muscle at both Skarstedt Gallery locations in New York, David Salle has compiled an intriguing collection of recent paintings by a vastly diverse group of artists, and examines their shared interests in the grounds of abstract painting: formal concerns of size, scale and focus, in combination with the compositional elements of color, contrast and hue. Read More »
| Comments Off on New York – “Nice Weather” Curated by David Salle at Skarstedt Gallery Through April 16th, 2016 | |
Sherrie Levine, Pink SMEG Refrigerator and Renoir Nudes (2016), via Art Observed
Opening her first exhibition with David Zwirner in New York City, Sherrie Levine has taken over the 2nd floor of the gallery’s 20th Street Flagship, bringing a body of works that feels like a fitting first entry in her collaboration with Zwirner, while signaling new steps forward in her challenging and cerebral practice.
| Comments Off on New York – Sherrie Levine at David Zwirner Through April 2nd, 2016 | |
Tony Cragg, Untitled (2015), all photos via Quincy Childs for Art Observed
The opening hours of Art Basel Hong Kong have come and gone at the Hong Kong Convention Center this week, as the Asian art world descending on South China’s bustling metropolis for the first hours of high-profile sales. The fair saw strong international attendance during the VIP Vernissage, with Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak, Tracey Emin, Cai Guo Qiang, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones all spotted walking the aisles of the fair during its opening day, as were Mariko Mori, Hernan Bas, and Owen Wilson. Read More »
| Comments Off on AO On-Site – Hong Kong: Art Basel Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, March 22nd – 26th, 2016 | |
Michael Riedel, Untitled (Art Material_Lycaenops 90) (2015), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed
Entering Michael Riedel’s current exhibition at David Zwirner, visitors encounter an intriguing spatial arrangement, composed of abstract patterns blanketing gallery walls. Pulled from art material supplier BLICK’s website, the text, distorted to illegibility, is abstracted from its informative ends and transformed into purely graphical patterns. Barely comprehensible through a closer inspection, words listing different dimensions for canvases, or describing various color charts are no longer usable. Distortion of this conversation between information and its raison d’être commonly emerges in Riedel’s practice, bringing this dialogue into a reversed cycle, in which function becomes infertile and surplus conveys aesthetic. Read More »
| Comments Off on New York — Michael Riedel Is On View at David Zwirner Through March 25, 2016 | |
Taryn Simon, Bratislava Declaration, Bratislava, Slovakia, August 3, 1968, Paperwork and the Will of Capital (2015) © Taryn Simon. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
Last year at the Venice Biennale, Taryn Simon unveiled a body of new work under the title Paperwork and the Will of Capital, a selection of new photographs and assemblages documenting and photographing a series of bouquets that sat as centerpieces during the signing of various accords, treaties, and decrees worldwide. Taking a subdued path through corporate and pop gestures, the work’s simple presentation and concept carries a strong conceptual punch, deconstructing the political grandeur of often oppressive regime decisions. These works are now on view in New York, presented at Gagosian’s 24th Street Chelsea location.
Taryn Simon, Paperwork and the Will of Capital (Installation View), © Taryn Simon. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever
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Sterling Ruby, Work Wear: Garment and Textile Archive 2008 – 2016 (Installation View), via Sprüth Magers
In 2008, Sterling Ruby designed his own work shirt and pants, a uniform of sorts, which he would wear over the course of each body of work that he created. At the conclusion of each project, Ruby’s leftover materials are saved and incorporated into a new series of clothing pieces, ultimately reproducing the chemical treatments and techniques of each project as its own series of clothing pieces. These works are currently on view for the first time at Sprüth Magers in London, part of his exhibition Work Wear.
| Comments Off on London – Sterling Ruby: “Work Wear: Garment and Textile Archive 2008 – 2016” at Sprüth Magers Through April 9th, 2016 | |
Yutaka Sone, Hong Kong (2015), via David Zwirner
Art Basel is preparing to launch the first of its 2016 fair editions this week, as its international clientele touches down in the Chinese port of Hong Kong for the 4th year of the fair under the global fair franchise’s supervision. Following last year’s impressive success and broad attendance, the fair will look to repeat its strong showing. The challenges will be notable this year, however, in the face of slowing economic growth, and a diminished buyer pool following last year’s economic ups and downs. Yet wealthy buyers seem to proliferate in China despite decreased confidence, seeking efficient ways to move investment out of the country’s currency during this unstable market period. Read More »
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John Baldessari at Sprüth Magers, via Thisbe Gensler for Art Observed
Sprüth Magers, the German gallery with outposts in Cologne, Berlin and London, has opened its inaugural Los Angeles exhibition with a show of new works by John Baldessari. Located across the street from LACMA on Wilshire’s Miracle Mile, the new gallery boasts two floors of paintings, its street-facing windows covered in Baldessari’s iconic scrawl, “I will not make any more boring art.” The sixteen works in the show do not disappoint, showcasing the artist’s trademark conceptual wit in a series of works emblematizing his interest in visual and textual modes of communication, artistic authorship and the notion of absence. Having worked across a vast range of media and styles he states descends from Duchamp, Baldessari continues to explore the agency of the viewer in finding and defining meaning in his pieces.
| Comments Off on Los Angeles – John Baldessari at Sprüth Magers Through April 9th, 2016 | |
