Frank Stella, Harran II (1967), via Art Observed

Upon entering Frank Stella’s career retrospective at the Whitney, one is immediately assailed by a flourish of color and form, with the artist’s massive mural work Das Erdbeben in Chili spanning almost the full length of the fifth floor wall.  The show, which marks one of the largest for the artist in the US since his 1987 MoMA Retrospective, is a fitting introduction to his work, spanning his nearly seventy year career. Read More »

Amedeo Modigliani, Paulette Jourdain (circa 1919). All photos by Rae Wang for Art Observed.

A marathon auction calendar is set to open in New York this week, bringing a massive trove of premier works to the city’s top auction houses.  With 7 major sales over the course of the next week and a half, spectators can expect an almost unprecedented number of high value works changing hands, with major records already forecasted to fall during the proceedings at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips. Read More »

Richard Bell, Embassy (2015), via Performa

Performa, New York’s iconic and ongoing performance art Biennial has returned to the city this month, kicking off this past Sunday with a full calendar of events running through the 22nd.  The 15th edition of the event, Performa is offering a particularly strong calendar of events over the coming weeks, mixing high art stage performances, conceptual exercises, live poetics and confrontational pieces across the city’s range of venues, institutions and galleries. Read More »

Liam Gillick, A Broadcast from 1887 on the Subject of our Time (1996)

On view at Maureen Paley through November 22nd is a solo exhibition by prominent British conceptualist Liam Gillick, continuing the artist’s vastly interdisciplinary practice mining fluid and interconnected social norms, and scrutinizing the overt or arcane methods that agents of society pursue in response to such dynamics. Read More »

Read More »

Josh Smith, Untitled (2014), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Luhring Augustine is currently hosting its sixth collaboration with New York based artist Josh Smith. Having emerged in the early 2000s alongside a group of critically challenging and occasionally irreverent artists including Kelley Walker, Sterling Ruby and Seth Price, Smith is one of the foremost representatives of a genre that delivers spontaneity and audaciousness in presence, yet asserts a depth that is subliminal and immaculate.  Here, the artist takes his signature penchant for deconstruction to one of many natural conclusions, executing minimal compositions that tie his interest in gesture and hand to an almost free-associative exchange with the art historical. Read More »

Alex Hubbard, (to be titled) (2015), via Maccarone

Maccarone Gallery has tapped Alex Hubbard for its inaugural show in Los Angeles, opening the doors on its impressively spacious South Mission Street exhibition space with a series of large-scale paintings that lean on a diverse set of materials including urethane, resin, and fiberglass in their challenging, polymorphous constructions.   Read More »

Isa Genzken, Nefertiti Sculpture (2015), via Art Observed

David Zwirner has opened the front door on its elusively large, hangar-style exhibition space on 19th street for a show of new sculptural work by Isa Genzken, continuing the artist’s ongoing interests in the intersections of fashion and sculpture, and an engagement with the  human form in a particularly explicit manner.  The show is the artist’s third with the gallery in 10 years. Read More »