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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Huma Bhabha, Untitled (2015), all photos courtesy Clearing Brussels

New York-based artist Huma Bhabha is holding an exhibition of new work at Clearing Brussels, continuing her focus on found materials and their negotiations with the experiences and memories  of the cultural and historical past.  This series, including works on paper, photo-collage, and sculpture, references modern human construction from urban landscapes to utopian architecture to figure-based monuments. The artist’s work explores the different environmental relationships that have occurred over time and continue to linger in contemporary society, occasionally indicating a certain fusion of divergent materials that have been produced in Bhabha’s studio as the artist studies a more intimate understanding of modern debris. Read More »

Martin Puryear, Face Down (2008)

The Morgan Library & Museum is hosting Multiple Dimensions, an exhibition featuring seventy drawings Martin Puryear has produced over the course of his decades spanning career, accompanied by a selection of medium size sculptural work.  Set to travel to the Art Institute of Chicago and later to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the exhibition sheds light on another thread in the artist’s grandiose practice as he prepares for his upcoming Madison Square Park Commission in 2016. Read More »

2015:1947 (Installation View), all photos via Equity Gallery

Founded in 1947 by a group of over 160 prominent American artists, among them Thomas Hart Benton, Philip Guston, Edward Hopper, Louise Nevelson and Jacob Lawrence, Artists Equity was formed to advocate for artists’ rights and provide collective resources for economic, legal and health benefits. Following WWII and the end of the WPA Federal Art Projects, amid a political climate growing more conservative and reactionary, artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi began to discuss with other American artists, primarily in New York and Woodstock, the idea of a collective advocacy organization. Read More »

Oscar Murillo, Lucky Dip (2015), via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Continuing his process of intricate, labor-intensive installations and performances, Oscar Murillo has set up shop at the Alexander Hamilton Custom House on Bowling Green, bringing his new work, Lucky Dip.  The performance, which places a series of laborers at the service of his own aesthetic and political interests, sees the artist reprising his interests in national identity, globalized labor and their exchange with the world of contemporary art. Read More »

Brant Foundation

Dash Snow’s work came of age during the dark years following 9/11 in New York City, a time when paranoia, violence and empire had written themselves large against the American consciousness.  Turning this dark, visceral atmosphere back outwards in his body of sculptures, installations, photographs and other works, Snow’s pieces demanded attention as much as his behavior did, part of a downtown ensemble of artists including Dan Colen, Ryan McGinley, Nate Lowman, Hanna Liden, and others, each of whom brought their own take on urban grit and anarchic living to their work. Read More »

Juliana Huxtable, There Are Certain Facts that Cannot Be Disputed (2015), all photos via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Last Friday, MoMA played home to artist Juliana Huxtable’s There Are Certain Facts that Cannot Be Disputed, one of the marquee performance works commissioned this year for the Performa 15 biennial.  The sold-out set of performances, set in the museum theatre, featured a slew of the transgender writer, artist, DJ and promoter’s (whose recurring event ShockValue played home to the performance afterparty) compatriots and collaborators, winding its way through notions of parallel histories, white-washed narratives, and the ubiquity of digital technologies, all turned through the artist’s unique poetic and aesthetic inclinations. Read More »

Ed Ruscha, Metro Mattress #4 (2015), via Sprüth Magers Berlin

Currently on view at Sprüth-Magers in Berlin, artist Ed Ruscha is exhibiting a body of new color drawings, under the title Metro Mattresses, an exhibition that takes the cast-off mattresses of his native Los Angeles as an inspirational ground for an exploration of intertwined physical and imagined narratives, objective and subjective experiences of the urban environment. Read More »