Simone Leigh, Sovereignty (Installation View), via Art Observed

On view amidst the bustling landscape of the Venice Biennale’s Giardini pavilion, artist Simone Leigh has transformed the U.S. Pavilion, covering its surface with a thatched roof and situating one of her iconic sculptural arrangements outside. The show, which features a new body of work made for the show, continues her interest in performativity and affect, drawing on the artist’s expansive practice to explore the construction of Black femme subjectivity.

Simone Leigh, Sovereignty (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Stanley Whitney at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, via Art Observed

Amid the bustle of the Biennale in Venice this week, artist Stanley Whitney brings a series of works made during the 1990’s in Italy, a tribute and ode to the country that here finds its voice spread across the Noble Floor of the sixteenth century Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, located along the central stretch of the Grand Canal.

Stanley Whitney at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, via Art Observed

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Sonia Boyce, Feeling Her Way, featuring Errollyn Wallen, Jacqui Dankworth, Poppy Ajudha and Tanita Tikaram. Photo: Cristiano Corte © British Council

The awards for the 59th Edition of the Venice Biennale have been announced, with artist Sonia Boyce taking home the Golden Lion for the Best National Pavilion, while Simone Leigh took the Golden Lion for participation in the Main Exhibition. This is the first time in Biennale history that both of the top awards at the event were won by black women.  Read More »

Marguerite Humeau, all images via Art Observed

Spread between above the green lawns and trees of Venice’s Giardini, and the winding streets and canals of the Arsenale nearby, the Venice Biennale’s Central Pavilion has opened its doors for its Vernissage event, kicking off the 59th annual edition of the exhibition, and welcoming visitors to its first open viewings before it opens to the public this coming Saturday. Curated by Cecelia Alemani, Director & Chief Curator of High Line Art, the show draws on the book by surrealist Leonora Carrington, where “life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination.” Here, Alemani invites a series of artists to imagine new worlds, visualize and pose them throughout the exhibition sites.

Katharina Fritsch

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Venice, via Art Observed

For the first time since 2019, the Venice Biennale will open amidst the waterways and winding streets of the lagoon city, with the 59th edition of the event returning to its position of prominence. The crown jewel of the art world’s circuit of international art exhibitions and curated projects, with over 100 years of history behind it, the return of the exhibition sees the Most Serene Republic filled with countless shows and projects alongside the main exhibitions at the Arsenale and Giardini.

Cecilia Alemani, via the curator Read More »

Joe Bradley, Nothing Ever Happened (2022), via Petzel

On view this month at Petzel Gallery, artist Joe Bradley touches down for a show of new works that underscore the artist’s continued evolution and exploration of a certain type of wide-eyed abstraction, balancing color, stroke and structure through a range of vivid fields of paint. Marking his first solo show with the gallery since leaving Gagosian last year, Bhoga Marga, roughly translated from Sanskirt as “the enduring path of experience,” showcases the artist’ on a new plane of gesture and composition here.

Joe Bradley, Bhoga Marga (Installation View), via Petzel

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Fiona Connor, Closed Down Clubs, Hop Louie (2020), via Chateau Shatto

On view this month at Château Shatto in Los Angeles, the gallery presents Fiona Connor’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, My muse is my memory, an archive of Closed Down Clubs. Presented as a quite literal archive of closed spaces, vacant sites of cultural memory, the show makes much of the landscape of Los Angeles, introducing and removing works from the show over the course of its staging.

Fiona Connor, Closed Down Clubs, Once Upon a Page (2020), via Chateau Shatto
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Alvaro Barrington, The Rose That Grew from Concrete: Frank Miller Batman LA (2022), via Blum and Poe

On view this month at Blum & Poe’s Los Angeles exhibition space, artist Alvaro Barrington presents a powerful, challenging show dedicated to the music and culture of Los Angeles and New York during the 1990’s. Bearing the title 91–98 jfk–lax border, the show presents itself as an expression of joy and hope, and a tribute to the thriving hip-hop culture of both cities during the decade.  Read More »

Ryan Foerster, Looking Negative (2015-2022), via Martos

Marking his first exhibition with Martos Gallery since 2012, artist Ryan Foerster presents Frictional Archaeology this month in New York, presenting a series of works examining the artist’s wide-ranging practice through the prism of his photography, and showcasing works from the last decade in which Foerster excavates technical slippages in the photographic medium and the apparatus of the camera, achieving plastic effects through manipulating and embracing faded emulsion, deteriorated film, defective lenses and chance occurrences in the darkroom. Read More »

Austin Lee, Like It Is (Installation View), via Jeffrey Deitch

For over a decade, Austin Lee has explored the emotional potential of software-influenced art. Combining traditional techniques with digital tools to create colorful, energetic compositions in painting, sculpture and animation, the artist’s use of software in conjunction with his physical materials render works that split the difference between digital and physical spaces. For his most recent show, on view now at Jeffrey Deitch in New York, the artist explores emotion and physicality once again through a series of hazy, brightly colored paintings that continue their navigation through notions of tactility and experience. Read More »