Francesco Clemente, India I (2019), via Vito Schnabel Projects

Artist Francesco Clemente opens a show of work at Vito Schnabel’s New York exhibition space, highlighting the artist’s famed nomadism and his embrace of varied geographies spread over the full expanse of the globe. Moving between Italy, the United States, India and elsewhere, Clemente has long embraced the practice of moving across sites, and allowing his aesthetic interests it follows. Clemente’s work traverses time and recorded history to probe the mysteries, ecstasies, incongruities, and, ultimately, the gravitas of the human condition, working through the metaphysics of spirituality, mysticism, identity, and the self, too render a body of work in a variety of mediums that is often charged with eroticism and intimacy, rich in references, and expansive in its openness to interpretation. Read More »

Matthew Wong, Starry Night (2019), via Karma

Passing away at the untimely age of 35, artist Matthew Wong left behind an impressive body of painted canvases, pieces that moved through a dynamic and compelling emotional range exploring light and shadow, space and bodies as shifting value systems rarely lingering in easy relief for any prolonged period. Opening just a few weeks after the artist’s passing, his current exhibition at Karma, Blue, continues this practice.

Matthew Wong, Blue (Installation View), via Karma

Wong casts the landscapes and interiors of his exhibition under the glowing spaces between light and shadow, the transitional states where light passes to dark, and day might fade slowly into the early hours of night. The works here, dusky and nocturnal, were intended as the coda, or sundown, to a previous series of day-lit oil and gouache paintings, exploring a watery, fluid treatment of both space and the light that bounds it. Delving in particular into the color blue, Wong was primarily fascinated with the idea of the color as a fluid ground upon which light and space could play out.

Matthew Wong, Solitude (2018), via Karma

Matthew Wong, Blue (Installation View), via Karma

Wong concerned himself with the “blueness of blue”: its fluidity, its affect, and its uncanny ability to “activate nostalgia, both personal and collective,” according to the show’s press release, and his interest in subject matter that drifts into the personal sphere is underscored by the scenes themselves. Meditative and bucolic, they move between improvisation and memory, taking on characteristics where space and time are just as hazy as the light that floats into the picture plane. The images here were witnessed in Sicily, often on walks while traveling with his mother, the result being a time frame in which the artist both looks back on his past, and seems to delve into it more deeply to seek out elements and ideas either initially hidden, or emergent with the inclusion of new sensations. Wong’s rendering of light is dappled, corpuscular: a contrast to the smooth gradations of his interiors, and occasionally feature spotlights, cascading from a door or window left ajar. These moments and symbols, often implying a space just out of site, contributes to the allure and mystery of these works, and the sense of sadness that seeps forth when considering a talent gone too early.

The show closes January 5th.

Matthew Wong, Autumn Nocturne (2018), via Karma

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Matthew Wong: “Blue” at Karma [Exhibition Site]

Mark Bradford, Sapphire Blue (2019), via Hauser & Wirth

Cerberus, Mark Bradford’s first exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in London extends across the gallery’s spaces in the city, compiling a range of works including film, new paintings and sculptural work, often moving between each format, the show sees Bradford returning to ancient mythology, a consistent source of inspiration for the artist. Engaging in particular with the many headed dog guarding the entryway to Hades, Cerberus, Bradford’s show marks an engaged and intriguing investigation of conflict and healing, trauma and time through works that negotiate states in the same way that the multi-headed creature stands between hell and the mortal realm.

Mark Bradford, Dancing in the Street (2019), via Hauser & Wirth

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Brice Marden, Elevation (2018-2019), via Gagosian

On view at Gagosian’s uptown exhibition space, artist Brice Marden has compiled a selection of pieces that continue his investigations of the languages of modernity, and the histories of abstraction that have informed his work over the past few decades. Marking in particular a continuation of his “Letter” series, the works on view incorporate networks of calligraphic lines and strokes, woven through fields of color and tone. Read More »

Peter Halley, Helicon (2019), via Greene Naftali

Working across a range of media over the course of his career, including painting, architectural installation, digital prints, and critical writing, artist Peter Halley has strived to illuminate the structures of social space and communication that shape our experience of contemporary life. Opening his second solo exhibition with Greene Naftali this fall, Halley is presenting Heterotopia II, an ambitious large-scale installation that explores relationships between painting and architectural space. Read More »

Janette Laverrière and Nairy Baghramian, Seating Platform Eyebrow (2009), via Marian Goodman

In some ways a celebration of the life and work of Janette Laverrière, Marian Goodman is currently hosting an exhibition of works at its New York gallery space that combines the designer’s ideas with that of Nairy Baghramian’s, centering the show on a collaborative project that the two worked on before Laverrièr’s death in 2011. Presenting sketches, drawings and maquettes of Baghramian’s works from 1999 to the present that were never intended to be realized, the show is an intriguing portrait of collaboration and friendship. Read More »

Kiko Kostadinov, OTTO 95.8 (Installation View), via Moran Moran

Currently on view at Los Angeles’s Morán Morán, London-based, Bulgarian designer Kiko Kostadinov presents a series of works unified under the title OTTO 95.8. Kostadinov’s practice, inspired by everyday uniforms and utilitarian work wear, includes objects that he creates to run parallel to his design work. Incorporating readymade and functional items, the compound constructions in this exhibition illustrate Kostadinov’s attraction to alien rather than familiar elements, a recurring theme informing every aspect of his practice.  Read More »

Raque Ford at Martos Gallery, via Art Observed

Art Week Miami is underway, and the city itself seems to have slowly built its own counterpoint to the sprawling complex of fairs across Biscayne Bay at the Miami Beach Convention Center.  While Miami Beach continues to draw massive crowds of both buyers and visitors, its luxe appointments have long found a compelling counterpoint at NADA Miami, set up inside the Ice Palace Film Studios, where the focus is on showcasing new art and to celebrating the rising talents from around the globe. Exploring new or underexposed art that is not typical of the “art establishment,” by their words, NADA Miami is also the one of the only major American art fairs to be produced by a non-profit organization, and is recognized as a much needed alternative assembly of the world’s youngest and strongest art galleries dealing with emerging contemporary art.

Anneke Russden at Galerie Tatjana Peters, via Art Observed

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Camille Kachani at Zipper Galeria, via Art Observed

Turning the corner onto the iconic drag of Ocean Drive, one’s attention is immediately drawn to the slender white tent laid out along the ocean skyline, a gleaming structure that houses the Untitled Art Fair underneath its minimalist structure.  Its annual home, placed squarely in the midst of boozey beachgoers, restaurant soundsystems, and the annual flood of Art Basel Miami Beach visitors, the fair has one of the more unique positions in a week full of unique offerings, one that balances some of the most familiar sights of the city with the impressive work on view inside.  Compounded by the floor to ceiling windows in the fair tent, the fair is an annual must-attend for those looking to get their dose of dynamic contemporary art and Florida sun in one go. Read More »