‪‬Ed Ruscha models Band of Outsiders spring line

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‪‬Damien Hirst’s ‘Hymn’ sculpture graffitied with simple ‘occupy’ word in blue spray paint outside the Tate Modern in London, The Occupied Times calling Hirst, “the man who has defined the capitalist approach to art more than any other”.

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‪‬James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem speaks with David Byrne and John Schaefer at a Gregory Crewdson organized symposium at the Yale University School of Art, proposing musicalized turnstiles at New York City subway entrances

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Doug Aitken, Song 1 (2012). All images via Hirschhorn Museum.

The work of LA based artist Doug Aitken spans across a range of media and genres, traversing formal and conceptual terrains from watercolor to Fluxus-like happenings, book publishing to operas, and photography to public art. Largely known for his video installations, his work is equally anchored in audio, shifting in recent years to engage closely with sound as an index of space and time, deeply resonant with the contemporary human experience. The collusion of visual modalities with sound experiments and musical production propels his investigation of perceptual experience in his most recent work, Song 1, now exhibited at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington DC, on view from dusk until midnight through May 13. This spectacular temporary exhibition epitomizes the fluid integration of music and image in a site-specific installation that literally inverts the art museum and transforms the surrounding landscape into a 360 degree cinema. Projected upon Gordon Bunshaft’s cylindrical cement fortress, Aitken has composed a 35 minute loop of video that revolves around the museum’s cylindrical facade, veiling its bulky structure in a graceful and arresting play of light. Yet it is the accompanying score that is truly at the core of this project, comprised of a succession of covers of the song “I Only Have Eyes for You,” interpreted by a diverse checklist of musicians, which feature as the organizing principle governing an entangled loop of fragmented narratives and flashing images.

Doug Aitken, Song 1 (2012)

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer.

The Bruce High Quality Foundation held an Easter celebration at MoMA PS1 this past Sunday in typical DIY Bruce fashion. From 3–6 PM, a gamut of bands played in the Performance Dome while a lamb roasted outside, and an Easter egg hunt included cigarettes. While the group’s Brucennial 2012 exhibition continues through April 20, the one-day event in the courtyard of PS1 was titled Bruceforma 2012: The Resurrection.

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Nigel Cooke, Nature Loves You (2011–2012). All photos on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

Andrea Rosen Gallery in Chelsea is currently showing Nigel Cooke’s 4th solo show in the multi-room space. Cooke was on hand at the press preview to speak about the ten new paintings that marked for the artist a move into a much more dynamic and engaging direction. The press release references de Kooning‘s infamous “No Holidays” quote—that none of his work should ever have a caesura, that work should be an endlessly ongoing practice. Cooke displays reverence to that adage; every work is “three paintings in one.” Conceived by first laying a figurative layer full of characters and interaction, followed by sweeping obscurative strokes, and then capped by an attempt to rearrange order from the chaos induced—flushing out imagined smoking flower women, tree branches, and odd clown-skull masks.

Artist Nigel Cooke at the press preview

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‪‬Magma Group protests Damien Hirst exhibition outside Tate Modern in London wearing clown costumes and holding signs, “Artists against flagrant self-promotion” [AO Newslink]

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Catherine Opie, Faifo (2008). All Photos courtesy Mitchell-Innes & Nash.

Catherine Opie’s current exhibition, the photographer’s first since joining the roster at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, is on view now at the gallery’s Chelsea location in New York City. Shot from 2007-2009, High School Football, consists of large-scale portraits and landscape shots of playing fields. Through the American ritual of football, the identities of young athletes are displayed intimately, both individually and as teams.

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David Shrigley, How are you feeling (2012). Photos on site for Art Observed by Douglas Cloninger and Samuel Sveen.

Installed April 5th, 2012, the Glasgow-based artist David Shrigley‘s dry, absurdist sense of tragi-comedy is now on display as the third “Friends of the Highline” billboard. The 25 by 75 ft billboard is located at 18th Street and 10th Avenue in the Chelsea area of Manhattan and had previously featured work by Anne Collier and John Baldessari. Known for emploring a childish aesthetic and comic wit to navigate the tense world we create for ourselves, Shrigley’s new billboard poses the question, “How are you feeling?” and provides us with an uncommon but honest response. The work speaks largely to contemporary culture and the internal pressures that attempting to “keep up with the Jones” can create. The bubbles read, “HOW ARE YOU FEELING?” “I’M FEELING VERY UNSTABLE AND INSECURE. I ALSO FEEL VERY WORRIED AND ANXIOUS ABOUT EVERYTHING.” “I ALSO FEEL TRAPPED AND I FEEL THAT I AM MUCH TOO FAT AND THAT PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING AT ME. I FEEL VERY FRUSTRATED AND DEPRESSED. I FEEL THAT I AM UNABLE TO MEET THE DEMANDS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE OF ME. I AM IN A BIT OF A RUT CREATIVELY AS WELL.”

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All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

Damien Hirst‘s first official retrospective is on now at the Tate Modern in London. The retrospective spans two decades of the artist’s notoriously grand-scale artwork, featuring some 70 pieces. Often dealing with themes of life and death, Hirst’s works are known for their high prices and marketability. The show includes his spot paintings, pharmaceutical cabinets and vitrines, a diamond covered skull, as well as several large preserved animals and a room full of live butterflies.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)

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‪‬George Condo confirmed as artist of Kanye West’s new single ‘Theraflu,’ the image tweeted Wednesday night; it is Condo’s second work for West [AO Newslink]

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Sketch Restaurant, London. All photos on site for Art Observed by Ryann Donnelly.

In celebration of their 10th anniversary, London’s Sketch restaurant in Mayfair unveiled a new installation from Turner prize winning British multi-media artist Martin Creed on March 1st, 2012. Creed’s installation is comprised of three main components: opulent marble tiling, large-scale murals, and an assemblage of mix-matched furnishings and tableware, each piece as functional as it is aesthetically compelling and intricate.

Martin Creed, Sketch Installation View (2012)

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Cy Twombly, The Artist’s Shoes (2002)

On view at Palais des Beaux-Arts is Cy Twombly: Photographs 1951-2010, featuring a series of 100 photographs selected by Twombly before his death in 2011. Known for his paintings that subtly changed the course of contemporary art, Twombly had been a productive photographer since his student days. However, it wasn’t until late in his career that photographs were exhibited to the public. Taken with an instant Polaroid camera, Twombly’s photographs are consistently out of focus, concentrating on the ethereality in mundane objects such as a pair of slippers, a lemon, a can of paintbrushes.

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‪‬Bravo releases trailer for ‘Gallery Girls’ and other upcoming shows, following “seven young women who dream of living a chic and fashionable existence in New York City… all share a passion for art, but are divided amongst their Manhattan and Brooklyn lifestyles with vastly different attitudes and tastes towards fashion, art and men.” [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Rirkrit Tiravanija to host 12 hour soup banquet, ‘Soup/No Soup’ within Grand Palais in Paris as prelude to La Triennale 2012, noon to midnight tomorrow, April 7 [AO Newslink]

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Hennessy Youngman and Maurizio Cattelan on participating artist’s pop-up red carpet. All photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer and Douglas Cloninger.

YouTube art-theory phenom Jayson Musson A.K.A. Hennessy Youngman‘s show Itsa Small Small World opened Tuesday, April 3, 2012 at the new Chelsea gallery of Maurizio Cattelan and Massimiliano Gioni, Family Business. Originally approached to offer a lecture (Youngman has been touring the country following his sudden rise to fame due to 2011’s “Art Thoughtz” web series), the fitted hat and medallion-wearing, gun-toting Penn MFA graduate instead decided to offer the space to his affectionately addressed “Internet” following. In an intensely saturated salon style hanging—with works crammed atop more works—over 300 artists submitted to the 150 sq ft window-front space, as well as various performances outside.

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‪‬Christie’s to auction Jeff Koons’ ‘Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turqoise)’ at Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Auction in London on June 27, the 2-meter tall sculpture, one of five in multi-colored ‘Celebration’ series, expected to go for £2.5–3.5 million [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Sotheby’s to auction ‘Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror’ by Francis Bacon, estimated at possible $40 million at the contemporary-art evening sale in New York on May 9 [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Ai Weiwei ordered to shut down 24-hour live stream of his Beijing studio, though he told Radio 4’s World at One that he “won’t be shut down” [AO Newslink]

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Hernan Bas, A Satanist on a Tuesday (or, The Key Master) (2012)

Detroit-based artist Hernan Bas’ new show Occult Contemporary is on now at Lehmann Maupin, the exhibition consisting of Bas’ most recent body of work: a group of paintings in various sizes depicting dark, fairytale-like scenes. The name of the show is a reference to “Adult Contemporary,” a term used to describe a category of popular music. The subject of the show itself, as reflected in the title, is inspired by the appearance of the occult in all forms of popular media, including those geared towards children and young adults. Bas displays a strong fascination with the supernatural, his paintings loaded with whimsical imagery.

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Eva Hesse, No title (1960). All images © The Estate of Eva Hesse unless otherwise noted.

Eva Hesse: Spectres and Studiowork at Kukje Gallery in Seoul combines two recent critically acclaimed exhibitions exploring German-born, Yale-educated artist Eva Hesse’s early paintings and mature studio practice. Curated by Barry Rosen, Director of the Estate of Eva Hesse and Briony Fer and E. Luanne McKinnon, two acclaimed Hesse scholars, this unique pairing allows visitors an intimate view into the development of the influential artist’s career.

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‪‬Google Art Project launches site expansion, now including 151 institutions from 40 countries, with over 32,000 works digitally archived online for global virtual viewing [AO Newslink]

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‪‬New Museum-based Rhizome to hold third “Seven on Seven” conference, pairing artists with “technologists” in one-day one-on-one brainstorming sessions, the results of which to be unveiled at Saturday, April 14, at the New Museum [AO Newslink]

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‪‬Sotheby’s auctions record-breaking $26.7 million 900-year-old calligraphy brush ceramic washing bowl, the high estimate more than doubled by eight bidders [AO Newslink]

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