Global contemporary art events and news observed from New York City. Suggestion? Email us.

New York – Tony Oursler: “TC: the most interesting man alive” at Lisson Gallery Through August 10th, 2018

August 8th, 2018

Tony Oursler, TC: The Most Interesting Man Alive (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery
Tony Oursler, TC: The Most Interesting Man Alive (Installation View), via Lisson Gallery

Tony Conrad stands among the pinnacle of modern artistic practice; a pioneering and influential experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, artist and educator whose body of work can rarely be traced within the framework of just one discipline or school of thought.  A longtime educator in conjunction with his expansive practice, Conrad’s work moves at a sprint through ideas and constructs, and has remained influential on much of the artists who worked around and with him.  One of these artists was Tony Oursler, who met Conrad in 1979 and performed in a number of Conrad’s films, ultimately forging a bond that would lead to a range of collaborations and pieces. Among these is TC: the most interesting man alive, a short biopic piece that incorporates a range of cinematic, graphic, narrative and autobiographical approaches to produce a new form of biopic about the late artist Tony Conrad. Read More »

New York – “The Mechanics Of Fluids, Curated By Melissa Gordon” at Marianne Boesky Through August 3rd

August 4th, 2018

The Mechanics of Fluids (Installation View), via Marianne Boesky
The Mechanics of Fluids (Installation View), via Marianne Boesky

Currently on view at Marianne Boesky’s Chelsea exhibition space, the gallery’s entry in the annual string of summer group shows dives into the work of artist-turned-curator Melissa Gordon. Gordon, whose work explores shifting, ever-changing experiences in texture and materiality, turns her aesthetic sensibilities towards a broader selection of women artists, charting a broad trajectory of voices and strategies including work by Lynda Benglis, Helen Frankenthaler, Laura Owens, Amy Sillman and others, all set set off by an architectural intervention of Gordon’s own design. Read More »

New York — “This Is Not a Prop” at David Zwirner Through August 3rd, 2018

August 3rd, 2018
Alex Da Corte, Slow Graffiti, 2017.©Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the artist

Alex Da Corte, Slow Graffiti, 2017.©Alex Da Corte. Courtesy the artist

David Zwirner’s summer group exhibition, This Is Not a Prop brings together aesthetically slick and conceptually witty works by an intergenerational group of artists working in a variety of media. The thread weaving through the show is questioning of bodies’ relationship to objects, both in harmony and discord, as most vividly manifested in two Franz West sculptures from the ‘90s spearheading the exhibition. Read More »

New York – “Evidence, Organized by Josh Kline” at Metro Pictures Through August 3rd, 2018

August 3rd, 2018

Josh Kline, 10% Tip (Applebee's Waitress' Hand and Foot) (2018), via Metro Pictures
Josh Kline, 10% Tip (Applebee’s Waitress’ Hand and Foot) (2018), via Metro Pictures

Currently on view at Metro Pictures, and continuing a trend this summer towards artists taking the curatorial reins for the summer group shows across the city, Josh Kline has pulled together a body of work for the Chelsea exhibition space under the title Evidence. Featuring the work of seven artists, Evidence investigates the nature of documentation and reality in post-truth America, posing the state of modern political discourse as an opportunity to reframe and rethink the act of expression. Read More »

New York – “Beside Myself, Curated by Dan Herschlein” at JTT Through August 3rd, 2018

August 2nd, 2018

Sedrick Chisom, Fragile Narcissus’ Expulsion and Regurgitation of White Bile Into an Echo of His Belated Self (2018), via JTT
Sedrick Chisom, Fragile Narcissus’ Expulsion and Regurgitation of White Bile Into an Echo of His Belated Self (2018), via JTT

Drawing on the writings of the late theorist Mark Fisher as a starting point for broader explorations of modern artistic practice and its possibilities in challenging the status quo of the global capitalist landscape, Dan Herschlein has dipped his toe into the world of curating, organizing an exhibition around the work David Altmejd, Adam Putnam, Elizabeth Jaeger, Gil Batle, and more at JTT.  Using varied approaches and modes of creative making, including illustration, sculpture and even graphic novels, Herschlein’s show delves into the idea of just how modern practice might be able to work around “culturally sanctioned ideals” or to explore how the human mind may be able to sustain itself beyond these ideals. Read More »

New York — “Painting: Now and Forever, Part III” at Matthew Marks Gallery and Greene Naftali Through August 17, 2018

July 30th, 2018

Leidy Churchman, Paradise 8 & 9 (2018), via Matthew Marks
Leidy Churchman, Paradise 8 & 9 (2018), via Matthew Marks

Following past iterations in 1998 and 2008 iterations, Painting: Now and Forever, Part III occupies the gallery spaces of Matthew Marks Gallery and Greene Naftali spread across Chelsea. Spanning five spaces in total, the ambitious checklist includes an impressive roster of over forty artists. While loosely grouping the show around style and visual vocabulary in each space, the exhibition more broadly tackles the stylistic and thematic concerns contemporary painting—mostly figurative–over the past decade.

Nicole Eisenman, Luck Lines (2018), via Greene Naftali
Nicole Eisenman, Luck Lines (2018), via Greene Naftali Read More »

London – Carol Bove at David Zwirner Through August 3rd, 2018

July 29th, 2018

Carol Bove, The Romance of Black Money (2018), via David Zwirner
Carol Bove, The Romance of Black Money (2018), via David Zwirner

Currently on view at David Zwirner’s 24 Grafton Street location in London, artist Carol Bove has erected a series of her recent sculptures, exploring the artist’s continued practice combining tightly orchestrated references to the canon on modern sculpture with her own enigmatic interpretations and spatial innovations.  The show, which closes at the end of the week, marks a another chapter in Bove’s impressive vision, as her brightly colored, monolithic works continue to shift and evolve in vision and scope. Read More »

London: “Spiegelgasse (Mirror Alley)” at Hauser & Wirth Through July 28th, 2018

July 28th, 2018

Urs Fischer, One More Carrot Before I Brush My Teeth (2001), via Hauser & Wirth
Urs Fischer, One More Carrot Before I Brush My Teeth (2001), via Hauser & Wirth

In reference to the address of Cabaret Voltaire – the birthplace of Dada in Zurich, Switzerland, Hauser & Wirth’s current exhibition Spiegelgasse (Mirror Alley), takes the landmark avant-garde movement as a starting point, and dives into the history of modern and contemporary Swiss art.  Curated by Gianni JetzerMirror Alley presents a range of works from the 1930s to the present day.   Read More »

Paris – Iván Argote: “Deep Affection”at Galerie Perrotin Through July 28th, 2018

July 27th, 2018

Iván Argote, Deep Affection (Installation View), via Art Observed
Iván Argote, Deep Affection (Installation View), via Art Observed

On view now at Galerie Perrotin in Paris, artist Iván Argote has traced a striking psycho, winding together disparate locales, global actions and fragments of a broader social narrative to understand and explore the world around us. The show, which draws on the artist’s range of actions and pieces investigating political action and history, offers a range of potentials for joining together global populations, often through a combination of art and action.

Read More »

New York — Margo Wolowiec: “Still Water, Circling Palms” at Marlborough Contemporary Through August 3rd, 2018

July 23rd, 2018

Margo Wolowiec, 10pm Saturday (view 2) (2018), all images via
Margo Wolowiec, 10pm Saturday (view 2) (2018), all images via Marlborough Contemporary

Detroit-based multimedia artist Margo Wolowiec’s first exhibition, Still Water, Circling Palms, at Marlborough Contemporary is a full-force manifestation on the merger of craft and digital technology. Covering the gallery’s spacious ground floor, the artist’s tapestry paintings are semi-abstract representations of computer screen shots, abundantly-colored plants, densely-blue skies or wave-strewn seascapes. Made from handwoven polymers, linen, dye sublimation ink and acrylic dye, these hallucinatory works convey dream-like collages of her various source materials, inviting the viewer to closely inspect the formation of each thread within the larger frame. Read More »