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

New York – Austin Lee: “Good Impressions” at Pace Prints Through June 16th, 2023

May 31st, 2023

Austin Lee, Good Weather (2023), via Pace Prints
Austin Lee, Good Weather (2023), via Pace Prints

This month in New York, artist Austin Lee presents a selection of prints in collaboration with the Pace Prints studio. Titled “Good Impressions,” the show marks a continuation of Lee’s expressive and multi-faceted modes of image generation.  Read More »

Montauk – Lena Henke: “Nature Wills It” at The Ranch Through June 14th, 2023

May 30th, 2023

Lena Henke, Memory of young sculpture VIII (2023), via The Ranch
Lena Henke, Memory of young sculpture VIII (2023), all images via The Ranch

This summer at The Ranch in Montauk, artist Lena Henke has installed a body of works that respond to the site’s equestrian and architectural histories. Titled Nature Wills It, the exhibition brings together a range of works that combine human and animal signifiers to create a range of formally and conceptually-challenging works in the gallery space. Rather than put forward a coherent and unified body, Henke’s work proposes alternate ways of figuring the horse. These sculptures evince an agonistic making: grappling for different means of picturing the animal’s visual features. Endeavoring toward the haptic and latent, the horse is segmented into components (head, body, hoof), each given its own handling and media. Read More »

New York – Abraham Cruzvillegas: “Little Song” at Kurimanzutto Through June 16th, 2023

May 26th, 2023

Abraham Cruzvillegas, Little Song (Installation View), via Kurimanzutto
Abraham Cruzvillegas, Little Song (Installation View), via Kurimanzutto

On view at Kurimanzutto’s New York exhibition space this month, artist Abraham Cruzvillegas brings forth his second solo project in the city with a new body of sculptural pieces created in his studio in Mexico City in the last year. The show, which takes over the gallery’s larger exhibition space in the city, integrations the artist’s signature approach and trademark color motifs, paying tribute to the work of Brazilian post-war art while engaging with the aritst’s own iterative exploration of historical and material interests. Read More »

New York – Trevor Paglen: “You’ve Just Been F*cked by PSYOPS” at Pace Gallery Through July 22nd, 2023

May 25th, 2023

Trevor Paglen, Because Physical Wounds Heal... (2022), via Pace
Trevor Paglen, Because Physical Wounds Heal… (2022), via all images Pace

On view from May 12 to July 22 in New York, artist Trevor Paglen opens his first solo presentation with Pace in New York with a selection of new photography, sculpture, video, and other work, in a thematic presentation that examines the enduring effects of military and CIA influence operations on American culture. The show serves as the conceptual nucleus of a multifaceted project by the artist that also includes a Web3 project, set to be released by Art Blocks x Pace Verso on April 5, and related “speculative reality work” launching this spring. Read More »

New York – Chris Burden: “Cross Communication” at Gagosian Through June 24th, 2023

May 24th, 2023

Chris Burden, Cross Communication (Installation View), all images via Gagosian
Chris Burden, Cross Communication (Installation View), all images via Gagosian

Exploring artist Chris Burden’s early work as a pioneer of both multi-media engagements with technology, and their interlocking investigations of performance and the presence of the body within the media network, Gagosian is currently presenting Cross Communication, an exhibition of relics, films, and video works by the artist, plus other materials that document his early performances. Read More »

New York – Dustin Yellin: “Cave Painting” at Venus Over Manhattan Through June 3rd, 2023

May 23rd, 2023

Dustin Yellin, Beneath the Wheel (2023), via Venus Over Manhattan
Dustin Yellin, Beneath the Wheel (2023), via Venus Over Manhattan

On this month in New York, artist Dustin Yellin presents a solo exhibition of new work at Venus Over Manhattan, exploring the imagery and structures of the natural world in relation to interconnected narratives around technological landscapes, human perception, and systemic modes of meaning-making and understanding. Comprising a series of new paintings, Cave Painting represents an important shift to painting for the artist whose practice in recent years has focused most notably on sculpture. Read More »

Los Angeles – Guan Xiao: ”From Leaves to Shields” at David Kordansky Through June 16th, 2023

May 22nd, 2023

Guan Xiao, FEET, V7V bow (2023)
Guan Xiao, FEET, V7V bow (2023), all images via David Kordansky

This month in Los Angeles, artist Guan Xiao presents a body of works at the David Kordansky space that trace the lineages and connections between disparate imagery and iconography sourced from the digital realm. Emphasizing hybrid narratives, expressive approaches and an expanded sense of possibility for art-making in the contemporary era, the show is a striking look at the possibilities for making as we move deeper into the 21st Century. Read More »

AO On-Site – NADA New York at 548 W 22nd St, May 19th – 21, 2023

May 19th, 2023

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Kambel Smith at Shrine, all images via Art Observed

This weekend marks a return of the New Art Dealers Alliance art fair to New York City, a longtime staple of the New York art fair calendar, and an event known for its range of exploratory and expressive new work from emerging artists, smaller galleries and new projects. For those looking for new insights and fresh perspectives on contemporary art practice, its hard to ignore the call of the fair, which reprises its role as a central tentpole of a weekend of fairs, even as the city’s string of fairs has split up between several weeks this May. Read More »

AO On-Site – New York: Frieze New York 2023 at The Shed, May 18th – 21st, 2023

May 17th, 2023

Damien Hirst at White Cube
Damien Hirst at White Cube, all images via Art Observed

Returning this year to The Shed in New York City’s recently redeveloped Hudson Yards, the 2023 edition of Frieze New York is now open, with a range of shows and projects spread throughout the exhibition space that include ambitious solo projects, surveys of gallery rosters, and focused, historical presentations that underscore the fair’s place as both a site for discovery, and one of the premier selling events of the yearly art world calendar. With a range dealers on hand from New York and around the globe, the fair signals something of a scale-back from the sizable expanses of the versions held at Randalls Island, yet nevertheless presents a dynamic and immersive program.

Suzan Frecon at David Zwirner
Suzan Frecon at David Zwirner

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TONO, A NEW FESTIVAL DEDICATED TO TIME-BASED WORKS, DEBUTS IN MEXICO CITY

May 15th, 2023

"Pablo Astorga- Diego Vega Solorza at Ex Teresa 27

Diego Vega Solorza, Dorje (2019), via Pablo Astorga

On April 18 in Mexico City, TONO, a new festival dedicated to time-based work, held its inaugural two-week program. Partnering with museums and galleries around the city, TONO presented a range of experimental performance art, video installations, and dance performances by local, regional, and international artists. With each performance filled completely at capacity with a diverse audience including collectors from Mexico City and New York, other curators and artists, and students, the festival laid its foundations as an invaluable space for stimulating dialogues surrounding the relationship between various time-based mediums in the contexts of one another. Read More »