Robert Morris, Untitled (Williams Mirrors) (1976-77), all photos via Anna Corrigan for Art Observed

Now through January 14, Sprüth Magers in Berlin is hosting a historical exhibition of works by Robert Morris, exploring a series of six works developed over the course of the artist’s career, and often drawing on the use of mirrors and reflective surfaces to expand the viewer’s perception of space.  Pulling from some of the earliest works in Morris’s conceptual practice up to a work completed in 2014, Refractions traces Morris’s engagement with movement, space and the body, often in relation to the gallery space itself.

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Gordon Matta-Clark, Conical Intersect (1975), via Marian Goodman

Reflecting on the far-reaching impact of artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s career, Marian Goodman Gallery has opened an exhibition of works by the American artist, combining collages, drawings, video and other works that trace the artist’s enigmatic explorations of space and use, and the artist’s place as a negotiator between these states of stillness and movement.

Gordon Matta-Clark, Cut Drawing (1974), via Marian Goodman

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Andrew Kuo, 100% (9/25/2016) (2016), via Art Observed

Andrew Kuo’s work functions at an intersection of the cognitive and formal.  His paintings, jagged and winding swirls of color executed in meticulously arranged grids, draw on histories of formally precise, minimalist painting from across the 20th century.  Yet at the same time, his work twists these forms through a framework of subjectivity, using corresponding texts at the bottom of his paintings to turn them into charts and datasets of sorts.  The amount of time dwelling on various subjects, personal details or grand metaphysical questions are implied through his works, often tinged with a wry sense of humor.

Andrew Kuo, TRIP (7/15/2016) (2016), via Art Observed

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Julian Rosefeldt, Manifesto (2015) © Julian Rosefeldt and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Following its Australian and German debuts throughout 2016, Manifesto, German artist Julian Rosefeldt’s highly anticipated multi-channel video installation starring Academy Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett, comes to Park Avenue Armory’s cavernous Drill Hall.  Projected on soaring screens dispersed around the empty space, Rosefeldt’s tour-de-force recites a range of influential manifestos from the history of art and philosophy through an impressively diverse range brought to life by Blanchett’s virtuosic and versatile acting ability.

Manifesto at Park Avenue Armory Photo by James Ewing Read More »

Rita Ackermann, Kline Nurses (2015), via Art Observed

Taking over Hauser & Wirth’s temporary exhibition space at 548 West 22nd Street, Rita Ackermann is currently presenting a broad range of new works drawing on her ongoing investigations into the modes and structures of mainstream painting.  A relentless experimenter with the conception, construction, and presentation of the painted canvas, Ackermann’s work here spans a range of varied approaches that further her dual interrogations of the material bounds of the painting, and the gestural or technical conceits used in its realization.

Rita Ackermann, Kline Rape III (2016), via Art Observed

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Pat Steir, domini (1990), via Art Observed

Stepping into Dominique Lévy gallery space, one is immediately greeted by the towering columns of paint that make up artist Pat Steir’s waterfall paintings.  Opening her first exhibition in London in twenty-eight years, the artist’s exhibition features fourteen works made over the corresponding decades, from 1990-2011.  Tracing consistent evolutions in her style and hand in conjunction with stylistic divergences and experiments, the survey engages in an ongoing dialogue over her interests in both control and abstraction. Read More »

William Kentridge, The Refusal of Time (2012), all images courtesy the artist via White Chapel Gallery.

Now through January 15th, Whitechapel Gallery in London is presenting a new exhibition of work by William Kentridge, one of South Africa’s pre-eminent artists. William Kentridge: Thick Time features six large-scale works created between 2003 and 2016, spanning a range of mediums and thematics that reflect Kentridge’s intense engagement with theories of time and relativity, the history of colonialism, and revolutionary politics. Read More »

Joel Shapiro, Untitled (1980), All images via Dominique Lévy.

Now through January 7th, Dominique Lévy is hosting the major first survey of early wood reliefs by American sculptor Joel Shapiro, an exhibition that seeks to demonstrate the trajectory and development of Shapiro’s career, while foregrounding his work with pieces from the late 1970’s and ultimately culminating in a recent body of room-sized sculptural assemblages.  The wood reliefs, presented alongside a new site-specific installation, trace a practice constantly in pursuit of uses of color and mass to shape perceptions of space while exploring individual material interactions.  This marks the first time the series of wood reliefs will be comprehensively surveyed.  Read More »

Paul McCarthy, White Snow Dwarf, Dopey (Affected Original) (2016), via Art Observed

Returning to his ongoing fascination with the iconography and commodification of the legend of Snow White, in conjunction with reprisals of varied other series from the past 15 years of his practice, Paul McCarthy’s newest exhibition at Hauser & Wirth is a flurry of both subject matter and materials.  Massive, flaking and chipping sculptures are spread throughout the gallery’s cavernous exhibition space, each one drawing on threads of both the historical and cultural in the American psyche.  Pulling from a wide range of works that define the artist’s sculptural practice (in conversation with his video and film productions), the show offers an expansive exploration of both his sense of humor, and his keen eye for commentary.

Paul McCarthy, Puppet (2005-2008), via Art Observed

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Kai Althoff, Untitled (2015), Courtesy the Cranford Collection, London © Kai Althoff

Situated atop the Museum of Modern Art, Kai Althoff’s current survey exhibition, and then leave me to the common swifts (und dann überlasst mich den Mauerseglern), first presents itself as an elaborate visual pun, turning the sixth floor of the museum into a veritable attic space for the artist’s body of watercolors, drawings and sculpture, each shown alongside other objects in an approach to the work that opens new, and often disturbing, narratives in the progression and aesthetic explorations in the artist’s career.

Kai Althoff, and then leave me to the common swifts (Installation View), Courtesy MoMA, Photograph © Kai Althoff

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