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

New York – Robert Bechtle at Gladstone Through April 29th, 2023

April 13th, 2023

Robert Bechtle, 60 TBird (1964), via Gladstone
Robert Bechtle, 60 T-Bird (1964), via Gladstone

This month, Gladstone presents the first posthumous exhibition of works by Robert Bechtle, spanning nearly six decades of his practice. Highlighting important subjects he returned to throughout his lifetime, this expansive selection of paintings, watercolors, and drawings demonstrates the technical and conceptual ingenuity of his process that evolved over time and transformed approaches to realistic figurative painting in the United States. On the occasion of this exhibition. The show also marks the gallery’s first in the representation of the artist’s estate.  Read More »

Los Angeles – Urs Fischer: “Ice Cream Truck Democracy” at Gagosian Beverly Hills Through April 22, 2023

April 12th, 2023

Urs Fischer, Schmalifornia (2023), via Gagosian
Urs Fischer, Schmalifornia (2022), via Gagosian

This month at its Beverly Hills location, Gagosian presents Ice Cream Truck Democracy, an exhibition of paintings by Urs Fischer. In this new series of works, which occupies a range of sizes and formats, Fischer combines silkscreened, hand-painted, and hand-stenciled imagery, applying a collage-like aesthetic to his personal observations of Los Angeles.

Urs Fischer, Citizen's Arrest. (2023), via Gagosian
Urs Fischer, Citizen’s Arrest. (2023), via Gagosian

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Los Angeles – Zeng Fanzhi at Hauser & Wirth Downtown Through April 30th, 2023

April 11th, 2023

Zeng Fanzhi, Untitled (2022), via Hauser & Wirth
Zeng Fanzhi, Untitled (2022), via Hauser & Wirth

This month in Los Angeles, Hauser and Wirth makes history with the first solo exhibition in the city for Zeng Fanzhi, the renowned Chinese painter whose expansive and intricate body of work has made him a singular both in both his home country and internationally.   A pioneer of contemporary Chinese art, Zeng is celebrated globally for his constantly evolving style and subject matter, and the works on view herald his latest artistic breakthroughs that contemplate the intersection of Western art and style with traditional Chinese subject matter and philosophy.

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New York – Franz West: “Echolalia” at David Zwirner Through April 15th, 2023

April 10th, 2023

Franz West, Echolalia (Installation View), via Art Observed
Franz West, Echolalia (Installation View), via Art Observed

On view this month at David Zwirner’s 533 West 19th Street space in New York, the gallery presents a commanding installation by artist Franz West. Created only a few years before the artist’s death, Echolalia consists of seven colorful, larger-than-life sculptures that seem to stand slightly off-balance, interspersed with three cushioned divans. Not exhibited publicly in more than ten years, the work represents the apotheosis of West’s commitment to sculpture as social space, integrating the viewer within an immersive, total environment. Conceptually, the installation manifests the intersection of many of West’s ongoing interests—most notably, the playfulness of sculpture, the participation of the viewer, and the importance of language.

Franz West, Echolalia (Installation View), via Art Observed
Franz West, Echolalia (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Los Angeles – Martin Puryear at Matthew Marks Through April 8, 2023

April 7th, 2023

 

Martin Puryear, Looking Askance (2023), via Matthew Marks
Martin Puryear, Looking Askance (2023), via Matthew Marks

Marking the latest exhibition at both Los Angeles exhibition spaces, Matthew Marks has launched an expansive of works by Martin Puryear that also makes for the artist’s first solo show in the city in over 30 years. Compiling a range of works that revisit Puryear’s material adventurousness and tight examination of structural and historical progressions, including seven sculptures made over the past five years in a variety of media including wood, bronze, and stone.

Martin Puryear, Happy Jack (2020), via Matthew Marks
Martin Puryear, Happy Jack (2020), via Matthew Marks

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New York – Hermann Nitsch: “Selected Paintings, Actions, Relics, and Musical Scores, 1962–2020” at Pace Gallery Through April 29th, 2023

April 6th, 2023

Hermann Nitsch, Selected Paintings, Actions, Relics, and Musical Scores, 1962–2020 (Installation View), via Art Observed
Hermann Nitsch, Selected Paintings, Actions, Relics, and Musical Scores, 1962–2020 (Installation View), via Art Observed

Marking a major exploration and presentation of the artist’s work, Pace Gallery is currently showcasing a selection of paintings, scores and relics from artist Hermann Nitsch, an impressive collaboration with the artist’s Foundation that also celebrates the first English translation of his autobiography.  Read More »

New York – Minerva Cuevas, In Gods We Trust at kurimanzutto through April 15th, 2023

April 5th, 2023

≈Minerva Cuevas, In Gods We Trust (Installation View), via kurimanzutto
Minerva Cuevas, In Gods We Trust (Installation View), via kurimanzutto

For more than three decades, artist Minerva Cuevas’s practice has been rooted in research-based projects concerned with economic and environmental issues and their socio-political impact. Focused often around Mexico and its particular political, social and cultural frameworks, the artist mines history and images to create new awarenesses and notions of contemporary life. On this month at kurimanzutto in New York, Cuevas continues that practice.  Read More »

New York – Trevor Shimizu: “Cycles” at 47 Canal Through April 29th, 2023

April 4th, 2023

Trevor Shimizu, Tulips (2023), via 47 Canal
Trevor Shimizu, Tulips (2023), via 47 Canal

Cycles, on view this month at 47 Canal, marks artist Trevor Shimizu’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, and a continuation of his enigmatic and studied engagement with disparate painterly languages. Presenting nine new paintings, varying in scale and unrelenting in spirit, the artist continues to push further through the genre model of landscape painting, and past his painterly personas. Read More »

AO INTERVIEW – ART OBSERVED SPEAKS WITH ARTIST ALICJA KWADE

April 3rd, 2023

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All Photography by Aleph Molinari for Art Observed

Through her multi-media sculptures and large-scale installations, Polish-German artist Alicja Kwade explores natural and social systems and the underlying structures of reality. Her precise and technically complex works are physical representations of order, scale, and systems that extend from the subatomic to the celestial. Integrating physics and mathematics into her formal language, Kwade creates ethereal – and almost improbable – spatial compositions.

Art Observed sat down with Kwade to talk about her formative experience growing up in Germany at the cusp of political upheaval, the philosophical approach to her work, and her latest exhibition Silent Matter at OMR in Mexico City. In the minimal, brutalist space of the gallery, Kwade created a delicate universe entirely of her own. Read More »

New York – Cy Gavin at Gagosian Through March 18th, 2023

March 19th, 2023

Cy Gavin, Untitled (Grass Growing on a weir) (2022), via Gagosian
Cy Gavin, Untitled (Grass Growing on a weir) (2022), via Gagosian

Gagosian presents an exhibition of new paintings by Cy Gavin this month in New York, marking the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery. Gavin’s landscape paintings transmute subjective responses to specific places into expansive works with striking palettes and fluid, gestural brushwork. Composed in dimensions that are in keeping with the scale of experience, these paintings interpret the sites and processes of the natural world. In this body of work, Gavin concentrates on subjects he finds in the vicinity of his studio in New York’s Hudson Valley. He proposes a conception of landscape in relation to his status as a citizen and steward of the land, developing ways to explore themes of growth, renewal, and belonging. Read More »