Brian “KAWS” Donnelly’s mural, his second major art exhibit in Brooklyn is the latest addition to The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s public art offerings. The mural 3 story-high mural was completed this week, and stands behind a newly-installed, modular bike rack designed by David Byrne, which forms the phrase “Bold wink.” The mural is in bright neon colors and shows the artist’s trademark cartoon forms. (more…)

The New York Times reports on the arrival of Ona, a new sculpture by Polish artist Ursula von Rydingsvard at the Barclays Center.  Installed Thursday night, the 12,000 pound bronze work consists of over 100 parts which were welded together shortly before the work’s final placement.  “You don’t have to pay a fee or enter a museum, and no guard will tell you not to touch it,’ the artist said of the sculpture. “I would actually love people to touch it. The acid from fingers polishes it, like the Buddhas getting their bellies rubbed.” (more…)

Still House Group, Bru(s) (Installation View), via Galerie Rodolphe Janssen

The Belgian Galerie Rodolphe Janssen is currently presenting a show focusing on the diverse output and extended vocabulary of The Still House Group collective of artists based in Red Hook, New York.   A small, yet varied show, the show allows common thematic elements to jut out from vastly different aesthetics and media, showcasing the group’s common practice and shared techniques of production.

Still House Group, Bru(s) (Installation View), via Galerie Rodolphe Janssen

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A budding artist residency program at Mount Tremper in the Catskills is featured in the Wall Street Journal this week, profiling the 6-year old program as it caps off its season with a barbecue celebration and performance by the Brooklyn-based Catch Performance Series.  “We’re sleeping all over the place,” says Catch artist Andrew Dinwiddie. “There are bedrooms in the farm house, a room in the dance barn, a loft in the studio, two Airstream trailers.” (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on the long, convoluted journey of a 63-year old mural painted by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  Originally created outside of Paris by the well-known Austrian, Paradise: Land of Men, of Trees, of Birds and Ships has since moved from Paris to Switzerland to Long Island, before coming to rest in a Brooklyn warehouse.  The work’s long history and current restoration needs illustrate the challenges facing the preservation of such large-scale works, particularly given its 10 x 16 foot size and its weight of over 3,000 pounds.   The move to its current location “took me two days with six guys and heavy equipment and a tow truck,” Says current owner Chris Muth. “If it fell in the process it would have been destroyed, and if it we had been under it we would have been dead.” (more…)

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Con te Partiro (2009), via Brooklyn Museum

Shrouded in anonymity, the Bruce High Quality Foundation has made a career for themselves out of playful irreverence.  Rising out of the post-9/11 New York art scene, the anonymous collective has launched a campaign of physical aggression against public installations (Public Art Tackle), initiated their own free education classes, staged socio-politically charged morality plays on gentrification, all under the guise of a production of the Broadway musical Cats, all alongside a number of pieces and installations that embrace the juxtaposition of art history, pop culture and contemporary society to “invest the experience of public space with wonder.”

The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Ode to Joy (2001–2013) (Installation View), via Brooklyn Museum (more…)

In celebration of its first broadcast of a national televised awards show from Brooklyn, MTV has recruited artist KAWS to redesign the Video Music Awards statue for its August 25th broadcast from the Barclays Center.  The one off design translates the iconic image of Buzz Aldrin planting a flag on the moon (affectionately referred to as “The Moonman”), replacing Aldrin with the artist’s “Companion” character.  “The connection to Brooklyn, it felt like it was the perfect time to reinvent an iconic image,” said MTV President Stephen Friedman. “Consistent with our DNA of creative reinvention and constant reinvention, this felt like a perfect marriage.” (more…)

Filmmaker Jem Cohen’s recently opened Museum Hours has garnished considerable attention, setting a story of friendship and art within Vienna’s Kunsthistoriches Museum.  “The use of the Kunsthistorisches is heartfelt and also very funny,” Says film critic Christoph Huber, “a slice of everyday life that I hardly see covered in my national cinema.” (more…)

Volunteers are needed as extras for a film collaboration between artist Matthew Barney and composer Jonathon Bepler, entitled River of Fundamental. The filming will take place on Saturday, June 29^th at the Brooklyn Navy Yards, and volunteers will be needed for a 10-hour period. Requirements for the position include a willingness to get your feet wet, enclosed shoes and vocal participation. In return for involvement, volunteers will receive a box lunch and a limited-edition, signed, and numbered t-shirt. (more…)

Monkeytown, the unique film and performance event presented by Brooklyn artist Montgomery Knott, will stage its first iteration in Manhattan this summer, at Chelsea’s Eyebeam Art and Technology Center.  The event will run for 60 days, beginning tonight, and features a selection of works by Theo Angell, Shana Moulton, Eve Sussman, and more, alongside a dinner and beer or wine pairing.  “It’s strange to be a restaurateur, as I think of this as an art installation. But I’m very aware of service.”  Knott says. (more…)

David Pappaceno, Psychic Birth (Installation view,2013), at English Kills Gallery.

This past weekend, locals, gallerists, collectors and other art enthusiasts flocked to Bushwick, Brooklyn for the seventh-annual Bushwick Open Studios, organized by nonprofit community group Arts in Bushwick. With over 550 spaces participating, many with more artists than one, it was impossible to see everything, even for the most dogged observer. Art turned out at every corner—in galleries, art studios, apartments, bars/restaurants, shops and event spaces— in this rapidly-developing district with a concentration of studios and gallery spaces that rivals Chelsea.

M. Henry Jones, Jim Jarmusch (2013) at Microscope Gallery

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Inside the Brooklyn Artists Ball at the Brooklyn Museum

The annual Brooklyn Artists Ball took place last week on April 24th, featuring award presentations to Barbara Knowles Debs, Vik Muniz, Wangechi Mutu and Roxy Paine for their collective contributions to the vibrant and growing arts scene of New York’s second borough.  The event also featured a series custom designed table settings from a number of New York artists, including Jules de Balincourt, Njideka Akunyili, Daniel Arsham, FAILE, Jennifer Catron and Paul Outlaw, a performance by Brooklyn’s The Push Pop Collective, and more.  Art Observed was on site for the event, and took these photos showcasing the highlights of the night.

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Artist Kenny Scharf spent 20 hours behind bars last weekend, after being arrested for drawing a graffiti snake on the wall of a private property in Brooklyn.  The artist took to his Facebook to recount his arrest by two officers who were already fans of the artist’s work.  “The cops who arrested me were fans and wanted to talk about ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ and even liked the tag,” Scharf said. “At the first holding cell in Williamsburg (there were only 5 people in the cell) the police were googling me and asking about things like the Tunnel nightclub.” (more…)

Nick van Woert, Microscope (2013), (Nick van Woert in Ted Kaczynski’s clothes), courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

Since his first solo exhibition at Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam in 2010, Brooklyn-based artist Nick van Woert has quickly risen through the ranks of the contemporary arts scene, creating a prolific and experimental body of work informed by his unique interests in history, architecture, environment, and philosophy.  From ancient Rome to the Unabomber, van Woert casts an eye on the past as a means of understanding the present and inquiring into the future. His work blends an emphasis on sculptural craft and process with the use of found objects and readymades, resting between aesthetic value and conceptual statement. While preparing for the opening of No Man’s Land, his first exhibition at OHWOW in Los Angeles, (open through April 6, 2013), the artist sat down to answer some questions for Art Observed.

Nick van Woert, No Man’s Land (2013), Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW

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The New York Times has published an in-depth look at Brooklyn’s newly founded Cultural Recovery Center.  Comprised of a task force of 106 volunteers, this rapid response team works to salvage work in the wake of major disasters like last year’s Hurricane Sandy.  “We’re not doing any big conservation,” says studio manager Anna Studebaker. “We are a kind of MASH unit.” (more…)

L Magazine has published a a selection of talented, Brooklyn-based artists under 30, highlighting the rising talent coming from the borough.  The list includes 8 young artists, including Brad Troemel, Trudy Benson, and Ann Hirsch. (more…)

The Brooklyn Museum announced today that it will hold an ambitious retrospective for the secretive art collective Bruce High Quality Foundation this summer.  The show, titled Ode To Joy: 2001-2013, will include a broad number of works (“under 17,000” according to a BHQF representative) from the collective’s decade of creative activity, and will document their ongoing practice of satire, political commentary, and exploration of contemporary America. (more…)

Aki Sasamoto, Talking in Circles Talking (Installation View), via Soloway Gallery

“My grandfather died when I was fourteen and became an abacus. In the way ice turns into water, he became this object he left behind.”  So begins the performance of Japanese artist Aki Sasamoto’s Talking in Circles Talking, an immersive performance and installation at Soloway Gallery in South Williamsburg.  Exploring the notions of value and vibrancy at play in the space between human relationships and physical objects, Sasamoto effectively fuses personal discourses with her surrounding environment.

Aki Sasamoto, Talking in Circles Talking (Installation View), via Soloway Gallery (more…)

Fire at Pratt Institute, via Brooklyn News 12

A brutal, four-alarm fire broke out in the main building of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn on of the major arts schools in New York City, late last night, causing a partial collapse of the building’s roof, and massive damage to its structure and facade. (more…)

Painter José Parlá unveiled his 70 ft. mural inside Brooklyn’s Barclays Center last night.  The painting, titled Diary of Brooklyn, was inspired by writer James Agee’s novel Brooklyn, and the artist’s impressions of the continued transformation of the borough.  The Barclays center, which opened last fall, has commissioned a number of works by Brooklyn artists, including another mural by Mickalene Thomas. (more…)

The New York City Ballet has announced the inaugural year of Art Series, a collaborative program that commissions contemporary artists to create works inspired by the company’s repertoire.  For its first year, NYCB has partnered with Brooklyn street-art collective FAILE, who will produce a series of limited-edition works for Art Series performances this spring. (more…)

Chris Martin, Untitled (2012), via The Journal Gallery, New York

The Journal Gallery has organized a summer group show whose impact exceeds the expectations of such a reference. Home Again, Again features nine distinctive contemporary works which, crowded together in the tiny Williamsburg space, form another, unique whole. In a lovingly critical homage to art after 1950 – from the Greenbergian picture plane to the strigency of minimalism – the works on view here are flat, angular, and imposing. Yet, their initial starkness is deliberately thwarted by their use of material and content, offering a lively contemporary perspective on the legacy of postwar American art. (more…)

Video on site for Art Observed by Samuel Sveen.

A glowing sky over Greenpoint in Brooklyn drew several thousand art and light enthusiasts for the Bring To Light | Nuit Blanche New York 2011 light festival, a one-night event on October 1st. Wandering a playground and weaving through dark warehouse alleys, even out onto the India Street Pier, visitors could see over 50 installations—depending on how hard they looked—including sculptures, light projections, interactive installations, and live music and performances by both established and emerging artists. ‘Nuit Blanche’ translates to ‘white night’ or ‘all-nighter,’ a European tradition turned art festival ten years ago in Paris. New York’s second annual installment was joined by not only Paris, but also Brussels and Toronto in a simultaneous night of light, an effort to “re-imagine public space and civic life.”

Photo set after the jump…
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