Catherine Opie, Julie & Pigpen (2012), via Regen Projects

The photographic work of artist Catherine Opie has long been interested with context, how the architecture of the frame, staging, and positioning of the subjects opens the door to new readings, implications and relationships within the work itself.  Blending historical references with cultural signifiers and assiduous attention to the color and detail, Opie’s work initiates striking dialogues on identity and meaning in American culture.

Catherine Opie (Installation View), via Regen Projects

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Following several weeks of turbulence for Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the institution announced that it has been promised donations that will raise its endowment past $60 million, the highest levels in its 34-year history.  The news comes after several weeks in which the museum was forced to consider a potential merger with LACMA to keep its doors open.  “The financial support we have already raised demonstrates the commitment of the board to ensuring that MOCA remains a world-class independent contemporary art museum, and we call on others to join in this campaign,” says MOCA Board President Jeffrey Soros. (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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Jim Shaw (Installation View), via Simon Lee

On view at London’s Simon Lee Gallery is a solo exhibition of eclectic new works by Los Angeles-based, American artist Jim Shaw. A California Institute of the Arts graduate and longtime L.A. resident, Shaw’s works highlight the anxieties and triumphs of  late capitalist society, phantasmic religion and the shamanic, mythical world of his dream life. This idiosyncratic body of work utilizes comic book aesthetic in pencil drawings and groupings of sculptures juxtaposed against new painted and drawn portraits of unhinged and broken body parts, which engender a distinct unease in the viewer.  

Jim Shaw, Oden’s Broken Staff and Emerald City Asgard (2013), via Simon Lee

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Leo Villareal, The Bay Lights (2013) Courtesy of The Bay Lights; Photography Lucas Saugen

The work of Leo Villareal often operates on grand scales, using bright LED lights to accent and underline the inherent characteristics of human structures around the world.  Frequently using coded algorithms to create complex, shifting patters of light on buildings, walls, and other constructions, his infinite variations of light offer new ways of seeing and viewing already present architectures.

Following up on a number of massively successful public projects (including his popular “Buckyball” installation at Madison Square Park in New York), Villarreal has unveiled his largest installation to date: a string of LED lights running the length of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.  TitledThe Bay Lights, his work highlights the iconic dimensions of the bridge, and projecting its stature into the night sky of the San Francisco Bay.

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Dan Flavin (Installation View) via David Zwirner

The inaugural show at David Zwirner’s spacious new location on W. 20th Street in Manhattan is a pairing of two of minimalism’s major figures and long-time friends, Donald Judd and Dan Flavin.  Given the size of the new location, with its towering ceilings and ample floor space, the show is sparese in both form and quantity, containing 8 illuminated frameworks by Flavin and 5 welded steel boxes by Judd.

Donald Judd, untitled (1991), via David Zwirner

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In a new twist to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s current fiscal problems, MOCA is reportedly in talks for a partnership with the National Gallery, a development that casts doubts on that museum’s possible acquisition by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  The discussed plan between MOCA and the National Gallery would open the door to collaborations on exhibition and research, but would do little to alleviate MOCA’s financial woes.  “The goal at this point is stabilizing them and get them standing as an independent institution,” says National Gallery chair John Wilmerding. “We’d like to see them survive and thrive, and if we can help them, that’s all we’re doing.” (more…)

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Via the Los Angeles Times

In a letter dated February 24th, Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan and his co-chairs have made a formal offer to acquire the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in downtown Los Angeles.  The proposal outlines a plan for the transition of ownership of MOCA’s two museum properties to LACMA, which would maintain their operation under the MOCA banner. (more…)

Following the success of the massive 2011-2012 arts initiative Pacific Standard Time, the J. Paul Getty Trust has announced a follow-up festival, to run in 2017.  Titled Los Angeles and Latin America (or L.A./L.A. for short), the show will explore the Latin American ties to the Los Angeles art scene, and the cross-pollination of ideas and cultures as a product of these roots.  “The fact that nearly half of the population of Los Angeles has roots in Latin America is so profound that it warrants a major exhibition and research project with accompanying publications,” said Getty Trust head James Cuno. “These are complicated roots, over many generations, and relationships between the U.S. and those antecedent countries have changed considerably over time, so we want to be respectful of those complexities.” (more…)

LA Art Show (2013), Installation View

The LA Art show held its opening night premier party on Wednesday, January 23rd at the LA Convention Center. During the Patron Hours, James Franco was the guest of honor and was joined by an eclectic LA crowd, with an incredible mix ranging from the overtly contemporary to the traditionally elegant. Entering its 18th year, the fair has earned a reputation for its well planned juxtaposition of traditional and modern art, and this year’s edition was no different.  The milling crowd moved easily from the traditional to contemporary sections and back, taking their time to comb through the sheer scale of the festival and its one hundred prominent worldwide galleries.

LA Art Show (2013), Installation View

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