Phyllida Barlow at Tate Britain (Installation View), all images via Tate Britain

‘Our era has been defined by falling monuments’ says Phyllida Barlow in an interview with The Guardian about her Tate Britain commission. She points out the tragedy, triumph, beauty and the immense grief evident in the collapse of a public icon; underlining the extraordinary range of emotive qualities that such a public piece of imagery conveys.  Barlow is delivering another major show defining the notion of monuments in a collaboration with Tate Britain as a part of the museum’s annual artist commissions. (more…)

Dan Graham, Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout (2014), All Images Via Kelly Lee for Art Observed

The annual rooftop commission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art always manages to draw a crowd, whether it be Imran Quereshi’s bloody installation last year, or Tomás Saraceno’s vastly popular Cloud City.  For this year’s Rooftop Commission at , the Met has sided with a more heritage artist, Dan Graham, working in conjunction with Swiss landscape architect Günther Vogt to create the work Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout (2014).  Graham, 71, known for his conceptual bent and exploration of multiple mediums, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and performance art, has long focused on how architecture directly impacts its occupants and shapes their experiences of looking, a strikingly perfect fit for the Met’s scenic view and unique location.

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Artist Jean-Michel Othoniel is currently working on the grounds of Versaille, creating a trio of fountain sculptures for the palace that will be the first permanent art pieces installed on its grounds in over 300 years.  “As an artist, and a French artist in particular, there is something very special about making a mark on the land that Le Nôtre and Louis XIV designed,” Othoniel says. (more…)

A public art collaboration between the Whitney Museum and the Highline will debut work by Alex Katz on the façade of 95 Horatio Street, just south of the elevated park.   The work, titled Katherine and Elizabeth, will remain on view for 8 to 12 months. (more…)

A new slide sculpture by Carsten Höller has opened in Rhein, Germany, installed on the Vitra campus.  The slide tower is designed with a rotating clock mechanism atop its structure, which is arranged to form the Vitra logo for a few minutes everyday.  “A slide is a sculptural work with a pragmatic aspect, a sculpture that you can travel inside,” Höller  says. “However, it would be a mistake to think that you have to use the slide to make sense of it.” (more…)

Fourteen monumental sculptures by Alexander Calder are going on view this summer at the Rijksmuseum’s outdoor gallery in Amsterdam.   The works will be on view during normal museum hours, and accompany an exhibition of works from the collection of the Calder Foundation and Musée National d’Art Moderne and Centre Pompidou, among others, (more…)

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, L’Ètrange Cité (Strange City), via Art Observed

In 2010, Christian Boltanski spread piles of clothes reaching to fifty tons around the interior of Grand Palais. Three years before Boltanski, Anselm Kiefer brought in cement and metal along with dust and debris into this patriarchal symbol of French industrial awakening. Richard Serra, Daniel Buren and Anish Kapoor are among the other superstar artists who have marked their signatures in this historical building in response to France Ministry of Culture’s annual Monumenta project, which invites an artist to create a new body of work to be exhibited inside the impressive architecture of Grand Palais. On view through June 22nd is this year’s commission L’Ètrange Cité (Strange City) by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, arguably Russia’s most celebrated names in contemporary art.

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, L’Ètrange Cité (Strange City), via Art Observed (more…)

David Shrigely is interviewed in the Financial Times this week, as he prepares to open his specially commissioned installation at Sketch Restaurant in London.  In the interview, Shrigley discusses his choices for the restaurant, and his education as an environmental artist in Glasgow.  “I really enjoyed art school but I didn’t do very well,” he says. “They all thought I wasn’t taking it seriously, but I was. They just didn’t think I was a very talented artist.” (more…)

Frieze London has announced its “Projects” section for the 2014 edition of the fair in Regent’s Park.  Curated by Nicola Lees, the seven projects located both on-site and around London will include a “living stage” by Nick Mauss, where ballets will be performed each day, and a secret map of the fair routes by Sophia Al Maria, underlining conspiracies hidden throughout.  The presentations will also feature a reconstructed musical performance from the career of conceptual comedian Andy Kaufman, enacted by Jonathan Berger. (more…)

Artist Mélanie Matranga has been awarded the first annual Frieze Artist Award, a new prize that welcomes emerging artists to create an ambitious work for the Frieze London fair.  Matranga’s work will feature a set of videos “that follow a young artistic couple as they negotiate ‘freedom, success and the proper functioning of a couple.’ The episodes will be filmed during the construction of Frieze London in Regent’s Park, including a purpose-built café, which Matranga has designed for use by visitors.” (more…)

A group of artists including Jeff Koons, Catherine Opie, and Carrie Mae Weems are contributing to the Water Tank Project this summer, a public art installation that will place various artists’ work on water tanks around New York.  “Water is our most challenged but taken-for-granted resource. It’s all around us but virtually invisible,” curatorial team member Neville Wakefield says. “By drawing attention to the water tanks, we hope to alert the world to the wastage of our most precious commodity.” (more…)

David Shrigley is interviewed in The Guardian this week, discussing his early years as an artist, his approach to his recent Sketch Restaurant commission, and his response to not winning the Turner Prize last year.  “It’s like, the day after they announced the winner of the Turner prize,” he says. “I’d had a bad back and the day afterwards my back got better like that.” (more…)

As Brazil prepares to host the World Cup this summer, Brazilian artists Os Gemeos have created a custom design for the plane used by the Brazilian team, featuring the pair’s signature style.  “Everyone has thought about walking on clouds. And this is only possible with a plane and faces painted on it,” says Otavio, one half of Os Gemeos. (more…)

The New York Times looks at artist Spencer Finch’s special commission for the 9/11 Museum in New York, which opens this week to family of the disaster’s victims.  The memorial seeks to recreate the crystal clear blue the marked the sky on the date of the attacks on the United States.  “It was a risk, certainly, to do,” said Paula Grant Berry, lost her husband in the attack and serves on the Sept. 11 Memorial Foundation’s Board. “Even when we tested it, we never really knew what it was going to look like.” But she added: “I got to see it early and I became a real advocate. I think it’s extraordinary, and it’s so needed, and it brings in the light of day on so many levels and in so many dimensions.” (more…)

The High Line will open its third and final section of park this fall, which will prominently feature sculptural work by Adrian Vilar Rojas, designed to deteriorate and shift over time, in parallel with the industrial spaces surrounding the work.  “If you stop to think about it,” the artist says, “it’s the most contradictory thing: You’re in relaxed, dreamy space, and then all around you is like a battle zone. People are taking pictures of construction sites.” (more…)

Kara Walker’s upcoming Creative Time commission in Williamsburg’s Domino Sugar Factory is the focus of a profile in the New York Times this week, taking a look at the nearly finished project and its series of monumental sculptures dedicated to the slave labor that established the American sugar manufacturing market. “In some ways, doing a project like this is a bit of a nose-thumbing at detractors, naysayers, haters,” Walker says. (more…)

Artist Bridget Riley has revealed a special painting commission for the Imperial College Healthcare Charity Art Collection, painting the 10th floor hallways of the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother hospital building in London with her signature parallel lines and bright colors.   “It reminds patients that theirs is a transitory state,” Riley says. “That they are there to recover and rejoin life – that life goes on, and life is outside, and they feel reassured.” (more…)

Outside the 2014 Armory Show, via Art Observed

The doors of The Armory Show opened this morning for its VIP preview, welcoming collectors and press from around the world to Piers 92 and 94 on Manhattan’s West Side.  This year, the fair welcomes 205 galleries to its annual selling event, down again from last year’s 214 in what seems to be a running trend to trim the fat at the larger fairs worldwide.

Armory Show (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

The New York Times profiles the work and career of Xu Zhen, this year’s artist-in-residence at The Armory Show in New York.  A conceptualist noted for his departure from previous generations of Chinese art and his playful skewering of retail economics (including one work where he constructed a fully functioning supermarket), Xu will show a number of works at the show, and is working on a public project with New York’s Citibike Public Bicycle Program. (more…)

Creative Time has announced the opening dates for Kara Walker’s installation at Williamsburg’s former Domino Sugar Factory.  A Subtlety will open on May 10th, and will be free and open to the public.  “Walker’s physically and conceptually expansive work will respond to both the building and its history, exploring a radical range of subject matter and marking a major departure from her practice to date,” the organization said in a release.  Creative Time will also focus it spring gala around the opening of the event, honoring Walker. (more…)

Street artist JR has unveiled his recent collaboration with the New York City Ballet, an expansive vinyl photograph of 80 dancers installed on the floor of the Koch Theatre’s marble promenade.  The image, twisted to look like an enormous eye, is best viewed from higher up, in the cheaper seats of the theatre, and acts as something of an equalizing project for the space.  “Now you’re inviting everyone to come up there,” the artist said. “And I like that, that it breaks boundaries — that anyone should be on any floor, it doesn’t matter.” (more…)

The Guggenheim Museum’s upcoming show on Futurist art will feature a number of rarely seen murals, on loan from the central post office of Palermo, Sicily.  Created by Benedetta, the works have never left Italy, and have hung in the same place since they were commissioned in the 1930’s.  “It’s the grand finale of our exhibition,” says curator Vivien Greene. “It’s such a beautiful way to end the show. It ends it on a really positive note. Instead of lingering more on the end of the war, when poor Italy is so beat up it’s so depressing, I thought, ‘Let’s have a finale that shows you at your best.’ ” (more…)

The Tate Modern has signed a landmark sponsorship deal with the Hyundai Automobile Corporation, an 11-year commitment to commissions for the museum’s Turbine Hall, making it the largest corporate partnership the organization has ever agreed to.  “These commissions have been reflecting major steps, major transformations, major disruptions in the history of contemporary art,” says Tate Modern Director Chris Dercon. “Contemporary art is evolving in a different way than just materials and methods. We are faced with a global world of art.” (more…)

Ry Rocklen at Night Court, via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

Ry Rocklen loves sports, or rather, he likes winning. “I love the pageantry of it,” he says, walking past a table constructed entirely out of materials used in sports trophies: shining columns, golden basketballs and baseball players, and imitation marble.  The pieces could be seen at Rocklen’s installation Night Court, a commission for Absolut’s beachfront space on Miami Beach during Art Week.  “The pieces originally come from a series called Trophy Modern that I opened earlier this year,” Rocklen says.  “And when I was offered the commission for this show, I thought I would try and take it a little further.” (more…)