Pieter Vermeersch, Untitled (2013), all images courtesy Team Gallery, Inc.

Currently on view at Team Gallery in Lower Manhattan is a solo show from Belgian artist Pieter Vermeersch, composed of large paintings on canvas and wall murals, for which he has employed techniques of grid painting and color mapping, reminiscent of Gerhard Richter and Robert Bechtle. The exhibition will continue through April 27, 2014.

Pieter Vermeersch (Installation View)

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Ali Banisadr, Ran (2014), all images courtesy Sperone Westwater

Currently on view at Sperone Westwater in New York is an exhibition of new works by Iranian painter Ali Banisadr.  Entitled Motherboard, the exhibition is Banisadr’s first solo show at at the gallery, and will remain on view through April 19, 2014.

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Dealer James Fuentes will launch a show next month reflecting on the infamous Real Estate Show held in the Lower East Side in 1980, a seminal exhibition in protest of the city’s dealings with low-income neighborhood residents that ultimately led to the formation of the famous ABC No Rio space.  The show will include many artists from the original show, as well as videos and films documenting the event. (more…)

Gregory Edwards, Steady Work (Installation View), via ArtObserved

Gregory Edwards’ approach to abstraction is oddly figurative. For his latest solo show at 47 Canal, entitled Steady Work—the Brooklyn artist’s first since his solo debut in 2011—Edwards riffs on the inspirational sloganeering of the self-help genre. Featuring single words or short phrases painted amidst garishly colored, textured backgrounds, the show’s six works perhaps most strongly recall the increasingly vintage aesthetic of MS PowerPoint slideshows and WordArt.

Gregory Edwards, Steady Work (2013), via 47 Canal (more…)

Christopher Wool, Untitled (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

The work of artist Christopher Wool is nothing if not immediate.  Huge, stencil-cut prints, slurred spray-paint scribbling reminiscent of graffiti, and enormous splashes of paint litter the artist’s canvases and rice paper compositions, all charged with a gritty, urban freneticism that informed Wool’s early years in New York’s supercharged downtown punk scene during the 1970’s.  It’s this energy that ultimately becomes the focus of the Guggenheim’s current retrospective of the artist’s work, just recently opened at the uptown museum.

Christopher Wool, Minor Mishap (2001), © Christopher Wool, Courtesy The Guggenheim Museum (more…)

Robert Mapplethorpe, Lindsay Key (1985), via Thaddeus Ropac

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg is currently presenting an exhibition of works by American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, as part of the gallery’s celebration of its 30th anniversary. This exhibition is the latest addition to the gallery’s ongoing series dedicated to Mapplethorpe’s career.

Robert Mapplethorpe, (Installation View), courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg (more…)

John Houck, Peg and John, (2013), via On Stellar Rays

John Houck’s latest show at On Stellar Rays, A History of Graph Paper is a subdued, disquieting display of one artist’s innovative approach to the medium of photography. Houck’s images of neon rectangular prisms, swatches of colorful paper, and household objects take on the feeling of collage, as if each element were cut out from some other context and pasted into his composition. His keen attention to color, combining saturated oranges and reds with gauzy seafoams, and his strong focus on line and juxtaposition make the photographs in “A History of Graph Paper” stand out from the increasingly crowded field of contemporary photography. (more…)

A new development on the Lower East Side has been green lighted by city authorities, and will include a New York outpost for Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum.  Essex Crossing, a $1.1 billion development planned by L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners and Taconic Investment Partners, will include a community center, rooftop garden, as well as the 10,000 square foot space occupied by the museum. (more…)

With the Eli Broad Museum set to open across the street from MOCA sometime next fall, the high-profile collector and patron has announced his intentions to withdraw his annual contribution of $3 million to MOCA, effectively stepping back from his longtime role as the museum’s leading supporter.  Even so, Broad has expressed excitement about the potentials for his museum and its effects on MOCA, noting that it will increase the draw of art lovers to the area.  “They’re excited about it. They know that we’re going to be a great attraction, we’re going to spend time and energy and marketing getting attendance, and they’re going to be the beneficiary of all that,” he said. (more…)

Cary Leibowitz, Hey! I’m Not Deppressed Anymore (2013), Courtesy INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, New York

“Hey! I’m not depressed anymore.” So reads one of the simplistic, shaped canvases currently on view at Cary Leibowitz’s new show at Invisible-Exports.  It’s familiar territory for the artist, whose signature conflations of text and paint frequently dwell on the comical neuroses inherent in modern living, scaled appropriately for the New York art world.  It was Leibowitz, of course, whose enormous wooden sign sat outside the Armory Show earlier this year, reading “I Need to Start Seeing a Therapist,” blowing his work up to monumental scale for the equally daunting size of the exhibition contained within Piers 92 and 94. (more…)

Dealer Gavin Brown is the subject of a recent profile in W Magazine,  documenting his pioneering work in the New York art scene, and his ongoing war against the status quo for gallery spaces in an increasingly uncertain time for mid-level galleries.  “It always petrifies me, these moments of shift. And if you focus on this small world of artists and galleries and museums, I think we’re kind of spinning our wheels wondering what’s next because we know something is coming.  All the old models seem to be running out of gas. It’s a fascinating time,” Brown says. “Everything is up in the air.” (more…)

Lucien Smith, A Clean Sweep (Installation View), Photos Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York

Suzanne Geiss Company’s New York’s SoHo neighborhood is currently housing A Clean Sweep, Lucien Smith’s nostalgic exhibition inspired by the changing streets of his home city.

Lucien Smith, Untitled (Pizzerias 001), (2013) Photos by Matthu Placek. Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York (more…)

Artist Eric Fischl spoke with the Wall Street Journal this week about his upcoming book, Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas, as well as his career and work.  “I thought I was opening up a pretty wide door. I thought that I was offering something I wish had taken a greater hold than it did. Which is that you turn to art to connect to other people, and you connect through common experience and emotional experience and life experience. It’s something that gives form to all the more difficult aspects of our lives.”  He says. (more…)

Sotheby’s and The Whitney have announced a major auction of works to benefit the construction of the museum’s new downtown location in Chelsea.  Featuring works by Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder, the New York auction, held on May 14th and 15th, will attempt to augment the $562.4 already raised by the museum with an expected $8 million in proceeds.  “The Whitney has been there for these artists, especially early on in their careers before people really knew them,” said Whitney Director Adam D. Weinberg. “I think for many of them, they feel that this is a way to give back.” (more…)

92YTribeca, a downtown arts and cultural space operated by the 92nd St. Y, will close this summer.  The decision was made by the 92nd St. Y board on Wednesday night, in order to focus operations on the primary location.  “We believe 92Y can best serve the community now and in the future by investing our resources into our flagship location uptown on Lexington Avenue.”  Says executive director Sol Adler. (more…)

The New York Times publishes an in depth story on Kathy Grayson and  The Hole Gallery, which blends a forward thinking curatorial practice with a vibrant atmosphere. The gallery has charged into an art scene still bemoaning the loss of Jeffrey Deitch’s Deitch Projects space.  “There hasn’t been a gallery like this since Deitch,” said Mike Malbon, of Frank151 magazine. “It’s got a good buzz and a cool, creative vibe. Other art shows, to me, are just stuffy.” (more…)

The Luck You Collective, a group of young, born and bred New York artists aged 19 to 21, is currently making on impact on the downtown arts scene.  “To me they represent the heart and soul of the young New York creative scene,” says photographer David Mushegain. “They are the ones who grew up here and are continuing the conversation that started so long ago. They are seemingly the last stand in a downtown scene that is surely vanishing, and I love them for that.” (more…)

Artist Doug Aitken is currently preparing to unveil a “digital land artwork” at the Seattle Art Museum.  Titled Mirror, the work consists of thin strips of LED lights and digital video of Seattle and the surrounding regions, and will be on view for the public beginning on March 24th.  “Land art from the 1960s and 1970s exists in remote locations. I was interested in creating something very urban,” Aitken says.  (more…)