Dash Snow, Untitled (2008), all images courtesy Blain|Southern Berlin

On view at Blain|Southern Berlin is a group exhibition examining the use of text and poetics in art objects from the 1960s to the present day. Entitled Sed Tantum Dic Verbo (Just Say The Word), the exhibition was curated by American writer and editor Glenn O’Brien and will remain on view through December 20th.

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George Condo, Lost at Sea (2014), via Art Observed

George Condo is currently presenting a new body of work, on view at Skarstedt Gallery‘s recently opened Chelsea exhibition space, titled Double Heads / Black Paintings / Abstractions.  Decamping to his studio in East Hampton, Long Island, this summer the artist has produced a series of paintings that marks a noted departure from his most recent exhibitions. (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports that the European art exhibition Manifesta is in the final stages of negotiations in securing the Italian city of Palermo as the location for its 2018 edition.  The exhibition will aim to look at “how artistic practices and interventions can play a role in improving the social cohesion of this remarkable city,” says Manifesta director Hedwig Fijen. (more…)

Bernadette Corporation, no kinda ho3 (2014), via Art Observed

Painter Rita Ackermann takes the curatorial helm at Hauser and Wirth’s uptown gallery this month, presenting an exhibition of works that offers a fascinating, and notably specific study of recent art history.  The exhibition, titled Freezer Burn, focuses on a specific group of artists cresting in the early years of the 21st century, as well as affiliated artists from the past decade exploring the pervasive aesthetics of pop culture and political interference. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal notes the growing trend for museums to collect visitors data as they pass through the museum, using the information in exhibition planning, marketing, and other strategies in running a successful institution, despite some criticism.  “It’s not as if people going out of museums say, ‘Jeez, I wish that museum knew a lot more about me, I would’ve had a lot better experience,’” says Marc Rotenberg, the law professor heading the Electronic Privacy Information Center.  “It’s being driven by the possibility of increased sales, advertising and better marketing.” (more…)

MoMA has announced plans for an exhibition focusing on the work of Japanese conceptualist Yoko Ono.  Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971 will include 125 of Ms. Ono’s early works, including sculpture, videos and other pieces.  It will open in May. (more…)

Fulton Ryder, the secretive bookstore owned by artist Richard Prince, has announced via email that it will close its doors on Christmas of this year.  “Fulton Ryder was always meant to be an ephemeral space, an experimental venue for spontaneous creativity where things constantly changed and shifted,” says gallery head Fabiola Alondra. (more…)

Takashi Murakami, In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow (Installation View), via Ellen Burke for Art Observed

The recent work of Takashi Murakami is firmly embedded in the critical state of Japan in the 21st Century, a sense of the ecological peril that the country has attempted to deal with since the disasters of Fukushima several months ago.  Taking this cataclysmic event as the jumping-off point for much of his recent work, the artist has taken his signature style, replete with smirking characters, huge swaths of psychedelic color, and the delicate iconography of classical Japanese art, applying it to a new series of works on view through January at Gagosian Gallery’s Chelsea exhibition space. (more…)

Sinne Gallery at Untitled Miami, all photos via Art Observed

Set in a strikingly designed beachfront structure, Untitled Miami carries the annual distinction as the best located fair of Miami Art Week. But the fair itself has also built a reputation for its highly selective and carefully arranged list of exhibitors, an approach that has earned it a premier position among the throng of fairs flocking each year to South Beach. (more…)

NADA at the Deauville, all photos by Art Observed

Again located up Collins Ave at the Deauville Beach Resort in North Beach, the New Art Dealers Alliance fair seems perfectly content to let the buyers come to them.  Boasting a tightly curated but welcoming atmosphere for younger artists and smaller galleries, the fair has remained a yearly mainstay in the proceedings of Miami Art Week. (more…)

The Art Los Angeles Contemporary Fair will open its doors once again in late January, and has released its exhibitor list this week for the sixth edition of the fair.  Attendees among the 60 gallery list include The Hole, CANADA, Standard (Oslo), and Francois Ghebaly. (more…)

Ed Ruscha, Mind If I… (2014), via Gagosian Gallery

As the year winds into its final weeks, the art world is heading south once again, preparing for the annual festivities and fairs surrounding the 13th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach.  The weeklong event will feature a near endless stream of parties, nightlife events, and of course, art exhibitions across the city, from major fairs to hotel pop-ups. (more…)

Artist Bjarne Melgaard has unveiled a new fashion collection he designed himself, inspired by the 2013 Catherine Breillat film Abuse of Weakness.  “I was thinking about creating clothes that are about the mental state you’re in and the faults you feel you have,” the artist says. “And rather than do that in sculpture, I wanted to try it with a commercial fashion line.” (more…)

Artist Paul Chan, the winner of this year’s Hugo Boss Prize, is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the temporary retirement the artist took in 2008.  “At a certain point I realized I had no more ideas I was interested in making something out of, so I realized maybe this is time to stop,” he says.  “I cleaned my house and read and tried to live, but at a certain point I realized I needed something else to do besides just living, and that’s where publishing came in.” (more…)

Maurizo Cattelan, Him (2001), via Art Observed

Maurizio Cattelan is back in New York.  It’s been some time since the artist’s retirement from the art world proper, capped by his well-attended Guggenheim retrospective in 2011/2012, a move that the artist has made quite good on.  Despite the occasional appearance high-profile appearance, Cattelan’s work has remained relatively outside of the art world spotlight for the past several years.  But the artist’s commitment to his own absence hasn’t deterred Adam Lindemann, who is currently mounting a pair of exhibitions of the artist’s work at both Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery, and at his own space, Venus Over Manhattan on Madison Ave. (more…)

Julian Stanczak, From Life (Installation View)

On view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s Chelsea location is a career spanning exhibition of Julian Stanczak, the renowned Polish artist considered to be one of the pioneers of Op Art movement. Starting with his works from the 1960’s until the present, the exhibition celebrates the artist’s long career, starting at a Polish refugee camp in Uganda in the 40’s after the artist permanently lost the use of his right arm due to an infection of encephalitis. (more…)

ArtPrize, the Grand Rapids-based art contest that has made the city an unexpected stop on the global art circuit, has announced plans to expand its event to Dallas in 2016.  “We want to make sure there’s an appetite for this sort of thing, and we think there is and we’ll go wherever the appetite is,” says Executive Director Christian Gaines. (more…)

The Financial Times speaks with Maurizio Cattelan this week, as the artist prepares to open an exhibition he curated in Turin.  “From my point of view, humor and irony include tragedy, they’re two sides of the same coin. Laughter is a Trojan horse to enter into direct contact with the unconscious, strike the imagination and trigger visceral reactions,” Cattelan says.  “If the humor of certain works was enough to pull anger, fear and amazement out of everyone, the psychoanalysts would be in disgrace . . . shame is not enough!” (more…)

Gerhard Richter (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Marian Goodman’s freshly inaugurated Mayfair gallery space in London is a new show of paintings and sculpture by Gerhard Richter, works that show the artist expanding his current practice while branching out into new formal space.   (more…)

Former auction house head Simon De Pury is branching out once again into the world of curating, preparing a show at 3 Grafton Street in London, focusing on the work of 92-year-old Polish artist Wojciech Fangor.  “The idea is to show great art in this space, we will have an international program,” De Pury says. (more…)

Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe, Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) (Installation View)

In their newest exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea, artist duo Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe are inviting the viewers into another realm of phantasmagoria, in which rooms full of ambiguous tales are revealed in their most bizarre and contradictory forms. Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) is the duo’s third collaboration with Marlborough after 2012’s Stray Light Gray, which absorbed gallery visitors into adjacent chambers of gory experiments and untold incidents connected through curiously large holes on the walls. (more…)

The Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland, which found itself as the unlikely recipient of the late Cornelius Gurlitt’s trove of looted artworks, is preparing to announce its decision of the collection following a lengthy discussion among museum officials.  Initial reports are claiming that the museum will in fact accept the works. (more…)

The Park Avenue Armory has announced the list of events and exhibitions for its 2015 season, which will include a new work from Laurie Anderson’s “Language of the Future” series, a multimedia installation by Philippe Parreno, and a collaboration Marina Abramovic and the pianist Igor Levit. (more…)

The Guardian reports that Marina Abramovic is currently working on a major installation in Sydney for July of 2015.  The artist was courted by arts philanthropist John Kaldor, who previously brought Abramovic’s work to the country in his 2013 exhibition 13 Rooms. (more…)