The Whitney Museum has set the opening date for its new, Renzo Piano-designed building in the Meatpacking District location on May 1st of next year. The news came this week during the Museum’s annual gala benefit. (more…)
A recent article by the New York Times cites the newest trend among today’s ultra-rich art collectors is the founding of their own boutique museums to house their collection, tracing the trend back to François Pinault’s purchase of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 2006. Other museums covered include Bernard Arnault’s Fondation Luis Vuitton, and Eli Broad’s Los Angeles museum currently under construction. (more…)
Mass MOCA has announced a series of important collaborations with James Turrell, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Laurie Anderson and Jenny Holzer, among others, each of which will be included in the museum’s newly constructed exhibition spaces, which will be completed in 2017. “We’re teaming up with people who have great bodies of artworks that we are hosting,” says Director Joseph C. Thompson. (more…)
Manifesta 11, held in Zurich in 2016, has announced Christian Jankowski its lead curator, the first time an artist has been invited to fill the role. “Jankowski will investigate the whole array of art’s authorship, its production and its reflection on Zurich’s professional landscape,” says Director Hedwig Fijen. “In doing so, Manifesta 11’s Chief Curator approaches the complex identities of the city in an unexpected way, reaching out to audiences beyond the inner circle of contemporary art biennials.” (more…)
Sam Durant, Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington D.C. (2005), via LACMA
After its entry to LACMA’s permanent collection in 2013, Sam Durant’s Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington D.C. is on view for the first time at its permanent home. Durant has always been strongly tied to the historical and social dynamics in America, and the artist’s ongoing work with the flux of history and spatial politics perhaps reached an apex with this installation. (more…)
The New Museum has announced the list of artists for its 2015 Triennial, Surround Audience, which will be curated by Lauren Cornell and artist Ryan Trecartin. The exhibition will include work by DIS, Casey Jane Ellison (who will be filming her web series Touching the Art at the museum), and Ed Atkins, among others. According to the press release, Surround Audience “explores how artists are currently depicting subjectivity, unpacking complex systems of power, and claiming sites of artistic agency.” (more…)
Tracey Emin, Good Body (2014), all images courtesy White Cube Bermondsey
On view at White Cube Bermondsey, London is a new exhibition by English artist (and YBA member) Tracey Emin. Entitled The Last Great Adventure is You, the show will be her first at White Cube in five years, and will remain on view through November 16th.
The Wall Street Journal writes on the Chinatown gallery operated by young curator and art dealer Amy Li out of her father’s He Zhen Snap Button Co. Shop “There are so many assumptions attached to the word ‘gallery,’” Li says. “This is just a space where I work as a curator and art dealer. I didn’t know anyone who could introduce me to a job opening. That’s why I continue to do this.” (more…)
Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, Still from untitled work in progress (2014), via Regen Projects
Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch have enjoyed one of the more distinctive artistic collaborations in recent history, creating bizarre viewing platforms, caves, stadium seating and other eerily familiar arrangements in the service of immersive film-viewing environments, some of which is currently on view at the duo’s first exhibition at Regen Projects in Los Angeles. Combining a set of Trecartin and Fitch’s bizarrely evocative sculptures with films and installations, the show welcomes a deep investigation into the pair’s practice, both as solo artists and in collaboration. (more…)
Center548, the current home of Zach Feuer Gallery and the Independent Art Fair, as well as the former location for the Dia Foundation, has been purchased by Property Markets Group, a real-estate development group. The galleries are seeking new exhibition space outside the building. (more…)
Cao Fei, HIP HOP NY (2006) via Art Observed
There’s few places in New York that one could find a small-scale show pushing the envelope the way that Brooklyn Rail’s Phong Bui is currently pushing it at Red Bull Studios. Combining historically rich pieces with a number of young artists and many frequently outside the spotlight of New York’s blockbuster arts calendar, the exhibition is a dizzying combination of forms, spaces and images, from surrealist painting to bizarre installations and architecture and back. (more…)
Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014), all images courtesy Maureen Paley
On view at Maureen Paley is a solo exhibition of single-screen video work by Turner Prize-winner Gillian Wearing. Entitled We Are Here, the artist’s 6th at the London gallery. The exhibition is conceptually inspired by American poet Edgar Lee Master’s book Spoon River Anthology (1915), in which the people who lived by the titular waterway rise up from the grave and talk about their lives and memories. Wearing, who grew up in the town of Sandwell, bases her video on people from the West Midlands speaking as if they have returned from the grave.
Gillian Wearing (Installation View)
We Are Here premiered in the UK at The New Art Gallery Walsall and in the US at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and the work here centers around the production and conceptual planning of the piece, including a series of photographs taken around Sandwell, and other pieces of research. While the show is rather sparse, the exhibition is a welcome investigation into Wearing’s personal history, giving the area around her home town a certain agency to represent itself while also addressing the conditions and histories that help to define her own life and work.
Gillian Wearing (Installation View)
In her series of photographs, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, she allows her subjects the ability to express themselves on a series of white placards, with the results running from tender moments of self-honesty to hackneyed expressions about world peace. Taken as a whole, Wearing’s brand of cultural realism uncovers the the anxiety of her environment and the occasionally fraught contract between the artist and her subjects, occasionally breaking down or leaning into pop culture formats.
Gillian Wearing (Installation View)
Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997 and was awarded an OBE in 2011. We Are Here was made possible by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund and the Art Fund with support from Maureen Paley, Shaun Regen and Tanya Bonakdar. The exhibition will remain on view at Maureen Paley through November 16, 2014.
Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014)
— E. Baker
Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Maureen Paley]
Duane Hanson at Karma, all photos via Art Observed
Spanning two separate weekends this November, the Independent Projects fair is an interesting take on the the art fair as an exhibition opportunity. Rather than rely on an initial rush of collectors, the fair is spread out over two separate weekends, allowing collectors an initial crack at the works offered before they go on public view the next week. Combining this with a small selection of forty galleries and exhibitors, the Projects fair offers a considerable opportunity to expand the concept and execution of the fair environment.
Independent Projects (Installation View) (more…)
The New York Times profiles the British-born, Los Angeles-based Thomas Houseago, whose work is notoriously unpredictable and has on occasion fallen apart in the midst of its construction. “I believe in these broken sculptures,” he says. “I love that. Sculpture is a constant dance with gravity. In my case, anyway.” (more…)
Artist Kara Walker is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, as she prepares a new exhibition in New York. “I’ve always been a bit restless in the work,” she says. “I have to look this way and that way, just to see what my limitations are, or if they are limitations. Maybe they’re assets.” (more…)
Yoko Ono is profiled in the Wall Street Journal this week, as the artist reflects on her career, and offers advice for young artists following in her footsteps. “Artists should adhere to what we are, instead of being sidetracked by other desires,” she says. “We’re supposed to have that independence. But many artists today are, you know, going with this gallery, with that museum, and thinking too much about monetary success, which means they can’t be free. A life of not being challenged and only hearing what you want to hear is being dead.” (more…)
The New York Times profiles a new effort underway in the Netherlands to encourage public arts patronage through a subscription-based service. The program, titled We Are Public, offers low-price access to a range of cultural events, while promising to contribute €18,000 to local arts institutions. “There’s a tendency on all levels of society that people want to take more control over what’s going on, and people are collectively funding stuff they think is important,” says co-founder Bas Morsch. (more…)
Peter Brant has announced the focus of his newest exhibition at the Connecticut-based Brant Foundation Art Study Center, which will center around the works of Cady Noland, Larry Clark, Richard Prince and Christopher Wool. Deliverance, as the show is titled, will open November 10th, and will feature work from 1970 through 1997. “It’s when they were really exploring the same kind of themes, and when they each produced some of their best work,” Mr. Brant says. (more…)
Mario Merz, Pyramid (1997-2000), via Pace Gallery
With auctions this week in London centered around the post-war Italian landscape, Pace Gallery has culled together an exhibition of works of artist Mario Merz, featuring a series of sculptural and painted works that illustrate the artist’s broad conceptual scope and his varying interests in the nature of architecture, materiality and space.
Mario Merz (Installation), via Art Observed (more…)
Duane Hanson, Baton Twirler (1971), all images courtesy Sotheby’s
On view at S|2, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Gallery in London, is a selection of sculptures from American artist Duane Hanson’s most important series of works, the artist’s fiercely evocative and startlingly realistic images of “Middle Americans.” The show marks Hanson’s first exhibition in London in fifteen years, and will remain on view through November 7th.
Marina Abramović, Tree (1972), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery
On view at Lisson Gallery in London is a exhibition entitled White Space from Yugoslavian artist Marina Abramović, featuring many works which have never been exhibited before, including two important sound pieces and unseen video documentation of seminal performances. The exhibition will remain on view through November 1st.
Karel Appel, Big Bird Flying Over the City (1951), all images courtesy Blum & Poe
Dutch painter Karel Appel was born in Amsterdam in 1921, and worked in Europe for much of his life, passing away less than a decade ago at the age of 85. During the time of the German occupation, Appel studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and eventually left home due to his parents’ disapproval of his decision to be a painter. Perhaps as a result, Appel’s career can’t be defined by any singular characteristic other than discontinuity, and an interest in opposing expectations of normality.
Marina Abramovic is the subject of another profile this week, this time in Wall Street Journal, where the performance artist discusses her life’s work, her thoughts on retirement, and her piece Generator. “It’s quite radical,” she says. “It could totally fail, but the real failure would be if I stop believing in myself, that I can do it.” (more…)
Wim Delvoye (Installation View), all photos by Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed
On view at Galerie Perrotin in Paris is a solo exhibition from Belgian neo-conceptual artist Wim Delvoye composed of around twenty new works that continue the artist’s ongoing interest in assemblages that constantly challenge assumptions of the sacred and profane. While the show features some of Delvoye’s previously explored formats, the show also includes a number of new formats and practices.
