Tunga, Na Lua (On the Moon) (2014) via Osman Can Yerebakan

Crystals, sponges, glass vessels and ceramics are among an array of materials on view at the current exhibition of new work by Tunga at Luhring Augustine’s Chelsea location. During a career spanning over four decades, Tunga has presented a body of multidisciplinary work, finding inspiration in poetry, physics and alchemy to create intricate, symbolic work that presents a visual challenge to the viewer.  Marking the artist’s fifth collaboration with the gallery, From ‘La Voie Humide’  underlines the artist’s strong interest in a multi-disciplinary approach to art, comprising a large selection of mediums and undertones running throughout the body of the exhibition.

Tunga, Untitled (2013) via Osman Can Yerebakan (more…)

Peter Doig, Burger King (1984), all images courtesy Michael Werner Gallery

On view at Michael Werner Gallery in London is a show from Scottish painter Peter Doig that explores his earliest works, even ones from his student days at St. Martin’s College in London, when he was still finding his voice as a painter.  Included alongside some of the artist’s most iconic and important artworks from his first years of widespread success, the show is an intriguing study into Doig’s continually shifting and specific stylistic tendencies.

Peter Doig: Early Works (Installation View)

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Nan Goldin, Veils (2011-14), all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery

On view at Gagosian Rome is a unique exhibition of works by American photographer Nan Goldin. Entitled Scopophilia, referring to the Greek word that means “love of looking,” or, more specifically, an erotic pleasure that comes from looking at images of the body, the works focus on themes of sex, violence, rapture, despair, and the blurring of gender.

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Sherrie Levine, Bird Mask (2014) via Osman Can Yerebakan

Paula Cooper Gallery is currently presenting new works by one of the most iconic artists of The Pictures Generation, Sherrie Levine. The artist has been reinterpreting the set notions of ownership and authenticity in creative work for more than 30 years, while simultaenously commenting on the canonization process of art history.  Inspired by the pioneer Constructivist Aleksander Rodchenko’s three panel monochrome from 1921, Levine’s new exhibition, Red Yellow Blue, refers to the reduction of a painting to its most minimalistic forms and fundamental colors.  One of the most notable artists of a generation engaged with appropriation and representation of consumeristic and media-centric production, Levine’s works in the exhibition investigate the essence of art-making, and its creative limitations with reference to certain precedents. Regarding art history as a circular form instead of a linear one, Levine goes back to the roots of art production to redefine set concepts on issues such as death and mysticism throughout the works on view. (more…)

Fifty years after Frank Lloyd Wright unveiled the groundbreaking design for the Guggenheim Museum, museums around the world are embracing dramatic designs for housing their collections, such as the subtle flow of The Curve at the Barbican in London.  “When we first embarked on this, people thought of this space as very awkward and difficult,” said visual arts head Jane Alison. “You don’t see everything at once. Now artists are very keen to be in the Curve and recognize the potential of it.” (more…)

Kara Walker is profiled in the Economist this week, exploring the artist’s current installation at the Domino sugar factory, and the difficulties in keeping the sugar coated works together in various conditions.   “No one works with sugar,” says curator Nato Thompson. “Now we know why.” (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 New York Times reports on the recently finished renovation of the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which shifted its focus and exhibition strategy to more carefully and chronologically explore the artist’s life.  “It really is a new Warhol; it’s much more about him,” says director Eric Shiner. (more…)

The New York Times takes a look inside the bi-annual Brant Foundation Art Study Center opening last week, held in honor of the space’s new Dan Colen show, and noting its place as a haven away from the bustle of Frieze week.  “Frieze week is a nightmare,” says Nate Lowman. “To have the same limp handshake 400 times? I don’t go to anything except this.” (more…)

The Guardian profiles downtown art icon Dan Colen, in the run-up to the artist’s retrospective at The Brant Foundation, which opens this week, reappraising the artist’s career in terms of his material and technical concerns.  “I’m trying to equalise the world to say there is no high and low,” Colen says.  “People have often thought I was fucking with them when really I was just trying to share that sentiment.” (more…)

Frieze Art Fair, via Art Observed

Following Thursday’s preview event and Friday’s initial day of public entry, Frieze Art Fair is up and running, opening the doors on a revamped fair that has already drawn considerable praise for its strong, diverse selection of galleries and artists, mounting a combination of impressive works alongside more challenging, unique installations that offer a fitting cross-section of the contemporary field.

William Kentridge at Goodman Gallery, via Art Observed (more…)

Robert Longo, Untitled (The Pequod) (2014) all images courtesy Petzel Gallery and Metro Pictures

On view concurrently at Petzel Gallery and Metro Pictures in New York are two exhibitions of works by Brooklyn native painter and sculptor Robert Longo. Gang of Cosmos at Metro Pictures is composed of twelve charcoal drawings of well-known Abstract Expressionist paintings, while Strike the Sun at Petzel Gallery focuses on images of patriotism in America, specifically the U.S. Capitol and the American flag as symbols of both nationalism and protest.

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Hammer Projects: Andra Ursuta (Installation View), all images courtesy Hammer Museum

On view currently at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is an exhibition of the latest body of work from Andra Ursuta, inspired by the artist’s fear and obsession with death. The show is Ursuta’s first solo exhibition in a United States museum, and will remain on view through May 25th.

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Oscar Murillo, A Mercantile Novel Candy Bars, via Art Observed

The art world has been good to Oscar Murillo over the past year.  Following a series of high auction sales and eager buyers, the 27-year old was quickly signed to David Zwirner, and has continued to command impressive press attention and plaudits for his paintings and installation work.

Oscar Murillo with the Colombina Employees, via Art Observed (more…)

Jeremy Deller has announced that he will be releasing a free, downloadable version of his work from the 2012 British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.  The adaptation of English Magic will be released on July 7th as part of a commission by Own Art, a nonprofit aimed at encouraging new contemporary art collectors to buy their first works. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal profiled Camille Henrot this past week, in the lead-up to the artist’s first U.S. solo museum exhibition at the New Museum, opening this upcoming Wednesday.  The show includes her work Grosse Fatigue, which earned her the Silver Lion at Venice last year for most promising young artist, and which features the image of the turtle heavily.  “She’s slow because she is carrying this massive round thing–it’s like a figure of Atlas,” Henrot says. (more…)

Alex Katz, Nabil’s Loft (1976), all images courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

On view at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Pantin, is a retrospective of paintings by American figurative and Pop artist Alex Katz.  The monographic exhibition is composed of around one hundred works, including paintings from the 60’s and 70’s, as well as more recent works through to the present. The exhibition will remain on view through July 12, 2014.

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Frieze New York has announced that it will restate artist Allen Ruppersberg’s work Al’s Grand Hotel, a 1971 installation that saw the artist turning a Los Angeles house into a gallery, performance space and functioning hotel.  “My hope is that the hotel at Frieze will function as a space where people can physically and mentally take a break from the bombardment of the other galleries at the fair and walk into a time capsule where you can almost jump back to 1971,” says curator Cecilia Alemani. (more…)

Frances Stark (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in New York is an exhibition featuring new work from Jennifer Bornstein, Judith Bernstein and Frances Stark.  While the work presented by each of these three artists is diverse in their concerns, they all possess a monumentality fitting to the large-scale environs of GBE.

Judith Bernstein via Art Observed (more…)

Urs Fischer at 104 Delancey (Installation View), via Art Observed

Following his retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles last summer, Urs Fischer returns to New York City this spring with a pair of shows that address that artist’s recent works, while turning his practice towards questions of authorship, originality and context.

Urs Fischer, the last supper (2014), via Art Observed (more…)

Laure Prouvost, From the Sky at Danspace Project, via Ian Douglas

Just last Friday, Danspace Project opened its doors at the historic St. Marks Church in the Bowery for a special performance by French-born artist Laure Prouvost.  Titled From the Sky, the performance saw Prouvost exploring an invented history and interaction of her fictitious, conceptual artist grandfather, all through her signature blend of hyper-charged performance, video and imagery.

Laure Prouvost, From the Sky at Danspace Project, via Ian Douglas (more…)

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Le orecchie di Jasper Johns (The Ears of Jasper Johns), (1966) via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

At the current Michelangelo Pistoletto exhibition The Minus Objects 1965-1966, on view at Luhring Augustine’s Bushwick location, what greets visitors is their own reflection, as a single piece from the artist’s signature Mirror Paintings series, sits at the entrance. But the exhibition looks deeper into Pistoletto’s work throughout his career, focusing on the artist’s sculptural objects created between 1965 and 1966.

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sfera sotto il letto (Sphere Under the Bed), (1965-1966) via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Bringing together a wide range of industrial materials such as wood, metal, newspaper and plexiglass along with glass mirror, the work carries an individualistic structure and an independent content: Pistoletto, by placing them in an uncommon harmony, orchestrates a coherent body of work composed of, in many ways, unrelated works.  Structures underlining a hybrid combination of contrasting materials create a bridge between different techniques. For example Scultura Lignea (Wood Sculpture) includes a classically styled wooden sculpture, erected inside an orange-colored plexiglass case. Letto (Bed) on the other hand, is an assembly of wide ranging materials including glass mirror, velvet, wood and iron that Pistoletto culls together to render the domestic symbol.

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Scultura lignea (Wood Sculpture), (1965-1966) via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Julian Schnabel, Flag Paintings, via Art Observed

Currently on view at Karma on Great Jones Street in New York is an exhibition of new work by American artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, featuring spray and ink painted flags Schnabel found and has used as a canvas, changing the meaning of the symbols and questioning nationalistic, religious, and cultural definitions.

Julian Schnabel, Flag Paintings (Installation View), via Art Observed

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The current Sigmar Polke retrospective at MoMA has posed interesting challenges to curators, namely how to maintain the artist’s Potato House (Kartoffelhaus) and Potato Drawing (Kartoffelzeichnung), which both incorporate real potatoes as a symbol of post-war Germany, and which are also subject to the tubers’ potential to decay.  “The potatoes are allowed to sprout,” says MoMA curatorial assistant Magnus Schaefer, but “if they’re beginning to rot, we have to replace them.”  (more…)