Kiki Smith, Rogue Stars (2012), all images courtesy Pace Gallery

On view at New York’s Pace Gallery is artist Kiki Smith’s first major New York exhibition in four years, presenting new works made from aluminium, bronze, fine silver, textile, stained and hand-blown antique glass, and paint.

Kiki Smith, Crescent Bird (2011), (more…)

Hans Ulrich Obrist has published an essay in The Guardian this week, discussing the current state of curatorial practice, and the importance he sees for curators in contemporary arts.  “When I became a curator,” he writes, “I wanted to be helpful to artists. I think of my work as that of a catalyst – and sparring partner.” (more…)

The investigation into a stolen Gustav Klimt painting nearly 17 years ago has been reopened, with authorities using sophisticated DNA testing technology to try and find a match with evidence found on the work’s frame.  Portrait of a Woman was stolen in 1997 from the Ricci-Oddi Gallery in Piacenza, with police unable to find any prior evidence able to track down a suspect.   (more…)

Doug Wheeler at David Zwirner, via Art Observed

The new installation by Doug Wheeler, currently on view at David Zwirner’s 20th Street gallery, cites itself as an exploration of the horizon, a delicately shifting light installation inside an enormous ellipsoidal room.  Painted a harsh white, the floor and ceiling reflect the subtly changing neons running just out of site underneath the floorboards of the work.  Comparable to the work of James Turrell, Wheeler’s pieces make much of the illusory capabilities of light acting on space.  His 2012 installation at Zwirner, a massively lit wall giving the impression of an infinite color scape in front of the viewer, bears resemblance to a number of Turrell’s infinite lightscapes, allowing the viewer to slowly gain an awareness of their own act of seeing, and the behavior of their eyes in space.    

Doug Wheeler, LC 71 NY DZ 13 DW (2013), Photo by Tim Nighswander, Imaging4Art © 2014 Doug Wheeler; courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London (more…)

Chilean architect Smiljan Radic has won the competition to design the 2014 Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park, set to open June 26th.  Radic’s design, resembling a series of large stones and pillars, will be semi-translucent, and will host a number of events and site-specific projects.  “Radic is a key protagonist of an amazing architectural explosion in Chile,” the Serpentine said in the statement. “While enigmatically archaic, in the tradition of romantic follies, Radic’s designs for the Pavilion also look excitingly futuristic, appearing like an alien space pod that has come to rest on a Neolithic site.” (more…)

Ed Ruscha will be featured as part of the High Line Art program’s ongoing commission series this summer, installing his 1977 piece that reads “Honey, I Twisted Through More Damn Traffic Today,” at 10th and West 22nd.  “It has an intimate quality and is a piece you can experience by just walking by it,” said Cecilia Alemani, director of High Line Art.  The piece will go on view May 6th, and is Ruscha’s first ever public art installation in New York.  (more…)

The newest commission for the Sculpture Committee of the Fund for Park Avenue are now on view for the 2014 season, a series of swirling, ambitious sculptures by Alice Aycock.  “The notion is that there is this big wind that moves up and down the avenue, and that it makes the forms or blows the forms and leaves it in its wake,” said the artist. (more…)

The Prada Foundation has announced its planned exhibition for the 2015 Venice Biennale, focusing on sound art and the relationship between art objects and musical instruments.  The Art or Sound will take place at the Serenissima at the Ca’ Corner della Regina palazzo, from June 7 to November 3, 2014, and will include works by John Cage, Richard Artschwager and Laurie Anderson.   (more…)

Kazuo Shiraga, via Art Observed

As dealers wrap their final sales today, and begin wrapping up their works for the trip home, the bustle of Armory Week is drawing to a close in NewYork City.  Strong sales seemed to be the theme of the week, with galleries across the board reporting impressive figures and percentages for their fair offerings, with some galleries selling out of their full selection of pieces before the fair closed the doors on its VIP preview on March 5th.

Xu Qu, via Art Observed (more…)

The Independent Art Fair (Installation View), all photos via Elene Damenia Art Observed

The Independent Art Fair opened its doors last evening for its vernissage, welcoming collectors and press to the increasingly popular fair at Chelsea’s Center 548 on 22nd Street.  With a markedly looser atmosphere, and a closely selected group of 50 galleries and non-profits, the Independent has moved into a desirable niche position between the bigger fairs uptown, and the list of exhibitors made this more than apparent.  Big names dotted the floors of the space, with Gavin Brown’s Enterprise returning to the fair, alongside Untitled, Balice Hertling and Michael Werner, all of which brought first-class works to the sale.

Andra Ursuta at Ramiken Crucible, via Art Observed (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on musician and artist Charlemagne Palestine’s special sound installation in the stairwell of the Whitney Museum for this year’s Biennial.  Featuring a set of speakers ascending the museum staircase, covered in stuffed animals and fabric, the work plays off the reverberant nature of Eli Breuer’s concrete architecture.  “I’ve been coming to the museum since it was built, and I’ve always loved the staircase,” says Palestine. “This particular kind of concrete has a fantastic resonance. It’s Taj Mahal-esque.” (more…)

Margaret Lee at Jack Hanley (Installation View), via Art Observed

Currently on view, Closer to right than wrong/ Closer to wrong than right is Margaret Lee’s second solo show at Jack Hanley Gallery. For the exhibition, Lee—co-founder of the Lower East Side gallery 47 Canal, an arbiter of art-world cool—has assembled a showroom of sorts, featuring an array of furniture-like pieces festooned with a uniform black and white Dalmatian print. While Lee’s previous work frequently dealt in a brash take on domestic objects, such as eggplant or cucumber-shaped telephones, the tone of the current exhibition is comparatively subdued. A tongue-in-cheek minimalism prevails, with polka dots turning the installation’s assorted objects—a chair, a lamp, a side table, and even a painting on the wall—into the sort of kitsch that undermines what could otherwise be mistaken as a serious design sensibility.

Margaret Lee at Jack Hanley (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

Bjarne Melgaarde, via Art Observed

Plurality suits the Whitney Biennial.  It’s long embraced the diffuse narratives and varied identities of a nation as broad and intricate as the United States, and this year is no different, with 103 participants (both artists and several collectives) from around the country.  But the 2014 event, and the last to take place in the Whitney’s Marcel Breuer-designed space on Madison and 75th, has taken this interest in the varied artistic practices and themes dominating the American contemporary, and opened it to even wider dialogues, welcoming three separate curators (Michelle Grabner, Anthony Elms and Stuart Comer) with varying backgrounds to each select one floor of the museum, and explore their own particular concerns.  The result is a set of three almost completely separate thematic projects, each of which leaves itself open to dialogue with the floors nearby.

Works by John Mason, via Art Observed (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…)

Aki Sasamoto, Sunny in the Furnace, via Aki Sasamoto

Late this week, amid the hustle and bustle of Armory Week in New York, The Kitchen will open artist Aki Sasamoto’s newest performance, Sunny in the Furnace, running from March 6th to the 8th in the organization’s theatre space.  Incorporating Sasamoto’s playful, intricate series of object-oriented encounters and reflections, the work will see her expand her practice onto a larger scale, incorporating the work of fellow artists Sam Ekwurtzel, Jessica Weinstein, Pau Atela, and Madeline Best, as well as live music by percussionist John Bollinger. taking Sasamoto’s recurring focus on memory and material to new levels of complexity.

Aki spoke with Art Observed this past week to preview her show, and talk a bit about her personal creative process. (more…)

The New York Times has a published a preview piece on next week’s opening for the Whitney Biennial, which will open concurrently with Armory Week next Friday.  The 77th edition of the event will be the last in the Whitney’s current home before it moves to its new location in the Meatpacking District, and features the collaborative vision of three separate curators, each of which are occupying a single floor of the museum.  “It’s as if you’re on your laptop and have three windows open,” said Stuart Comer, one of the curators and the head of media and performance at MoMA. “It’s not a collaboration but a conversation, a dialogue.” (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…)

Eric Fischl, Corrida in Ronda #4, (2008), via Elene Damenia for Art Observed

The New York Academy of Art is currently presenting The Big Picture, a brief series of large-scale paintings by five artists who embrace the challenge of large-scale canvases and epic scenery.  Curated by Peter Drake, the show has selected works from Neo Rauch, Mark Tansey, Vincent Desiderio, Jenny Saville and Eric Fischl for the show, inviting a comparative look at the varying techniques and approaches to painting on a grand scale.

Vincent Desiderio, Quixote (2008), via Elene Damenia for Art Observed (more…)

G.T. Pellizzi, Diagram, Figure 3 (2013), All images courtesy of Mary Boone Gallery.

Giandomenico Tonatiuh Pellizzi, better known as G.T. Pelizzi, is currently showing a selection of new works at Mary Boone Gallery in New York.  Pellizi was born in Cuernavaca, Mexico in 1978, and attended St. Johns College, Santa Fe, New Mexico, studying literature and philosophy before going on to the Channin School of Architecture at Cooper Union, NYC, where he received some training in visual arts by attending courses at the School of Art with Walid Raad and Joan Waltemath, among others.  He currently lives and works between New York City and Mexico.   (more…)

Pawel Althamer, Mezalia (detail) (2010), via Art Observed

There’s something decidedly ephemeral about the work of Pawel Althamer.  The Polish artist who, over the past two decades, has created a body of sculpture, video and installation work that consistently toys with formulations of identity and society, collaborative practice and mythology.  Works can hinge on a simple conceit, or careful placement of a minimum of elements, often leaving major aspects of the piece unseen or unexpressed.  His Black Ebony (??) piece, for example, stands as a testament to an incomplete work, activated by a group of African sculptors he invited to utilize the workstation-like installation to create sculpture during a show.

Massimo Gioni takes Part in Draftsmen’s Congress (2012), via Art Observed (more…)

Donald Judd, Untitled (Schellman 24), (1961-1978)

Now through March 1^st, the David Zwirner gallery hosts a group exhibition of the printed works of Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, and Fred Sandback. The three artists’ shared Minimalist aesthetics unite this work of prints made between 1961 and 1994. Though predominantly known for their three dimensional work, printmaking and drawing were significant practices for all three artists throughout their respective careers, and ultimately helped to shape and reshape their practices throughout their broader body of work. (more…)

YaÅŸam ÅžaÅŸmazer, via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

The winter conditions in the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul often border on excessive damp and gloom, but the coastal city’s burgeoning art scene maintains the city’s status as a location for adventurous art-lovers year-round, particularly given the strength of several shows currently on view across the city.  Mostly located around the Taksim area of the city, art spaces in Istanbul have been popping up at a remarkable pace, marking the city as a destination for the global art cognoscenti, while introducing young Turkish artists to the wider market. (more…)

Laure Prouvost, For Forgetting (Installation View), via Art Observed

Laure Prouvost has a lot to say.  Creating multifaceted, occasionally dizzying multimedia installations using wood, paint, video and various props, the 2013 Turner Prize Winner’s work is hyper-loaded in its signifiers and subjects, moving rapidly from the divine to the profane and back, all expressed with a masterful storytelling bent.  It’s just this line, in fact, that the artist makes express use of in her first U.S. installation, occupying the lobby of the New Museum, telling a lightning-fast narrative of identity theft and financial scamming in the post-digital economy.

Laure Prouvost, For Forgetting, 2014 (still). Installation and video. Copyright the artist. Courtesy the artist and MOTINTERNATIONAL, London and Brussels (more…)