Outside the Park Ave Armory for the ADAA Art Show

With another hectic Armory Week comes another edition of the Art Dealers Association of America’s Art Show, open at the Park Avenue Armory.  Now in its 25th edition, The Art Show is the nation’s longest continually running art fair, offering viewers a smaller, more scaled back experience in contrast with The Armory Show held out on New York’s Hell’s Kitchen Piers.  The show’s more focused collection of 72 leading dealers and galleries allow viewers a slightly less overwhelming experience moving from booth to booth, and also provide slightly more space for the work to breath.

Damien Hirst at Van de Weghe (more…)

The View from Outside The 2013 Armory Show

The doors opened this morning on the 2013 edition of the Armory Art show, welcoming press and VIP’s into the massive exhibition halls of Piers 92 and 94 on the waterfront of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.  It was a special year for New York’s biggest annual art event, marking the 100 year anniversary of its namesake, the 1913 exhibition that welcomed the European avant-garde to American shores, and gave many their first glimpses of Marcel Duchamp, Matisse and Edvard Munch, among many others.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg Makes the Opening Remarks at The 2013 Armory Show (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…)

Bruce Nauman, Carousel (1988), via Hauser and Wirth

Turning a fresh perspective on the works of American artist Bruce Nauman, Hauser and Wirth is currently presenting a curated retrospective of the artist’s work, focusing on his large scale installations and neon works.  Organized by Hauser and Wirth curator Philip Larratt-Smith, the exhibition presents Nauman’s work through a Freudian lens, using psychoanalytic evaluation and subconscious motivators as organizing principles in the presentation of Nauman’s work. (more…)

Following up on the success of last year’s special series of sound art installations at the Frieze New York Art Fair, the organization has announced the program for 2013’s Sounds Program.  Premiering in the VIP cars and available for listening at stations throughout the fair, the roster of artists includes Trisha Baga, Charles Atlas and New Humans, and Haroon Mirza.  Says curator Cecelia Alemani: “Last year Frieze Sounds captured visitors’ imaginations beyond my expectations. This year I wanted to commission artists who could use both the medium of sound and the journey to Randall’s Island as inspiration to metaphorically transport visitors up the East River.” (more…)

High profile technology companies, investors and entrepreneurs are quickly becoming major players in the art world, financing tech-centered arts installations and entering the currently lucrative art market.  Interested less in globally recognized artists and more in digitally forward-thinking projects, these new buyers are changing the landscape and market for contemporary art.  An engineer will look at a photograph or video art in a way a banker couldn’t— we think in ones and zeros, we think in terms of screens,” says collector and tech-entrepreneur Trevor Traina.

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The installation of two new outdoor art projects are underway in New York, and set to open early next week.  Titled “No Limits” and “Topsy Turvy,” the works share an interest in reevaluating and reinterpreting the New York skyline; “No Limits” (by Alexandre Arrechea) through its bizarre re-imaginings of iconic buildings, and “Topsy Turvy” (by Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder) through its camera obscura depiction of its surroundings in Madison Square Park.   (more…)

The Brooklyn Museum announced today that it will hold an ambitious retrospective for the secretive art collective Bruce High Quality Foundation this summer.  The show, titled Ode To Joy: 2001-2013, will include a broad number of works (“under 17,000” according to a BHQF representative) from the collective’s decade of creative activity, and will document their ongoing practice of satire, political commentary, and exploration of contemporary America. (more…)

Angus Fairhurst, Un-titled (Installation View) via Sadie Coles HQ

Sadie Coles HQ‘s current exhibition by the late Angus Fairhurst (1966-2008), Un-titled, explores notions of “doing and undoing, absence and presence, thinking and feeling.”  Culling from Fairhurst’s broad body of sculpture, painting, collage and photography, the show is a testament to the artist’s brief but impressive output.

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Aki Sasamoto, Talking in Circles Talking (Installation View), via Soloway Gallery

“My grandfather died when I was fourteen and became an abacus. In the way ice turns into water, he became this object he left behind.”  So begins the performance of Japanese artist Aki Sasamoto’s Talking in Circles Talking, an immersive performance and installation at Soloway Gallery in South Williamsburg.  Exploring the notions of value and vibrancy at play in the space between human relationships and physical objects, Sasamoto effectively fuses personal discourses with her surrounding environment.

Aki Sasamoto, Talking in Circles Talking (Installation View), via Soloway Gallery (more…)

Sarah Lucas, Sitation Classic Pervery (Installation View), via Sadie Coles

In February 2012, Sarah Lucas opened her first Situation exhibition in a project space above Sadie Coles headquarters in Burlington Place. This was the beginning of a project that Lucas has continued as curator and artist ever since.  Her most recent installation, Situation Classic Pervery, was a continuation of this project.

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In his largest U.S. exhibition to date, Los Angeles-based artist Paul McCarthy will present a re-imagining of Snow White at the Park Avenue Armory this summer as part of the institution’s 2013 season.  The season also includes a staging of Marina Abramovic’s opera, and a performance of Stockhausen’s “Licht,” with a moonscape designed by Rirkrit Tiravanija.  According to Rebecca Robertson, the armory’s president and executive producer, the varied calendar of works is intended to “blur the line between high art and popular culture” and “ask tough questions about the world in which we live.” (more…)

Song Dong, Facing the Wall (1999), via PACE Gallery

On view at both of Pace Gallery’s New York exhibition spaces is an exhibition of work by Chinese artist Song Dong, compiling the artist’s recent work from dOCUMENTA 13 and the Kiev Biennial, as well as older work.

Song Dong, Doing Nothing Mountains (2011-2012), via PACE Gallery (more…)

Artist Mark Wallinger has just completed work on his installation in the London Underground, cited as the largest ever art commission, for the 150-year anniversary of the British transportation system.  Titled Labyrinth, The work involves 270 unique mazes, each installed in a station in the London Underground system.  “It’s about the everyday, but on such a vast scale of moving people about.  That almost in itself is a colossal, almost mythical sort of function.” (more…)

Michelangelo’s unfinished sculpture, La Pietà Rondanini, is being temporarily installed in a Milanese prison while its original home undergoes some much-needed renovations.  The work’s temporary home at Carcere di San Vittore has raised both criticism and praise from art historians, and is being applauded by foreign prison officials.  “It is welcome to see an example of high culture being moved into a prison. There is a long tradition of art projects aiding the journey of long-term prisoners as they serve their sentence.”  Says Andrew Nelson, of the Howard League for Penal Reform. (more…)

Fred Sandback, Untitled, (1977-2008), via David Zwirner

Currently on display at David Zwirner’s London Gallery is a matrix of acrylic yarn evoking an eerie experience that heightens the spectator’s spatial awareness. Across the gallery, colored and blackened fibre is stretched into 3D geometrical forms that carry an uncanny resemblance to a two-dimensional line drawing in mid air. The viewer is literally immersed into the surreal world of Fred Sandback as he challenges our perceptions of dimension and reality.

Fred Sandback, Untitled (four part vertical construction) (1988), via David Zwirner

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The Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas has installed Tulips, a large-scale stainless steel sculpture by Jeff Koons, in its ground floor rotunda.  Acquired at auction in November for $33,682,500, the work is one of the largest and most complex of Koons’s Celebration series, and will sit near the hotel’s showroom lobby.  “Many people believe that Jeff Koons is one of the most important living artists on canvas and in sculpture in the world today,” said CEO Steve Wynn. “I’m happy to be one of those people and particularly delighted to share with our guests his magnificent creation of the Tulips sculpture.” (more…)

Air de Pied-à-terre (Installation View), via Lisa Cooley

Walking into  Air de Pied-à-terre, the newest show on display at artist Lisa Cooley’s gallery, one is reminded of an otherworldly hotel lobby. With the help of fellow artist and curator Alan Reid, Cooley has created an “Air de-Pied-à-Terre” (an alternative living space, located away from one’s home). The gallery has numerous articles that evoke a nostalgic atmosphere within the show – mobiles that dance around the room, paintings that mimic children’s creations, and homely looking text juxtaposed against more classical looking portraiture. The entirety of the show is punctuated by stereotypically domestic constituents such as chairs and potted plants that engulf the viewer and invite them to make themselves at home. (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, Exhibition View, via Moderna Museet Stockholm

20 years of photographic works by Wolfgang Tillmans, the first photographer ever to win the Turner Prize, are currently on view at Moderna Museet, comprising his first major show in Sweden.

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Scandinavian artists Elmgreen and Dragset have announced their partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum for an installation project that will open this fall.  Titled “Tomorrow,” the piece will imagine the residence of a fictional architect, exploring the disconnect between the character’s architectural vision and actual living arrangements.  “We really wonder what goes on inside architects’ heads,” said Elmgreen. “They have all sorts of ideas about creating places for people to live, and yet they are often completely detached from these people’s everyday lives. What does it mean for posh people to be designing social housing?” (more…)

Alex Hubbard, Bent Paintings (Installation View), Courtesy of Galerie Eva Presenhuber

Bent (Why Horses Paint), is a selection  of new works by multimedia artist Alex Hubbard, and his first solo show with Galerie Eva Presenhuber in the gallery’s Löwenbräu complex exhibition space. Hubbard’s paintings move beyond the medium’s traditional two dimensional form, bending into shapes and structures which often seek complete autonomy from the wall.

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In connection with his two-gallery opening last night in Chelsea, French artist Daniel Buren has returned to the streets of New York, papering various buildings and walls with his trademark vertical stripes.  “Time makes all the difference,” Buren explains. “New York streets have changed in the past 40 years. We are not at all in the same city.”  Twitter users can follow the location of these installations by following the #burenstripes hashtag. The artist’s show opened last night at both Petzel Gallery and Bortolami Gallery. (more…)

Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via White Cube Gallery

Since their graduation from the Royal College of Art in 1990, brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman have continually pushed the envelope with their iconoclastic, ambitious sculptures.  Frequently incorporating what they call “bankrupt” imagery, so frequently used by contemporary that it has lost much of its original meaning, the artists create large-scale sculptural works that have frequently drawn fierce reactions from critics and gallery visitors.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, The End of Fun (2010), via State Hermitage Museum (more…)

Ai Weiwei, Rebars-Lucerne (Installation View) via Galerie Urs Meile

Blurring the line between social, political and artistic space, the work of dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei uses his practice to give voice to marginalized facets of the Chinese cultural and political landscape.  His is an art of awareness, presenting the political-social climate of China in his own terms, merging the presentation of his art with that of his own experience. (more…)