Cy Twombly, Paesaggio (1986), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Undeniably one the greatest artists of 20th century, Cy Twombly‘s work is currently on display at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery in Venice, offering an in-depth look at the American artist, and his long residence in Italy.  Combining work from Twombly’s last series produced in 2011, an early painting on wood from 1951, and sculptural work from late in his career, this show delivers on its promise of a look at the artist’s career, while avoiding the demands of an exhaustive survey of his practice.  (more…)

Ibrahim Mahama, Out of Bounds (2015), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The first open hours have come and gone in the City of Bridges today, and the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale, All the World’s Futures is now open.  Welcoming 89 different countries to exhibit in the city, with 29 in the Arsenale, 31 in the Central Pavilion, and an additional 29 spread across in the City itself, the exhibition is a monumental affair, with a number of auxiliary events, openings and parties.

(more…)

The WSJ has an interview with Jeff Koons at the artist’s studio this week, which sees Koons revealing that his balloon animal sculptures were in part a way to communicate with his son, who left for Italy with the artist’s former wife, Ilona Staller, after their divorce.  “It was a way to be communicating with my son,” Koons says.  “I was thinking of him.” (more…)

The New Yorker has a profile on sculptor Charles Ray this week, the Californian sculptor known for his occasionally disturbing and lifelike works, including Huck and Jim a statue based on the inseparable pair of Mark Twin’s classic novel, which was initially intended for the plaza outside the new Whitney before it was declined over fears of controversy.  “I don’t want whatever becomes of it to be less than the original idea, and the original idea was for it to be there,” Ray tells the magazine. “I’m not naïve to the controversies this would generate—I told them that controversies would be a forest we had to navigate through.” (more…)

The Venice Biennale, via Art Observed

As May begins, the city of Venice is preparing for the the 56th edition of the Biennale, set to open doors to press this week.  With the sheer scale of events, openings and exhibitions set to open this coming Wednesday through Saturday, the art world will turn its attention to the City of Bridges in earnest. (more…)

Antony Gormley has unveiled a new sculptural installation in Florence, featuring more than 100 of the artist’s sculptures arranged in various patterns and lines around the historic Forte di Belvedere.  “They reflect the shadow side of any idea of human progress, confronting the viewer with an image redolent of the conflict of the past century,” Gormley says. (more…)

Tomás Saraceno, Avior 9 (2013)

Currently on view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is Hybrid solidarity… semi-social quintet… on cosmic webs…, Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno’s new body of work in his fifth collaboration with the gallery. Before studying fine arts in Buenos Aires and Frankfurt, the Berlin-based artist completed a degree in architecture, a field that has profoundly influenced his artistic technique, in which various practices related to biology, geometry and space studies gently merge with his sociological and cultural observations, all the while bearing an alternatively-focused aesthetic. (more…)

Bloomberg takes a look at the difficulties behind financing large-scale art projects, including the issues often facing galleries when it comes to selling the completed pieces, focusing the study on artist Alice Aycock’s public installation on Park Ave.  “It’s a long-term financial investment,” says Aycock’s gallerist, Thomas Schulte. “One work by Aycock cost $350,000 alone in production costs, and took over a year to make, and in that particular case we needed another year to sell it.” (more…)

Christo has announced a new project aiming to create long immense, yellow fabric walkways spanning Lake Iseo in Lombardy, Italy.  The work will be the artist’s largest since his 2005 piece in New York’s Central Park, and the first since the death of his wife Jeanne-Claude. (more…)

Artist Thomas Houseago is the latest artist to install a major large-scale commission at Rockefeller Center this week, as his immense Masks installation finishes completion this week for a Tuesday unveiling.  “It’s so risky, and it’s so terrifying,” Houseago said. “Hopefully kids will enjoy walking in it. And maybe one of those kids will think about being an artist, and that would be fabulous. That’s always the dream, that you give people that space to wonder.” (more…)

David Wojnarowicz, Cal (Factory Face), 1984

The group show is an undeniable part of the New York art world’s summer repertoire, dabbling in different styles and scenes while blending together the works of artists ranging from the young to the historical, emerging to the iconic. Among the early entries into the spring group show calendar is Debris currently on view at James Fuentes Gallery in the Lower East Side. This show is packed with familiar, utilitarian, and recognizable objects, many of which can be easily found in the vibrantly fluid New York urban landscape. (more…)

Marlene Dumas, The Image as Burden (1993) © Marlene Dumas

Currently on view at Tate Modern is Image as Burden, a retrospective looking at the career of the prolific South African painter Marlene Dumas. Adopting its title from an oil on canvas painting in which a male figure is depicted carrying a female figure, the retrospective, considered the most expansive survey of Dumas’ work in Europe so far, sheds a light on the exceptionally subliminal oeuvre of Dumas, who has, for the most part of her career, maintained a humble profile despite the scholarly and commercial recognition her work has achieved globally. (more…)

This year’s edition of Art Basel in Switzerland will feature a specially commissioned collaborative sculpture and performative work by Rirkrit Tiravanija, architects Nikolaus Hirsch and Michel Müller, and chef Antto Melasniemi, titled DO WE DREAM UNDER THE SAME SKY.   “Creating a place of hospitality, visitors can engage through the activities on offer, such as the drinking of herbal tea plucked fresh from the on-site garden, the preparation and eating of food,” the organization said in a statement. “The food will be rooted in Thai tradition and will be available with no fixed schedule, menu or price list: compensation is self-determined, by self-serving, serving others, donations or even participating in the cooking or washing up.” (more…)

Glenn Ligon, Come Out #5 (2014)

Regen Projects is presenting its fourth exhibition with Glenn Ligon, the prominent New York-based artist who has established himself as one of the strongest voices in American contemporary art.  Well, it’s bye-bye/If you call that gone, featuring three bodies of work, adopts its title from the lyrics of the blues song “What’s the Matter Now”, projecting Ligon’s interest in text as a mode of expression and an agent of collective identity. (more…)

Alex Da Corte, Die Hexe (Installation View), via Art Observed

For the past month and a half, the 77th Street location of Luxembourg and Dayan’s townhouse location has served as a bizarre cross between retro kitsch and haunted house, part of artist Alex Da Corte’s solo exhibition at the space. (more…)

Rudolf Stingel, (Installation View), all images courtesy Gagosian Hong Kong

On view at Gagosian Hong Kong is an exhibition of recent paintings by Rudolf Stingel, representing the Italian artist’s first major exhibition of work in Asia. Exploring the nature of memory and the relationship between artwork and artist, Stingel continues expanding the vocabulary of painting with this series of work.

(more…)

The Dia Art Foundation has acquired composer LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela’s famous Dream House installation for its permanent collection, and will recreate the work at its 545 West 22nd Street Chelsea location this summer and fall from June 17 through Oct. 24.    They’ve made this incredible contribution to music that I think is still very underappreciated nationally and even internationally,” says Dia head Jessica Morgan.  “He should be understood as a John Cage of our era.” (more…)

London’s Hayward Gallery has commissioned a major commission from artist Carsten Höller for the artist’s upcoming retrospective, Decision, inviting the artist to design a pair of slides for installation on the outside of its facade.  “Decision will ask visitors to make choices, but also, more importantly, to embrace a kind of double vision that takes in competing points of view, and embodies what Höller calls a state of ‘active uncertainty’ – a frame of mind conducive to entertaining new possibilities.” says Ralph Rugoff, the gallery director. (more…)

Cory Arcangel is interviewed by Dazed this week, as the artist prepares to open his first solo gallery exhibition in Italy.   “Back in the early aughts, Italy was one of those places where it was always very advanced in terms of their understanding of art on the Internet,” Arcangel says.  “I don’t know if people know this but there were a couple of places in the world where people were really excited about the idea that you could make art on the Internet. New York, Eastern Europe, and Italy. I think people forgot about that whole era.” (more…)

LACMA has published an editorial on its blog this week, calling for renewed efforts in preserving the Nevada region of desert called Basin and Range, where artist Michael Heizer is working to complete his monumental City project.  “As the possibility for protecting Basin and Range comes close to a reality, LACMA and other museums around the country are hoping to bring attention to the positive cultural impact protecting this land would have,” the article states. (more…)

Paul Chan, Sock N Tease (2013), via Art Observed

For a semi-retired artist, Paul Chan has been busy in past years.  Following his step back from creating video and installation work in 2010, the artist dove headfirst into the world of publishing with Badlands Unlimited, an imprint responsible for a broad variety of works that have included Saddam Hussein’s On Democracy, and even a recent series of erotic works inspired by Olympia Press, the Paris-based smut peddlers that also published some of the Twentieth century’s most significant works of literature (Lolita and Henry Miller’s Rosy Crucifiction Trilogy).

This diversity of practice was what earned him the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize, one of the U.S.’s top honors, and an exhibition at The Guggenheim.  Given his output over the past decade, the artist is presenting a new series of sculptures that combine his recent publishing ventures with his particular approach to ready-made, object-focused sculpture. (more…)

Gabriel Orozco, Cats and Watermelons (1992), all images courtesy MoCA Tokyo

Inner Cycles is an exhibition of new works and historically significant pieces by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco, who has been an influential figure in the international contemporary art community since the early 90’s.  Composed of found objects, photographs, and sculptures, the exhibition is meant to show a “universe in flux” as objects are constantly appropriated and re-appropriated for new uses.

(more…)

Sarah Sze, Still Life with Desk (2013-2015), via Victoria Miro

Through the month of March, the Victoria Miro Gallery will host a solo exhibition by the artist Sarah Sze that spans all of the gallery’s London exhibition spaces. This is Sze’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and the artist’s first time she has shown in Europe since the Venice Biennale in 2013. (more…)

Nancy Graves, Camouflage Series #4 (1971), all images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Currently on view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash is a select body of work by artist Nancy Graves, focused around the late artist’s New York-based Foundation, and which promise an expansive look at the pioneer Conceptualist’s bright career before and after her passing in 1995, including a Whitney retrospective that marked her as the first female artist to have a solo retrospective under museum’s roof. (more…)