Paris – Marcel Duchamp: “Painting, Even” at The Centre Pompidou Through January 5th, 2015

Monday, January 5th, 2015

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Marcel Duchamp, 3-Mending Standard (1913-1914 / 1964), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

Few artists have left such a mark on the history and direction of 2oth and 21st Century art in the same manner as Marcel Duchamp, the French artist who was at the forefront of revolutions both on and off the canvas in the first half of the century.  Taking this impact as a starting point, the Centre Pompidou is currently presenting Marcel Duchamp: La Peinture, Même, an exhibition exploring the artist’s early roots in painting and drawing, and how these stylistic leanings contributed to his later work in the development of the readymade, installation based work, and other conceptual pursuits. (more…)

Christo Project Closer to Realization After Federal Court Win

Monday, January 5th, 2015

Christo, via the Washington PostA Federal court ruled in favor of Christo’s currently delayed Arkansas project this week, defeating a group of activists claiming that the work was an environmental threat.  “We have one lawsuit in state court still outstanding, but today we took a very significant and important step forward in realizing Over the River,” Christo said. (more…)

W Magazine Tours Ugo Rondinone’s Harlem Home and Studio

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

W Magazine takes an inside look at the design and architecture of artist Ugo Rondinone’s New York studio and loft, built in an abandoned church in Harlem Rondinone gut renovated for $4 million.  “Somehow I thought it was a bargain,” the artist says.  “I love the church. I can stay here for weeks without going out.”  (more…)

Artist Tania Bruguera Arrested Over Protest Performance in Cuba

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Artist Tania Bruguera has been detained in Cuba, following the performance of an art piece designed to test the U.S.’s resolve to renew diplomatic ties with a country known for censoring free speech.  Bruguera was arrested as she walked towards Havana’s Revolution Square, and is currently being held by the government. (more…)

New York – Douglas Gordon: “tears become…streams become….” at the Park Avenue Armory Through January 4th, 2015

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014


Douglas Gordon, tears become…streams become… (2014), via Art Observed

Douglas Gordon’s work often takes its strength from its simplicity.  Using minimal alterations and contextual wrinkles in the selections of his exhibition spaces, works and collaborations, Gordon seems to draw a certain pleasure from bringing out deeper recognitions of the space and structure of art as presentation, as experiential and institutional meditation. (more…)

Freeman and Lowe Plan Installation for Ace Hotel in NYC

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

The Ace Hotel, in collaboration with the opening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s newest film Inherent Vice, is presenting a trio of exhibitions in Los Angeles, London and New York, including an immersive installation by Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe in NYC.  The exhibitions run from January 5th – 11th. (more…)

Anish Kapoor to Show at Palace of Versailles in 2015

Thursday, December 25th, 2014

Anish Kapoor will be the next artist given a solo show at the Palace of Versailles, the organization announced this week.  Kapoor’s show will run from June to October of 2015, and was chosen “because he has something particular to say in this setting,” says Chief Administrator Catherine Pégard. (more…)

New York – R. H. Quaytman: “O Tópico, Chapter 27” at Gladstone Gallery Through December 20th, 2014

Saturday, December 20th, 2014


R. H. Quaytman, O Tópico, Chapter 27 (Installation View)

Currently on view at Gladstone Gallery’s 21st street location is O Tópico, Chapter 27, R. H. Quaytman’s latest chapter in her ambitious, ongoing project of cohesive, site-specific installations.  Quaytman started her serial painting project in 2001 with eighty paintings she made to be exhibited at the Queens Museum, and has now reached the 27th installment of the project, this one inspired by Inhotim, a botanical garden and art park located in the Brazilian region of Minas Gerais. (more…)

Leo Villareal’s ‘Bay Lights’ set for Permanent Installation in San Francsico

Friday, December 19th, 2014

Bay Lights, the LED installation by Leo Villareal on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge is set to become a permanent installation, after nonprofit Illuminate the Arts announced that it had raised the $4 million needed to pay for new equipment and maintenance.  The work will be removed next year to treat bridge cables, but will likely be reinstalled by the time Super Bowl 50 takes place in the city in 2016. (more…)

New York – Kader Attia: “Show Your Injuries” at Lehmann Maupin Through December 14th, 2014

Sunday, December 14th, 2014


Kader Attia, Asesinos! Asesinos! (2014), All images are the courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong. Photography by Elisabeth Bernstein

Currently on view at both Lehmann Maupin spaces in New York, on the  Lower East Side and in Chelsea, Kader Attia’s Show Your Injuries presents a striking first show for the artist with the gallery.  Born in the suburbs of Paris, and raised both in France and Algeria, Attia appoints his multicultural background as his source of inspiration, studying the consequences of his dual cultural identity, both as an advantage and as a challenge. (more…)

MoMA to Open Yoko Ono Exhibition Next Year

Saturday, December 13th, 2014

MoMA has announced plans for an exhibition focusing on the work of Japanese conceptualist Yoko Ono.  Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971 will include 125 of Ms. Ono’s early works, including sculpture, videos and other pieces.  It will open in May. (more…)

Douglas Gordon Interviewed in Art Newspaper

Thursday, December 11th, 2014

Douglas Gordon gives an enigmatic interview in the Art Newspaper this week, as the artist opens his newest commissioned piece at the Park Ave Armory, an immense, flooded space around which pianist Hélène Grimaud performs.  “The whole thing started by accident when I was making a lithographic edition based on the eclipse of the sun in the south of France back in 1999,” says Gordon, “and one of the people involved asked me why I was interested in lunacy. I said, “Well, I like wolves…”. And so we got into this hilarious conversation and she said that I should get Hélène Grimaud involved in my practice because, well, she’s clearly not a lunatic, but she has this condition—synaesthesia—which means that she sees colors when she plays music. And she also loves wolves.” (more…)

Maurizio Cattelan Interviewed in Financial Times

Monday, November 24th, 2014

The Financial Times speaks with Maurizio Cattelan this week, as the artist prepares to open an exhibition he curated in Turin.  “From my point of view, humor and irony include tragedy, they’re two sides of the same coin. Laughter is a Trojan horse to enter into direct contact with the unconscious, strike the imagination and trigger visceral reactions,” Cattelan says.  “If the humor of certain works was enough to pull anger, fear and amazement out of everyone, the psychoanalysts would be in disgrace . . . shame is not enough!” (more…)

New York – Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe: “Floating Chain (High-Res Toni)” at Marlborough Chelsea Through November 29th, 2014

Sunday, November 23rd, 2014


Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe, Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) (Installation View)

In their newest exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea, artist duo Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe are inviting the viewers into another realm of phantasmagoria, in which rooms full of ambiguous tales are revealed in their most bizarre and contradictory forms. Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) is the duo’s third collaboration with Marlborough after 2012’s Stray Light Gray, which absorbed gallery visitors into adjacent chambers of gory experiments and untold incidents connected through curiously large holes on the walls. (more…)

Armory Announces 2015 Performance Schedule

Friday, November 21st, 2014

The Park Avenue Armory has announced the list of events and exhibitions for its 2015 season, which will include a new work from Laurie Anderson’s “Language of the Future” series, a multimedia installation by Philippe Parreno, and a collaboration Marina Abramovic and the pianist Igor Levit. (more…)

Marina Abramovic Preparing New Installation for Sydney in 2015

Friday, November 21st, 2014

The Guardian reports that Marina Abramovic is currently working on a major installation in Sydney for July of 2015.  The artist was courted by arts philanthropist John Kaldor, who previously brought Abramovic’s work to the country in his 2013 exhibition 13 Rooms. (more…)

Paul Chan Wins 2014 Hugo Boss Prize

Friday, November 21st, 2014

Artist Paul Chan has been awarded the 2014 Hugo Boss Prize, the biennial award given by the Guggenheim Museum which carries a $100,000 prize as well as an exhibition at the museum.  “Paul’s protean ability to work across multiple platforms from his videos to his more elegiac light pieces and community-based performances is what particularly stood out,” Nancy Spector, the Guggenheim’s deputy director and chief curator told the New York Times. (more…)

New York – Thomas Houseago: “Moun Room” at Hauser and Wirth Through January 17th, 2015

Thursday, November 20th, 2014


Thomas Houseago, Moun Room (Installation View), via Ellen Burke for Art Observed

Thomas Houseago is known for his large-scale sculpture work, immense, roughshod works that use cheap materials and a relatively unstable construction process to create immediately impressive, visually stimulating objects that often play on the dissonance between subject and depiction.  Pulling the viewer into the artist’s unique sculptural vision, the works unfold over the course of their creation, physical demands and limitations aiding in the work’s construction. (more…)

Los Angeles – Sam Durant: “Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington D.C.” at Los Angeles County Museum of Art Through November 30th, 2014

Tuesday, November 18th, 2014


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…)

New York: “Puddle, Pothole, Portal” Curated by Ruba Katrib and Camille Henrot at SculptureCenter Through January 5th, 2015

Monday, November 17th, 2014


Mick Peter, all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed

The newly re-opened SculptureCenter in Long Island City has earned a reputation for forward-thinking exhibitions and thematic concerns, opening new dialogues between the constructed, three-dimensional object and its related artistic formats.  It’s perhaps highly fitting then, that the exhibition space’s newest show, and its first since its impressive renovation, would focus specifically on these links of space and form. (more…)

London: Richard Serra “Drawing” at Gagosian Gallery Davies Street Through November 22nd, 2014 and “Backdoor Pipeline, Ramble, Dead Load, London Cross” at Gagosian Britannia Street Through February 28th, 2015

Sunday, November 16th, 2014


Richard Serra, Dead Load (2014), via Art Observed

Richard Serra has had a strong showing in the past months.  The 74-year old artist closed out a pair of wildly praised exhibitions at Gagosian New York late last year, and followed it up with a lifetime achievement award this year from Americans for the Arts.  The New York-based artist is bringing a series of new works to Gagosian’s London locations on Davies Street and Britannia Street, offering a concise look at the artist’s current aesthetic interests. (more…)

New York – El Anatsui: “Trains of Thought” at Jack Shainman Gallery Through November 15th, 2014

Saturday, November 15th, 2014


El Anatsui, Yet Another Place (2014)

Building himself a uniquely personal technique in which he reforms cast-away materials such as bottle caps and copper wire, El Anatsui has been orchestrating works that go against the definitions of any singular medium and dimension.  Standing between a vague figuration and an expressive abstraction of bright colors, the artist’s constructions from discarded materials resist to classification in any one form as sculpture, installation or painting. (more…)

Frick Expansion Challenged Over Potential Destruction of Landmark Garden

Wednesday, November 12th, 2014

The Frick Museum’s proposed expansion plan has met with a new challenge by opposing forces, this time from a group called Unite to Save the Frick which is citing a 1973 agreement by the museum not to alter a garden designed by celebrated landscape architect Russell Page.  This same garden would be demolished in the new expansion, giving the protesting party a stronger case.  “It would have to be taken very, very seriously, because there is no qualitative need for this expansion,” said Roberta Brandes Gratz, a former panel member with the Landmarks Preservation Commission. “This is not really necessary for exhibition purposes. Given that, the permanence issue will be more important.” (more…)

Victoria and Albert Museum Prepare to Unveil Restored Cast of Michelangelo’s ‘David’

Tuesday, November 11th, 2014

The Victoria and Albert Museum is preparing to unveil a cast of Michelangelo’s David, which was given to Queen Victoria in 1857, after a lengthy restoration.  The 16-foot statue will go on view November 29th inside the the newly renovated Weston Cast Court.  (more…)