Cao Fei, HIP HOP NY (2006) via Art Observed

There’s few places in New York that one could find a small-scale show pushing the envelope the way that Brooklyn Rail’s Phong Bui is currently pushing it at Red Bull Studios.  Combining historically rich pieces with a number of young artists and many frequently outside the spotlight of New York’s blockbuster arts calendar, the exhibition is a dizzying combination of forms, spaces and images, from surrealist painting to bizarre installations and architecture and back. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal has published a piece this week detailing the advantages and drawbacks to gallery sales, private sales and auctions for collectors looking to sell their work, and notes an almost 1000% increase in private sales across the board in the last decade. (more…)

A new project in Puerto Rico, executed by Allora and Calzadilla in conjunction with the Dia Foundation, is stirring debate for its use of a Dan Flavin sculpture in a manner some feel is inappropriate for the artist’s work.  Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos) places a 1965 Flavin light sculpture in a remote limestone cave on the Southwest coast of the island, which has already drawn some criticism.  “My role at Dia is to bring validity to both the present and the past,” says curator Yasmil Raymond. “There are people who will undoubtedly see this as a provocation from the perspective of post-colonialism. But I think others will see it as a homage to Flavin and to his evocation of this island.” (more…)

Mario Merz, Pyramid (1997-2000), via Pace Gallery

With auctions this week in London centered around the post-war Italian landscape, Pace Gallery has culled together an exhibition of works of artist Mario Merz, featuring a series of sculptural and painted works that illustrate the artist’s broad conceptual scope and his varying interests in the nature of architecture, materiality and space.

Mario Merz (Installation), via Art Observed (more…)

Duane Hanson, Baton Twirler (1971), all images courtesy Sotheby’s

On view at S|2, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Gallery in London, is a selection of sculptures from American artist Duane Hanson’s most important series of works, the artist’s fiercely evocative and startlingly realistic images of “Middle Americans.” The show marks Hanson’s first exhibition in London in fifteen years, and will remain on view through November 7th.

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Pierre Huyghe, IN. BORDER. DEEP. (2014), video still © Pierre Huyghe Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, London and Anna Lena Films

Boldly distorting otherwise rigid phenomena, Pierre Huyghe has ambitiously orchestrated and staged alternative recreations of the daily and the mundane. For his current show at Hauser & Wirth’s London location, the Paris-born artist is covering the gallery space with his unfamiliar narratives, which emerge from more familiar territory. IN. BORDER. DEEP. invites the viewers into a hub of various experiments and observations, merging various mediums with science and art history itself.

Pierre Huyghe, IN. BORDER. DEEP. (Installation View) Hauser & Wirth London, 2014, © Pierre Huyghe Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, London Photo: Hugo Glendinning (more…)

Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Gas, Solid, Liquid (Soap) (2014), all images courtesy Lisson Gallery

On view at Lisson Gallery in London is a new series of works by Swedish video and installation artist Nathalie Djurberg accompanied by soundtracks made by Swedish producer and performer Hans Berg. The works will remain on view through November 1st. (more…)

Artist Olafur Eliasson has unveiled a new project in Copenhagen, Denmark, an immense installation featuring 112 tons of ice.  Ice Watch, created in conjunction with geologist Minik Rosing, to commemorate the Fifth Assessment Report on the Climate, a drastic report on the rapidly changing state of the global atmosphere. “I hope that people will touch the inland ice on City Hall Square and be touched by it,” said Eliasson. (more…)

Hans Haacke, the conceptually elusive artist who has for years defied many of the commercial practices of the contemporary art world, is opening a new show at Paula Cooper this month, allowing viewers a look at the artist’s challenging work and personal politics, including a maquette design for the artist’s upcoming Fourth Plinth Commission next year in London. “I’ve always been interested in systems and how they work, and at a certain point you understand that political and social systems are part of that, too, that they can’t be escaped,” he says.  (more…)

W Magazine has published a profile on artist Marina Abramovic, as the artist prepares to open her newest exhibition Generator at Sean Kelly in New York, focused on depriving visitors of any sensory input.  “Ten years ago, this kind of project is not possible,” Abramović says. “Now it is, because human beings need so much to be with themselves, especially in New York, where everything is so much about audio and visual consumption.” (more…)

Detail from one of Rob Pruitt’s Furniture Pieces, via Art Observed

Rob Pruitt is back at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise this month, bringing a diverse and somewhat scrambled show of new works to the New York gallery, including a set of graffitied furniture pieces, a set of enormous minimalist prints, and as well as sculptural and painted works that deliver Pruitt’s iconic, tongue-in-cheek renegade style through a broad scope of material form. (more…)

Marcel Dzama, Une Danse des Bouffons (still) (2013), via Art Observed

Marcel Dzama’s latest film, Une Danse des Bouffons (A Jester’s Dance) (2013), is on view now at David Zwirner’s 525 and 533 West 19th Street spaces, marking the premier showing of the film in the United States.  The exhibition, featuring a number of collaborations and multi-media projects, includes a 7-inch vinyl release of the film’s soundtrack, with haunting, largely instrumental music by members of the band Arcade Fire.

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Outside the Frieze Fair, via Art Observed

As Wednesday winds down, the 2014 edition of Frieze London is well underway, starting another fair off with strong sales and impressive attendance.  As the VIP preview opened, a number of prominent celebrities could be seen browsing the aisles.  Famed German footballer Michael Ballack was seen wandering the aisles, as was writer Salman Rushdie, joining MOCA’s new director Philip Vergne and his DIA successor Jessica Morgan.

Erwin Wurm, via Andrea Nguyen for Art (more…)

Sean Kelly Gallery has announced a new participatory work by Marina Abramovic, titled Generator, which is set to open in New York later this month.  “She will transform the main gallery into a space of sensory deprivation, an opportunity for forced introspection,” the press release says.  “Dealing with both the meditative and the communal, Generator will be a unique environment for visitors to push the boundaries of their self-awareness and inner-consciousness, as they are confronted with nothing but themselves and the palpable energy in the room.” (more…)

The winners of the sixth annual ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan has been announced, with artist Anila Quayyum Agha taking home the $200,000 first prize for her piece Intersections.  The artist was also one of the selections for the Juried Prize, a a first for the event. (more…)

Mike Bouchet, Cloud Nymph (reading) (2014), via Peres Projects

The images of Mike Bouchet have long identified with notions of the cinematic.  Whether it’s the artist’s simple paintings executed with his own home-brewed adaptation of Diet Coke, or his ongoing execution of celebrity-inspired jacuzzis, concepts of luxury, commodity and pop culture ideologies find themselves at a bizarre, yet often commanding, intersection.   (more…)

Nick Cave, Sea Sick (2014), via Henry Murphy for Art Observed

Nick Cave and Jack Shainman Gallery have opened a pair of shows this fall, spanning the gallery’s two Chelsea locations on 20th and 24th street locations. Separately titled as Rescue and Made for Whites by Whites, the exhibitions articulate the artist’s familiar thematic concerns, addressing racial impositions and how they are reflected in everyday consumer culture.  Cave delivers the prominent aspects of his practice, such as repurposing of found objects, assemblage of varying textures, and the performance of cultural rituals, with a somewhat stark hand, allowing a fierce critique to emerge from the works themselves. (more…)

Richard Tuttle is interviewed in the Financial Times this week, in advance of the artist’s new installation commission at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.  “There’s a whole body of my works which starts with the material and then moves to the other sides where the material doesn’t matter,” he writes. (more…)

Walead Beshty, Performances Under Working Conditions (Installation View) via Emily Heinz for Art Observed

Following Petzel Gallery’s open invitation for Walead Beshty to curate its summer group exhibition, the Chelsea space is presenting his first solo show with the gallery, titled Performance Under Working Conditions. Examining modes of work and the kinetic, human element of labor, the exhibition uses minimal, repeated actions to underline the interaction of human and non-human agents.

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Allan McCollum, Collection of Thirty-Six Perfect Couples (2005-2014), via Art Observed

Now on view at Petzel Gallery is a solo exhibition of works by Los Angeles-born, New York-based artist Allan McCollum.  Entitled The Shapes Project, the purpose of the series on view was to design a system that would allow for the production of a single, unique shape for every person in the world, using rapid manufacturing technologies to produce infinite variations of shape and form. This exhibition will be McCollum’s sixth solo exhibition at Petzel.

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Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island (1976) (P.054), all images courtesy Victoria Miro

Photographer Francesca Woodman is the subject of an exhibition exploring her broad range of innovative techniques at Victoria Miro this month, focusing on a theme of the zigzag as both a geometric and compositional form.

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Roxy Paine, Checkpoint (2014), via Henry Murphy for Art Observed

Roxy Paine makes work that can perhaps only be described as a challenge: large-scale carved wood sculptures capturing the most banal and unimposing scenes of contemporary American life.  Executed with a painstaking hand, the intense verisimilitude of his scenes and objects takes on a surrealist edge, oscillating between stark realism and its material grounding. (more…)

Space Group, an iconic building in downtown Seoul, has been converted into an art museum.  The Ariano Museum, opened by collectoer Kim Chang-il opened this month with a show of works from Mr. Kim’s collection, over 200 pieces by 43 international artists, including notable pieces by Subodh Gupta and Marc Quinn.   (more…)

The New York Times reports on the opening of the third and final section of the High Line Park renovation, stretching a loop from 30th to 34th Street and looking out on to the Hudson River.  The $35 million renovation was recently the site of an expansive installation by artist Carol Bove, with more projects planned for the future. (more…)