Frieze has announced the list of 20 artists who will be included in this year’s outdoor sculpture park, accompanying the fair proceedings in London’s Regent’s Park, among them Yayoi Kusama, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Martin Creed, and Thomas Schütte.  “Unique in the world’s art fairs, this year’s Frieze Sculpture Park is an intriguing and delightful breath of fresh air featuring artists from across three generations,” Curator Clare Lilley said in a statement.  (more…)

The Texas Department of Transportation has reached a decision to classify the Prada Marfa installation by Elmgreen and Dragset as a museum, thus saving it from a possible removal.  “TxDOT appreciates and values the cultural significance of Prada Marfa, and we are happy to have found a win-win solution that keeps it in its current location,” said department deputy executive John Barton. (more…)

Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014), via Louisiana Museum of Modern Art

Long interested in the possibilities and intersections of natural space with the contexts of the gallery environment, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has brought the landscape of the Icelandic wilderness to the interiors of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, in the Northern Danish town of Humlbæk.

Olafur Eliasson, Riverbed (2014), via Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (more…)

Pawel Althamer, The Secret of the Phaistos Disc (Installation View), all images courtesy Deste Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse of Hydra

On view at the Deste Foundation’s exhibition space, the Slaughterhouse of Hydra, is an experimental blend of contemporary sculpture and performance, as designed by Polish artist Pawel Althamer. The interactive project explores the nature of family relationships, and their role in making up the broader structural arrangements and familial relations that often drive global social interactions.

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A new participatory work by Rikrit Tiravanija has been installed at the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul.  The work, titled Demo Station No. 5, is an open stage installed inside the museum, allowing for performances, relaxation and iteration between guests, artists and members of the institution. “I want people to move around like they are in their daily life. Part of my interest is always to break down the distance between what we think of as art or high art and what we do in our daily life,” Tiravanija says. (more…)

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red (1937-42) © 2014 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/p HCR International

Running in tandem with the Turner Contemporary in Margate’s expansive Piet Mondrian retrospective, the Tate Liverpool is currently exhibiting an immersive exhibition focusing on the Dutch artist’s creative process and physical locales. (more…)

James Turrell’s Meeting, permanently installed at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, is currently closed, as the museum seeks out a strategy for its restoration.  Commissioned in the late 1970’s, the work has remained opened to the public for over 40 years, but needs touch-ups to the walls, flooring and benches surrounding the open air in the middle of the space.  “We are going to get it back as close as we can to the original state, but we want it to be easier to maintain and use less power,” Turrell has said. (more…)

Former auction house leader Simon de Pury is returning to the art world this month, with his first gallery show since leaving Phillips de Pury & Company (now Phillips) in 2012.  The exhibition, at Venus Over Manhattan, is titled Fire!, and features primarily ceramic and glass sculpture.  “It’s interesting to note that in the middle of a technological revolution, there is this strong resurgence of ceramics and glass, but also textiles,” de Pury says. (more…)

The city of São Paulo is preparing for its 31st Bienal (Biennial) this month in Ibirapuera Park, and hopes for the event are high.  The event boasts an international curator team, fronted by Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, and former curator for biennials in Gwangju (2002), Istanbul (2005), Riwaq, Palestine (2007 and 2009) and Ljubljana (2010), as well as an $11 million budget, marking a considerable step forward for the event.  “I don’t think we need to once again announce that we’re going to reinvent the idea of the Bienal,” says Esche.  “We need to make a really good Bienal. We need to make an event, an exhibition, an experience that touches people.” (more…)

Lee Ufan, Relatum – The Arch of Versailles (2014), all images Courtesy the artist ; kamel mennour, Paris and Pace, New York © Tadzio

Lee Ufan‘s work takes its strength from its silence.  Utilizing simple materials placed into careful interactions with the space around them, the Korean artist has pioneered his particular brand of minimalism over the past half century.  Tight, angular lines converge with natural materials in carefully measured configurations, often utilizing the passage of shadow and light through the work to create a nuanced dialogue with its surroundings.

Lee Ufan, Relatum – The Shadow of the Stars (2014) (more…)

Jeremy Deller, English Magic (2012),  All images courtesy of Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Jeremy Deller’s English Magic has come to the United States this summer.   The artist’s video and installation work, created specifically for the British Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, addresses British society and politics through a complexly intertwined mythology and cultural iconography.  It’s the latest participant in the Hirschhorn’s Directions series, an on-going program which has been running since 1979, and which has seen the likes of Tacita Dean, Juan Munoz and Pipilotti Rist bringing works to the Hirshhorn, aiming to engage with emerging and established artists showcasing both new and old works. (more…)

German artist Michael Sailstorfer is preparing a “participatory” installation work for the arts festival at Outer Harbour beach in Folkestone, UK, claiming that £10,000 in gold bars have been hidden across the beach.  The work, titled Folkestone Digs, opens today at 4PM, around low tide. (more…)

Aram Saroyan, Lighght (1989), All images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.

Aphasia, a brain dysfunction resulting in the failure of comprehension of language, is the starting point of Lisa Cooley’s summer group show Itself Not So.  Curated by staff member Rachel Valinsky, and titled after a poem by Susan Howe, the selection grabs this condition as a metaphor for the disconnect between mind and speech, examining the possible fractures causing intellectual and emotional failures regarding the self. The exhibition argues that, with the corruption of the harmony among sound, thoughts and speech, a possible chaos and detachment brings an individual’s functionality to a standstill. Both intellectual and emotional, social and biological, this turmoil challenges the autonomy of those inflicted. (more…)

Dan Graham, Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout (2014), All Images Via Kelly Lee for Art Observed

The annual rooftop commission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art always manages to draw a crowd, whether it be Imran Quereshi’s bloody installation last year, or Tomás Saraceno’s vastly popular Cloud City.  For this year’s Rooftop Commission at , the Met has sided with a more heritage artist, Dan Graham, working in conjunction with Swiss landscape architect Günther Vogt to create the work Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout (2014).  Graham, 71, known for his conceptual bent and exploration of multiple mediums, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and performance art, has long focused on how architecture directly impacts its occupants and shapes their experiences of looking, a strikingly perfect fit for the Met’s scenic view and unique location.

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The Living, Hy-Fi (2014), all photos by Kelly Lee for Art Observed

The 15^th annual The Young Architects Program (YAP) has taken rise at MoMA and MoMA PS1, continuing the program’s reputation for innovative ideas that challenge the presentation and purpose of architectural structures for future environments, while embracing and promoting sustainable construction practices. The 2014 YAP winner is Hy-Fi, a unique, 100% organically biodegradable structure created by New York firm The Living.  The structure emerged as the final winner among five finalists in The Young Architects Program competition, starting from 25 candidates. (more…)

The Guardian reports on the legal fallout surrounding the installation of two white flags on the Brooklyn Bridge by a pair of German artists.  Matthias Wermke and Mischa Leinkauf installed the flags a month ago, gaining considerable attention by both the NYPD and the national media before slipping out of the country several days later.  “We knew that the piece in all probability would prevent us from ever returning to the States,” Wermke and Leinkauf said in an email interview with the Guardian. “However, it always was clear that we would claim responsibility. From a legal standpoint it might not seem logical, but for us this is the very purpose of the piece. I must admit that it was a very hard decision to make.” (more…)

Robert Irwin, #3 x 6’D Four Fold (2013-14)

Galerie Thomas Zander in Cologne is currently presenting seven new works by California Light and Space pioneer Robert Irwin, which use direct and generated light as the source medium to deliver a subtle yet striking aura inside the gallery space.  As is common in Irwin’s practice, the artist specially designed the pieces on view to work in tandem with the architecture of the gallery, making the harmony of their glowing light with the space surrounding them all the more vivid and charged.  Each work contains vertical fluorescent tubes in varying colors, effectively deconstructing the borders of art making and its dimensions in terms of suggesting unconventional layers in the frame of an artwork. (more…)

Barbara Kruger (Installation View), all images courtesy Modern Art Oxford

On view at Modern Art Oxford through August 31st is a major solo exhibition of recent work by American conceptual artist Barbara Kruger. Kruger, who is best known for her paste-up works, black-and-white photographs with declarative phrases in bold letters laid on top, has created a site-specific architectural wrap of the museum’s Upper gallery space in a similar style.

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Sarah Sze, Triple Point (Planetarium) (2013), All Images Via Kelly Lee for Art Observed

Just over a year ago, Sarah Sze brought her eye-catching assemblages to Italy as the U.S. representative to the 2013 Venice Biennale.  Puzzle-like contraptions snaked in and around the building façade, even allowing and supporting a huge boulder to balance on top of the pavilion’s roof.  A myriad of fake rocks, water bottles and other miscellaneous objects were scattered across the space, offering only a small taste of the deceptively hazardous mess that awaited visitors inside. It was widely praised  as a stand out work, and brought Sze to a new level in her artistic recognition. (more…)

Dahn Vo, We the People (Detail) (2011-2013), all images courtesy Farschou Foundation Beijing

On view currently at Farschou Foundation in Beijing is a sculpture-based exhibition from the young Danish artist Danh Vo, featuring the key work “We The People (Detail),” which is a 1:1 copy of the Statue of Liberty, which is currently distributed across globe for exhibitions in New York and China.  The exhibition will remain on view through August 24, 2014.

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Lygia Clark (Installation View), via Art Observed

The Abandonment of Art is an ambitious name for an exhibition at MoMA, even if the work happens to be the medium-pushing sculptures and objects of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, who over the course of her career constantly sought new modes of encounter, interpretation and perception in the space of art.  Clark’s long-anticipated MoMA retrospective, taking up half of the museum’s top floor, welcomes this expansion, moving through the artist’s career from her early canvases to her later innovations in sculpture and performance. (more…)

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Aujourd’hui, le monde est mort [Lost Human Genetic Archive], Photo: André Morin via Domus

In “Aujourd’hui, le monde est mort [Lost Human Genetic Archive]” on display at Palais de Tokyo, Hiroshi Sugimoto peers through time and presents a world balanced between life and death. Known for his photographic collections Diorama (1976), in which he photographed animal displays in natural history museums, Theaters (1978), long-exposure photographs of old-style American theaters while movies play on the screens, and Seascapes (1980), long-exposure black-and-white photographs of the meeting of sea and sky, Sugimoto explores the passage of time, making it tangible through the era of his subjects and the long exposure times used. (more…)

Artist Ryoji Ikeda has unveiled a new public installation in London, titled Spectra, and consisting of a massive column of light shooting up into the night sky next to the Parliament building.  The installation is part of a series of works commemorating the beginning of World War I in Britain.  “The light spectra throws up into the night sky is a unifying point,” says mayor Boris Johnson. “It echoes how the first world war affected all Londoners, but also how they and the rest of the country came together, standing united during those dark days.”

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Yusuke Suga, Mediator (2013), Courtesy of Friedman Benda and the artists

The inarguable force of nature and its fearful destructive impact hit Japan in March 2011 during the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, afflicting millions of lives and causing billions of damage. The number one earthquake in terms of strength in the history of Japan and the fifth in world records, and its resulting tsunami left the coast of Japan reeling from its physical and psychological damage, particularly after the meltdown of three plants at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  Aside from the massive physical devastation it caused, the catastrophe carried charged memories and impacts to those who witnessed the disaster, either first-hand or indirectly. (more…)