Bill Powers interviews painter Jonas Wood this week on Art News, discussing the artist’s move to L.A. a decade ago, his inspiration, and his marriage to fellow artist Shio Kusaka. “When we first moved to California, we lived on the second floor of a pretty big house in Echo Park,” he says.  “It was a disaster. In retrospect, I think we both needed to figure out who we were as artists on our own before we could handle it.”     (more…)

The New York Times profiles movie producer and collector Stefan Simchowitz, who has drawn sharp criticism from many market insiders for his approach to patronage and collecting emerging artists.  “I’m looking for the big fish,” Simchowitz tells the New York Times. (more…)

Painter Peter Doig is highlighted in the Wall Street Journal this week, as he opens a broad exhibition of works at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.  “I think you only have so many ideas that you think are good ideas,” Doig says. (more…)

Artist Ryan McNamara is interviewed in the New York Times this past week, following the opening of the artist’s performance ballet ME3M 4 MIAMI at Art Basel Miami Beach.  “I’ve obviously done a lot of things here, but for me it’s just another context,” McNamara says. “It’s super-specific and super-bizarre. I feel most at home at galleries and museums, but I would get bored if I were only performing there. It’s a different kind of excitement.” (more…)

The New Yorker released a lengthy profile on curator Hans Ulrich Obrist today, noting the Swiss co-director of The Serpentine’s countless projects and publications, and his deep passion for conversation with the artists he works with.  “For me, there is no difference between talking to him and talking to other artists,” says Philippe Parreno. “I am engaged at the same level.” (more…)

Artist Paul Chan, the winner of this year’s Hugo Boss Prize, is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the temporary retirement the artist took in 2008.  “At a certain point I realized I had no more ideas I was interested in making something out of, so I realized maybe this is time to stop,” he says.  “I cleaned my house and read and tried to live, but at a certain point I realized I needed something else to do besides just living, and that’s where publishing came in.” (more…)

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…)

Mickalene Thomas is on Nowness this week, talking about her recent film profiling the life of her late moth, Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman.   “It allowed me to look at her not only as a subject—as my muse—but as a person. I really tried to understand her world, her own sexuality and femininity and beauty,” Thomas says. (more…)

Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014), all images courtesy Maureen Paley

On view at Maureen Paley is a solo exhibition of single-screen video work by Turner Prize-winner Gillian Wearing. Entitled We Are Here, the artist’s 6th at the London gallery.  The exhibition is conceptually inspired by American poet Edgar Lee Master’s book Spoon River Anthology (1915), in which the people who lived by the titular waterway rise up from the grave and talk about their lives and memories.  Wearing, who grew up in the town of Sandwell, bases her video on people from the West Midlands speaking as if they have returned from the grave.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

We Are Here premiered in the UK at The New Art Gallery Walsall and in the US at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and the work here centers around the production and conceptual planning of the piece, including a series of photographs taken around Sandwell, and other pieces of research.  While the show is rather sparse, the exhibition is a welcome investigation into Wearing’s personal history, giving the area around her home town a certain agency to represent itself while also addressing the conditions and histories that help to define her own life and work.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

In her series of photographs, Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say, she allows her subjects the ability to express themselves on a series of white placards, with the results running from tender moments of self-honesty to hackneyed expressions about world peace.  Taken as a whole, Wearing’s brand of cultural realism uncovers the the anxiety of her environment and the occasionally fraught contract between the artist and her subjects, occasionally breaking down or leaning into pop culture formats.

Gillian Wearing (Installation View)

Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997 and was awarded an OBE in 2011.  We Are Here was made possible by the Outset Contemporary Art Fund and the Art Fund with support from Maureen Paley, Shaun Regen and Tanya Bonakdar. The exhibition will remain on view at Maureen Paley through November 16, 2014.

Gillian Wearing, We Are Here (2014)

— E. Baker

Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Maureen Paley]

The New York Times covers the impact philanthropist and MoMA Board President Emeritus Agnes Gund has had on the cultural landscape of New York City, and her ongoing commitment to arts patronage, including selling works in her collection to cover her charitable giving.  “I get income, but I don’t have a big swath of money to invest in things,” she says” “I’ve had to sell a lot of art, which I’ve hated to do because I really love the art I have.” (more…)

The New York Times profiles the British-born, Los Angeles-based Thomas Houseago, whose work is notoriously unpredictable and has on occasion fallen apart in the midst of its construction.  “I believe in these broken sculptures,” he says. “I love that. Sculpture is a constant dance with gravity. In my case, anyway.” (more…)

Artist Kara Walker is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, as she prepares a new exhibition in New York.  “I’ve always been a bit restless in the work,” she says. “I have to look this way and that way, just to see what my limitations are, or if they are limitations. Maybe they’re assets.” (more…)

Yoko Ono is profiled in the Wall Street Journal this week, as the artist reflects on her career, and offers advice for young artists following in her footsteps.  “Artists should adhere to what we are, instead of being sidetracked by other desires,” she says.  “We’re supposed to have that independence. But many artists today are, you know, going with this gallery, with that museum, and thinking too much about monetary success, which means they can’t be free. A life of not being challenged and only hearing what you want to hear is being dead.” (more…)

The Hirshhorn’s new director, Melissa Chiu, is profiled in the New York Times this week, highlighting her aims at expanding the Hirshhorn’s international and experimental art offerings, and her efforts at placing the museum in the spotlight as a major patron of experimental works and forms.  “The whole art world ecology has changed,” says Ms. Chiu. “The art world has become truly transnational.” (more…)

Marina Abramovic is the subject of another profile this week, this time in Wall Street Journal, where the performance artist discusses her life’s work, her thoughts on retirement, and her piece Generator.  “It’s quite radical,” she says. “It could totally fail, but the real failure would be if I stop believing in myself, that I can do it.” (more…)

Artist Marina Abramovic is interviewed in the New York Observer this week, offering additional insight into her new exhibition Generator at Sean Kelly.  “If you deprive two senses, you achieve this kind of experience of the world,” she says. “If you don’t see and don’t hear but you can feel and touch, you achieve this consciousness. We have to develop this—I know that every human being has the potential to develop it. If you change the consciousness, you can change the world.” (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…)

Jeff Koons is interviewed this week in The Independent, as the artist concludes his monumental retrospective at the Whitney Museum.  In the interivew, Koons discusses his work with Lady Gaga, and his take on the nature of his work.  “I like to smile, I think that my works have aspects to them which are very, very cheerful, that bring about a smile, but at the same time they have the aspect of tragedy,” he says. “So they are not just free of this other side. They want really to be balanced, to be full and rounded.” (more…)

In an interview with Bloomberg, Christie’s chief executive officer Steven Murphy has commented on the ongoing growth of the contemporary auction market, noting that sales are only increasing, and that Christie’s is increasingly focused on digital auctions.  “We have 14 exhibition spaces around the world where we exhibit the art, and we’ve really grown our accessibility to clients through the online experience,” he says.  “What brings the most consignments is the number of buyers.” (more…)

Gerhard Richter is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, as the artist opens a new show of works at Marian Goodman in London.  “Abstract pictures do indeed show something, they just show things that don’t exist,” he says. “But they still follow the same requirements as figurative works: they need a setup, structure. You need to be able to look at it and say, ‘It’s almost something.’ But it’s actually representing nothing. It pulls feelings out of you, even as it’s showing you a scene that technically isn’t there.” (more…)

Frieze co-founder Matthew Slotover has responded to characterizations of his wildly successful event as “Ikea for millionaires,” noting the impact the fair has on broader art institutions and critiquing the often vapid personifications of collectors. “Most don’t see art as purely a display of wealth. For many, there is a genuine engagement and they want to support the culture, and enrich their lives and engage in lifelong learning,” Slotover says. “They could go and buy planes or yachts or cars, which wouldn’t do any of those things. It’s a minority of the wealthy that decide to buy art. If you look through the Sunday Times Rich List, most are not art collectors.” (more…)

Ed Ruscha is featured on NOWNESS today, part of the publication’s Getting There series, in which artists take an interviewer on a drive through a certain area.  For this edition, Ruscha drove interviewer Matthew Donaldson through his home city of Los Angeles, charting the shifting landscapes and sounds of the California city.  “More than the changes of Los Angeles, I notice when things don’t change,” he says. (more…)

Dealer Marian Goodman is profiled in The Guardian this week, as she prepares to open her new exhibition space in London.  In the interview, Goodman discusses first discovering the work of Gerhard Richter, and her work in bringing him to international prominence.  “He was a bit drowned out by all these loud, expressionist voices,” she says. “So I wrote him a letter just telling him how much I loved the work and maybe I could make a difference. Then I went to meet him in Düsseldorf in 1984 and everything started from there.”

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Grayson Perry is featured on the front cover of The Guardian Magazine this week, with a full interview that covers the artist’s defiant, shifting public personae, and the early responses of the art world to his pottery.  “Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did,” he says.  “Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that haven’t yet been colonized by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadn’t been fully explored.” (more…)