Continuing its ongoing series of artist collaborations, New York streetwear brand Supreme has announced a capsule collection incorporating the work of Raymond Pettibon. The Californian artist will lend his work to a pair of skateboard decks, a hooded work jacket, a hooded sweatshirt, and two tee-shirts. (more…)
Sprüth Magers Gallery has purchased a 14,000 square foot building in West Hollywood this week, signaling the gallery’s intent to open a new exhibition space in Los Angeles, directly across the street from LACMA. “It’s an artist’s city,” says Philomene Magers. “It’s the cultural and intellectual climate of the city that really excites us. And while we already have collectors in the region, we are hoping to meet many more.” (more…)
The Hammer Museum has announced the price winners for its “Made in LA” Biennial, which is running through Sept. 7, with the $100,000 Mohn Award going to Alice Könitz for her mobile exhibition platform The Los Angeles Museum of Art. Other prizes were awarded to Michael Frimkess and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess (a lifetime achievement prize), and to Jennifer Moon, whose work was selected by popular vote. (more…)
The L.A. Times reports that Demand Media, a content and social media company, has purchased the online art gallery Saatchi Art for $17 million. Another facet of the deal is the naming of Saatchi Art’s CEO Sean Moriarity as the new CEO of Demand Media. An affiliate of the Saatchi Gallery in London, the L.A. based Saatchi Art sells original artwork as well as prints for mid-market prices. The article reports that Demand Media expects the online gallery to add up to $1 million in quarterly revenue. (more…)
Team Gallery is planning to open a space in Los Angeles on September 14th, 2014. The new space, called Team Bungalow, will be the third iteration of the Team Gallery and the first outside of New York City. The gallery will be based in a small bungalow and garage on Windward Avenue in the Venice neighborhood and will be open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Team Bungalow’s inaugural show will be called “tl;dr” and feature work by Cory Arcangel. (more…)
An article in the Wall Street Journal profiles Bettina Korek, the founder of For Your Art (FYA), an independent arts organization based in Los Angeles. With FYA, Korek stands at the intersection of the art world and the audience, planning and hosting events featuring artists such as Raymond Pettibon, Barbara Kruger, and John Baldessari that complement L.A.’s current exhibitions. The article reports that, with FYA’s public art events and contacts with institutions such as LACMA and the Hammer Museum, Korek hopes to bring “a new, more democratic patronage” to art. (more…)
Steve McQueen, Drumroll (Installation View), via MoCA
A retrospective of early works by artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen is currently on view at the MoCA’s Hollywood location at the Pacific Design Center, through September 21. McQueen has carved out a unique place for himself as both a practicing video artist and filmmaker (with both a Turner Prize and an Oscar to his name) over the past years, and his exhibition at MoCA’s Pacific Design Center offers an introduction to the artist’s early practice. (more…)
L.A.’s Arts District, a 52-block neighborhood in downtown L.A., was once derelict and cheap, the perfect home for struggling artists who began moving to the area in the 1970s. The past 10 years have changed the once “bohemian” neighborhood, attracting a new wave of residents and developers that have driven rents up and forced artists and longtime residents to consider a future elsewhere. (more…)
Stephen Prina, Detail of Monochrome Painting: A Posterior Prototype: Average Size (1994), all images courtesy Patrick Painter
Patrick Painter Gallery in Los Angeles is currently hosting an impressively selected group show, culling artists from the past 30 years of practice entitled Titans of the Stratosphere, and featuring six artists: Rodney Graham, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Stephen Prina, Christopher Wool, and Andrea Zittel.
Albert Oehlen, Untitled (2012), all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery
On view at Gagosian Beverly Hills is an exhibition of recent large scale paintings by German artist Albert Oehlen, showcasing the artist’s continued interests in both abstract painterly gesture and the intersections of modernity with the act of painting. The exhibition will remain on view through July 18, 2014.
Korakrit Arunanondchai has unveiled the trailer for his newest exhibition Letters to Chantri #1, opening this Friday at The Mistake Room. Arunanondchai’s trailer continues his engagement with a cinematic approach to his work and his own artistic narrative, and features shots of him creating several of his body paint canvases, as his denim-clad assistants look on. “Those paintings that you make,” the video text says, “they suffocate you.” (more…)
LACMA is reportedly in talks regarding the potential construction of a massive tower project by the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax Avenue. The new space would act as host for LACMA galleries, particularly a new architecture and design wing and would tentatively host space for architect Frank Gehry’s archives. (more…)
Ed Ruscha, Periods (2013), all images courtesy Gagosian Gallery
On view at Gagosian Gallery in New York is a survey of prints and rarely seen photographs produced by Ed Ruscha from 1959 until the present. The exhibition was organized by Gagosian’s director Bob Monk, and will remain on view through July 11, 2014.
Architect Peter Zumthor has altered his plans for the expansion of the LACMA campus, taking into account its close proximity to the La Brea Tar Pits, and instead has shifted the design to snake around the museum campus, avoiding the pits altogether. “The original design would have severely impacted six of the nine active tar pits,” said Jane Pisano, director of the Los Angeles Natural History Museum, which oversees the tar pits. “We are so pleased, I do believe this design direction preserves and protects the tar pits.” (more…)
Sterling Ruby, ACTS/SOME RISE SOME REST (2014), via Hauser and Wirth
Hauser and Wirth’s current show of works by Sterling Ruby is something of a grab-bag, incorporating a wide swath of the artist’s current practice in sculpture, assemblage and collage spread across the gallery’s vast 18th Street exhibition space. The large-scale and commanding physicality of the works is offered ample room for viewers to circle and consider, but Ruby doesn’t’ waste the space on a small set of works either. Sculptures and hanging works take up almost every square inch of the gallery, arranged in close proximity. It’s easy to miss one work or another, caught up in the commanding presence of a third nearby.
Sterling Ruby, SUNRISE SUNSET (Installation View), via Hauser and Wirth (more…)
MOCA is drawing criticism this week, following the loan of a Frank Stella painting to a Culver City art gallery, which many have called a conflict of interest. The work Ctesiphon I, was loaned to Honor Fraser Gallery with approval of the Acquisition and Collection Committee. “MOCA is committed to loan artworks to encourage public enjoyment of objects,” MOCA said in an official statement. “MOCA lends to commercial art galleries only on a case-by-case basis.” (more…)
Francesco Vezzoli, All About Anni – Anni vs. Marlene (The Saga Begins) (2006), via MoCA
Much like predecessors Rainer Fassbinder, George Kuchar and Tom Wesselmann, Franceso Vezzoli grew up around the golden ages cinema and television, and his work often toys at fusing their higher art forms with a violent appreciation for popular culture in very different ways. It’s these interests that dominate his show Cinema Vezzoli,currently on view at MOCA in Los Angeles, part of the three museum retrospective of Vezzoli’s work, titled The Trilogy. (more…)
MOCA has named scholar, art writer and curator Helen Molesworth as its new Chief Curator. Molesworth, who will assume the position beginning September 1st, previously worked at ICA/Boston and before that served as the leader of the department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Harvard Art Museum. “I love the way she talks about art, thinks about art, writes about art,” he said. “She has an incredible connection with artists and audiences and patrons. She brings an incredible integrity and high level of scholarship and a passion for living artists. And she has a great sense of humor,” said director Philippe Vergne. (more…)
Raymond Pettibon, No Title (Something Approaches There) (2001), via Art Observed
On view at Venus Over Manhattan is the first exhibition ever to focus entirely on Raymond Pettibon’s surfer paintings, comprised of 40 works created over a 28 year period, from 1985 to 2013. The works vary from small-scale India ink pieces to large-scale paintings up to 10 feet wide, and will remain on view through May 17, 2014.
Raymond Pettibon, Are Your Motives Pure?’ Surfers 1985-2013 (Installation View), via Art Observed
Artist Mark Grotjahn is profiled in the New York Times this week, reviewing some of his recent works, and his recently opened show of Butterfly paintings on view at Blum and Poe’s New York space, and a larger show of masks, sculptures and other works at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. “I think the masks are fascinating objects and also important as painting surfaces that allow for tremendous freedom and experimentation,” says Nasher director Jeremy Strick. “You could see it as a way for Mark to give himself license to do things he wouldn’t ordinarily do, to paint in different ways.” (more…)
Hammer Projects: Andra Ursuta (Installation View), all images courtesy Hammer Museum
On view currently at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is an exhibition of the latest body of work from Andra Ursuta, inspired by the artist’s fear and obsession with death. The show is Ursuta’s first solo exhibition in a United States museum, and will remain on view through May 25th.
Frieze New York has announced that it will restate artist Allen Ruppersberg’s work Al’s Grand Hotel, a 1971 installation that saw the artist turning a Los Angeles house into a gallery, performance space and functioning hotel. “My hope is that the hotel at Frieze will function as a space where people can physically and mentally take a break from the bombardment of the other galleries at the fair and walk into a time capsule where you can almost jump back to 1971,” says curator Cecilia Alemani. (more…)
Takashi Murakami’s debut film Jellyfish Eyes is set to premiere in the United States next week, bringing some of the artist’s signature characters to the silver screen. The film, which centers around a series of magical creatures that only children can see, will show in select cities May 1st through the 5th. (more…)
Oscar Murillo, Distribution Center (Installation View), via Art Observed
The newly opened Los Angeles Gallery The Mistake Room is inaugurating its downtown space with Oscar Murillo’s Distribution Center, a show of recent works by the artist. Murillo, who is only 28, is perhaps best known for his large-scale paintings, if not for his young age and recent rise to the upper echelons of the art market. Here, his signature style is quickly noted, with canvases bordering on sculptural assemblage, debris and ephemera from his studio and travels are directly transplanted on to the canvas. Even in their installation, very few works happen to hang directly on the wall. Instead, they litter the floor and table surfaces like large, mis-matched carpet tiles, creating a kind of multi-layered horizontal work across the length of the room.
Oscar Murillo, Untitled (2014), via Art Observed (more…)
