0 – 9, recto (2010) by Jasper Johns, via Matthew Marks Gallery

New works by Jasper Johns are currently on display at New York’s Matthew Marks Gallery in Chelsea. Open through July 1^st, “New Sculpture and Works on Paper” fills three galleries with Johns’ recent works from the past five years.

Jasper Johns works primarily in painting and printmaking and is often considered to be the bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Perhaps most famous work is Flag (1954-1955) a mixed-media painting of the United State’s flag. He is particularly known for using repetitive letters and numbers with the effect of reconsidering the meaning of everyday symbols in the context of a work of art.

All but one of the new sculptures use Johns’ grid of numerals 0 through 9. Each of the sculptures is first made in wax; the surface is then altered using a variety of textures, and added elements and impressions such as texts or his own hand. Johns then casts them in aluminum, bronze, or silver, covering the finished surface with a unique patina.

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Ellsworth Kelly, Black Curve Diagonal (2010). Via Two Coats of Paint

In this series of thirteen new paintings, a new sculpture, and twenty small drawings from the 1950s, all at the Matthew Marks Gallery, Ellsworth Kelly demonstrates his dedication to the concept to which he has adhered for his time as an artist.  Simple in form and color, the new paintings and the sculpture in the ‘Reliefs’ show emphasize the bold shapes and hard edges characteristic of Kelly’s work. The twenty drawings of ‘Black and White Drawings’ from early in his career show a continuity of vision in their similarity to Kelly’s newest works.

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Anne Truitt, Pith 1969. Courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery.

Currently on view at Matthew Marks Gallery are sixteen sculptures by Anne Truitt (1921-2004), marking the first time her works have been shown in New York in twenty years.  At first glance, the sculptures appear to align with the Minimalist ethos of Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Mel Bochner, and indeed, Truitt was championed by Clement Greenberg in the sixties.  However, unlike the industrial methods of the Minimalists, her sculptures are hand-made investigations of color as a sensation, and how color relates to the sculptural presence.  Truitt explained that her “idea was not to get rid of life but to keep it and to see what it is.”

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An installation view of the hundreds of international periodicals that compose Fischli and Weiss’s monumental exhibit “Sun, Moon and Stars,” at Matthew Marks’ 522 West 22nd location. The exhibit has been described as a “redaction of late capitalism.”  Via Contemporary Art Daily

Currently on show at the trio of Mathew Marks’ galleries in Chelsea is a unique, multi-part exhibit by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss. The duo, who have been collaborating since 1979, are renown for their “academic and playful” installations that evoke the “randomness of existence,” and are widely considered to be the foremost Swiss contemporary artists. “Clay and Rubber,” is currently installed at the 523 West 24th gallery location and consists of 26 sculptures of everyday objects–from a dish to a drawer to a hiking boot–dating from 1986 to the present. Exploring the aesthetics of the commonplace, the iconic sculptures are composed of clay and jet-black rubber and rest on white pedestals, making for a compelling and rather sensual scape of distinctive texture and color. “Sun, Moon Stars and Rain,” at the 522 West 22nd location, is the monumental installation– consisting of an encyclopedic compilation of 800 magazine advertisements taken from hundreds of international periodicals. The concept began as a project commissioned by a Swiss corporation for their annual report. Displayed in 38 tables of glass and wood, the installation totals 330 feet in length and functions as a kind of narrative with subtle sociological insight and curious color scheme associations throughout, evoking myriad interpretations. Lastly, “Sleeping Puppets” occupies the third gallery at the 526 West 22nd location and consists of their newest sculpture– two animals asleep on a pile of blankets. The work recalls the duo’s 1980 films “The Least Resistance” and “The Right Way,” in which the artists dressed in rat and bear costumes in search of adventure–scaling Alpine slopes and crossing rivers– all the way from Los Angeles to the Swiss Alps.

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Head of a Muse, Raphael via Guardian UK

-Offered for the first time at public auction as part of Christie’s Old Masters sale, Raphael’s drawing “Head of a Muse”- a study for a figure in one of his Vatican frescoes, if it achieves its estimate £12-16million, will break the auction record for an old master drawing currently held by Michelangelo’s and Leonardo da Vinci’s works [Guardian UK]

-As art collectors become more cautious with their purchases, dealers at Frieze and FIAC fairs put works on reserve, among them $40 million Mondrian allegedly put on hold for Bernard Arnault [Bloomberg]

-Ms. Temkin, the chief curator of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, introduces unexpected changes, unframing certain paintings and subjecting the almost sacralized permanent collection to frequent renewal [The New York Times]

“Your Mercury Ocean” Skateboard by Olafur Eliasson via aarting

-Another collaboration between Mekanism and Olafur Eliasson results in a 13-ply deck 3d patterned skateboard with a mirror coating [aarting]
-In related, Olafur Eliasson commissions by the mayor of Copenhagen to design a bridge for the Danish capital; the artist shares his plans for a transparent bridge in a close vicinity to the water [The Art Newspaper]

– The survey carried out by the Art Fund, the UK’s independent art charity, shows that despite the substantial drop in public funding and investment income, a figure that proves to grow in the context of economic fall is the number of visits to museums [Art Knowledge News]

-In the midst of economic uncertainty, gallery Matthew Marks, which represents artists such as Jasper Johns, and Peter Fischli and David Weiss, plans on expansion with a new space on the West Coast [The New York Times]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)

Gary Hume, ‘Two Girls,’ (2009).  Via Artnet.

Currently showing at Matthew Marks Gallery are 13 paintings by British artist Gary Hume.  Known for emerging onto the London art scene in the 1990’s with his ‘door paintings,’  Hume’s latest work evokes the rural environment of his studio space; an old barn in the Catskills of upstate New York, where all pieces were completed.  While representational paintings of hospital doors were found in Hume’s earlier work, his current show includes barn doors, along with images of blackbirds, roses and daisies, “all things he sees from his window.”

Related Links:
Gary Hume: Yard Work [Matthew Marks]
Gary Hume at Modern Art, Oxford [ArtObserved]
Art: In Living Color [VOGUE]
Profit and Gloss [Guardian]
Gary Hume Interview [White Cube]

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In Ink Line, part of a new Charles Ray exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery, ink falls in a continuous line to the floor. Via 16miles.

Until June 27, the Matthew Marks gallery is home to an exhibition of three early works by Charles Ray.  Featured are Ink Line, Moving Wire, and Spinning Spot, constructed in 1987-88.  This exhibition is the first in which Ink Line is shown publicly, while Moving Wire and Spinning Spot are showing for the first time in over two decades.

Related links:
Charles Ray [ArtCat]
Charles Ray [Art + Culture]
Dude, You’ve Gotta See This [New York Magazine]
The Uncomfortably Great Charles Ray Show at Matthew Marks [The Village Voice: Bones]
Charles Ray at Matthew Marks Gallery [Art Observed, 2007]

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Installation view of Ellsworth Kelly “Diagonal” at Matthew Marks Gallery

American color-field painter Ellsworth Kelly is showing new paintings (circa 2007-2008) at Matthew Marks in Chelsea.  Since he first exhibited his work publicly more than 60 years ago, Kelly has had over 150 one-person exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world.  The “Diagonal” series is a collection of eight two-panel paintings consisting of a black or white rectangle overlaid with a contrasting canvas on top, extending beyond the perimeter of the one below.

Matthew Marks Gallery
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Ellsworth Kelly Diagonal
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522 West 22nd Street
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February 6 – April 11, 2009

RELATED LINKS

Exhibition Page [Matthew Marks]
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Good Form [New Yorker]
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Will Corwin’s Top 10 Shows in New York [Saatchi Online]
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Paintings that Converse with Antiquity [Wall Street Journal]
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NYTCAP art tour [Flickr page: J-No]

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Installation view of Rothko’s ‘Seagram Murals’ via MSNBC

Tate Liverpool exhibits Rothko’s Seagram Murals after a 20-year absence [Artdaily]
Rochelle Steiner, under whose tenure Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls” was sponsored, leaves the Public Art Fund [NY Times] and in related, Sotheby’s CEO takes big paycuts in the wake of the market downturn [Bloomberg]

Alex James, bassist of Blur via The Mirror

Blur’s Alex James to judge Charles Saatchi’s art-star reality TV show [The Mirror]
Jonathan Jones on how consumerism spawned Warhol and Pop art and thus the shallowness of contemporary art [Guardian]
Vanity Fair’s imagined conversations overheard at a MoMA party [VanityFair]
A new show at Paris’s Musee d’Art Moderne acknowledges how Italian Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico sold backdated copies of his own work [Bloomberg]

Patti Smith via The Art Newspaper

Patti Smith, whose Polaroids are showing at Robert Miller gallery, on her early career as an artist and why she feels Jeff Koons’s work is “just litter upon the earth” [The Art Newspaper]

Andy Warhol’s BMW Art Car via W Magazine

The BMW Art Car series by artists such as Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg to appear at New York’s Grand Central Terminal starting March 24 [W Magazine]
Chinese art dealer who sabotaged Christie’s sale of bronzes during the Yves Saint Laurent sale weeps at his shattered credibility [Bloomberg]

Steve McQueen modeling for T Magazine

A brief profile of Turner prize winning film artist Steve McQueen’s fashion aesthetic [The Moment]
The Las Vegas Sun does a post-mortem on the Las Vegas Art Museum, which closed last month [Las Vegas sun via ArtsJournal]

Trailer for ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ via Entertainment Weekly

Soon to open in New York, an art world outsider chronicles his relationship with an art world insider in the film ‘Guest of Cindy Sherman’ [Entertainment Weekly]
Susan Moore looks at the recent emergence of a homegrown art scene in the United Arab Emirates [Financial Times]

Collectors Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant.  Image courtesy Mary Barone via Artnet

Art in America and Interview Magazine owner Peter Brant opens his private collection to the public, by appointment only, at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center [NY Times]
How the former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland was unable to secure an immense 16,000 piece art collection obtained during a takeover of ABN Amro as that bank’s CEO deftly transferred ownership to a foundation before the merger [TimesUK]
Turner Prize winning sculptor Antony Gormley announces first public art installation for Scotland [TheScotsman]

Laura Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni and Lauren Cornell, curators at the New Museum of Contemporary Art via NY Times

A preview of the New Museum’s inaugural triennial, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” [NY Times]
Hans Ulrich Obrist’s book “The Conversation Series” includes interviews with artist such as Wolfgang Tillmans and Gilbert and George [ArtInfo]

A peek at Pierogi Gallery’s new annex, the Boiler via NY Times

Williamsburg’s Pierogi Gallery opens new annex, The Boiler [NY Times]
Chelsea galleries, including Andrea Rosen, Barbara Gladstone, Mary Boone and Matthew Marks, to show work at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba [The Art Newspaper]

Anish Kapoor’s ‘Temenos’ via AnishKapoor

Construction begins on first of five of Anish Kapoor outdoor sculptures in the UK: the ‘world’s biggest art project’ [DesignWeek]

Portrait of Pope Benedict XIV by Pierre Subleyras via NY Mag

Old masters prove to be a bellwether in the market downturn [Financial Times] as such, The Metropolitan Museum acquires a Renaissance portrait of Pope Benedict XIV for nearly $1 million amidst financial woes [NY Mag] and this painting also is featured here in a separate video discussion on the resilience of old master paintings [Sotheby’s]

‘Hamm Bergswerk OST’ (2008) by Andreas Gursky, via Matthew Marks Gallery

Andreas Gursky’s sixth exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery is currently on display. The exhibit features five photographs, all taken within the last two years including two pictures of Cocoon, a massive nightclub in Frankfurt designed by Gursky’s friend Sven Vath, a well known electronic musician and DJ. The club’s name inspires its architecture, as it mimics a hive or the imagined insides of a cocoon, and the photographs depict swarms of people dancing, extending the metaphor. The Cocoon pieces follow Gursky’s interest in electronic music, and previous photographs of large raves and electronic music concerts. ‘Hamm Bergswerk OST’ was shot in a coal mine close to Dusseldorf, Gursky’s home town, depicting the ceiling of one of the mine’s locker rooms, where the miners store their clothes in an unconventional way. While the exhibition is small, the scale of the photographs is very large, typically towering over the viewer, with broad panoramas full of absorbing detail that immerses the spectator.

ANDREAS GURSKY
through December 23rd, 2008
Matthew Marks Gallery
523 W 24th Street
New York, NY

Exhibition page: Andreas Gursky
Press Release: Andreas Gursky at Mathew Marks Gallery
Artist Page: Andreas Gursky
No glow sticks required [GQ]

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Installation View via Matthew Marks Gallery

Painting: Now and Forever, Part II remains on view through August 15 as a joint exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery, 522 West 22nd Street and Greene Naftali Gallery, 508 West 26th Street. The show is a reprisal of one held ten years ago, but from a different angle. The artists in the current show are Kai Althoff, Cosima von Bonin, Merlin Carpenter, Mathew Cerletty, Wojciech Fangor, Katharina Fritsch, Gelitin, Isa Genzken, Poul Gernes, Daan van Golden, Jack Goldstein, Rodney Graham, Wade Guyton, Richard Hawkins, Mary Heilmann, Sophie von Hellermann, Charline von Heyl, Ull Hohn, Sergej Jensen, Mike Kelley, Ellsworth Kelly, Karen Kilimnik, Martin Kippenberger, Michael Krebber, William Leavitt, Michel Majerus, Bjarne Melgaard, Laura Owens, Blinky Palermo, Stephen Prina, R.H. Quaytman, Ugo Rondinone, Paul Sharits, Josh Smith, Reena Spaulings, Lily van der Stokker, Atsuko Tanaka, Paul Thek, Anne Truitt, Kelley Walker, Christopher Wool, and Katharina Wulff.

Painting: Now and Forever, Part II [Artcal]
Painting Now and Forever, Part II at Green Naftali [Flavorpill]
Painting: Now and Forever, Part II at Green Naftali and Matthew Marks [Design Boom]
Painting: Now and Forever, Part II, in collaboration with Green Naftali Gallery [Matthew Marks]
Painting: Now and Forever, Part II [Village Voice]

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The colorful hall near the Deitch Project’s Exhibit at the Armory 2008 via ArtObserved

Photos and Writing by Faith-Ann YoungEntering this year’s Armory Show felt like entering a Hollywood studio lot. Gone is any semblance to its roots in the fleabag suites of the Gramercy Park Hotel, when zealous artists displayed from suites’ sinks and bathtubs. This Wednesday’s VIP/Press Opening? Tons of Champagne, neon, kitsch, glitter, popped-collars, drugs, sex, but simply not enough BANG.

Opening of the Armory show [Bloomberg]
Armory show 2008 [New York Magazine]
Armory Show review [ New York Times]

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                                                   Jasper Johns via Chelsea Art Galleries

Matthew Marks Gallery is hosting a new exhibition of Jasper John’s drawings from February, 2 until April, 12, 2008.  This will likely be one of the more significant shows the gallery will show this year.  The opening is 6PM, Friday Febuary 1st. 

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Ellsworth Kelly & Richard Gober Courtesy of Mathew Marks Gallery

Its the final week of Five Works in Bronze featured at the Mathew Marks Gallery located at 523 West 24th, New York. The show closes January 12th.