Peter Doig, 100 Years Ago (Carrera) (2005-2007), courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne and Centre de création industrielle, Paris
Currently on view at Fondation Beyeler in Basel is a survey of important oil paintings by Peter Doig (1959), as well as a number of seminal works on paper and a monumental mural.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus (1839), all images courtesy Tate Britain
On view at the Tate Britain is the first exhibition devoted entirely to the work of Joseph Mallord Wiliam Turner, created between the years of 1835 and his death in 1851. The show brings together major series of works including a group of square pictures highlighting Turner’s tendency towards innovation, even at the end of his life.
Louise Lawler, Dots and Slices (Traced) (2006/2013), via Sprüth Magers
In 2013, Louise Lawler performed a series of “tracings” at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, taking previously executed photographs from Lawler’s broad body of work, and converting the image down to a simple vector graphic in partnership with artist and children’s book illustrator Jon Buller. These tracings are currently the subject of the artist’s most recent solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers Berlin, as Levine returns to her particularly subtle brand of institutional critique. (more…)
David Hockney, The Dancers IV. 14 August – 5 September 2014 (2014), via Art Observed
David Hockney’s new exhibition of paintings at Pace Gallery, his first full-size canvases since 2009, are a fitting continuation of the artist’s current interests, combining vaguely abstract environments and poses with a subtly loaded series of juxtapositions. The exhibition, which closes this Saturday, sees Hockney returning from several years focused on landscape studies and experimentations in digital video and photography to portraiture and human subjects. (more…)
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…)
Chris Ofili, via Art Observed
There’s a room on the third floor of Chris Ofili’s New Museum retrospective that offers a moment of crystallization for the rest of the exhibition. In a dimly lit chamber set back from the rest of the show, the artist has hung a set of works from his Blue Rider series, painted in rich blue hues that reveal various aspects based on the viewer’s position. Sitting in the room for an extended period, recognizable, horrifying images slowly take form, present themselves, and slip back into the shadows: black bodies hanging from trees, unidentified hooded horsemen, and even an image of a black youth beaten by a series of police. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal notes a new trend among doctors, using classical paintings as an opportunity to test and hone their diagnostic skills, while providing new information for art historians. “Doctors see things that art historians might overlook because they come at a work of art without preconceived notions,’’ said Karen Goodchild, chair of the Art and Art History Department at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. (more…)
Marina Picasso, the granddaughter of Pablo Picasso, is selling off over $290 million in works from her personal collection of her grandfather’s works, including Portrait de femme (Olga), valued at about $60 million, and Maternité, which is valued at around $54 million. (more…)
Marcel Duchamp, 3-Mending Standard (1913-1914 / 1964), via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
Few artists have left such a mark on the history and direction of 2oth and 21st Century art in the same manner as Marcel Duchamp, the French artist who was at the forefront of revolutions both on and off the canvas in the first half of the century. Taking this impact as a starting point, the Centre Pompidou is currently presenting Marcel Duchamp: La Peinture, Même, an exhibition exploring the artist’s early roots in painting and drawing, and how these stylistic leanings contributed to his later work in the development of the readymade, installation based work, and other conceptual pursuits. (more…)
Luc Tuymans is profiled in the Financial Times this week, as the artist prepares to open a new show of works at David Zwirner London. “Realism, modernism, postmodernism, post-postmodernism: that is a discourse for people who have no visual sense,” Tuymans says. “I mean, these people have to get by. I still indulge in the perversity of painting, which remains interesting.” (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…)
R. H. Quaytman, O Tópico, Chapter 27 (Installation View)
Currently on view at Gladstone Gallery’s 21st street location is O Tópico, Chapter 27, R. H. Quaytman’s latest chapter in her ambitious, ongoing project of cohesive, site-specific installations. Quaytman started her serial painting project in 2001 with eighty paintings she made to be exhibited at the Queens Museum, and has now reached the 27th installment of the project, this one inspired by Inhotim, a botanical garden and art park located in the Brazilian region of Minas Gerais. (more…)
Ahmed Alsoudani, Untitled (2014), all images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed
In his first exhibition at Gladstone Gallery, Iraqi artist Ahmed Alsoudani is delivering an eminently profound set of paintings, managing to remain current and relevant while at the same time tying strong references to pioneers of 20th century painting, a body of work that suggests a limitless array of interpretations. (more…)
A rare, vertical Cézanne landscape from the Cortauld collection is set to hit the auction block early next year at Christie’s in London, carrying a sale estimate of up to $12 million. “It’s quite rare to see Cézanne at auction and incredibly rare to have these major motif,” says Jay Vincze, head of Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s London. (more…)
George Condo, Lost at Sea (2014), via Art Observed
George Condo is currently presenting a new body of work, on view at Skarstedt Gallery‘s recently opened Chelsea exhibition space, titled Double Heads / Black Paintings / Abstractions. Decamping to his studio in East Hampton, Long Island, this summer the artist has produced a series of paintings that marks a noted departure from his most recent exhibitions. (more…)
Artist Maurizio Cattelan is in New York Magazine this week, taking a tour of the Los Angeles art world, including studio visits with Frances Stark, reviews of the Pierre Huyghe LACMA show, and an afternoon spent with actor, comedian and long-time painter Jim Carrey. “His energy is boundless, and he’s clearly having fun testing the boundaries of painting and sculpture,” Cattelan says. (more…)
Andrew Shannon, the man who punched an immense hole in the surface of at $10 million Claude Monet landscape at the National Gallery of Dublin, has officially been sentenced to 5 years in prison for his actions. Shannon is also banned from any art museum for 15 months after his release. (more…)
Neo Rauch, Heillichtung (2014), via Art Observed
The newest show of work by Neo Rauch, on view at David Zwirner, is a fitting continuation of the German artist’s take on painting, combining surreal imagery with a vaguely familiar technique recalling the intertwined political and cultural history of his German homeland. (more…)
Artist David Hockney is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, reviewing his recent work, and offering his take on the meaning of being an artist. “Lots of people don’t really look,” he says. “They scan the ground in front of them, but they don’t really look that hard.” (more…)
Julian Stanczak, From Life (Installation View)
On view at Mitchell-Innes & Nash’s Chelsea location is a career spanning exhibition of Julian Stanczak, the renowned Polish artist considered to be one of the pioneers of Op Art movement. Starting with his works from the 1960’s until the present, the exhibition celebrates the artist’s long career, starting at a Polish refugee camp in Uganda in the 40’s after the artist permanently lost the use of his right arm due to an infection of encephalitis. (more…)
Gerhard Richter (Installation View), via Art Observed
Currently on view at Marian Goodman’s freshly inaugurated Mayfair gallery space in London is a new show of paintings and sculpture by Gerhard Richter, works that show the artist expanding his current practice while branching out into new formal space. (more…)
Mick Peter, all photos via Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
The newly re-opened SculptureCenter in Long Island City has earned a reputation for forward-thinking exhibitions and thematic concerns, opening new dialogues between the constructed, three-dimensional object and its related artistic formats. It’s perhaps highly fitting then, that the exhibition space’s newest show, and its first since its impressive renovation, would focus specifically on these links of space and form. (more…)
Egon Schiele, Portrait of Gertie Schiele (1909), all photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
The energy on view in the paintings of Egon Schiele often feels as if the surface itself cannot contain it, as if the visceral poses and lucid, flowing lines of the artist’s hand posses an ethereal force beyond that of his practice. The Austrian painter, who died at the young age of 28 during the Spanish Flu epidemic, poured himself into his works with an enthusiasm few have ever matched, constantly pushing the gestural formats and emotional charges of his materials and subjects.
Egon Schiele: Portraits (Installation View)
The New York Times profiles the development of Vantablack, a new surface material that uses carbon nanotubes to trap light more effectively than any previous material, and which is currently being tested by artist Anish Kapoor. “When you look at Vantablack on some wrinkled aluminum foil, it looks like a black, flat, featureless void, even with your eyes right up to it,” says developer Ben Jensen. (more…)
