DIS has announced the release of a new book, celebrating the oft-maligned form of the #artselfie, and featuring a selection of viewers capturing themselves alongside iconic artworks using their smartphones. The book, available from boutique press Jean Boîte Editions, is available for €19. (more…)
Richard Prince, Untitled (Portrait) (2014), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photograph By Robert Mckeever.
Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery’s smaller galleries at 976 Madison, Richard Prince’s new set of Instagram-culled pieces are nearly as potent in exposition as they are in person, a series of images pulled directly from the social media app’s user accounts, and blown up to immense scales, full-sized canvases that command the attention of viewers passing by on the street outside. (more…)
Paul Sietsema, Red painting (detail) (2014), all images courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery
On view at Matthew Marks is an exhibition of new work from LA-based artist Paul Sietsema. The exhibition includes new paintings and drawings, in addition to Sietsema’s two most recent films, all focusing on varying themes of production, consumption, proliferation of cultural objects and the systems in which these objects circulate.
Next month, Christie’s New York will place a landmark set of 21 “Film Stills” by Cindy Sherman on sale, a set of works from early in the artist’s career that carries an estimate of $6 million – $8 million. The stills were originally collected by curator by Ydessa Hendeles, who sold them in turn to industrialist Mitchell P. Rales, who noted his intent to keep the works together as a set. “We are deep into Cindy’s work and will continue to collect it,” he says. “Ydessa did a fabulous job putting it together, and it would be almost impossible to replicate it today.” (more…)
Ryan McGinley, YEARBOOK (Installation View)
One of the most prolific contemporary American photographers, Ryan McGinley has continually photographed his subjects inside his Lower East Side studio for over a decade. Two years after Animals, his series of nude models posing with live animals, the artist is continuing his exploration of the human form, as well as its positioning within a reserved studio setting at Team Gallery, where he has been showing for the last seven years. YEARBOOK, however, expands on the notion of space beyond simply signifying an architecture for displaying art, embracing an alternative use of the gallery interior. (more…)
John Baldessari has created a series of “selfie collaborations” for the limited edition art and fashion publication Visionaire, featuring images taken by famous celebrities and embellished by the artist using some of his trademark images and iconography. “I’ll probably be most remembered for putting dots over people’s faces,” Baldessari comments. “So it’s funny to do an issue devoted to selfies of famous people.” (more…)
Justine Kurland, Sincere Auto Care (2014) via Emily Heinz for Art Observed
The complex landscape of Americana, in all of its grungy glory, has been documented many times, each time with a unique perspective and very often with a driving ethical or social message somewhere just below the surface. But in Sincere Auto Care, photographer Justine Kurland seeks to neutralize the otherwise political or cultural connotations of these semiotics. Instead, she presents the subjects as they are: beautiful but dry, deep but all surface, and, as the title suggests, truly sincere.
Eric Fischl is in the New Yorker this week, taking writer Emma Allen on a tour of the Art Southampton fair in Long Island while he captures photographs for the artist’s newest series of paintings depicting the wealth and society of the world’s most prominent art fairs. “They’re all art fairs,” he says of his work. “All people in various relationships to each other or to the art, usually ignoring it, sometimes looking at their phones.” (more…)
Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island (1976) (P.054), all images courtesy Victoria Miro
Photographer Francesca Woodman is the subject of an exhibition exploring her broad range of innovative techniques at Victoria Miro this month, focusing on a theme of the zigzag as both a geometric and compositional form.
Christopher Williams, Cutaway model Nikon EM. Shutter:/Electronically governed Seiko metal blade shutter vertical travel with speeds from 1/1000 to 1 second with a manual speed of 1/90th./Meter: Center-weighted Silicon Photo Diode, ASA 25-1600/EV2-18 (with ASA film and 1.8 lens)/Aperture Priority automatic exposure/Lens Mount: Nikon F mount, AI coupling (and later) only/Flash: Synchronization at 1/90 via hot shoe/Flash automation with Nikon SB-E or SB-10 flash units/Focusing: K type focusing screen, not user interchangeable, with 3mm diagonal split image rangefinder/Batteries: Two PX-76 or equivalent/Dimensions: 5.3 × 3.38 × 2.13 in. (135 × 86 × 54 mm), 16.2 oz (460g)/Photography by the Douglas M. Parker Studio, Glendale, California/September 9, 2007– September 13, 2007. via The Museum of Modern Art, 2014.
Now at the Museum of Modern Art through November 2nd, 2014, Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness serves as a comprehensive overview of the 35-year-long career of the influential artist. Part of the first wave of West Coast Conceptual artists, Christopher Williams graduated from the California Institute of the Arts and went on to become a preeminent conceptual artist and art professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. His artistic legacy has fervently pursued notions of commercialism, production, capitalism, and process, and the execution of this retrospective very clearly outlines those themes.
Gilbert & George, City Lights (2013), all images courtesy White Cube
Now in their early seventies, the artist duo Gilbert & George have built a trademark artistic presence through their eccentric personas, often mocking British conservatism and aristocratic stereotypes. The duo’s artistic and romantic partnership has produced an ambitious body of work over the past 40-plus years, taking their home in London’s East End, with its multi-cultural and occasionally chaotic atmosphere as a home and inspiration for their politically and socially engaged practice. Extending this practice, White Cube’s Bermondsey gallery is presenting an exhibition of the duo’s recent large-scale photomontages, collaging London streets with images of the dup. Scapegoating Pictures for London, containing over sixty pieces of predominantly black, red and white works, delivers the duo’s profoundly satirical and often provocative tone, triggering concerns over terrorism, globalism, surveillance and religion in a massive and ever-shifting urban landscape. (more…)
Artists Gilbert and George are interviewed in the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing their most recent exhibition at White Cube, Scapegoating Pictures for London. “We thought it strange that the world’s governments, churches, mosques and schools are all confronting the issue of Islamist fervor, but the world’s artists aren’t touching it,” says George Passmore. “We try to create art we feel the world need.” (more…)
Anne Collier, Developing Tray #2 (2009)
In the winter of 2012, a gigantic human eye was gazed out intently on Chelsea and the Hudson River from the High Line billboard on 18th street. The billboard installation, Developing Tray #2, belonged to Anne Collier, an artist known for her appropriation based photographs culling a wide range of printed media from popular culture, suggesting a reinterpretation of otherwise neglected statements. Utilizing minimalistic techniques and a neutral white surface as a background, Collier photographs album covers, commercials, magazine pages or calendars, revealing the subtle ideological undertones related to feminism, consumerism and gender politics. (more…)
The New york Times has published an interesting video piece this week, a 24-second stop-motion piece showcasing 156 wigs used by Cindy Sherman in her photographic work. The wigs were shot in Sherman’s New York studio by Leanne Shapton. (more…)
Mickalene Thomas, Portrait of Qusuquzah (2008) all images courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia and The Monaco Project for the Arts
At the Pavillon Bosio at the École Supérieure d’Arts Plastiques in Monaco is a collection of paintings, a series of photographs, and a new video by American artist Mickalene Thomas. Entitled Femme au divan II, the exhibition will remain on view through August 31st, and includes a series of photographs and paintings incorporating Thomas’s fascination with various time periods and perspectives on female African-American identity.
Urs Fischer, TBD (2014), via Sadie Coles HQ, All images © the artist; courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London
A collection of new paintings by Swiss artist Urs Fischer are currently on view at Sadie Coles HQ in London. Marking a departure from the artist’s more flashy exhibitions of subversive installations and sculptures, this is the first time Fischer has devoted himself strictly to large-scale paintings. (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…)
Andy Freeberg, Two Palms (2011) (Mel Mochner, Eizabeth Peyton, Armory Show), all images courtesy Andrea Meislin Gallery
On view at Andrea Meislin Gallery is Andy Freeberg’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, a series of photographic works that mark the continuation of his investigation into the intersections between art, commerce and personality. Entitled Art Fare, Freeberg’s newest show targets the moments of banality inherent in the blue-chip world of major international art fairs.
A collection of photographs formerly owned by the late Howard Stein will head to auction later this year at Sotheby’s New York, in what may be one of the largest sales in the medium ever. The presale estimates range from $13 million to $20 million for a group of works that include prints from Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray and Irving Penn. (more…)
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…)
Ville Andersson, Reflection, All images courtesy RARE Gallery
Now through August 7, Rare Gallery is presenting Fin(n)ish: Fresh contemporary art from Finland. This group exhibition features work from six emerging Finnish artists—Ville Andersson, Hanna Kanto, Katri Mononen, Aleksi Tammi, Timo Vaittinen, and Ea Vasko. The work presented here is stylistically wide reaching and employs a variety of mediums and techniques, speaking to the vitality of the Finnish art world.
A Machinery for Living at the Petzel Gallery, installation view, via Art Observed
On view at Petzel Gallery is a group exhibition organized by Walead Beshty entitled “A Machinery for Living.” Composed of over 100 photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptural and installation works, the exhibition approaches a concept of embracing the subversive within everyday life.
Larry Clark, Knoxville (homage to Brad Renfro) (2011) all images via Osman Can Yerebakan
Currently on view at Luhring Augustine is a career spanning exhibition of Larry Clark, one of the most vocal representatives of the American youth since the early 60’s. Tulsa, the inspiration and the namesake of his infamous photography book, is where Clark began experimenting with photography at an early age with his mother’s camera, using his circle of friends as his object of interest. Clark started to document the suburban lifestyle through the lens of a generation engaged with drug use, underage sex and violence. Adding further weight to the already graphic nature of his subject matter, the rawness and the honesty of Clark’s perspective as an insider’s point of view has marked him as one of the foremost voices in American photography. (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.
