Hiroshi Sugimoto, Accelerated Buddha, exhibition view, all images courtesy Fondation Pierre Bergé

Currently on view at Fondation Pierre Bergé Yves Saint Laurent is an exhibition of work by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, exploring the historical/cultural emergence and relevance of Buddhism in Japanese culture. Entitled Accelerated Buddha, the exhibition is the gallery’s 20th exhibition, which opened on October 10th and will run through January 26th 2013.

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Artist Ryan McGinley is profiled in the New York Times, discussing the group of young protégés he has surrounded himself with at his downtown New York studio.  “In a way, it’s a curriculum, as I can give people advice because I’ve been through it,” he said.  “I was the first person to get attention within my crew, and I wanted people to share the success that I was enjoying. (more…)

Vogue Magazine’s Genevieve Bahrenburg writes on a chance encounter with artist Chuck Close, and the artist’s process of capturing her on film for a painting, and the artist’s impressive perceptual capacities.  “I know from years of experience how the incremental units of the grid will fall on an image.”  Close tells her. (more…)

William Eggleston, At Zenith I (1979-2013), © Eggleston Artistic Trust. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

On view at Gagosian in New York is a unique exhibition of works by William Eggleston photographed during a road trip he took from Georgia to Tennessee in 1978. These photos of the sky taken with an early disposable camera are meant to evoke the feeling and aesthetics of classical paintings. (more…)

David Salle, Ghost 1 (1992), © David Salle, VAGA, NY. Courtesy, Skarstedt New York

Currently on view at Skarstedt Gallery’s uptown space is a series of 13 works by David Salle, from his Ghost Paintings series.  Executed in 1992, these busy, color-inflected works were created from a series of photographs, documenting improvised actions with an enormous white sheet.  Taken as a whole, the works create a dialogue on the image as the result of a series of practices, processes and flows, rendering a final piece that belies its mode of creation in subtle ways. (more…)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Mr. Briggs (2008), via David Zwirner

“People thought they could have anything.  And then it just blew up in their faces.”  So says photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia in the press release for his show of works from the East of Eden series at David Zwirner, an ongoing series of photographs documenting what the artist calls the “collapse of everything.”

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, East of Eden (Installation View), via David Zwirner (more…)

A new spread in Harper’s Bazaar features the animated cast of artist Takashi Murakami’s film Jellyfish Eyes, as well as the artist himself, spending time around Los Angeles.  The set of photos includes the monsters walking dogs, eating at In N’ Out Burger, and eating ice cream, all with model Angela Lindvall.  “I’ve always really loved Murakami’s optimism,” says Harper’s Executive Director Laura Brown. (more…)

Christopher Wool, Untitled (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

The work of artist Christopher Wool is nothing if not immediate.  Huge, stencil-cut prints, slurred spray-paint scribbling reminiscent of graffiti, and enormous splashes of paint litter the artist’s canvases and rice paper compositions, all charged with a gritty, urban freneticism that informed Wool’s early years in New York’s supercharged downtown punk scene during the 1970’s.  It’s this energy that ultimately becomes the focus of the Guggenheim’s current retrospective of the artist’s work, just recently opened at the uptown museum.

Christopher Wool, Minor Mishap (2001), © Christopher Wool, Courtesy The Guggenheim Museum (more…)

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Hustlers (Installation View), courtesy Philip-Lorca diCorcia and David Zwirner Gallery

One of the most influential photographers working today, Philip-Lorca diCorcia is known for creating images which blur the line between documentary photography and theatrically-staged scenes. Hustlers, on display now through November 2 at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York, presents photographs diCorcia made between 1990 and 1992, during the beginning of his engagement with street photography. For a fee roughly equivalent to what they would receive for sexual services, DiCorcia’s photographs feature the male prostitutes he approached in Los Angeles.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Champagne, 19 Years Old, from California, $20 (1990-1992), courtesy Philip-Lorca diCorcia and David Zwirner Gallery

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Artist Damien Hirst has contributed the new cover image for GQ Magazine, photographing pop star Rihanna in classic likeness of Medusa.  The collaboration was done for the magazine’s 25th anniversary issue. (more…)

Robert Mapplethorpe, Lindsay Key (1985), via Thaddeus Ropac

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg is currently presenting an exhibition of works by American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, as part of the gallery’s celebration of its 30th anniversary. This exhibition is the latest addition to the gallery’s ongoing series dedicated to Mapplethorpe’s career.

Robert Mapplethorpe, (Installation View), courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg (more…)

John Houck, Peg and John, (2013), via On Stellar Rays

John Houck’s latest show at On Stellar Rays, A History of Graph Paper is a subdued, disquieting display of one artist’s innovative approach to the medium of photography. Houck’s images of neon rectangular prisms, swatches of colorful paper, and household objects take on the feeling of collage, as if each element were cut out from some other context and pasted into his composition. His keen attention to color, combining saturated oranges and reds with gauzy seafoams, and his strong focus on line and juxtaposition make the photographs in “A History of Graph Paper” stand out from the increasingly crowded field of contemporary photography. (more…)

Gianfranco Gorgoni, Francesco Clemente and detail of General Animal (1984), Courtesy Thomas Ammann Fine Art AG, Zurich

The work of Italian contemporary artist Francesco Clemente is as diverse in style and influence as the life of its creator.  Transcending traditional borders of culture, artistic movements, intellectual spheres and even medium, Clemente has developed a sense of decentered lexicality; his work standing as a testament to the synthesis of his personal travels and influences – among them, the artists he met and collaborated with in New York City in the 1980s. Portraits of the 1980s, currently on display in the Thomas Ammann Fine Art Gallery in Zurich until September 27, chronicles this engagement with New York’s intellectual and social community through a series of portraits, speaking to the friendships which both redefined Clemente’s own style and thrust him into the limelight of the international art scene. (more…)

Lorna Simpson, Chess (2013), via Jeu de Paume

Lorna Simpson (b.1960, Brooklyn, New York) is an African-American artist, working across multiple media, often focusing on photography.  After completing studies at University of California-San Diego and the School of Visual Arts, New York, Simpson achieved recognition in the mid-1980s.  In an era of avid multiculturalism, her work explored themes of racial stereotyping, ethnicity and gender, placing her at the forefront of females and ethnic minorities gaining recognition in the art world.  She was also the first female of color to participate in the Venice Art Biennale (1990).

Lorna Simpson, Wigs (1994-2006), via Jeu de Paume (more…)

Allan Sekula, the multimedia artist and former recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, has passed away at the age of 62.  Working across disciplines, Sekula produced a diverse and challenging body of work that included film, installation and photography (his most recognized work), often generating texts alongside the work that helped to further investigations into the media he utilized.  His work has shown at the Tate Modern, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and MoMA, among others.  His death comes just days after MoMA announced the acquisition of his seminal Fish Story series. (more…)

Jane and Louise Wilson, Atomgrad 7 (Nature Abhors A Vacuum) (2010), via 303 Gallery

Over the course of their career, British twins Jane and Louise Wilson have documented the highly complex and haunting architectural ruins of modernity. Their work depicts the near-theatrical decay of industrial and military advances of the twentieth century, or rather, turns the spaces of said decay into a theatrical space. The artists’ current exhibition at 303 Gallery combines the work from two recent projects: the photographs Atomgrad, Nature Abhors A Vacuum I, V, VI, VII and VIII, 2011; and Blind Landing, H-Bomb Test Facility, Lab 1 and Lab 4, 2012.

Jane and Louise Wilson (Installation View) via 303 Gallery

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Lucien Smith, A Clean Sweep (Installation View), Photos Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York

Suzanne Geiss Company’s New York’s SoHo neighborhood is currently housing A Clean Sweep, Lucien Smith’s nostalgic exhibition inspired by the changing streets of his home city.

Lucien Smith, Untitled (Pizzerias 001), (2013) Photos by Matthu Placek. Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company, New York (more…)

Wolfgang Tillmans, young man, Jeddah, b, (2012), via Andrea Rosen

Continuing their ongoing relationship, Andrea Rosen Gallery is currently exhibiting its 11th solo exhibition of work by German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, on view through June 22nd.  From Neue Welt is the result of a four-year project that Tillmans began in 2008, and completed in 2012, a vigorous photographic cataloguing of the dawn of the 21st century. 25 works have been selected from the hundreds of photographs that were a part of the original work, which culminated at the Kunsthalle Zurich in the fall of 2012.

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Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait (1983), courtesy Skarstedt Gallery

Playing with constructed images of self and cultural phenomena, Robert Mapplethorpe’s challenging self-portraits were an influential and essential part of the 1970’s New York arts scene.  Now, the artist’s work in the medium is documented through eleven photographs at Skarstedt Gallery currently on view through June 15th. The photographs are extremely personal explorations that the artist took of himself periodically throughout his life, meant to explore different aspects of his own identity, as he captures himself in a variety of states and moods.

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Rodney Graham, (Installation View), via 303 Gallery

303 Gallery is currently presenting its seventh show with artist Rodney Graham, the inaugural exhibition for the gallery’s new home on West 24th Street, New York. In the works on display, Graham continues his allegorical self portraits, creating surreal scenes in hyperreal lightbox photographs. The humorous yet sympathetic works, often ironic re-constructions of esoteric references, give the sense of a private joke, playfully lampooning the absurdity of life.

Rodney Graham, Cactus Fan (2013), via 303 Gallery (more…)

Troy Brauntuch, State Trooper (2013), via Petzel Gallery

Chelsea’s Petzel Gallery is currently presenting a pair of new exhibitions examining the process of art creation and photography, as explored in the works of artist’s Troy Brauntuch and John Stezaker.  Taking notably distinct, attentive approaches to the photographed image, these two artists present new entries into well-established bodies of work, while adding new wrinkles and conceits to their practice. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal has published a thorough profile on MoMA’s recently hired curator of photography, Quentin Bajac.  Recruited last year, Bajac is the first non-American to be named to the post, and brings a diversified view into the art form that often incorporates fields like astronomy.  “Photography has established a fruitful dialogue with other media,” he said. “With film, with architecture, with sculpture. What I’m really interested in is this dialogue with other techniques.” (more…)

Marc Quinn, Breath (2013)

Time and again, Artist Marc Quinn has defined himself as an artist of grand statements.  Utilizing imagery and materials from his surroundings, often cast on symbolically enormous scale, the artist has created a body of work that digs at the complex interrelations of art and science, life and meaning, process and creation.  The act of viewing seems central to Quinn’s body of work, collected for a major solo exhibition in Venice this summer, and running concurrently with the Venice Biennale at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini.  Scale and image converge to create a striking and powerful impression of the human condition for viewers who find themselves in front of his work.

Marc Quinn, Self (2011)

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Chuck Close, Self-Portrait/ maquette, 1975  © 2013 Chuck Close courtesy of Pace Gallery

Eykyn Maclean is currently presenting the first exhibition to focus solely on Chuck Close’s photo maquettes, examining their relation to the artist’s large-scale painted portraits. Not only do the works in the Photo Maquettes series offer the viewer a better understanding of the technical aspects of Close’s paintings, but also offer an interesting probe into the delineations between the practices of painting and photography. (more…)