Vija Celmins, Night Sky #20 (2000-2016), all photos via Matthew Marks Gallery

It’s been almost seven years since New York has seen a Vija Celmins show.  Often working in small scales, Celmins has been painting realistic impressions of nature and man-made objects since the 1960’s. Known to take years to finish a painting, Celmins’s relentless pursuit of her work sees the artist often trying to rework pieces even after they have been hung.  The New York show is worth the wait, however, with Celmins presenting a beautiful group of new paintings, drawings, objects, and prints with Matthew Marks Gallery, on view through April 22nd.

  
Vija Celmins (Installation View)

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Robert Gober, Untitled (1997), all photos via Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

Taking the fraught emotional landscape of early childhood as its central focus, Skarstedt Gallery’s London location is currently presenting a subdued but emotionally poignant group show, exploring the use and manipulation of the objects, scenarios and symbolism of youth as a productive force for a group of the gallery’s artist.  Exhibiting work from Robert Gober, the late Mike Kelley and Vija Celmins, the stripped-down exhibition carries an impressive punch. (more…)

Vija Celmins, Ocean Surface Woodcut (1992). Via Museum Ludwig.

The Museum Ludwig is presenting a comprehensive solo exhibition of Vija Celmins‘ works, titled “Desert, Sea and Stars.” This show will run through July 17th, and consists of sixty works by the American-Latvian artist, among them her graphite-on-paper depictions of minuscule subjects as spiderwebs or shells, and fragments of vast landscapes. Celmins’s use of photographies as the models for these drawings, gives a hint into her approach to the ideas of the sublime and transient in nature; where the frailness of objects, and the ongoing movements of wind and sea, render those captured glimpses as irrepeatable.

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All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.

One of the biggest official collateral events of the 54th Venice Biennale is “Venice in Venice.” The exhibition’s fill title is “Venice in Venice: Glow & Reflection – Venice California Art from 1960 to the Present,” organized by Foundation 20 21 and taking place June 1st – July 31st at Palazzo Contarini Dagli Scrigni. Curated by Tim Nye and Jaqueline Miro, the exhibition include works by seminal Southern California artists Peter Alexander, John Altoon, Charles Arnoldi, Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, Tony Berlant, Wallace Berman, Vija Celmins, Bruce Conner, Ron Cooper, Mary Corse, Laddie John Dill, Joe Goode, Robert Graham, George Herms, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, John McCracken, Ed Moses,Kenneth Price, Ed Ruscha, and James Turrell.

Curator Jacqueline Miro, Director of the Getty Image Research Institute Andrew Perchuk, and artists exhibiting in the Venice in Venice show.

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Vja Celmin’s show at LACMA discusses a part of her life that often goes overlooked-  her time as an young artist. For over three years, Celmins lived in a small studio in Venice Beach, California and though she is known for fairly serene subject matter, Celmins’ installation within LACMA showcases her preoccupation with more violent topics during this period in her life. These paintings emphasize  crashing war planes,  handguns and images of death and destruction.  Though the images are violent in nature,  they are tinged with Celmin’s own personal history and attention to the medium.

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Anselm Kiefer, Winter Ade Scheiden Tut Weh Aberdein Scheiden Macht, Dass Mein Herz Lacht (Goodbye, Winter, Parting Hurts But Your Departure Makes My Heart Cheer), 2010
Listed at $100,000

Last night at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery on Chrystie street in the Lower East Side of New York, West-Village-based Foundation for Contemporary Arts held a benefit auction selling nearly 200 paintings and sculptures.  All proceeds went to programs of the FCA, “hoping to assist and encourage innovation, experimentation and potential in the arts,” this year providing 14 grants to artists, of $25k each.

A view from the balcony

The benefit was extremely well attended, with some of the artists joining as well. The large number of works represented a variety of globally well-known artists, including Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, Brice Marden, Francesco Clemente, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Julie Mehretu, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, David Salle, Frank Stella, Elizabeth Neel, Julian Opie, Cecily Brown, Vija Celmins, Robert Gober, Nate Lowman, Dan Colen, Dana Schutz, Kara Walker, and T.J. Wilcox, to name a few.

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Blackboard Tableau #1, Vija Celmins, 2007-2010. 3 found tablets, 7 made tablets, wood, paper, string, acrylic, alkyd oil, and pastel. Image via McKee Gallery.

Vija Celmins’ first gallery show in nine years features paintings, prints, and sculptures.  At the core of the exhibition are Celmins’ assemblages of neatly arranged objects that recall an outmoded and cerebral academic youth: globes, maps, tablets, and books, are bronze-cast or painted. Celmins presents 16 such objects, in addition to 4 paintings and 9 new prints.  Her exhibition at the McKee Gallery characteristically combines the personal and terrestrial with the cosmic.

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