Günther Förg's Diverse Utopia-Critical Body of Work Dissected @ Galerie Max Hetzler

 
 

Günther Förg’s comprehensive and multidisciplinary oeuvre, which spans five decades, includes painting, drawing, and murals, as well as sculpture and photography. The focus is on material, color, and space. The artist's experimental approach to abstraction and monochrome painting was directed against the trend toward figuration that prevailed in Germany in the 1980s. His works made continuous reference to 20th-century modernism, whose utopia he critically questioned. In this context, he engaged with art movements as diverse as early modernism, referencing artists such as Edvard Munch, or the American abstract expressionists including Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Cy Twombly. Elements of conceptual art can also be found throughout Förg’s work, which additionally challenge traditional interpretations.

Günther Förg is on view through February 24th at Galerie Max Hetzler, Bleibtreustraße 45, Berlin.

Dozie Kanu's World Building Tools: An Interview From The Biodiversity Issue →

 
 

text by Oliver Kupper
portraits by Parker Woods 

Dozie Kanu’s practice is a conceptual exploration of colonial and hegemonic politics, architecture, spatial narratives, and so much more. Born in Houston, Texas in 1993, and now based in Santarém, Portugal, Kanu’s investigation of cultural artifacts belies an America still grappling with not only its troubled past, but also its troubled present. Razor-sharp, anti-climb, raptor spikes, a visual and physical deterrent for vandals and undesirables, find their way onto one of his sculptures modeled as a baby crib, an emblematic nod to the countless divisions that are psychologically embedded at birth. There is something alchemical about Kanu’s reimagined objects of our urban visual landscape, like an ATM blasted with a thick layer of black epoxy sculpting clay, or a poured concrete chair in “crack rock beige” that sits on a spoked tire rim, that gives Kanu’s work a kind of authentic reclamation of power in a grief-stricken zeitgeist. We caught up with Kanu on a rare visit to Los Angeles, before the opening of his exhibition, to prop and ignore, at Manual Arts, to discuss tools for building a more socially equitable world. Read more.

Eleanor Antin Presents "Time's Arrow" @ LACMA In Los Angeles

Eleanor Antin (b. 1935) is one of the most important artists of her generation and a pioneer of performance and conceptual art in Southern California. In 1972, she challenged definitions of sculpture, self-portraiture, photographic documentation, and performance with CARVING: A Traditional Sculpture. Consisting of 148 black-and-white photographs, CARVING shows the transformation of Antin’s body as she lost 10 pounds over 37 days. Eleanor Antin: Time's Arrow brings together both CARVING series, a new self-portrait, and a related serial work from the 1970s, provoking reflection on discipline, vulnerability, and the passage of time. Time's Arrow is on view through July 28 at Los Angeles County Museum of Art 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Sarah Lucas Presents 'Au Naturel' @ Hammer Museum In Los Angeles

Over the past 30 years, Sarah Lucas has created a distinctive and provocative body of work that subverts traditional notions of gender, sexuality, and identity. Since the late 1980s, Lucas has transformed found objects and everyday materials such as furniture, cigarettes, vegetables, and stockings into absurd and confrontational tableaux that boldly challenge social norms. The human body and anthropomorphic forms recur throughout Lucas’s works, often appearing erotic, humorous, fragmented, or reconfigured into fantastical anatomies of desire. Au Naturel is on view through September 1 at the Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the Hammer

Ochi Projects Presents 'Soft Pretzel' Group Show @ Vacation Gallery In New York

Soft Pretzel features works that investigate sculptural forms and perceived tactility. Evaluating our ability to anticipate sensory experiences as they are conveyed through visual cues, each work explores implied softness, rigidity, dimension, weight and movement. The exhibition includes works by Tanya Brodsky, Rives Granade, Nasim Hantehzadeh, Lilian Martinez, Daniel McKee, Erin Morrison, Claudia Parducci, Ben Sanders and James Seward. Soft Pretzel is on view through October 28 @ Vacation Gallery, 24A Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002. images courtesy of Ochi Projects

Adrian Piper's 'Concepts and Intuitions, 1965-2016' Opens @ Hammer Museum in Los Angeles

Adrian Piper: Concepts and Intuitions, 1965-2016 is the most comprehensive West Coast exhibition to date of the work of Adrian Piper (b. 1948, New York). It is also the first West Coast museum presentation of Piper’s works in more than a decade, and her first since receiving the Golden Lion Award for Best Artist at the 56th Venice Biennale of 2015 and Germany’s Käthe Kollwitz Prize in 2018. Organized by The Museum of Modern Art, this expansive retrospective features more than 270 works gathered from public and private collections from around the world, and encompasses a wide range of mediums that Piper has explored for over 50 years: drawing, photography, works on paper, video, multimedia installations, performance, painting, sculpture, and sound. 

Piper’s groundbreaking, transformative work has profoundly shaped the form and content of Conceptual art since the 1960s, exerting an incalculable influence on artists working today. Her investigations into the political, social, and spiritual potential of Conceptual art frequently address gender, race, and xenophobia through incisive humor and wit, and draw on her long-standing involvement with philosophy and yoga.

For this exhibition, the Hammer is partnering with the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) to present Piper’s work What It’s Like, What It Is #3, a large-scale mixed-media installation addressing racial stereotypes. Adrian Piper: Concepts and Intuitions, 1965-2016 in on view through January 6 at Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.


"Nighthorses" by Adam McEwen @ Gagosian Gallery

As Adam McEwen’s title suggests, anxiety resides even in the most common images and objects. His art draws attention to the vestigial dramas of daily life; the forgotten is memorialized, the subliminal laid bare. Narrative flow is tempting to seek yet impossible to find. See more exhibition images here. "Nighthorses" is on view through June 9 at Gagosian Gallery 456 North Camden Drive Beverly Hills. photograph by Oliver Kupper

The Opening Of Jeremy Everett's "The Good Part" @ Wilding Cran Gallery in Los Angeles

The Good Part is a mixed-media installation by Jeremy Everett. Acting as interventions, the various works on view offer notions of tension, movement, resistance, and corruption. The Good Part is on view through May 19th at Wilding Cran Gallery 939 South Santa Fe Avenue Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock