Fuyuki Yamakawa at Big in Japan

Avant-garde khoomei singer and performance/installation artist Fuyuki Yamakawa at the Ksubi X Kirin presented Big In Japan events last month i. Yamakawa's performances use light bulbs, yogic breath, antiquated medical equipment, and modified musical instruments and involvesoutputting bodily functions (like his heartbeat, amplified with an electronic stethoscope) in synch with external sound and light so the space becomes an extension of his body.

You, Me, Something Else

you_me_Something_else_glasgow_strive_to_set_the_record_straight_james_mclardy

A piece entitled Strive To Set the Record Straight by artist James McLardy now on view at the exhibition You, Me, Something Else in Glasgow celebrating sculpture.

Warhol's Empire

In celebration of the opening of Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964–1977, the Art Institute of Chicago will project Andy Warhol’s 1964 film Empire—a single, eight-hour-long nighttime take of the Empire State Building—from the museum’s Bluhm Family Terrace across Millennium Park to the upper stories of the Aon Center. Warhol’s work thus sets the stage for the artists featured in Light Years who redrew the boundaries of both photography and contemporary art. On view December 9 through December 10.

I Like Pigs & Pigs Like Me

Lately, artist Miru Kim has been spending a lot of time with pigs for her project entitled The Pig That Therefore I Am. Pictured above, Miru Kim spent 104 hours, nude, behind glass with two hogs for Miami, Basel. Part live performance, and part photographic series, Kim writes in her artist statement about the project: "Both a pig and I carry our exteriorized memories on our cutaneous garment–scars, blemishes, wrinkles, and rashes that manifest markings of time, anguish of the soul, wounds of love and war. We all live at the same time, naked and not quite naked. Underneath our exterior coverings, whether they are silk, cotton or leather, we humans carry our own skin, just as pigs do. Born with a blank canvas enveloping us, we accumulate more and more brushstrokes of memories as years pass, on our garment that cannot be literally cast off until death."

John Baldessari, The First $100,000 I Ever Made

High Line Art, presented by Friends of the High Line, today unveiled The First $100,000 I Ever Made, a new work created by legendary artist John Baldessari for the 25-by-75 foot billboard next to the High Line on 10th Avenue at West 18th Street. This is the first of three works to be presented as part of a new series called HIGH LINE BILLBOARD. The First $100,000 I Ever Made will remain on view until Friday, December 30, 2011.

Liquide Vermeil

Liquid_Vermeil_da_end_gallery_CENDRINE_ROVINI

Cendrine Rovini’s exhibition, Liquide Vermeil, takes us into an emphatically feminine world where female images reign. First off the proverbial relationship between women and blood. A rich and intimate mystery which has the power to fascinate man but whose deepest meaning constantly eludes him. The artist presents her creatures as strangely beautiful women who play with and enjoy their own femininity to the point of intoxication. An overflow of blood become flowers, a flow of tears become hair, a face rain, horns erupt in the shape of delicate, wild plants. Liquide Vermeil is on view at the Da-End gallery in Paris from December 15 to February 15, 2012, 17 rue Guénégaud 75006.

Psycho

Die Stimmungsbombe, 2000. Courtesy Sammlung Falckenberg

At the end of this year, the Sammlung Falckenberg will bring together seemingly poetic-surrealist images by US painter Ena Swanser and subversive-enigmatic works by Finnish artist Robert Lucander who now lives in Berlin.  The exhibition’s title of Psycho is a reference to the eponymous horror classic by Alfred Hitchcock and calls to mind the disturbed nature of schizophrenics, psychopaths and other psychologically disturbed persons. Psycho is Greek for soul and the term referring to insanity is derived from the notion that a human’s spirit or soul can become ill; psychoanalysis, for example, is used to treat deep-rooted psychological traumata and behavioral disorders. Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho exposed, for example, the ugly face of unquestioning materialism but left the reader in doubt as to whether the gruesome scenes depicted in the novel emanate from the protagonist’s psychotic fantasies or whether he actually carries out these excessively violent acts. Colloquially, psycho is used to describe a mentally disturbed person who displays behavioral problems and a tendency towards aggressive conduct, thus having an unsettling and threatening effect on their environment. The use of this term leads one to expect a confrontation with art that takes non-conformism, insanity and thus the threatening and the sinister as its theme. This exhibition is on view at the Falckenberg Collection in Hamburg, from December 18 through

[MIAMI BASEL] Fendi Casa X Nick Cave

FENDI Casa Luxury Living and Beats by Dr. Dre announce a collaboration of sound and design highlighting the work of contemporary artist Nick Cave during the 10th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach tonight, Friday, December 2, at the FENDI Casa Luxury Living Showroom. Artist Nick Cave known for his “Soundsuits” which are bright, whimsical and other-worldly wearable fabric sculptures will unveil an installation featuring a one-of-a-kind audio and visual display of Cave’s artwork highlighting his iconic pieces. Friday, December 2, 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m., FENDI Casa Luxury Living Showroom, 90 NE 39th Street, Miami, Fl 33137

Eggleston's Southern Gothic Travelogue at Prospect 2

Whilst Los Angeles is in the heavy throes of the city wide art invasion known as Pacific Standard Time, New Orleans is hosting its own city wide site specific exhibitions and artists’ projects happenings called Prospect 2 on view through January 2012.  Now on view at the Old U.S. Mint, which is now the Louisiana State Museum, William Eggleston's 77 minute long groundbreaking, surreal Southern Gothic  travelogue Stranded in Canton, "a film that consistently teeters on the edge of dream and nightmare states. Its nocturnal visions of bar denizens, musicians (including Furry Lewis), transvestites and a variety of semi-crazies comes off like a Cassavetes all-nighter filmed by David Lynch at his most unsettling: faces loom out of darkness, shot in infrared, displaying pale glowing skin and deep black eyes." On view at the The Louisiana State Museum at the Old U.S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Ave. 

Le regard de personae

Malou Swinnen (b. 1944, Neerpelt) lives and works in Hasselt. As an artist she enjoys a high reputation at home and abroad and her pictures are regularly exhibited. They are also part of several collections, such as Photography Museums (Antwerp and Charleroi), the Ministry of the Flemish Community, the National Library in Paris, and various private collections. The fascination for the face, skin, the pose, the look and attributes are constants in her work. In 2010 she was invited by the Kunstbank (Art Bank) for artistic research. While studying their exclusive collection of textiles and accessories she re-portrayed the looks and the genre and in that way gets the series "Personae" (1995) a new follow-up. Malou Swinnen exhibits the new series "Le regard de personae" at the Fashion Museum Hasselt in Belgium until January 8.

STEVEN KLEIN: TIME CAPSULE

Garage Center for Contemporary Culture presents Time Capsule, a video installation by influential American fashion photographer Steven Klein, on view until December 4 2011. Time Capsule (2011) celebrates Klein as an artist whose work is equally suited to the pages of international fashion magazines as it is presented on the walls of some of the world’s most respected art galleries and museums. The installation continues Klein’s experimentation with moving image through the depiction of the stages of one woman’s life, played by model / actress Amber Valetta, until she reaches the age of 110.  Garage Center for Contemporary Culture – 19A Ulitsa Obraztsova, Moscow.