Patty Smith @ The DIA

The DIA (Detroit Institute of Art) will present the first American museum exhibition to focus on the photography of artist, poet, and performer Patti Smith. Smith's photographs are infused with personal meaning and highlight the rich relationships between art, architecture, poetry and the everyday. This selection of images from the past decade reveals the artists, poets, authors, family and friends from whom Smith draws inspiration. The exhibition includes 70 black and white gelatin silver prints and a small selection of original Polaroids and items from Smith’s personal collection. Patti Smith: Camera Solo will be on view from June 1st to September 2, 2012 at the DIA, 5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan

PICASSO AND FRANÇOISE GILOT

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Gagosian Gallery is presents Picasso and Françoise Gilot: Paris–Vallauris 1943–1953, the fourth major exhibition in an ongoing series on the life and work of Pablo Picasso at the gallery. This exhibition is a departure from its precedents in that it has been conceived as a visual and conceptual dialogue between the art of Picasso and the art of Françoise Gilot, his young muse and lover during the period 1943–53. The result of an active collaboration between Gilot and Picasso’s biographer John Richardson, assisted by Gagosian director Valentina Castellani, Picasso and Françoise Gilot celebrates the full breadth and energy of Picasso’s innovations during these post-war years. On view until June 30, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10075

Ari Marcopoulos: Wherever you go

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Marlborough Chelsea is pleased to present Wherever You Go, a solo exhibition of new work by Ari Marcopoulos. Often atmospheric and abstracted, the works comprising Wherever You Go by renowned photographer, filmmaker and artist Ari Marcopoulos include grandly-scaled pigment prints and smaller photographs on rice paper that, through the processes of multiple printings of the same image, result in lush surfaces of densely textured black and white. On view until June 15, 2012. Marlborough Chelsea, 545 West 25th Street. Photograph by Austin McManus

Beauty Is Embarrassing

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Beauty Is Embarrassing is a funny, irreverent, joyful and inspiring documentary featuring the life and current times of one of America’s most important artists, Wayne White. Raised in the mountains of Tennessee, Wayne White started his career as a cartoonist in New York City. He quickly found success as one of the creators of the TV show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Most recently, his word paintings, which feature pithy and often sarcastic text statements crafted onto vintage landscape paintings, have made him a darling of the fine art world. Beauty Is Embarrassingis currently screening is select cities.

Silhouettes by The Julliene Brothers

"Play it loud & enjoy." The Jullien Brothers have released a new video featuring the music of Niwouinwouin, aka Nicolas Jullien. The video is directed by Jean Jullien and his brother Nicolas who together make up the creative duo. The video features illustrations from Jean Jullien's book Silhouettes published by Lendroit.

Entre Nous: The Art of Claude Cahun

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These are the last few days to catch Claude Cahun's firs retrospective in the states. Born Lucy Schwob to a family of French intellectuals and writers, Claude Cahun (who adopted the pseudonym at age 22) is best known for the staged self-portraiture, photomontages, and prose texts she made principally between 1920 and 1940. Rediscovered in the late 1980s, her work has not only expanded our understanding of the Surrealist era but also serves as an important touchstone to later feminist explorations of gender and identity politics. In her self-portraits, which she began creating around 1913, Cahun dismantled and questioned preexisting notions of self and sexuality. From her university years until her death, Cahun was accompanied by her partner and artistic collaborator, Suzanne Malherbe, a childhood friend and stepsister. They surrounded themselves with members of the Surrealist movement and created work that embraced leftist politics. Cahun, with assistance from Malherbe (under the pseudonym Marcel Moore), produced photographs, assemblages, and publications from the 1920s on. The photograph Entre Nous (Between Us), featuring a pair of masks embedded in sand, gives the title to this show and is emblematic of their multifaceted relationship. The first retrospective exhibition in the United States of Cahun’s work, Entre Nous: The Art of Claude Cahun, is on view now at the Art Institue of Chicago, brings together over 80 photographs and published material by Cahun and Moore, including several photomontages from their 1930 collaborative publication Aveux non avenus (Disavowals), and the only surviving object by Cahun, which is in the Art Institute’s permanent collection. On view until June 3, 2012.

She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea

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Tracey Emin's first major solo exhibition at Turner Contemporary, entitled She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea, is conceived specially for Margate, where Emin grew up and which has provided inspiration for many of her most famous art works. The exhibition explores the themes of love, sensuality and romanticism in Emin's oeuvre, featuring both new and existing works including drawings, monoprints, sculptures and neons. The exhibition's central themes continue in a display of paintings, sketches and watercolours of erotic subjects by Tracey Emin as well as JMW Turner and Auguste Rodin, whose iconic sculpture The Kiss is on show at Turner Contemporary until 2 September 2012. Tracey Emin: She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea will be on view from May 26 to September 23 at the Turner Contemporary 

Jeff Koons in SWITZERLAND

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The Fondation Beyeler is presenting the first exhibition ever devoted by a Swiss museum to the American artist Jeff Koons. This extensive presentation focuses on three central series of works – The New,Banality and Celebration – which represent crucial stages in Koons’s development and lead to the nucleus of his thinking and creative activity. Koons’s equally spectacular and subtle works are repeatedly concerned with themes such as innocence, beauty, sexuality and happiness. These reflect his conception of an art that is accessible to every viewer. Koons will be on view at The Foundation Beyeler until September 2, 2012.

KON TRUBKOVICH: Leap Second

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With his Los Angeles debut, Moscow born New York based artist Kon Trubkovich reveals his most personal work to date. A new series of paintings, works on paper, and a sound piece translate psychological underpinnings through elegantly complex methods. The television static, weak transmissions, and tenuous connections he depicts suggest that somewhere behind all the noise and disruption there is a broadcast confirming our existence and interconnection. Prominent in the exhibition are a group of large-scale portraits of the artist’s mother, culled from just one second of home video, which documented the final party she threw in the U.S.S.R before the family immigrated to the U.S. Defining a transitional moment of flux, these works illuminate the difficultly of tracing the past and express our elusive connection to the concept of origin. Through oil on linen, Trubkovich visually describes the sensation of relating to a person or physical location that no longer exists, or at least not as remembered, and aims to parse latent recall into a tangible codex. Leap Second is on view at OHWOW Gallery in Los Angeles, with an opening reception tonight and will be open until June 23, 937 North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

Yayoi Kusama: Hong Kong Blooms in My Mind

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Sotheby’s announces an exclusive selling exhibition of works by Yayoi Kusama in their brand new gallery space in Hong Kong. The exhibition, entitled Hong Kong Blooms In My Mind, showcases seminal works in a variety of mediums and from a range of important dates in the artist’s oeuvre. On view from May 19 to  May 30, 2012

James Franco's Rebel Opening This Weekend in Los Angeles

MOCA presents Rebel, conceived by James Franco with Douglas Gordon, Harmony Korine, Damon McCarthy, Paul McCarthy, Terry Richardson, Ed Ruscha, Aaron Young and more. Rebel will be on view from May 15 through June 23, 2012, at JF Chen, a newly emerging contemporary art and design space, located at 941 North Highland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90038. Photograph by Adarsha Benjamin 

Nude Man Forsblom & Jay Johnson @ Gagosian Opening For Richard Avedon In New York

New York’s spriteliest interior designer, Brock Forsblom, became so inspired at the opening of Richard Avedon: Murals & Portraits last Friday night, he stripped naked to pose in front of the Warhol gang. He in turn inspired hundreds of photographs taken by the mob-scene crowd, which included fellow interior designer Jay Johnson, twin brother to Warhol’s former partner Jed Johnson, and one of the original Avedon subjects. In these large-scale murals and the smaller, related portraits of the 1960s and 1970s, Avedon sought to depict the spirit of the times, a spirit that clearly lives on.

See the exhibition at Gagosian’s West 21st St. Gallery, New York. On view through July 27. photographs by Temo Callahan