NEW NO DARK WAVE at Costume National

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For one month beginning September 10, Costume National store in New York will be transformed into a mini-gallery for an exhibition called New No Dark Wave, named after their Fall collection, featuring artists Aaron Young, the late Tobias Wong, and James Franco who will be showing short films in the changing rooms and a photo series called New Film Stills based on Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills. New No Dark Wave will be on view September 10 to Octobert 10, Costume National, 150 Greene St, NYC

Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years

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Hiding behind a logo and name with the word corporation in it, Bernadette Van-Huy, John Kelsey and Antek Walczak, who make up the quasi-subversive art collection Bernadette Corporation have since the mid-90s been running an underground fashion label, creating films, and publishing a magazine. In the summer of 2001, the collective temporarily merged with Le Parti Imaginaire, a faction of post-Situationist militants and intellectuals with links to the burgeoning antiglobalization movement to participate in the riots of the g8 summit. “We call ourselves a corporation because corporations are everywhere, and it impresses people … pretending we are businesspeople while we sleep all day like cats," says the collective. On view this month at the Artist Space in New York, Bernadette Corporation is having its first major retrospective. Bernadette Corporation: 2000 Wasted Years will on view from September 9 to December 16, 2012, at Artist Space, 38 Greene Street, New York

DOUGLAS GORDON: The End of Civilisation

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Gagosian Gallery presents The End of Civilisation, a major film installation by Douglas Gordon.In The End of Civilisation, a grand piano burns at a remote site deep in the Cumbrian landscape. This lushly green and desolate locale overlooking the boundary between England and Scotland was once the border of the Roman Empire. The grand piano, emblematic of high culture as both a finely crafted instrument and a beautiful sculptural object, is destroyed at the primeval edge of civilization. With this symbolic conflagration, Gordon re-enacts an ancient local tradition of igniting beacons as an admonition or communication. Inspired in part by the journey of the 2012 Olympic torch across the British Isles, The End of Civilisation is both a celebration and a warning—of fire as a symbol of optimism and hope, but also of risk, danger, and destruction. The End of Civilisation is on view from September 8 to October 13, 2012, Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, New York, NY

Wounds by Jaber Al Azmeh

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For the opening of the fall season, Green Art Gallery in Dubai will be presenting Wounds, a series of works by Syrian photographer Jaber Al Azmeh. This series began and evolved along with the revolutionary movements happening in Syria during the crucial first ten months that the country was in turmoil. Photographing individuals from his social circle, including those who were actively part of the revolutionary movement, Al Azmeh asked his subjects to re-enact and perform the stories that they had witnessed or heard about from what was happening in the streets. As the protests and violence increased, Al Azmeh along with many other activists and critics of the current regime had to leave their country for their own safety. Isolated and left with only stories that he heard about the events unfolding within Syria, Al Azmeh eventually became the protagonist of his own work, re-enacting and photographing himself as he transformed from social observer to social activist. Wounds will be on view from September 10 to October 29, at Green Art Gallery, Al Quoz 1, Street 8, AlSerkal Avenue, Unit 28

Anna Fidler: Vampires & Wolfmen

Portland, OR—Charles A. Hartman Fine Art presents Vampires and Wolf Men, the stunning latest body of work by Portland-based artist Anna Fidler. Seeking to construct a myth surrounding characters from the past, and using as source material photographs culled from the Oregon Historical Society, Anna Fidler creates monumental portraits of individuals from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that transfer the energies of the past into contemporary topographies of the fantastic and the mundane. In paintings that feel at once ephemeral and precise, Fidler’s exquisitely balanced renderings of persons both prominent and unknown create a subtle but powerful tension as these figures are recreated as vampires and werewolves. Fidler’s work offers commentary and dialogue with our twenty-first century fascination with a subject that is both timeless and of-the-moment. Vampires and Wolf Men will be on view from September 5 to September 29, 2012, at Charles A. Hartman, 134 NW 8th Avenue, Portland, Oregon

Robert Crumb: The Sketchbooks

Taschen has released 1,344 pages of artist Robert Crumb's hand-picked selections from his notebooks.This six-book boxed set is the first collection of Robert Crumb sketches to be printed from the original art since the hard-bound, slipcased, seven volume series issued by the German publisher Zweitausendeins between 1981 and 1997. The edition by Taschen has been personally edited by Crumb himself to include only what he considers his finest work, including hundreds of late period drawings not published in previous sketchbook collections. Robert Crumb: The Sketchbooks. 1982-2011 is now available by Taschen.

Paul McCarthy: Propo

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"Between 1972 – 1983, I did a series of performances which involved masks, bottles, pans, uniforms, dolls, stuffed animals, etc. After the performances these objects were either left behind or they were collected and stored in suitcases and trunks to be used in future performances. In 1983, the closed suitcases and trunks containing these performance objects were stacked on a table and exhibited as sculpture. In 1991, I opened the suitcases and trunks photographing each item. The group of photographs in their entirety was titled PROPO," says Paul McCarthy. Hauser & Wirth presents n exhibition of over 60 photographs by Paul McCarthy. This selection, many of which have only been seen before in publications, is taken from the artist’s large group of more than 120 photographs, collectively known as ‘PROPO’. Propo is on view until October 20, 2012 at Hauser and Wirth, Limmatstrasse 270 8005 Zurich 

The Graphic Design of Tony Arefin

A new exhibition at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England is a comprehensive survey of work by Tony Arefin (1962–2000), a graphic designer who emerged during the late 1980s as one of the most important figures in the British art world. With his numerous catalogues for institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, ICA, Chisenhale Gallery and Ikon itself, Arefin had achieved such art world dominance by the early 1990s that design critic Rick Poynor described him as ‘single-handedly processing the print needs of the entire British art scene’. Comprising early publications from the YBA movement to seminal advertising campaigns for corporate clients such as IBM, Ikon’s exhibition reveals the intuitive genius of Arefin’s work. Arefin & Arefin: The graphic design of Tony Arefin will be on view between September 12 and November 4, 2012 at Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square  Brindleyplace, West Midlands, United Kingdom

Dan Colen Monograph with Text by Harmony Korine

This artist’s book documents Dan Colen’s 2011 exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in New York, as well as his June 2012 Gagosian exhibition in Paris. Drawing from mass media, local environment, and subculture, Dan Colen’s art imbues the ordinary, the disenfranchised, and the tribal with provocative new status. This publication includes over fifty new works, including Colen’s series of Grass, Gum, Confetti, and Stud, with extensive details of the works. There is also text by Harmony Korine. Now available by Rizzoli.

New Works by April Wood

April Wood is a metalsmith artist working with the complex relationship between food and the body. Wood is interested in the ritual process of eating and the tools societies use to feed one another. For the artist, eating is a form of consumption, which can span a range of emotions, from pleasurable to horrific, from overindulgent to controlling. In this way Wood’s larger discussion on food’s often contradictory role in the contemporary society relates to the Collections Selections theme of excess. Her Feeding the Hunger sculptures become activated performances when placed in a person’s mouth. April Wood: New Works is on view until December 2, 2012, at AMOA-Arthouse, 3809 West 35th Street

The Sculptures of Kevin Francis Gray

Haunch of Venison presents London-based artist Kevin Francis Gray’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition will showcase several of Gray’s porcelain, bronze and marble sculptures that merge elements of both classicism and the sculpted human form with an aesthetic that contextualises the work firmly within the visual landscape of contemporary society. On view from September 4 to September 29, at Haunch of Venison, 550 West 21st Street

José Lerma and Eddie Martinez

Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton presents a two-person exhibition of new works by José Lerma and Eddie Martinez. Both artists use creative material approaches to painting and its history as the starting point for their practice. Inhabited by voracious marks and a motley cast of characters, their works display the political histories of nations imagined and conflicts all too real, through the interplay of their denizens. On view until August 29, 2012 at Halsey McKay Gallery, 79 Newtown Lane East Hampton, NY

American Sugar

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American Sugar, a solo exhibition by J.M. Giordana, takes a confrontational look at America's addiction to sugar, sex, and insulin. Giordino's photographs and sculptures are also aiming to reintroduce "pop" to Balitmore's art scene. American Sugar is on view until August 31, at CA Gallery, 440 E Oliver Street Baltimore, Maryland

Marcello Cinque at Galerie Piece Unique

On view now at Galerie Piece Unique in Paris Marcello Cinque's giant octopus sculpture that fills almost the entirety of the space. In his monochrome sculptures, white, black, red or blue, Marcello Cinque experiments new materials such as elastic paint and sponge rubber. This material, being able to wrap and roll around itself as if squeezed out of a thick tube of paint, can create real “post-lunar” forms which nullify the laws of gravity. On view until Setember 8, 2012 at Galerie Piece Unique 4 Rue Jacques Callot, Paris. 

Alex Israel First Solo Show in Italy

Peres Project, Il Giardino dei Lauri and Citta' della Pieve are present Alex Israel's first solo show in Italy, at the Museo Civico Diocesano di S. Maria dei Servi in Citta' della Pieve (PG), Umbria until October 1st, 2012. Continuing with Property, an ongoing body-of-work, Israel has rented his newest prop sculptures from the legendary Italian film studio Cinecittà. He selected an array of replica Styrofoam and fiberglass antiquities and objects, iconic and anonymous, drawn from an amalgam of cultures, eras, and narratives, and composed them in dialogue with each other and with the unique venue.

His painting spells TRBL

In-your-face, achingly simple, deceptively frank, the work of Christopher Wool is so very New York. Though he owes a debt to abstract expressionism and pop art, he completely transcends—even demolishes—these genres. Whether it’s a text-based painting or an abstract spray-painted piece, his work is immediately engaging. Wool questions painting, like many other artists in his generation, but he doesn’t provide any easy answers. “The harder you look the harder you look,” he puts it in one of his word paintings, and that is an excellent example of how he states the obvious whilst provoking us to think deeper about what seems obvious. This September a new monograph will be available on Taschen – In over 400 pages, all of Wool's work phases are covered in large-scale reproductions, accompanied by production Polaroids and installation photos by Wool himself. Essays and analyses by Glenn O’Brien, Jim Lewis, Ann Goldstein, Anne Pontégnie, Richard Hell, and Eric Banks.

Adam Green Houseface @ The Hole

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The Hole gallery in New York presents an end of summer exhibition by artist and musician Adam Green. Green will fill the galleries with painting, sculpture, and his feature-length film The Wrong Ferrari screened on continuous loop in Gallery 3. Houseface will be on view August 16 through August 25, 2012 at The Hole, 312 Bowery Street, New York