An art show featuring new works by David Murcko (above), Derek Skorupski, Grace Lumpkin and Philip DiWilliams will be on view October 25 aboard the historic lightship "Frying Pan," an old US Coast Guard ship built in 1929, abandoned for ten years and sunk in the Chesapeake Bay for 3 years and brought back to NYC in 1989. The Frying Pan is at Pier 66, West 26th Street and Hudson River (near Chelsea Piers).
Jeremy Kost’s celebrity paintings–silkscreened on large-scale canvases from Polaroid images–are paired here with Polaroid facsimiles by Andy Warhol from the 70s and 80s. Both artists share an inquisitive lust to understand fame in all its dramatic guises and extravagant poses. Occasionally they share a subject–Liza Minnelli, Dolly Parton, Keith Richards–though Kost approaches these iconic individuals from a very different perspective. In some cases they are obscured or abstracted; occasionally disembodied, as with Madonna’s head, which appears to float on a sea of silver, or Grace Jones, who dissolves into a beautiful haze of flowers and tapestries. By translating his original photographs into these slick yet gritty canvases, Kost has given his unique vision a new sense of monumentality. In these works, which came from his Polaroid photographs, celebrity is both celebrated and complicated. We see the mobs of paparazzi themselves, clamoring for a shot, and the polarized finish of the paintings themselves is simultaneously glamorous and anti-glamor–just as Beyonce here appears both as a superstar and a sort of monster, caught in the camera’s flash. Like his forbearer Warhol, Kost is a participant in the world he depicts and also somewhat of a voyeur, diligently capturing all the madness and the romance of celebrity, all the while translating a sense of intimacy and access. Jeremy Kost: Always The Center of Attention will be on view until November 18 at Galerie Nuke, 11 Rue Saint Anastase, 75003 Paris, France
A circular artwork featuring butterfly wings by artist Damien Hirst at Gagosian Gallery at FIAC 2012 (International Contemporary Art Fair) at the Grand Palais in Paris on view until October 21, 2012. photograph by Francois Mori
Douglas Gordon's piece Self Portrait of you + me, (oversized Jackie) at FIAC 2012 (International Contemporary Art Fair) which be on view until October 21, 2012, at the Grand Palaise in Paris. photograph by Francois Mori
Gallery Brown presents Matter of Time, an exhibition of new paintings, works on paper and sculpture from artist Gregory Siff. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Gregory officially made Los Angeles home in 2009 where he has since established himself as a recognizable cultural influence. Gregory’s distinct handmade style merges unique elements of abstraction, street, and fine art; his technique coalesces the voice of a fearless child with the wisdom of a seasoned warrior. His influences include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, RETNA, Ray Johnson, RISK, David Shillinglaw, Louis XXX and his father. Matter of Time is an examination of fame, idolatry, memory, determination, kingship and heart. Gregory's half-whispered thoughts are painted out in full roars on found material, handmade panel and canvas. Matter of Time will be on view from October 20 to November 10 at Gallery Brown, 140 South Orlando Ave, Los Angeles, CA
Opening night of Kembra Pfahler's solo exhibition Fuck Island which was on view until October 14 at Participant Inc. in New York. Fuck Island is a protest anthem, love song, and manifesto written for her band, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. As Pfahler describes this song-as-exhibtion: “It’s the first annual Karen Black cock festival. But it’s really more like a happy funeral. We are celebrating the death of the patriarch, and you are all party to this secret.” photograph by Walter Wlodarczyk
Jeu de Paume organizes a major exhibition by the internationally recognized artist Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, 1942), one of the early practitioners of conceptual and media art. The show will survey Muntadas' prolific career, from the seventies to present days. His art practice spans four decades, in which he has utilized actions, video, photography, multi-media installations, publications, public art, the internet, radio and other media to address key political and social issues of our time. Incorporating in-depth research and astute readings of cultural situations, his incisive works have addressed ideas such as the relationship between public and private, the flows of information along the media landscape, and the inherent power of architecture and other social frameworks. Muntadas. Entre / Between will be on view until January 20, 2013 at Jeu de Paume, 1 place de la Concorde 75008 Paris
Commissioned from M/M (Paris) to celebrate both their twentieth anniversary and the publication of the definitive monograph of their work, the exhibition of elaborate rug designs acts like a condensed catalogue - or Carpetalogue - for M/M's practice. Michaël Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak originally established M/M (Paris) as a graphic design studio in 1992. Their close associations with the music, fashion and art worlds have led to their becoming one of the most distinctive and acclaimed creative voices of their generation, within graphic design and beyond. The hand-knotted wool carpets, specifically produced for the exhibition by Abhishek Poddar in Varanasi, India, will be sold as limited editions through the gallery. The monograph, M to M of M/M (Paris), written by Emily King, designed by Graphic Thought Facility and with a foreward by Hans Ulrich Obrist, will be published by Thames and Hudson and launched during the exhibition. M/M (Paris) Carpetologue 1992 to 2012 will be on view until December 15 at Libby Sellers Gallery, 41, 42 Berners Street, London.
Private—a word from the past, or so it would seem these days. A word of hardly any relevance in an era when everything—from one’s favorite recipe to one’s current relationship status—is posted on Facebook. Exhibitionism, self-disclosure, the delight in telling stories, showing off, and voyeurism are the social strategies in today’s world—a world that has long since undergone a structural transformation of the public sphere. In contemporary art, domestic scenes and personal secrets are mirrored in photographs, Polaroids, cell phone photos, objects, installations, and films. The familiar and intimate are put in the picture. Through a consideration of numerous contemporary approaches the Schirn investigates the dwindling private sphere and the “publicness of the intimate.” Aiming her camera through a rear courtyard window, Merry Alpern captures blurred scenes of hurried sexual encounters; in his romantic video piece Akram Zaatari explores an online chat between two men; and Fiona Tan combines private snapshots from different countries to create large tableaux. The exhibition undertakes memorable excursions to the fragile borders between the self and the other. Other artists include Dash Snow, Mark Morrisroe, Ai Weiwei and Marilyn Minter. Privacy will be on view from November 1, 2012, to February 3, 2013 at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Romberg, 60311 Frankfurt
Israeli artist Shai Yehezkelli's painting is busy, rhythmic and fast, wild and free. He works on various surfaces, some of which he finds in the street, and his paintings shifts from "bad painting" to subtle poetic touches. His palate is full of pinks and reds, as if leaping out of a painting by Mattisse. The images span a wide range of references and quotations, each of them disrupt or alter the source; the pitchers look like disrupted quotes of still life painting. Yehezkelli paints with and within art history, but also beyond it. Rough handwritten captions, sometimes written in Hebrew and sometimes in English, convey political and inter-textual messages. When all of those are displayed side by side, the aggregate of captions and titles turn into a discourse on art, which is as valuable as the language of the painting itself. An exhibition of new works entitled Forever Sweat-Beads will be on view from October 18 to November 24, at Julie M. Gallery, 10 Betzalel Yafe St, Tel Aviv, Israel
Paul McCarthy's White Snow Head at Hauser & Wirth at Frieze Art Fair, London 2012. Sold for 1.3 million.
Jim Lambie 'Untitled' (2012) at Sadie Coles HQ at Frieze London 2012. photograph by Linda Nylind
Walter Pfeiffer’s Scrapbooks from 1969 to 1982 are a very unique Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities). Pfeiffer’s Polaroids and photographs alternate with miscellaneous objects – newspaper clippings, postcards, packaging, tickets – and brief punning notes. Pfeiffer assembles all of this into a large collage full of surprising references and comparisons that is both a visual diary and creative foundation of his artistic work. In his scrap books, Pfeiffer’s keen view of Eros, Zeitgeist and popular culture, his disrespectful humor as well as his appreciation for the poetry in the mundane and banal, are sharply revealed. They offer a view into Pfeiffer’s meandering and playful universe and are a contemporary document that captures the Zeitgeist of the 1970s and 1980s with ephemeral elegance. Walter Pfeiffer's Scrapbooks 1969-1985 is available here.
Yayoi Kusama's Flower that Bloom Tomorrow at Frieze London 2012 in the Sculpture Park on view until October 14. photograph by Linda Nylind
Peter Liversidge’s Everything is Connected at Frieze London 2012 in the Sculpture Park on view until October 14. photograph by Linda Nylind
Artist and skateboarder Stephen McClintock in NYC, his show Happiness is Expensive is currently on view at Inkwell Gallery until October 29, 40 W. 23rd Street. photograph by Jennifer Mulhare
James Fuentes gallery presents an exhibition of photographs by Jonas Mekas. Images out of Darkness recounts the years that Jonas Mekas and his brother Adolfas lived in Wiesbaden, Germany , in a displa ced persons camp. In 1944, a rrested by the Nazi’s a s they fled Lithuania, the brothers were placed in a forced labor camp where they worked in a machine factory.The brothers escaped and were detained near the Danish border where they hid on a farm for two months until the end of the war. After the war, they lived in displaced persons camps first in Wiesbaden and then in Kassel/Mattenberg. Between 1946-48 Mekas studied philosophy at the University of Mainz, the brothers immigrated to New York City in 1949 with assistance from the UN. Two weeks a fter his arrival in New York Jonas borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. Mekas is considered a pioneer of diaristic cinema and a "god father to American avant-garde cinemat, his commitment to life as subject continues to this day and he has had exhibitions in major cultural institutions across the world. Images out of Darkness marks Jonas Mekas’ first visual essay. Jonas Mekas: Images Out Of Darkness, Images of A Displaced Person, Post War Germany 1945 to 1949 will be on view until October 28 at James Fuente Gallery, 55 Delancey Street, New York
As part of the High Line's continued monthly installations of artist's works on their billboard on West 18th and 10th Ave, this time they present conceptual artist Thomas Bayrle's American Dream, taken from a 1970 drawing by the artist, the image depicts a classic Chrysler sedan, generated through hundreds of warped stars featuring the car company’s iconic logo. On view until October 31, 2012.
Incorporating film, literature, data visualizations and sound design, artist Douglas Aitken's Altered Earth invites the user to piece together fragments of the landscape of the region of Camargue France. The site-specific work has been developed into an application for the iPad by Meri Media.The films themselves, of which there are seven, are devoid of narrative or plot, showing Carmague's salt pans, wild horses, and decaying architecture. The LUMA Foundation, which commissioned the work, calls it "a work of land art for the electronic era." Altered Earth will be on view this month projected on the walls of an old train station in Arles, France.
Jeff Koons has had a busy summer. A troika of career-reaffirming exhibitions have just been taking place throughout Europe : the Fondation Beyeler in Basel has produced a retrospective of his works centered around three principal groups of works (“New,” “Banality,” and “Celebration”); the Schirn Kunsthalle and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, both in Frankfurt, have been focusing on the two major arteries of Koons’ artistic production : his painting, and his sculpture, exhibited simultaneously, but in two separate Frankfurt venues. Now, another impressive exhibition of Jeff Koons’ art is about to open: at Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels. This is an event for many reasons: this is the first Koons exhibition in Brussels since 1992, when Made in Heaven was revealed to the Belgian public. More importantly, the present exhibition crowns this summer’s harvest : it concludes, recaps, but also expands again, on this extraordinarily rich and fecund season of exhibitions of Koons’ oeuvre. Jeff Koons : Humankind Before All will be on view from October 10 to November 17, 2012 at Almine Rech Gallery, 20 Rue De L'Abbaye Abdijstraat, Brussels