Winston Chmielinski Ecstatic Skin @ Envoy Enterprises

Envoy Enterprises presents Ecstatic Skin, Winston Chmielinski's first solo exhibition in New York. Chmielinski's paintings indiscriminately engage figuration and abstraction by using color and form to create emotionally-charged re-imaginings of the familiar. This exhibition presents the artist's continued investigations of the body as well as its surrogate forms in nature, with a focus on plants and lighted expanses. Ecstatic Skin will be on view until  December 31, 2012 at Envoy Enterprises, 87 Rivington Street, New York, NY. Photographs by Annabel Graham. 

Takashi Murakami Flowers and Skulls at Gagosian Hong Kong

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This exhibition, Takashi Murakami's first in Hong Kong, explores one of the central dichotomies of his art—between joy and terror, his optimistic magnanimity as an artist and his pessimistic perspective on postwar Japan. Here, this dichotomy is symbolized by the stark contrast of bright smiling flowers and disturbing, menacing representations of skulls. Flowers and Skulls will be on view until February 9, 2012, at Gagosian Gallery, 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street Central, Hong Kong 

Judy Chicago in London

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This November sees the publication of a scholarly survey of artist, writer and feminist activist Judy Chicago's career, reflecting on and accompanying an exhibition of works on paper at the Ben Uri Museum in London. Her work will be set in the context of prominent women artists Louise Bourgeois, Helen Chadwick and Tracey Emin. This, along with an exhibition of her iconic early works (1963-71) at Riflemaker gallery constitute her first solo shows in the UK. Judy will also stage special events at the Whitechapel Gallery, London and Black-E institute, Liverpool.

Bjarne Melgaard at Luxembourg & Dayan

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New York-based Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard is a prolific, profane, and much admired polymath. In addition to paintings, drawings, films, furniture, and objects, he has created a thicket of novels. These exploded accretions of words and ideas, with their fevers of graphic violence, explicit sadomasochistic sex and unexpected poignancy, do not adhere to the conventions of dignified narrative. For Melgaard, the novel is a site where ideas both good and bad can proliferate freely, and where attention follows the upended logic of what actually takes place instead of what ideally should happen. Melgaard steadfastly refuses to locate the frontier between reality and fantasy. “I am more interested in telling a good story than a boring truth,” he has said.  Luxembourg & Dayan gallery in New York presents A New Novel by Bjarne Melgaard, an exhibition that coincides with publication of the artist’s latest novel, his first ever to be published commercially in English. Working closely with a group of leading designers and craftspeople, Melgaard is transforming the gallery’s Upper East Side townhouse into a completely immersive environment that uses his new novel’s story – its protagonist’s tortured infatuation with a doorman and the willing degradations of a surrounding cast of characters – as a point of departure to plumb further the through-line of his entire practice:  an exploration of the ways in which sex and violence dovetail with love and loneliness. A New Novel will be on view until December 22, 2012 at Luxembourg & Dayan, 64 East 77TH Street, New York, NY

It Ain’t Fair 2012 at OHWOW Gallery in Miami

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OHWOW is presents the fifth and final edition of the annual group exhibition It Ain’t Fair (IAF). Coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach, It Ain’t Fair 2012 celebrates the history and tradition of IAF‘s renowned multimedia production, and closes the chapter on what came to define OHWOW’s identity as a community platform for progressive art in all media. The final IAF moves from the Design District to a 6,000 square foot location on the beach to accommodate a large-scale exhibition and various projects, delivering a climactic conclusion to this definitive enterprise. It Ain‘t Fair 2012 assembles a selection of over 30 contemporary artists, many who contributed in past years, along with several new names, from David Adamo, James Franco, Dan Colen, Terry Richardson, Aurel Schmidt, and others. It Ain't Fair will be on view from December 6 to 9, 2012, 743 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL

David LaChapelle Still Life at Paul Kasmin Gallery

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Paul Kasmin Gallery presents Still Life, an exhibition of new works by David LaChapelle, addressing the fleeting nature of humanity, fame, celebrity and power. On view at both Paul Kasmin Gallery locations in New York, this body of work began in 2009, when LaChapelle learned of the break-in and vandalism of the National Wax Museum in Dublin, Ireland, and was granted permission to photograph the destroyed figures. LaChapelle continued photographing figures at two additional wax museums – one in California and one in Nevada – to complete his vision of the collection. With subjects ranging from politicians such as Ronald Reagan, to celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Jackson, to the artist’s depiction of The Last Supper including Judas and Mary Magdalene, Still Life presents eerie compositions of dismembered icons. Still Life expands on the idea of his earlier exhibition, Earth Laughs in Flowers, an exhibition of still life works exploring contemporary vanity, vice, the transience of earthly possessions, and the fragility of humanity. Still Life will be on view until January 13, 2013, at Paul Kasmin Gallery, 293 Tenth Ave & 515 West 27th Street, New York

Gilbert & George at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg will show a group of pictures from the latest series by the English artists Gilbert & George. Gilbert & George have spent many years preparing these London Pictures, which mark a new period in their work. They took thousands of photographs documenting a widespread peculiarity of the press landscape in England: posters with sensational headlines advertising the newspapers on sale in kiosks. They are like heralds blaring out fanfares, titillating public curiosity about the most outrageous and brutal stories of the day. London Pictures will be on view January 19, 2013 at Galerie Thaddaeus, Mirabellplatz 2, 5020, Salzburg Austria

FUCK: Betty Tomkins Works on Paper 1969-2010

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Venus Over Manhattan gallery will present an opening of Betty Tomkins' large scale photorealistic paintings of heterosexual intercourse as part of Art Basel Miami. Fuck: Betty Tomkins Works on Paper 1969-2010 will be on view from December 5 to 9, 2012 at the M Building, 194 NW 30th Street, Miami

Shelter Serra Engine Blocks Opening @ Helmut Lang

Artist Shelter Serra (nephew of sculptor Richard Serra) stands in front of one his "Engine Blocks" installations at the Helmut Lang store in Los Angeles as part of his collaboration with the fashion label and online shop and gallery Grey Area. Serra's Engine Blocks along with other gift items curated by Grey Area will available a various Helmut Lang stores until January 17. photograph by F. Duke

Ryan Johnson Self Storage At Suzanne Geiss Company

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Self Storage, Ryan Johnson's first exhibition with The Suzanne Geiss Company, features a structured installation of representational sculptures made from a variety of materials including wood, medical casting tape and sheet metal. Presented as a fictional self-storage unit, Johnson aims to blur the distinctions between the real and the imagined by conjuring a hallucinatory space where anxieties become materialized as furniture, multi-tasking figures sprout extra limbs and bicycles steer their riders. Informed by a sense of precarity and ambient instability, Johnson's sculptures foreground the liminal nature of storage, focusing on themes of transition and fundamental life decisions about relationships, work, and family. Self Storage will be on view until December 15, 2012 at The Suzanne Geiss Company, 75 Grand Street, New York, New York

Agathe Snow Tout Dit (2D) at OHWOW

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Tout Dit (2D) is Agathe Snow’s first solo exhibition with OHWOW Gallery. Presenting a new body of work, Snow reveals a series of vivid wall reliefs, which are directly concerned with space and perspective. Using recognizable imagery – an archetypal vocabulary of shapes and objects – Snow articulates hypothetical events, scenarios, and conditions through groupings of these various items. Agathe Snow Tout Dit (2D) will be on view until December 8, 2012 at OHWOW Gallery, 937 North La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

Nate Lowman Exhibition At The Brant Foundation

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Allison Brant, Nate Lowman, and Peter Brant standing in from of OJ Simpson's famous Ford Bronco at the opening of Nate Lowman's new exhibition of works, entitled I Wanted To Be An Artist, But All I Got Was This Lousy Career, on view now by appointment only at The Peter Brant Foundation, 941, North Street, Greenwich CT.

Jeff Koons Tulips Outside of Christies in New York

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Jeff Koons stands in from his Tulips sculpture in front of Christie's at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. Tulips is the most complex and colorful sculpture of the artist's Celebration series. The five meter bouquet of seven polychrome tulips will be on view at Christie’s 20 Rockefeller until tonights evening sale - Tulips is estimated to bring in 20-30 million dollars.

Richard Prince White Paintings at Skarstedt Gallery

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Skarstedt Gallery presents the White Paintings by Richard Prince comprising ten paintings from the series executed during the early 1990s. Prince’s White Paintings are raw and energetic in comparison to his more straightforward “re-photographs” of the 1970s and the Monochromatic Jokes of the 1980s. In the White Paintings, handwritten and printed jokes mingle with gestural marks, silkscreened imagery, and graphic fragments all strewn across a white-pigmented backdrop. White Paintings will be on view until December 15, 2012 at Skarstedt Gallery, 20 E 79th St, New York, NY 

Jules De Balincourt Ecstatic Contact at Salon 94 Bowery

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Salon 94 Bowery features Jules de Balincourt’s first solo show with the gallery, Ecstatic Contact, comprised of 6 new large-scale paintings. Known for his abstract and figurative paintings of utopian, dystopian and marginalized communities as well as American politics, de Balincourt breaks new ground in an exploration of collective global anxieties. In his studio, de Balincourt simultaneously paints up to 10 works. Without preparatory drawings, he intuitively moves from painting to painting, allowing one to influence the next. This new body of work addresses the uncertainties of contemporary human life. Ecstatic Contact will be on view until January 13, 2012 at Salon 94, 243 Bowery, New York, NY.

Bad For You, Curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody @ Shizaru

Shizaru Gallery presents Bad For You, an exhibition of contemporary art curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody. Composed of artists based primarily in America, Bad For You seeks to capture the panoramic strand of contemporary art that deals with the exhibition’s eponymous title. Artists include Robert Longo, Marilyn Minter, Ed Ruscha, Aurel Schmidt, Andy Warhol and more. On view until November 23, 2012 at Shizary Gallery, 112 Mount Street, London, England.