M.I.A. and Collaborator Steve Loveridge in Kochi for India's first ever art biennale which started on 12/12/12. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale will be set in spaces across Kochi, Muziris and surrounding islands. There will be shows in existing galleries and halls, and site-specific installations in public spaces, heritage buildings and disused structures. On view for the next three months.
Widely acknowledged as an artist who defined his era, Mike Kelley (1954–2012) created a stunning and protean legacy that encompasses painting, sculpture, works on paper, installation, performance, music, video, photography, collaborative works and critical texts. In the largest exhibition of his work ever organized—and the first comprehensive survey attempted since 1993—the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam presentation of Mike Kelley will bring together over 200 works, spanning the artist’s 35-year career. The exhibition will subsequently travel to the Centre Pompidou, Paris, MoMA PS1, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The retrospective will be on view December 15 to April 1, 2013, at the Stedelijk Museum, Museumplein 10, 1071 DJ Amsterdam, Netherlands
Marianne Boesky Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings and graphite drawings by Barnaby Furnas (b.1973, Philadelphia, PA). This will be the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. In this new series of paintings, loosely titled If Wishes Were Fishes, Furnas again tackles epic historic and religious iconography, this time drawing from both the lore of Melville’s Moby Dick, as well as Jonah’s flight from God that lands him in the belly of the whale. On this Furnas says, “What interested me about whaling in the first place was that they (the whales) gave us light - their fat allowed us to bring God's light into the darkness of the night so we could see our fingers and maybe read after the sun went down." If Wishes Were Fishes will be on view until December 21, 2012 at Marianne Boesky Gallery, 509 West 24th Street New York, NY.
French jewelry, object, accessory designer and mystic Aoi Kotsuhiroi, who releases some sort of narrative to accompany each of her new collections, has released the dark and nostalgic, gothic poem called Nothing But Words To Learn To Lie for her current collection of one off objects which have been created entirely by hand, including the sewing. Objects include jackets and corsets made from Bison leather, heels painted with 15 layers of black and red paint and then lacquered with genuine cinnabar Urushi lacquer (tree sap), a human skull wrapped in bison leather, a chestnut wood chair upholstered with bison leather and hand-sewn with waxed linen thread, and a dildo made of Urushi lacquered fagus sylvatica wood that comes in a bison leather pouch. Visit Aoi Kotsuhiroi's website to read the poem and inquire about purchasing these remarkable objects.
Check out Paola Pivi’s surreal image of zebras on a snow-covered mountaintop on High Line Billboard at West 18th Street as part of the artist series, on view until January 2, 2013. One of Italy’s most eccentric artists, Paola Pivi has built her artistic practice on absurd projects and apparently impossible ventures carried out with the serious devotion of a scientist and the creative freedom of an unstoppable explorer.
photograph by Terry Richardson
Chartered airplanes will fly banners created by 15 text-savvy artists including Richard Prince, Jenny Holzer, Lawrence Weiner, and Martin Creed high above the waterfront every afternoon for four hours for the duration of Art Basel Miami. Here is Ed Ruscha's inclusion, entitled People Getting Ready To Do Things.
Lisson Gallery presents an exhibition of new works by seminal American artist, Lawrence Weiner. Widely recognised for his pioneering role in the development of conceptualism in the 1960s, Weiner has spent the last five decades deconstructing artistic practices into various concepts of language and idea. In his new show, Weiner focuses on the concept of truncation, a mathematical term referring to the discarding of unnecessary digits, as an inherent meaning and material reality. His works will populate the gallery walls on a grand and small scale, and will include a new piece occupying the entirety of a 12 metre wall. Be That As It May will be on view until January 12, 2013 at Lisson Gallery, 52-54 Bell Street, London
Harmony Korine painting on view now as part of OHWOW Gallery's It Ain't Fair group show in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach 2012, on view until December 9. 2012, 743 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL.
Gladstone Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Carroll Dunham. Featuring nine works that draw on the motifs of nude bathers and pastoral landscapes familiar from Dunham’s earlier paintings, the exhibition highlights the artist’s continuing interest in these themes. Expanding upon the visual language that characterized his previous works, Dunham demonstrates a shift in his formal decision making, adhering less strictly to the subject’s formal vocabulary and iconography, and instead allowing each work to evolve as a singular painting rather than as a work in a series. On view until January 19, 2013 at Gladstone Gallery, 515 West 24th Street, New York.
Amy O'Neill's impressive and varied body of work includes drawings, installations, sculptures, and videos which reference Americana, art history, and folk art. In this exhibition, O'Neill creates a super-sized environment filled with religious and cultural symbols that explore the American penchant for monumentalism in various forms. The exhibition's title, HLUSA, is an initialism referencing Holy Land USA, an abandoned 18-acre theme park in Waterbury, Connecticut. Amy O'Neill HLUSA will be on view until January 27, 2013, at The Swedish Institute of Contemporary Art, 18 Wooster Street New York, NY
A presentation of the monumental installation The Ozymandias Parade (1985), a scathing commentary on the abuse of political power, on view in New York for the first time since the Whitney Museum's retrospective in 1996. The exhibition also features ten Concept Tableaux, Edward Kienholz's instructions for unrealized installations. Kienholz: The Ozymandias Parade / Concept Tableaux will be on view until December 22, 2012 at Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street, New York NY
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.
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
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.
photograph by Adarsha Benjamin
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
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
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
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
