Learn to Read Art On View @ 80 WSE Gallery

80 WSE Gallery presents Learn to Read Art: A Surviving History of Printed Matter, an exhibition chronicling the thirty-nine year history of iconic artist’s book organization Printed Matter, and subsequently the larger history of artists’ book production from the 1970’s through the present. The exhibition will be on view until February 14, 2015 at 80 WSE Gallery. 

[TOUR] Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles

Located in the quaint and cozy back streets of Echo Park in Los Angeles, the Tom of Finland Foundation is not so much a gay mecca as it is a mecca of sexuality and a celebration of desire. The house – an early craftsman built in 1910 – was purchased by Durk Dehner in the late 70s. After Durk met Touko Laaksonen (aka Tom of Finland), the house became their sanctuary and the attic became Touko’s private studio. The house also became a safe haven for art with homosexual overtones when AIDS was painted as a gay disease. Today, the home is full of Tom of Finland’s distinctive black and white illustrations of buxom men with their muscles glistening and members bulging. Even though Tom of Finland died a little more than twenty years ago, his room is virtually the same – with his boots propped up and a smudge of ash still in the ashtray. We were fortunate to be given a tour of the foundation by its vice-president and curator S.R. Sharp who took us on an extensive journey that started with the entry drawing room and ended in the backyard – dubbed Pleasure Park – where palm trees swayed and Los Angeles sparkled under a crepuscular sky. Text and photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

A Visit to the Studio of James Georgopoulos

Upon first impression, the studio of James Georgopoulos – which is located in a nondescript and industrial section of El Segundo in Los Angeles – looks like a classic car garage. There are car doors, car hoods, a full size Mercury Comet, and a giant robotic arm that was used in 1980s American vehicle manufacturing – it in its raw form now, but it is being prepped for an upcoming show. Georgopoulos calls it ‘Zeus.' Georgopoulos – who is most well known for his ‘Guns of Cinema’ series – is branching out with more three-dimensional, sculptural work, like ‘Vacation,’ which includes the disembodied cab of a truck with a video projection of a road stretching out behind it; Benny Goodman crackles on the radio. That piece is on view now at MAMA gallery in Los Angeles. Just recently, we were lucky enough to take a tour of James Georgopoulos’ studio and he was kind enough to show us around. Text and photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Portrait in the Twenty-First Century @ Postmasters

Postmasters presents a show of portraits, real and imagined, that reflect our moment in time, the currently available technologies and the growing popular fascination with portraiture over social media platforms. Portrait in the Twenty-First Century will be on view until January 17, 2015 at Postmasters Gallery, 54 Franklin Street New York, NY

Friedrich Kunath 'Earth to Fuckface' @ White Cube

White Cube Hong Kong presents a new exhibition by Los Angeles based German artist Friedrich Kunath. Kunath’s work, which covers a range of mediums including drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and photography, presents an altered reality whose subject matter taps into universal and existential concerns. For this exhibition Kunath has pushed his personal vision even further, producing a series of new paintings that explores the limits and extent of an inner, psychic landscape whose kaleidoscopic and fragmented scenes seem to uncannily cohere. Earth to Fuckface will be on view until January 31 at White Cube Hong Kong, 50 Connaught Road Central

Spain & 42 St @ Foxy Production

SPAIN & 42 ST. is the title of a William S. Burroughs cut-up poem that transforms found fragments of text into a new whole. The works in the exhibition challenge the narratives of photography and fashion and parallels between them, just as Burroughs constantly challenged the structure of prose. They move beyond expectations of fashion or fine art: they are neither exclusively one nor the other. Each is a cut-up in itself and within the context of the exhibition, which features artists Darja Bajagić, Jimmy DeSana, Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe, Paul Mpagi, Sepuya Heji Shin, Laurie Simmons, and Deborah Turbeville. SPAIN & 42 ST. will be on view until January 31, 2015 @ Foxy Productions, 623 W. 23rd St. New York. 

Brant Foundation Presents Dan Colen's The L...o...n...g Count

Brass rods, cement slabs, specks of dirt, stainless steel bars, faceted metal studs, cigarette butts, ashes, empty bottles of booze, strands of hair, Dan Colen creates a anti-world that looks left behind by misfits and miscreants. Dan Colen The L...o...n...g Count is on view now un December 21 in Walter De Maria's former studio – the space is now The Brant Foundation Art Study Center at 421 East 6th St, New York. photographs by Fredrica Duke 

The Thing and the Thing-In-Itself @ Andrea Rosen Gallery

Andrea Rosen Gallery presents The Thing and the Thing-in-Itself, an exhibition comprising a tightly focused group of 20th-century masterworks curated by noted art historian Robert Hobbs.  Bringing together a compelling group of significant works, one by each of seven key 20th-century artists – Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, René Magritte, Piero Manzoni, Yoko Ono, Ad Reinhardt, and Robert Smithson – this exhibition offers viewers the opportunity to look at familiar artists in a new way and with much greater depth. The Thing and the Thing-in-Itself will be on view until January 24, 2014 at Andrea Rosen Gallery, 525 West 24th Street. photographs by Jena Cumbo for Autre. 

[PHOTOS] Cafe Dolly: Picabia, Schnabel, Willumsen @ MOAFL

Bringing together the work of French artist Francis Picabia, American artist Julian Schnabel, and Danish artist Jens Ferdinand Willumsen for the first time in the United States, the exhibition Café Dolly: Picabia, Schnabel, Willumsen will be on view at NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale from October 12, 2014 - February 1, 2015. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Harper's Books Poolside Bungalow Exhibition @ Edition Hotel

Fascinating display of rare books and other ephemera at Harper Books' exhibition at Miami Beach Edition Hotel. Photography by Daisuke Yokota and art by Jesse Littlefield, Stewart Suttcliffe, Robert Whitman and more. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

REGINA REX presents CEMETERIUM at Emerson Dorsch

Cemeterium is a sculpture garden based on the layout and form of a cemetery that will take place in Miami during the week of art fairs. Featuring work by over thirty artists, Cemetarium is a hybrid form that takes inspiration from both art fairs and cemeteries, to create a critical context that celebrates the persistence of objects beyond this one week and beyond an artists’ lifetime. The exhibition is presented by Regina Rex at Emerson Dorsch Gallery photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper