Opening Vernissage for Betty Tomkins' "Women Words, Phrases, and Stories" @ The Flag Art Foundation

Betty Tompkins' exhibition Women Words, Phrases, and Stories marks the first comprehensive presentation of 1,000 intimately-scaled, hand-painted works, each of which features a word or words used to describe women. The language in the exhibition ranges from flirtatious to derogatory, and emanates from Tompkins's career-long commitment to challenge the representation of female identity, the politics of pleasure, and the role of sexuality in contemporary culture. Betty Tomkin's "Women Words, Phrases, and Stories" will be on view until May 14 at the Flag Art Foundation, 545 West 25th Street, New York. photographs by Scout Maceachron  

Cecily Brown, Jeff Koons, Charles Ray The Flag Art Foundation in New York

Ranging from lushly painted canvases to sculptures of extraordinary technical acumen, Cecily Brown, Jeff Koons, Charles Ray includes three artworks by each artist that address themes of youth, nostalgia, and intimacy, and highlight the intersection of innocence and subversion. Jeff Koons and Charles Ray's unprecedented approach to material, scale, and surface have redefined the possibilities of sculpture. Mining the rich psychological territory of childhood and familial relationships, both artists elevate innocent subject matter to monumental status. Cecily Brown explores youth and transience in kaleidoscopic compositions of fleshy, abstracted figures, utilizing the materiality of paint to replicate physical sensation and the illusion of motion. The exhibition will be on view until May 14, 2016 at the Flag Art Foundation, 545 West 25th Street. photographs by Scout Maceachron

Yutaka Sone "Day and Night" @ David Zwirner Gallery In New York

David Zwirner present an exhibition of recent and new works by Yutaka Sone. This will be the artist’s seventh solo show since his first exhibition with the gallery in 1999. Across a wide range of media—predominantly sculpture but also painting, drawing, photography, video, and performance—Sone’s work revolves around a tension between realism and perfection. A conceptual framework, paired with a meticulous attention to detail, has characterized his practice since the early 1990s, informing equally his self-contained jungle environments, life-size roller coasters, magnified snowflakes, and staged events. His sculptural works in particular attest to a profound interest in landscapes, whether natural or architectural, and their extraordinary ability to capture light relates them to a genre primarily associated with painting and photography. Yutaka Sone "Day and Night" will be on view until February 20, 2016, at David Zwirner Gallery in New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer and Tenlie Mourning

Punk and Hardcore Fliers, Zines and Ephemera @ Printed Matter In New York

Punk and Hardcore Fliers, Zines and Ephemera is a dynamic representation of a period when music subcultures adopted methods used by earlier culture-jamming groups such as the DaDaists and Situationists to creatively promote their own movement. The materials span from the early 1970s covering the glam rock and punk scenes of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as the garage rock and power pop revivals, American hardcore, English peace-punk, and industrial music scenes to form an overview of underground music culture of the last forty years. Punk and Hardcore Fliers, Zines and Ephemera will be on view until February 13, 2016 at Printed Matter, 231 Eleventh Avenue New York, NY. Photographs by Scout MacEachron

John Stezaker "The Truth of Masks" at Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago

"The Truth of Masks" marks the latest exhibition of new collages by English artist John Stezaker, the largest U.S. exhibition of his work to date. For the past forty years, Stezaker has searched meticulously through vast archives of antique travel postcards, Hollywood film stills, and anonymous photographs to create collages that are sharp, poignant, and surreal. Through the reappropriation, alteration, and repurposing of these forgotten worlds, Stezaker creates new ones. Both minimal and complex, the collages are “transmissions of a Mass Age dream world.” "Truth of Masks" is on view until January 30th at Richard Gray Gallery, 875 N Michigan Ave #3800, Chicago. Text and photographs by Keely Shinners. 

"Like-ness" Group Show At Albertz Benda Gallery in New York

Albertz Benda presents "Like·ness," a group exhibition featuring works by seven contemporary artists – Del Kathryn Barton, Sara-Vide Ericson, Dongwook Lee, Kalup Linzy, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Terry Rodgers, and Dennis Scholl –that focus on physical egocentricity in the digital age. Through a variety of mediums including film, painting and sculpture, like·ness offers an aesthetic overview of social pressures, the human body and the correlation between vanity, insecurity, and self-obsession. Like-ness will be on view until February 13, 2016 at Albertz Benda gallery. Photographs by Scout MacEachron  

Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia @ The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis

It is a strange wonder to see the past's imagination of the future. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis presents Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia. This psychedelic, powerful, and comprehensive exhibition examines the intersections of art, architecture, and design with the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. A time of great upheaval, the works radically challenge social norms that are relevant to the present--the control of female sexuality, domestic & international warfare, ecological destruction, implicit & explicit racisms... As they comment on their present moment, these artists, architects, and designers in turn imagine alternative utopias--communities of empowerment, creation, education, and freedom. Challenging traditional mediums, the exhibition features experimental furniture, alternative living structures, immersive and participatory media environments, alternative publishing and ephemera, and experimental film. Check out Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia at the Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, Minnesota, until February 28th. Text by Keely Shinners. Photographs by Keely Shinners and Neelufar Franklin.

Dreams In Blue: Read Our Interview With Artist and Painter Phillip Mueller On The Eve Of His Solo Show At Carbon 12 Gallery In Dubai →

Viennese artist Phillip Mueller’s art is mythical, fantastical and deranged. It exists on a plane somewhere between Hieronymus Bosch splashed with modern pop references, Thomas Kinkade on acid and a print out from your brain of a recurring nightmare. However, there is also something so sweet, alluring and romantic about his work. Mueller, whose solo show opens tonight at Carbon 12 Gallery in Dubai, is a genuine painter and he is studious about his work. In a world devoid of figurative meaning in painting, Mueller uses his paint and brushes almost like a protest, and the depth of his work is a war against contemporary’s artist stodginess. Click here to read more. 

Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon "Forgetting the Hand" @ David Zwirner in New York

David Zwirner presents an exhibition of collaborative works by Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon, on view at 533 West 19th Street in New York. Gallery artists since 1998 and 1995 respectively, this is the first time the pair has worked together. The drawings were originally created for a zine published by David Zwirner Books to coincide with Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1 (September 2015). The collaboration began in Summer 2015 with the artists swapping the first of a series of drawings to be completed by the other. In a variation of the “exquisite corpse” method in which a partner is only given portions of an otherwise concealed drawing to work on, Dzama and Pettibon developed each other’s compositions through illustrations, collage, and writing. Just as the surrealists invented the technique in the early twentieth century as a playful and ultimately enriching exercise, the present drawings combine the two artists’ distinct styles in a revealing and often seamless fashion. In several works, it is almost impossible to determine who made what, which indicates how both strove to assimilate the other’s vision or anticipate his response. Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon "Forgetting the Hand" will be on view until February 20, 2016 at David Zwirner Gallery, 533 West 19th Street in New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer

"Fall Out Shelter" Maya Jeffereis Gives An Artist Talk and Facilitates Hypothetical Dooms-Day Scenarios at Overnight Projects In Burlington, Vermont

New York based Maya Jeffereis invites participants to engage in a conversation about politics of identity and morality by participating in a military training exercise. The exercise is taken from a US military training document to test officers’ values and decision-making processes. In a hypothetical end of the world scenario, ten people of diverse backgrounds occupy a fall-out shelter. However, the shelter can guarantee survival for only six people. Participants must decide which four are to be excluded from the group in order that the remaining six may live to rebuild society. In this exercise, participants must argue in favor of and against each of the occupants until the group reaches a full consensus. "Fall Out Shelter" will be held at Overnight Projects on January 16, 2016 in Burlington, Vermont. 

"Looking Back" The 10th White Columns Annual, Selected by Matthew Higgs

White Columns present “Looking Back”, the tenth installment of the White Columns Annual. For the past decade the exhibition has been a fixture on White Columns’ calendar. Each year, an individual or a collaborative team (e.g. an artist, a curator, a writer, etc.) is invited to organize an exhibition based on their personal experiences with art in New York during the previous year. For the tenth ‘Annual’ exhibition – coinciding with his tenth year as White Columns’ Director - Matthew Higgs has made this year’s selection. (Higgs also selected the inaugural Annual in 2006.) Looking Back will be on view until February 20, 2016 at White Columns, 320 West 13th Street, New York. photographs by Tenlie Mourning

Masami Teraoka’s Apocalyptic Theater/The Pope, Putin, Peach Boy and Pussy Riot Galore at Catherine Clark Gallery In San Francisco

Catharine Clark Gallery presents Masami Teraoka’s Apocalyptic Theater/Pussy Riot, The Pope, Putin, and Peach Boy, a solo exhibition of new and selected work by Masami Teraoka. The exhibit features four large triptych paintings more than a decade in the making, in which Teraoka continues his brazen portrayals of abusive power. While shocking and lurid, the exhibit (titled after the villains and heroes in the artist’s theatrical renderings) is also sardonic and impishly humorous: power changes hands, traditional roles reverse, and fates are reimagined. Mirroring the triptych construction of his paintings, Teraoka’s tableaus literally and figuratively open the secretive and dark underworlds of institutional power to Teraoka’s singular brand of unabashed truthtelling, searing criticism, and playful ridicule. The exhibition will be on view until February 20, 2016 at Catharine Clark Gallery, 248 Utah Street, San Francisco. Photographs by Bradley Golden

Molly Soda "From my Bedroom to Yours" @ Annka Kultys Gallery In London

Annka Kultys Gallery presents From My Bedroom to Yours, Molly Soda’s first solo exhibition outside her native United States. The show features twenty recent works by the Detroit-based digital artist realised across a variety of digital platforms, including videos, gifs and NewHive. Born in 1989 and currently 26, Soda explains her work is about girls and for girls in their bedrooms, and takes the private behaviors inherent to those spaces and makes them public, reflecting how that process changes the way in which those behaviors are seen and contextualized. As a result, her images are raw, rejecting conventional beauty norms, whilst still maintaining a tween-Tumblr aesthetic and employing kitsch elements and lowbrow internet culture. From My Bedroom to Yours will be on view until January 16, 2016 at Annka Kultys Gallery, 472 Hackney Road, Unit 3, 1st Floor, London

Nobuyoshi Araki "Love On The Left Eye" @ Little Big Man Gallery In Los Angeles

Little Big Man Gallery presents “Love on the Left Eye,” a solo exhibition of works by Nobuyoshi Araki. The prints included in this exhibit have been selected from the photographer’s most recent work. The title of this exhibition refers to Ed van der Elsken’s 1956 photobook “Love on the Left Bank.” When Araki was around twenty years old, he saw “Love on the Left Bank,” and took some photographs of women in poses inspired by this book; “Love on the Left Eye” could also be seen as an homage to van der Elsken. After a recent stroke that left him mostly blind in his right eye, he has decided to black out the right side of his photographs so that the viewer can see what he sees. Love On The Left Eye will be on view until February 16, 2015 at Little Big Man Gallery, 1427 East 4th Street in Los Angeles

Sam Anderson "Endless Love" @ Tanya Leighton in Berlin

Tanya Leighton presents Endless Love, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by American artist Sam Anderson. Anderson's multidisciplinary practice focuses on the peripheral, the bit-part actors of life that arrive to bring about plot development and then slink off to the fringe. These figures are studied and organized, but never defined by Anderson, who asks her viewers to regard their personalities as carefully as they would themselves. Arranged into grid-like patterns that call to mind urban planning, public smoking areas, playgrounds, and other spaces that have been imagined and built for human interaction, Anderson's sculptures are subject to the impulse of an architect they have never met. Sam Anderson "Endless Love" will be on view until January 14, 2016 at Tanya Leighton, Kurfürstenstraße 156, 10785 Berlin, Germany