Ren Hang "What We Do Is Secret" @ MAMA Gallery In Los Angeles

Perhaps inadvertently, Ren Hang’s subject matter and seemingly simple technique have transcendent ramifications. His subjects project an irreverence that directly disrupts the restrictive realm of heteronormativity and presents alternate sexual and aesthetic realities. The title of Hang’s exhibition, What We Do Is Secret, references the music of punk band the Germs, which aligns with the provocative spirit of the artist’s images. Antagonism abounds in Hang’s work with a counterculture-fueled rebellion lying at its core. Ren Hang "What We Do Is Secret"  will be on view at MAMA Gallery until July 23, 2016. 

Richard Prince "The Douglas Blair Turnbaugh Collection (1977-1988)" @ Edward Cella Art & Architecture In Los Angeles

Edward Cella Art & Architecture presents a rare collection of artworks, ephemera, and personal correspondence by artist Richard Prince. This private collection was assembled by New York writer and producer Douglas Blair Turnbaugh. The archive dates to the artist's earliest and most formative years (1977-1988) and offers an intimate glimpse into the unique relationship and confidential rapport shared by this influential artist and his devoted early patron. In Turnbaugh's own words: "Some of the pieces in this collection may at first glance be seen merely as common objects. But Richard is a master prankster, provocateur, poet, alchemist, prestidigitator — he can transform a material object, without altering its physicality, into an idea, into art, into an icon." Richard Prince: The Douglas Blair Turnbaugh Collection (1977-1988) features notable highlights from the collection, offering visitors a museum-like experience. Richard Prince "The Douglas Blair Turnbaugh Collection (1977-1988)" will be on view until July 16, 2016 at Edward Cella Art & Architecture, 2754 S. La Cienega Blvd. Los Angeles

Denise Scott Brown "Wayward Eye – Venice To Venice" As Part Of The Venice Architecture Biennale @ Palazzo Mora

"Wayward Eye – Venice To Venice" by Denise Scott Brown, as a part of the Venice Architecture Biennale collateral event "Time, Space, Existence", hosted in Palazzo Mora from 28th May to 27th November 2016. photographs by Sara Kaufman

Yayoi Kusama "Narcissus Garden" At the Glass House in Connecticut

The Glass House is pleased to present Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden, a landscape installation that will be on view throughout the 2016 tour season to celebrate the 110th anniversary of Philip Johnson’s birth and the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Glass House site to the public. First created fifty years ago in 1966 for the 33rd Venice Biennale, this iteration of Narcissus Garden will be incorporated into the Glass House’s 49-acre landscape. Narcissus Garden, comprising 1,300 floating steel spheres, each approximately 12 inches in diameter (30 cm) will be installed in the Lower Meadow and forest, creating a dramatic view to the west of the Glass House. Drifting in the newly restored pond, the spheres will move with the wind and follow the pond’s natural currents, forming a kinetic sculpture. Their mirrored surfaces will reflect the surrounding Pond Pavilion (1962), wooded landscape, and sky.  Yayoi Kusama "Narcissus Garden" will be on view until November 30, 2016 at The Glass House, click here to schedule a tour. text by Adam Lehrer

Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" Opening Night @ Hammer Museum In Los Angeles

This is what we talk about all the time. "Los Angeles is having an artistic Renaissance," we say. "Now is the time to be in LA." But what do we mean when we say that? Are we talking about fine art, galleries like Hauser and Wirth and Venus over Manhattan opening up shop in Downtown LA? Are we talking about artists who are moving here from Paris, New York, London? What about subculture, the undercurrent of this city, are we seeing the realization of young, bright, radical minds, or were they there all along? It is difficult to recognize history as it happens, predominately because of the fluidity of geography, time, and language. "Los Angeles" means many different things. "Art" means many different things. The 26 artists exhibiting at the Hammer Museum's Biennial "Made in L.A." expand the curbs of the city's "Renaissance." Walking through the various galleries of the Hammer one finds paintings, embroideries, light installations, fashion designs, ephemera, performances, videos, magical objects, cans of Budweiser and more. In one room one sees the dark, natural-history-museum-esque objects of the wrinkling and toothless Kenzi Shiokava. The next room plays a film by 26-year-old Martine Syms, in which the artist reads Black Power articles on her iphone in the dentists office. "Los Angeles" means a lot of things. "Art" means a lot of things. An exhibition featuring "Los Angeles Artists" can only be dynamic, extensive, and provocative. Perhaps the best description of this diverse work is the exhibition's subtitle, "a, the, though, only." Los Angeles is not a dictatorial force over artists who are passive conduits for its agenda. It is the in-between word - the preposition - the place where things and people move, imagine and create. Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" will be on view until August 28, 2016 at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA. Text and photographs by Keely Shinners. 

Watch The Artist Announcement for Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" @ The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles

The third iteration of the Hammer’s biennial exhibition continues to highlight the practices of artists working throughout Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. As part of an ongoing series, Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" addresses Los Angeles as a center of activity inseparable from the global network of art production and reveals how artists move fluidly between contexts and respond to their local conditions. Subtitled by the minimalist poet and writer Aram Saroyan as his contribution to the exhibition, Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" extends into such disciplines as dance, fashion, literature, music, film, and performance. Rather than a unifying regional aesthetic, sensibility, or identity historically associated with Los Angeles, Made in L.A. 2016 focuses on artists from different disciplinary backgrounds, allowing individual projects and bodies of work to shape the overall exhibition. It features condensed monographic surveys, comprehensive displays of multiyear projects, the premiere of new bodies of work, and newly commissioned works from emerging artists. Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" will be on view from June 12 to August 28, 2016 at Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard

Highlights From The 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art "The Present In Drag" by Alexander Coggin

The 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art seeks to materialize the digital condition and the paradoxes that increasingly make up the world in 2016: the virtual as the real, nations as brands, people as data, culture as capital, wellness as politics, happiness as GDP, and so on. With its selection of exhibition venues it aims to shape-shift across multiple sites, each one releasing a whiff of contemporary “paradessence” (paradox + essence). The 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art "The Present In Drag" will be on view until September 18, 2016. Photographs by Alexander Coggin. 

Riddle Of The Burial Ground Group Show @ Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp

In concrete-clad tunnels deep within the earth, radioactive matter is being buried on a daily basis. It is only a question of time before this creates an environmental catastrophe. Not a day goes by without men somehow ruining the planet. Every day we somehow mark our existence on this Earthby transforming the landscape, subverting the rules of nature and, slowly but significantly, damaging it beyond repair.  Just as we now can admire vestiges of past civilizations such as ancient ruins, the generations after us will linger overexcavated caverns andunnaturally bright tunnels. Layersand layers of lethal material, piled underground and ready to react: the catacombs of the future. But when exactly will this be? Who are the people that will look at this catastrophe? How do we even know that there will be people on Earth by that time? Taking responsibility for the future has become the resounding imperative of our age, but  how do we relate to something lost in an undefined future? Such are the questions asked in the group exhibition ‘Riddle of the Burial Grounds,’ which stares unblinkingly into this future: a trashed landscape of industrial ruin, where humanity somehow seems to have lost its dominant role. Riddle of The Burial Ground will be on view until July 17th, 2016 at Extra City Kunsthal, Eikelstraat 25, Antwerp. text and photographs by Sara Kaufman

Punk in Britain Opens This Weekend At Galleria Carla Sozzani in Milan

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of punk, the Galleria Carla Sozzani presents “Punk in Britain”. More than 90 photos documenting the key players in British punk who, since the mid 70s, have changed the language of fashion and music in London and around the world will be shown. The exhibition incorporates two parts: the photographs of Simon Barker (Six), Dennis Morris, Sheila Rock, Ray Stevenson, Karen Knorr, Olivier Richon, and drawings, collages and graphics of Jamie Reid with a special section highlighting the videos and photos of John Tiberi. In 1976, the Sex Pistols were shouting "I wanna be Anarchy, in the City" while wearing torn shirts, and dresses with studs purchased at Malcom McLaren and his partner Vivienne Westwood's Chelsea store SEX. McLaren had been instrumental in bringing the Sex Pistols into being and, among the Sex Pistols fans, Siouxsie Sioux, Jordan, Debbie, Billy Idol, Soo Catwoman, Adam Ant became known as the "Bromley Contingent", the group associated with them throughout this period. Together they represented a sort of reaction to the years of English austerity and a new response, young and spontaneous, to the rigid formalism of that time. Punk In Britain opens July 11 and runs until August 28, 2016 at Galleria Carla Sozzani, 

A Sneak Peek At Cindy Sherman's Major Survey Exhibition "Imitation of Life" @ The Broad Museum in Los Angeles

Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life is the first major museum show of Sherman’s work in Los Angeles in nearly 20 years, and the exhibition will fill The Broad’s first-floor galleries with more than 100 works drawn primarily from the Broad collection. “Cindy Sherman’s work has been a touchstone for the Broad collection since Eli and Edye Broad first encountered it in 1982, and Cindy is the only artist in the collection whose work we’ve acquired so deeply and regularly, for more than 30 years,” said Joanne Heyler, founding director of The Broad. “There are 125 Cindy Sherman photographs in the Broad collection, the largest holding of her work in the world, and inaugurating our special exhibitions with an artist whose work sparked the Broads’ deep commitment to contemporary art could not be more appropriate for us." Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life will open on June 11 and run until October 2, 2016 at The Broad Museum, 221 S. Grand Ave. Downtown Los Angeles, CA. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Tom Sachs "Tea Ceremony" @ The Noguchi Museum in New York

Tom Sachs "Tea Ceremony" centers on an immersive environment representing Sachs’ distinctive reworking of chanoyu, or traditional Japanese tea ceremony—including the myriad elements essential to that intensely ritualistic universe. Among the large stone sculptures by Isamu Noguchi in the Museum’s indoor/outdoor galleries, Sachs has set a tea house in a garden accessorized with variations on lanterns, gates, a wash basin, a plywood airplane lavatory, a koi pond, an ultra HD video wall with the sublime hyper-presence of Mt. Fuji, a bronze bonsai made of over 3,600 individually welded parts, and other objects of use and contemplation. Sachs has also produced a complete alternative material culture of Tea—from bowls and ladles, scroll paintings and vases, to a motorized tea whisk, a shot clock, and an electronic brazier. Supplementing the tea garden are three additional installations covering consummate examples of Sachs’ Tea tools, a brief history of Tea as it developed out of Sachs’ Space Program 2.0: MARS, and a small retrospective of the artist’s two decade–long career as a cultural hybridizer. Click here to apply to be a guest at Tom Sachs' next in-person Tea Ceremony. The exhibition will be on view until July 24, 2016 at the Isamu Noguchi Museum, 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard), Long Island City, NY

Creating a Feminist Utopia In the Desert, Read Our Interview With Multi-Disciplinary Swiss Artist Mai-Thu Perret →

Perret is fascinated by the idea of the utopia, or, a unique landscape with a set of ideals that would theoretically facilitate a revisionist art history. Perret envisions a utopia in which the ideals and creativity of women and marginalized groups are as much a part of the conversation surrounding art history as those of men. Perhaps Perret’s best known and most labored over work, entitled The Crystal Frontier, is most exemplary of this idea. The Crystal Frontier is an imagined utopia of women living in the desert in New Mexico. Perret has built on the idea of The Crystal Frontier over her career, imagining its artifacts and furniture and fashions. The Crystal Frontier not only poses an fascinating conceptual narrative, but also has proven to be a place of contemplative creativity for Perret; one in which she can return to as a renewable source of inspiration. Click here to read more. 

Katherine Bernhardt "Product Recall: New Pattern Paintings" @ Xavier Hufkens in Brussels

Known for her large-scale pattern paintings depicting constellations of everyday items that have been isolated from their original context, American artist Katherine Bernhardt has created a new ensemble of colorful and dynamic images that take inspiration from both Brussels and New York. Executed in acrylic and spray paint on canvas, in a spontaneous and fluid style, her latest work features objects typically associated with Belgian popular culture, such as Smurfs and chocolate, with those representative of America, such as Lisa Simpson and Nike trainers. Added to the mix are domestic objects like toilet rolls and Windex; toucans and tropical fruits (a reference to the artist’s frequent travels to Puerto Rico); iconic games from her teenage years during the early 1980s (Pac-Man and the Rubik’s cube); and food and drink (Nutella, cigarettes, wine). Because of the myriad objects in her work, it is sometimes interpreted as a wry comment on consumerism. Yet this is not a conscious concern of the artist, who is primarily motivated by a fascination with her everyday surroundings, and in giving it expression through color and composition. Katherine Bernhardt "Product Recall: New Pattern Paintings" will be on view until June 18, 2016 at Xavier Hufkens, 107 rue St-Georges, Brussels, Belgium

Paul McCarthy Signing Copies of His Expanded Monograph @ Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles

Los-Angeles-based artist Paul McCarthy creates Disneyesque installations, sculptures of animal/vegetable/human hybrids and slapstick performances in a purge of a national subconscious. The psycho-sexual desires and anxieties induced by the media and the built environment of contemporary America emerge in his collisions of plastic prosthetic limbs and condiments that stand in for bodily fluids. These works have been variously deployed: through live actions, often documented on video, and more recently in outsized figures and artificial rural environments, combined in overtly sexual ways. McCarthy's work echoes that of European artists such as Joseph Beuys or the Viennese Aktionistes, but gives 'action art' a postmodern twist. This new revised and expanded edition includes contributions by luminaries such as Kristine Stiles, Ralph Rugoff, Massimiliano Gioni and Robert Storr. Click here to purchase. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Andy Warhol/Ai Weiwei Dual Exhibition @ The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, developed by The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, and the National Gallery of Victoria, with the participation of Ai Weiwei, explores the significant influence of these two artists on modern and contemporary life, focusing on the parallels, intersections, and points of difference between their practices—Warhol representing 20th-century modernity and the “American century,” and Ai representing life in the 21st century and what has been called the “Chinese century” to come. The exhibition will be on view until August 28, 2016 at The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street  photographs by Ali Lotz