Ariana Papademetropoulos "The Man Who Saved A Dog From An Imaginary Fire" @ Wilding Cran Gallery In Los Angeles

Taking inspiration from imagined spaces, vintage magazines, and books, Papademetropoulos creates environments that juxtapose ideas of perception and delusion. By using both realism and trompe l'oeil she references the history of painting while further developing the sense of illusion within her work. Featuring new paintings and installation, this exhibition focuses on our relationship to decor and interior space- it invites us to question functionality and taste, reality and fantasy. In a painting of a church interior the walls blur to the outside where the viewer is transported to a ‘Disneyfied’ realm; a surrealist dysfunctional home interior takes us ‘down the rabbit hole’ to a topsy-turvy space where everything is out of our reach, questioning our assumptions of home as comfort and retreat. Finally, the artist brings together a collection of more than 200 gothic romance novels, all written by women. Each paperback has a different title and a different story, yet all of the book covers share the common theme of a woman running out of a house from a presumed horrific fate. With this, she invites the viewer to confront the contradictions of fantasy vs horror, and ultimately the duplicity and hypocrisy within our popular culture. Ariana Papademetropoulos "The Man Who Saved A Dog From An Imaginary Fire" will be on view until October 26, 2017, at Wilding Cran Gallery,  939 South Santa Fe Ave, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Aurel Schmidt "I Rot Before I Ripen" @ P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York

In her most recent works, on view at New York's P.P.O.W. Gallery, Aurel Schmidt retires her attention to detail and color in a series of mixed media drawings and installation. Showcasing items belonging to past and present lovers in I Rot Before I Ripen, Schmidt investigates girlhood, streetwear iconography, brand significance, and heterosexuality. I Rot Before I Ripen will be on view until October 7 at P.P.O.W. Gallery 535 W 22nd St, New York, NY. photographs by Adam Lehrer

Mint&Serf "Warranted Non-Compliance" Group Show Opening @ Lazy Susan Gallery In New York

The exhibition of new works on paper by Christopher Johnson, Mikhail Sokovikov and Jason Aaron Wall (Mint&Serf) investigates a range of figurative themes and conceptual perspectives that always question but not always answer. After a two-year hiatus Johnson, Sokovikov and Wall return with a set of refreshed attitudes and new directions that explore personal identity, abstract experimentation and destruction as the human condition. Warranted Non-Compliance will be on view until June 5 at Lazy Susan gallery, 191 Henry Street Chinatown, NYC. photographs by Lorenzo Fariello

A Sneak Preview Of The Brand New Marciano Art Foundation At The Former Scottish Rite Masonic Temple In Los Angeles

The Marciano Art Foundation was established by Maurice and Paul Marciano - founders of guess - to grant the public access to the Marciano Art Collection through presentations of rotating, thematic exhibitions housed in a permanent exhibition space in Los Angeles. The museum opens on May 25, 2017. Click here to grab tickets. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Highlights From Photo London 2017 @ Somerset House in London

Now in its third edition, Photo London has established itself as a world-class photography fair and as a catalyst for London’s dynamic photography community. From the capital’s major museums, to its auction houses, galleries large and small, right into the burgeoning creative communities in the East End and South London, Photo London harnesses the city’s outstanding creative talent and brings together the world’s leading photographers, curators, exhibitors, dealers and the public to celebrate photography, the medium of our time. Photo London will be on view from May 18 to May 21 at Somerset House in London. photographs by Flo Kohl

Ranch Of The Rising Sun Presents Sensual Assault In Pioneer Town, California

Curated by Leyden Pavlova, Sensual Assault is a special group exhibition highlighting the physical sensations that dominate in this wild desert space. One feels the wind, the heat, the sun, and an overwhelming visceral sensation of the vastness of geological time. Visually, these forces can be seen in the earth, dry and sharp, worn smooth in places, and the plants that grow imperceptibly only to explode with flowers in the spring. The overwhelming sensations from this landscape provide a context to explore the human body’s violence and vulnerability. Through texture and movement, sensuality and savagery, the human experience is shown through the traces and imprints that people and places leave on each other. Featuring artists Theodore Boyer, Pola Esther, Marie Tomanova, William Kaner, Shig and Ethan Rider. photographs by Marielle Stobie

Jeff Koons Exhibition Of New And Recent Works @ Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles

Gagosian presents an exhibition of recent and new work by Jeff Koons. Making use of conceptual constructs including the ancient, the everyday, and the sublime, Koons creates luxurious icons and elaborate tableaux, which, beneath their captivating exteriors, engage the viewer in a metaphysical dialogue with cultural history. The exhibition will be on view until August 18, 2017 at Gagosian Beverly Hills. photographs by Bianca Vázquez

Raymond Pettibon "TH' EXPLOSIYV SHOYRT T" @ David Zwirner Gallery in New York

David Zwirner is presents an exhibition of new work by Raymond Pettibon, on view at 519 West 19th Street in New York. The artist's tenth solo show at gallery TH’ EXPLOSIYV SHOYRT T follows his collaborative presentations with Marcel Dzama at the gallery in both London and New York last year. Raymond Pettibon "TH' EXPLOSIYV SHOYRT T" will be on view until June 24, 2017. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

A Preview Of "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between" @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute In New York

The Costume Institute's spring 2017 exhibition will examine the work of Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, known for her avant-garde designs and ability to challenge conventional notions of beauty, good taste, and fashionability. The thematic show will feature approximately 150 examples of Kawakubo's womenswear for Comme des Garçons dating from the early 1980s to her most recent collection. The galleries will illustrate the designer's revolutionary experiments in "in-betweenness"—the space between boundaries. Objects will be organized into eight aesthetic expressions of interstitiality in Kawakubo's work: Fashion/Anti-Fashion, Design/Not Design, Model/Multiple, Then/Now, High/Low, Self/Other, Object/Subject, and Clothes/Not Clothes. Kawakubo breaks down the imaginary walls between these dualisms, exposing their artificiality and arbitrariness. On view from May 4 to September 4, 2017 at The Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Georg Baselitz "Descente" @ Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac's Paris Pantin Space

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by German artist Georg Baselitz in the Paris Pantin space. Titled Descente (Down), it brings together new paintings and works on paper. The exhibition comprises five groups of works that are stylistically and iconographically linked to the fragmented self-portraits known as the Avignon series, which was shown at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Two of Baselitz’s concerns were the notions of “late work” and “age”, with particular reference to the historical decision of the city of Avignon to reject the donation of a series of late works by Picasso. In 2017, one year before Baselitz’s 80th birthday, these themes are still relevant, as he has recently stated: “I have been looking at Picasso’s late works. Avignon. At the time Picasso had reached his lowest point. Nobody wanted these later paintings. Arman and Christo did their thing in Paris whereas Picasso was absent. If you’re getting old you keep asking yourself: Am I still part of it, or are the others already ahead of me?” Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac  "Descente" will be on view until June 2, 2017 at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. photographs by Mazzy-Mae Green

Michael Pybus "Peak Human" @ Depart Foundation in Los Angeles

Depart Foundation presents Michael Pybus: Peak Human, its first exhibition of works by the London-based mixed-media artist. A satirical blurring of boundaries and hierarchical relationships, PEAK HUMAN is a playful admixture of high and low. Hijacking the visual language of commercial consumption, Hollywood stargazing, and popular entertainment franchises, Pybus irreverently dissolves the graded divisions between the little known and the branded, the world of design and that of mass consumption, with the rarified vernaculars of fine art. PEAK HUMAN will include a series of large-scale, collage paintings in which Pybus appropriates imagery from iconic sources. Recognizable are references to artworks by the likes of Warhol and Hokusai, Nintendo video game characters, Pokémon, and graphics from commercial design. Pybus creates amalgams of readily familiar brands in a commentary on the indiscriminate power of branding, while also referring to his cooptation of this fame. The freedom with which Pybus borrows objects, images, and references, captures varying forms of desire, whether it be the covetous satisfaction of consuming through retail, aspirational fantasies, or the familiar din of popular culture. Michael Pybus "Peak Human" will be on view until June 3, 2017 at Depart Foundation in Los Angeles. 

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Sterling Ruby "Soft Works" @ The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles

Shown in the United States for the first time, Ruby’s SOFT WORK is a large-scale installation of stuffed fabric sculptures in unsettling biomorphic forms. Appendaged cushions and gaping, fang-filled mouths are manically arranged as sausage link–like drips from the ceiling, coiled heaps across the floor, and slumping, abject forms throughout the space. Using textiles that evoke the colors and motifs of the American flag, the sprawling installation offers up that iconic symbol of national pride as an intensely visceral experience—a political scene filled with performative “bodies” that seem to manifest both theater and playground simultaneously. On view until June 12, 2017 at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

"Where the Sidewalk Ends" Group Show @ Moran Bondaroff Gallery In Los Angeles

Moran Bondaroff presents Where the Sidewalk Ends, a four-person exhibition associating artworks that are evocative of a desire to create parity and connectedness with the natural world or to locate an intersection therein. Through varied mediums and methods, these four artists – Terence Koh, Dennis Oppenheim, Virginia Overton, and Nick van Woert – approach the tension between ecological connectedness and the progress of civilization. Subsequently, the works included in this exhibition present a range of conditional responses that span from exploration and interaction, to repercussions and impermanence. However, these artists do not endeavor to generate homages to ecology or directly reference an environmentalist agenda, rather, the works visually contend with our origins – a human’s nature. Where the Sidewalk Ends will be on view until May 20, 2017 at Moran Bondaroff in Los Angeles. 

An Interview Of Curator Dylan Brant On His New Show "Heatwave" That Is On View Now At UTA Artist Space →

Dylan Brant, a young curator from New York, is quietly and maturely making a name for himself within the hallowed, oft impenetrable walls of the art world. Sure, his pedigree helps, but he surely has a knack for putting together some of the coolest art shows around. His show Rawhide at Venus Over Manhattan – which was co-curated by Vivian Brodie – was a masculine cowboy romp through post-Modern Americana. Bandana wrapped, and pistol wheeling, the show included artists like Richard Prince and Ed Ruscha, but also queer artists known for their muscle toned homoerotica, like Bob Mizer and Tom Of Finland. And just recently, Brant curated a show called Heatwave, which is open now at the UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles. The exhibition, which includes artists like Dash Snow, Rob Pruitt, Nate Lowman, and Cady Noland, takes a more abstract route in its curatorial expression, but it is probably Brant's most personal. The artists involved are artists that he grew up with or knows personally - or knew personally, like the late Dash Snow. According to Brant, the show really came together after watching an interview of Lux Interior (of the Cramps) who talks about music having an inherently youthful energy - no matter the age of the musician or the audience. We stopped by the gallery to ask Brant a few questions about the show and gained a unique insight into his ambitions as a curator. Click here to read the full interview.