Lauren Spencer King Presents I Dedicate This Song to You at Big Pictures Los Angeles

Big Pictures Los Angeles presents I Dedicate This Song to You, an exhibition of new paintings and sculptures from Los Angeles based artist Lauren Spencer King. King weaves together personal experiences, in past work around death and grief but more recently an exploration of partnership and relationship, together with historical sites and practices rooted in relatively unknown ceremonial rites of passage. A constellation is created between the works in disparate mediums to create a new narrative woven from threads of personal and collective history.

I Dedicate This Song to You is on view through August 3 at Big Pictures Los Angeles 2424 W Washington Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90018. photographs courtesy of Big Pictures Los Angeles

Josh Smith: Emo Jungle @ David Zwirner New York

Josh Smith’s “Emo Jungle” exhibition, featuring the artist’s latest works, is now on view at David Zwirner in New York. Smith has developed a prolific and expansive body of painting that employs visual motifs as a means of exploring the potentiality of the painted surface. Each painting serves as a stage in an ongoing, heterogeneous process of image production and experimentation, in which visuals and colors are recycled and refined. Smith’s series of grim reapers, devils, turtles, and tropical landscapes are rendered in lush ribbons and fields of color, leaving the viewer a dazzling display of reimagination.

“Emo Jungle” is on view through July 19 at David Zwirner 525 W 19th St, New York. photographs courtesy of David Zwirner.

March Avery @ Blum & Poe in New York

Blum & Poe presents a solo exhibition of paintings by New York-based artist March Avery. The exhibition, which is Avery’s first with the gallery, introduces a body of work spanning over five decades and is the artist’s first extensive solo presentation in New York in over twenty years. Focusing on portraiture and landscape and punctuated with still life, the selection of works on view repositions the vitality of moments past through paint applied to canvas. Mothers read bedtime stories; children eat breakfast, sit on laps, and play Chinese checkers; clouds hover over the surface of a cerulean blue lake; and potted plants are placed amongst a child’s toys or present themselves in paintings hung behind a sofa, upon which a young woman reclines in the company of a cat. These diaristic tendencies that characterize Avery’s oeuvre encapsulate a lifelong commitment to the process of painting itself.

March Avery is on view through August 9 at Blum & Poe 19 E 66th St, New York, NY 10065. all images courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

Francis Bacon: Couplings @ Gagosian in London

Gagosian presents Couplings, an exhibition of Francis Bacon’s double-figure paintings. Bacon’s disturbing images—his portrayals of friends and fellow artists, and the deformations and stylistic distortions of classical subjects—radically altered the genre of figurative painting in the twentieth century. In Bacon’s paintings, the human presence is evoked sometimes viscerally, at other times more fleetingly, in the form of a shadow or a blurred, watchful figure. In certain instances, the portrayal takes the form of a composite in which male and female bodily traits are transposed or fused. This selective exhibition explores a theme that preoccupied Bacon throughout his career: the relationship between two people, both physical and psychological.

Couplings is on view through August 3 at Gagosian 20 Grosvenor Hill, London W1K 3QD, UK. all images courtesy of Gagosian

Lorna Simpson Presents Darkening @ Hauser & Wirth in New York

Hauser & Wirth presents ‘Lorna Simpson. Darkening,’ the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery in New York. Debuting a suite of new large-scale paintings, the exhibition finds Simpson returning to and building upon themes and motifs at the center of her practice: explorations focused on the nature of representation, identity, gender, race, and history. For more than 30 years, Simpson’s powerful works have entangled viewers in an equivocal web of meaning, drawing upon techniques of collage through the use of found materials, often culled from the pages of vintage Jet and Ebony magazines. In ‘Darkening,’ Simpson continues to thread dichotomies of figuration and abstraction with vast and enthralling tableaux that subsume spliced photos and fragmented text, abstracted beyond comprehension. Equally arresting and poetic, the paintings engage viewers with layers of paradox, capturing the mystifying allure of an arctic landscape in inky washes of blacks, grays, and startling blues.

Darkening is on view through July 26 at Hauser & Wirth 548 W 22nd St. New York, NY 10011. all images courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Marco Castillo Presents The Decorator's Home @ UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles →

Inspired by Cuban Modernism, The Decorator’s Home, curated by Neville Wakefield, personifies the vision of a fictional interior designer, tracing their style evolution from the commercial, North American-influenced Modernist design of the 1950s to the revolutionary, Soviet-influenced style of the 1960s and 1970s. Through sculptural installations, watercolors, drawings and a video, The Decorator’s Home is an attempt to capture the work of a generation that was cut short. Click here to read our interview with the artist.

The Decorator’s Home is on view through July 13 at UTA Artist Space 403 Foothill Rd. Beverly Hills, CA 90210.

Oscar Murillo: Manifestation @ David Zwirner London

A new series of paintings by the Columbian artist, Oscar Murillo, are on view for the first time at David Zwirner’s London gallery. Murillo’s manifestation paintings, in particular, represent a marked evolution in the artist’s engagement with process. These paintings explore a considered approach to mark-making, and when viewed together, highlight the artist’s inventive and engaging studio practice. The exhibition also includes a new installation building on Murillo’s sustained interest in travel and questions around labour and the geographical flow of humanity. The artist’s body of work demonstrates a nuanced understanding of globalization, and the multiple ways in which ideas, languages, and even everyday items are displaced and increasingly intermingled. Manifestation is on view through July 26 at David Zwirner 24 Grafton Street, London. photographs courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner.

Joan Mitchell: "I carry my landscapes around with me" @ David Zwirner New York

Joan Mitchell’s “I carry my landscapes around with me” is the first exhibition to focus on the artist’s multi-paneled paintings created across four decades. Mitchell established a singular approach to abstraction over the course of her career through her inventive interpretation of the traditional figure-ground relationship and synesthetic use of color. Her emotionally charged compositions evoke individuals, observations, places, and points in time. The horizontally oriented, panoramic expanse of Mitchell’s polyptych panels is ideally suited for landscapes—a poignant subject for the artist that she linked directly to memory. The exhibition features paintings from both public and private collections, as well as works drawn from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. “I carry my landscapes around with me” is on view through July 12 at David Zwirner 537 West 20th Street, New York. photographs courtesy of David Zwirner New York.

Marilyn Minter Presents "My Cuntry 'Tis of Thee" @ Simon Lee Gallery London

In Marilyn Minter’s video work, “My Cuntry 'Tis of Thee” (2018), women write the word ‘cunt’ into condensation on a glass pane. As the women articulate each letter, their features are gradually revealed as the steam hiding them dissipates. Minter reclaims one of the most widely acknowledged offensive words by providing the women in her video the chance to, quite literally, write it away from its degrading associations. The artist’s debut exhibition with Simon Lee Gallery and her first solo presentation in the UK in thirty years explores feminism and sexual politics through images that dismantle Western culture’s hierarchies of censorship and misogyny. “My Cuntry 'Tis of Thee” is on view through July 13 at Simon Lee Gallery 12 Berkeley St, Mayfair, London. photographs courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery London.

Dilexi Gallery: Seeking the Unknown @ Parker Gallery In Los Angeles

Dilexi Gallery: Seeking the Unknown is one of six exhibitions in a multi-venue retrospective honoring the pioneering San Francisco-based gallery led by Jim Newman. The Dilexi Gallery (1958-1969) was renowned for championing a diverse stable of artists, many of whom— through autonomous strains—presented their own cosmologies replete with systems of individuation. These strategies provided a modern allegory for ancient forms of magic. Revitalizing the notion that the artist has a proto-shamanic role, their work culled the latent powers of alchemy, Kabbalah, totemic thought, and hermetic diagrams, often convening with the unknown. The exhibition features work from Jeremy Anderson, Wallace Berman, Roy De Forest, Wally Hedrick, Alfred Jensen, Jess, Kurt Schwitters, H.C. Westermann and Franklin Williams. Dilexi Gallery: Seeking the Unknown is on view through August 10 at Parker Gallery 2441 Glendower Ave, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of Parker Gallery

June Edmonds Presents "Allegiances & Convictions" @ Luis De Jesus Los Angeles

Allegiances and Convictions explores the American flag as a malleable symbol of ideals, promises, and identity. June Edmonds’s new Flag Paintings create space for the inclusion of multiple identities including race, nationality, gender, and political leanings. Each flag is associated with the narrative of an AfricanAmerican, past or present, a current event, or an anecdote from American history. Edmonds investigates the complexities of these stories through the creation of new symbols for Americanness. Allegiances and Convictions is on view through June 29 at Luis De Jesus 2685 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Click here to read an interview with June Edmonds and gallery owner/director, Luis De Jesus.

Group Show 'TRANS WORLD' Opens at @ Nicodim Gallery In Los Angeles

According to multiverse theory, every decision a person makes causes a split in the universe, wherein an alternate version of one’s self continues to exist in an alternate universe, living with the consequences of an alternate decision. There are an infinite number of variations of ourselves existing throughout time and space, having made an infinite number of differing decisions. BUT WHAT IF AN INDIVIDUAL IS ABLE TO OCCUPY MULTIPLE UNIVERSES SIMULTANEOUSLY? Trans World is on view through August 10 at Nicodim Gallery 571 S Anderson Street Ste 2, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Stephen Neidich "Making the rounds (a place to wait)" @ Wilding Cran Gallery In Los Angeles

Making the rounds (a place to wait) is a new installation by Stephen Neidich is on view now at Wilding Cran gallery in Los Angeles. Comprised of long metal chains attached to mechanized camshafts that generate a circular rotation across blocks of urbanite, the resulting sculpture produces a mechanical melody that echoes throughout the gallery. This creates a contradiction of theory and practice – industrial forms rarely induce feelings of serenity, yet there is something hypnotic and oddly calming about the rhythm of metal hitting concrete. Neidich has repurposed but not totally decommissioned these moving parts. He does not attempt to fully disguise their recognizable forms but instead alludes to the performative nature of machines, focusing on their aesthetic qualities. On view through July 27 at Wilding Cran Gallery 939 South Santa Fe Ave, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Group Show 'The Shape Of Content' @ Ochi Projects In Los Angeles

The Shape of Content is an exhibition of works by Thomas Linder, Erica Mahinay and Andrea Welton. By definition, form is the essential nature of a thing as distinguished from its matter. In his book from which this exhibition takes its title, Ben Shahn expanded on this definition by writing that “form is the shape of content” and argues that form cannot exist without content. The Shape of Content contextualizes three artists, who each use distinct materials, in their exploration of relating content—experience, memory and idea, to form—gesture, color and material.The Shape of Content is on view through July 13 at Ochi Projects 3301 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

"Of Survival, Celebration, and Unlimited Semiosis" Group Show @ Freedman Fitzpatrick In Los Angeles

Of Survival, Celebration, and Unlimited Semiosis is a group show featuring works from Dachi Cole, Tommy, Hartung, Alima Lee, Kyp Malone, Diamond Stingily.

… those who fail to reread are obliged to read the same story everywhere … [Barthes]

What does this paradoxical statement imply? First, it implies that a single reading is composed of the already-read, that what we can see in a text the first time is already in us, not in it; in us insofar as we ourselves are a stereotype, an already-read text; and in the text only to the extent that the already read is that aspect of a text that it must have in common with its reader in order for it to be readable at all. When we read a text once, in other words, we can see in it only what we have already learned to see before.
– Barbara Johnson, The Critical Difference

from “Of Survival, Celebration, and Unlimited Semiosis,” Neveryóna, Samuel Delaney

Of Survival, Celebration, and Unlimited Semiosis is on view through July 6 at Freedman Fitzpatrick 6051 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock


Barbara Stauffacher Solomon Presents 'Relax Into The Invisible' @ LAXART In Los Angeles

Relax Into the Invisible is an exhibition by Barbara Stauffacher Solomon comprising works on paper, artist books, a new body of sculpture, and site-specific Supergraphics. These works build upon the artist's signature design sensibility while cleverly playing with language, feminism, symbolism, technology, mass media, politics, and personal narrative. Relax Into the Invisible is on view through August 10 at LAXART 7000 Santa Monica Blvd Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Hammer Projects Present: Max Hooper Schneider @ Hammer Museum In Los Angeles

Artists are often likened to inventors or scientists, and in the case of Max Hooper Schneider the comparison is more than metaphoric. Schneider’s background in landscape architecture and marine biology strongly informs his artwork. Research and scientific investigation are key to his process. He explores the relationships between philosophy and nature, the personal and the political, destruction and construction, and what he calls nonhuman and human agents. Blending his diverse areas of expertise, his idiosyncratic sculptures, installations, and drawings challenge conventional systems of classification, suggesting a worldview that strives to dislocate humans from their assumed position of centrality and superiority as knowers and actors in the world. Schneider created a new immersive installation for his Hammer Projects exhibition, his first solo museum show. The exhibition is on view through September 1 at the Hammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery

Geraldo Perez Presents 'The Chicago Paintings' @ East Hollywood Fine Art In Los Angeles

The Chicago Paintings is a selection of paintings on canvas and phone books all made over the past 7 years. After being bought out of his New York apartment, Geraldo Perez moved to the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois and purchased a house, where he was able to convert his entire basement into his studio. The Chicago Paintings present a survey of memories lived and experienced from Perez’s birth in 1962 in the Dominican Republic, to his family’s emigration to New York six years later, and to his day-to-day experiences with intimacy, family, and transition. The paintings reflect on a chance encounter with Basquiat at Danceteria, studying under Jack Whitten and Dore Ashton at Cooper Union in the 2000’s, war and death in the DR, being a father, being brown, seeing the MOMA for the first time, making love, and so much more. The Chicago Paintings is on view through June 23 at East Hollywood Fine Art 4316 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock

Eleanor Antin Presents "Time's Arrow" @ LACMA In Los Angeles

Eleanor Antin (b. 1935) is one of the most important artists of her generation and a pioneer of performance and conceptual art in Southern California. In 1972, she challenged definitions of sculpture, self-portraiture, photographic documentation, and performance with CARVING: A Traditional Sculpture. Consisting of 148 black-and-white photographs, CARVING shows the transformation of Antin’s body as she lost 10 pounds over 37 days. Eleanor Antin: Time's Arrow brings together both CARVING series, a new self-portrait, and a related serial work from the 1970s, provoking reflection on discipline, vulnerability, and the passage of time. Time's Arrow is on view through July 28 at Los Angeles County Museum of Art 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery