MARLENE DUMAS – MYTHS & MORTALS

Posted on 2018-06-11

In this exhibition, the artist’s second with the gallery and her first solo presentation in New York since 2010, Dumas will debut an expansive series of works on paper originally created for a recent Dutch translation of William Shakespeare’s narrative poem Venus & Adonis (1593) by Hafid Bouazza. Tender and erotic with hints of violence, these drawings depict the story of Venus, the goddess of love, and her tragic passion for the handsome youth Adonis in the artist’s singularly expressive ink wash. Alongside these works, the exhibition will feature a selection of new paintings that range from monumental nude figures to intimately scaled canvases that present details of bodily parts and facial features. Dumas is widely regarded as one of the most influential painters working today. Over the past four decades, she has continuously probed the complexities of identity and representation in her work. Her paintings and drawings are often culled from a vast archive of images collected by the artist, including art-historical materials, mass media sources, and personal snapshots of friends and family. Gestural, fluid, and frequently spectral, Dumas’s works reframe and recontextualize her subjects, exploring the ambiguous and shifting boundaries between public and private selves.

Opposite – Spring, 2017

Exhibition runs through to July 30th, 2018

David Zwirner
537 West 20th Street
NY 10011 New York
USA

www.davidzwirner.com

  

JOSE DAVILA – THE BODY IS LOST OUTSIDE

Posted on 2018-06-11

Building on an interest in appropriation, re-contextualisation, materiality and balance, Dávila takes as his starting point the idea of the void—the existence of negative space, and the presence of what is left behind.
Plaster casting molds used in the production of ceramics have been placed throughout the space, their insides gilded in gold leaf. The molds come from a local ceramics factory in Guadalajara, where Dávila is based, which produces objects like cups and plates as well as more specialised pieces and artworks. The molds exist as remnants of a process, leftovers meant to be discarded or stored until their next use. Their importance is thus practical in nature, as the value they possess lies in their ability to create other objects. Within the context of the exhibition, the molds are arranged, forming sculptures. The conscious and delicate nature of their placement brings to mind Dávila’s continued exploration of gravity and principles of equilibrium. Some lie stacked on top of the other, rising up through the space, while others lie on the floor, creating configurations which go between feeling deliberate and intentionally loose.

Opposite – One in the other (XIII), 2018

Exhibition runs through to July 27th, 2018

Galleri Nicolai Wallner
Glentevej 47 – 49
DK-2400 Copenhagen
Denmark

www.nicolaiwallner.com

  

HOWARD HODGKIN – LAST PAINTINGS

Posted on 2018-06-04

The canvases are composed of meticulous straight lines drawn by rulers and pencils in different degrees of hardness, exploring the space conceived by the distortion from two-dimensionality to three-dimensionality. As the fundamental tool for drawing, pencil has been utilized by the artist across his oeuvre for over a decade. He is fascinated with the metallic reflection of light by the graphite, which is the key component of pencil. The subtle reflections enhance the perceived space, especially when the works are viewed from various angles. The notion of time and space are central to Liu’s artistic output. There is no doubt that the artist found inspiration from Minimalism, which also has deep associations with Eastern Zen philosophy. He considers his daily practice of drawing as a meditative process of inner self-emptying. Each pencil line is a tracing of time, and repetition is an action of self-cultivation. Zen philosophy and its focus on being present in everyday life is embraced by the artist in creating his works.

Opposite – Over To You, 2015-2017

Exhibition runs through to July 28th, 2018

Gagosian
20 Grosvenor Hill
W1K 3QD
London

www.gagosian.com

  

LIU WENTAO

Posted on 2018-06-04

The canvases are composed of meticulous straight lines drawn by rulers and pencils in different degrees of hardness, exploring the space conceived by the distortion from two-dimensionality to three-dimensionality. As the fundamental tool for drawing, pencil has been utilized by the artist across his oeuvre for over a decade. He is fascinated with the metallic reflection of light by the graphite, which is the key component of pencil. The subtle reflections enhance the perceived space, especially when the works are viewed from various angles. The notion of time and space are central to Liu’s artistic output. There is no doubt that the artist found inspiration from Minimalism, which also has deep associations with Eastern Zen philosophy. He considers his daily practice of drawing as a meditative process of inner self-emptying. Each pencil line is a tracing of time, and repetition is an action of self-cultivation. Zen philosophy and its focus on being present in everyday life is embraced by the artist in creating his works.

Opposite – Untitled, 2017

Exhibition runs through to July 17th, 2018

Pearl Lam Galleries
9/F H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central
Hong Kong
China

www.pearllam.com

  

LYNN HERSHMAN – ALTER EGO: ROBERTA BREITMORE SERIES

Posted on 2018-06-04

This exhibition will showcase Lynn Hershman ’s representative and critical series of works of Roberta Breitmore in 1973-1978. The works examine the relationship between individuals’ “real” and “virtual” identities – a topic that is still very much relevant in this day and age of consumerism; when issues such as Facebook’s data breach and mass surveillance in everyday life forces us to reevaluate the balance between privacy, security, and convenience; and an environment where technology is increasingly intertwined with our lives.
The fictional persona, Roberta Breitmore was first played by the artist herself, and during the fourth year of the performance, Roberta Breitmore multiplied into three other people appearing in her guise. The creation of Roberta Breitmore is the existence of “another self”, or Lynn Hershman’s alter ego, consisting not only of the appearance transformation through makeup, wigs and dressing which occupied all the role-playing, but a full-fledged, socially constructed identity in the real world and over a period of time, with authentic and reliable evidence: from a driver’s license and credit card to letters from her psychiatrist. The accumulation and reproduction of these fictional traces is an awakening process to the artist’s self-awareness and identity. As she notes, “Although I denied it at the time and insisted that she was ‘her own woman’ with defined needs, ambitions and instincts, in retrospect we were linked.

Opposite – Roberta’s Construction Chart #2, 1975

Exhibition runs through to August 16th, 2018

ShanghART
9 Lock Road, #02-22, Gillman Barracks
108937 Singapore
Singapore

www.shanghartgallery.com

  

MARILYN MINTER

Posted on 2018-05-28

Over the course of her decades-long career, Marilyn Minter has developed a singular and provocative pictorial language imbued with themes of desire, power, glamour, and beauty. Often times simultaneously seductive and repugnant, her paintings and photographs mine the imagery of Hollywood, fashion, advertising, and pornography while also referencing the history of art. Inspired by feminism and sexual politics, her subversive pictures reframe the conversation about looking and the female figure in visual culture.

In this exhibition Minter turns her attention to the art historical trope of the bather. Poised between abstraction and figuration, a series of large-scale paintings are meticulously constructed using many layers of enamel paint. Slowly built up layer-by-layer, their sensuous surfaces are finished with the fingertip to eliminate traces of brushstrokes, resulting in a softened, tactile quality. In these works, as well as in the photographs, Minter challenges the problematic treatment of women in art, depicting her subjects as empowered objects of desire. Depicted behind a pane of steamy glass, the opaque abstracted surface simultaneously hides and reveals Minter’s subjects.

Opposite – Nebulous, 2018

Exhibition runs through to June 23rd, 2018

Regen Projects
6750 Santa Monica Boulevard
CA 90038
Los Angeles

www.regenprojects.com