JULIA WACHTEL – DISPLACEMENT

Posted on 2017-12-25

Displacement introduces ten epic paintings that address the implication of urgent, radical viewpoints from digital and print sources that reflect the nation’s current political and larger global psyche. Opening precisely one year after the election of Donald Trump, this is the first complete body of work by the artist to address the significant shifts of our time.

This fully conceived monographic exhibition takes a sweeping, wide angle view of the post-truth, zero sum ideology so profoundly impacting our society. The “post-truth” American landscape can be applied to all of the ten works in the exhibition and continues as a central theme for the artist. A spectrum of topics as diverse as: the marketability of “fake news” by the alt-right, the question of the citizen in relation to the dispossessed, tech’s monopoly in global business and social media, financial hacking, political interference, the Republican conservative agenda, the Second Amendment, global warming, entertainment and television, racism and the sexist backlash are all topics or related departure points presented in these paintings. In confronting this, the paintings in this exhibition meditate on the collective trauma in many forms, and engage in a call to action.

Opposite – Picnic, 2017

Exhibition runs through to January 20th, 2018

Elizabeth Dee
2033/2037 Fifth Avenue
NY 10035
New York

www.elizabethdee.com

  

CHRIS GAROFALO – PRECIOUS FRAGMENTS

Posted on 2017-12-25

For over thirty years, Garofalo has worked with clay to create ceramic sculptures inspired by the flora and fauna of the world’s oceans, desserts, and jungles. Garofalo applies multiple glazes to render authentic-looking skins or shells, so distinct that they appear to have grown themselves. The forms and patterns might recall creatures that exist in life, but all of the sculptures are born out of Garofalo’s imagination and transcend standard scientific classification. Theories of evolution and metamorphosis are fundamental to Garofalo’s practice, and as such, the sculptures come alive in their environments, breathing, stirring, and continuing to grow.

Opposite – ho phatloha ho hoholod, 2017

Exhibition runs through to January 20th, 2018

Rhona Hoffman Gallery
118 North Peoria Street
Illinois
60607 Chicago

www.rhoffmangallery.com

  

RITA ACKERMANN – TURNING AIR BLUE

Posted on 2017-12-18

‘Turning Air Blue’ extends through two galleries and doubles as an organic continuation of Somerset’s rural setting. The exhibition starts in the Rhoades gallery, which features a body of work titled The Coronation and Massacre of Love. The paintings here are large-scale compositions on canvas primed with chalkboard paint, on which washes of white chalk and green and blue pigments have been applied. These Abstract Expressionist-like works are reminiscent of actual chalkboards in a classroom, covered with unintentional erasures and marks, yet they have been conceptually executed by multiple deletions of figurative drawings and landscapes. By way of these gestures, the revenant outline of the erased drawings often emerges into the foreground. The final picture is a record of these movements.

Exhibition runs through to January 1st, 2018

Hauser & Wirth Somerset
Durslade Farm
Dropping Lane
Bruton
Somerset
BA10 0NL

www.hauserwirthsomerset.com

  

HERNAN BAS – INSECTS FROM ABROAD

Posted on 2017-12-18

Hernan Bas’s expressionist and highly detailed figurative paintings are openly inspired by late-nineteenth-century decadent art and literature, as well as the concurrent symbolist and decorative style of the French group Les Nabis. While they are aesthetically grounded in the iconography of the male androgynous dandy, the young protagonists of his oneiric visions are usually portrayed alone or in small groups within descriptions of pure flânerie.
Whether confined in the intimacy of a genre scene or lost in the vertigo of a dense, lush, romantic-like landscape, they inhabit a fantasized world of implicit eroticism and ambiguous sensuality. Always appearing as if suspended in time, between adolescence and adulthood, they embody the fragile in-between state that the artist refers to as “fag limbo.” With a flamboyant palette and a refined touch, Hernan Bas overall masterly revisits and reinterprets all the categories of classical painting from a seemingly melancholic yet often humorous and witty, homoerotic perspective.

Opposite – Unlike other members of his species, camouflage is not in his favor (detail), 2017

Exhibition runs from January 18th – March 11th, 2018

Perrotin
Piramide Building, 1F
6-6-9 Roppongi
Minato-ku
Tokyo

www.perrotin.com

  

SEEN X RISK – MISERY LOVES COMPANY

Posted on 2017-12-18

With a combined career total of almost 80 years, SEEN and RISK are considered grandmasters of graffiti, fundamental in shaping the medium as it is known today. Born and based respectively in New York and Los Angeles, each possesses a distinct and pioneering ambition that led their work to become integral to the cultural fabric of both cities. Whether blasted on the side of a New York subway train, brightening the gray concrete overpasses of LA, or even on the famed Hollywood sign, coming into contact with the work of SEEN and RISK was almost an inevitability of city life in the seventies and eighties. It was these dramatic feats that earned them the legendary status that they possess today.

Constantly striving to expand their practice, both artists originally made the transition from the street to the gallery during the 1980s, where they were shown amongst the likes of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The vivid dynamism of both artists work translated well onto canvas, and without the time constraints that the streets had placed upon them, they were able to amplify the unique qualities of their work. Since then, SEEN and RISK have exhibited work across the globe and continue to prove the versatility of the spray can through a constant evolution of medium and style.

Opposite – POST NO BILLS BLUE

Exhibition runs through to January 28th, 2018

StolenSpace Gallery
17 Osborn Street,
London
E1 6TD

www.stolenspace.com

  

TOILETPAPER

Posted on 2017-12-11

Contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari are the duo behind TOILETPAPER, known for its cheeky hyperreal imagery, breaking down the prevailing codes and photographic motifs of fashion. Photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari first met artist Maurizio Cattelan when capturing him on camera more than ten years ago. The magic worked and the pair went on to create the experimental art magazine TOILETPAPER in 2010. In a class of its own, the image-only publication features carefully constructed photographs in a unique time and mental space. On the surface, the composition shots in TOILETPAPER have a quaint, slightly retro feel to them, an artful way of drawing us in before catching us off guard as we realize what we are actually looking at… Intriguing, comical, startling—the images in TOILETPAPER are guaranteed to leave their mark.

Opposite – Untitled, 2017

Exhibition runs through to January 10th, 2018

Perrotin
Piramide Building, 1F, 6-6-9 Roppongi, Minato-Ku
106-0032 Tokyo
Japan

www.timvanlaeregallery.com