MARCEL DZAMA – A FLOWER OF EVIL

Posted on 2016-06-13

The exhibition opens with Dzama’s early tableau Even The Ghost of the Past (2008-2016): in a darkened room, the torsos of a nude couple can be seen in the scant lighting against the backdrop of a romantic forest landscape amidst all sorts of undergrowth. A stuffed fox seems to observe the scene. The work pays homage to Marcel Duchamp’s famous final piece Étant Donnés, which can only be viewed through a peephole and shows the nude body of Duchamp’s former lover Maria Martins lying on her back with her legs spread apart, placed in a similar forest situation. In his work, Dzama complements the famous scene with a second, male body, thus unifying the couple.

Ever since he created this tableau, Dzama has repeatedly been drawn back to it. It has been exhibited several times, including at Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, and it most recently became a point of departure for the video work Une danse des bouffons which was commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival, and which was also recently given a solo presentation at KW Institute in Berlin. The film alternates between showing Sonic Youth singer Kim Gordon and model Hannelore Knuts in the role of Duchamp’s lover waking from the above tableau, only to find herself in a surreal parallel world where she has to save the abducted Marcel Duchamp, who is being held hostage. The figure of a Minotaur, borrowed from Francis Picabia’s L’Adoration du veau, finally helps the tortured artist hero to be reborn — he is also part of the exhibition as Beautiful Monster (2014).

Opposite – A Flower of Evil, 2016

Exhibition runs through till July 2nd, 2016

Sies + Höke Galerie
Poststrasse 3
40213 Düsseldorf
Germany

www.sieshoeke.com

  

GUILLAUME BIJL

Posted on 2016-06-13

Playing with the intersection between reality and fiction, Bijl uses context, pairing the expected and the unexpected, to create situations in which we are challenged to examine our own understanding of normality and how things are connected.
The exhibition follows his practice through installation and sculptural work, with one such largescale installation occupying a full room of the gallery. Within this installation, the viewer is presented with the real and the non real. A stage stands on one end of the room, chairs and a judges table facing it. There are neons and spotlights, glittering curtains, palm trees and light
music plays in the background. A sign floating on the stage reads “Miss Copenhagen Beauty”. The installation is completely immersive, sweeping up the viewer in the drama and the theatrical nature of the work. Standing on the precipice of fiction and truth, the viewer is left with a sense of tension and impending reality—is Miss Copenhagen Beauty a fictitious mirage, or will we see a winner be crowned?

Opposite – Composition Trouvée (2008)

Exhibition runs through till July 30th, 2016

Galleri Nicolai Wallner
Ny Carlsberg Vej 68
1760 Copenhagen
Denmark

www.nicolaiwallner.com

  

NICOLE EISENMAN

Posted on 2016-06-13

Known for her large crowd scenes which all at once conjure up images of indulgent baroque bacchanals and the energetic circumvolution of a contemporary beer garden, her new paintings are of a more intimate nature. Focusing on informal moments shared by friends and lovers, the paintings concentrate on interior spaces and those casual situations that occur only behind closed doors, be that of the studio, a New York apartment or a train compartment.
While Another Green World mirrors Eisenman’s crowded outdoor beer garden scenes, with various groups of friends interacting in the public domain, Nicole now takes the party indoors, to a safe space where interactions can escalate, relationships can go deeper, and the night can unfurl without fear of a closing time. In Morning Studio, two lovers are pictured in an embrace. Their faces are detailed and familiar; their pose is instantly recognizable as one of comfortable affection. Conversely, Long Distance depicts the very modern romance of long distance companionship, maintained over video-chat. The role of technology is expanded through Weeks on the Train and Subway 2, where commuters distance themselves from those physically around them while connecting through the use of laptops and phones. This theme of intimacy is abruptly broken by the intrusion of the Shooter paintings, which crash through the serenity and jolt the viewer back to ever-present reality.

Opposite – Go USA, 2011

Exhibition runs through till June 25th, 2016

Anton Kern Gallery
532 West 20th Street
10011-2820
New York

www.antonkerngallery.com

  

RICHARD SERRA

Posted on 2016-06-06

This exhibition features four new large-scale steel sculptures and an Installation Drawing by Richard Serra.

Richard Serra’s (b. 1938) first solo exhibitions were held at the Galleria La Salita, Rome, 1966, and, in the United States, at the Leo Castelli Warehouse, New York, in 1969. His first solo museum exhibition was held at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1970. Serra has since participated in documenta 5 (1972), 6 (1977), 7 (1982), and 8 (1987), in Kassel; the Venice Biennales of 1980, 1984, 2001, and 2013; and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Annual and Biennial exhibitions of 1968, 1970, 1973, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1995, and 2006.

Opposite – NJ-1, 2015

Exhibition runs through till July 29th, 2016

Gagosian Gallery
522 West 21st Street
NY 10011
New York

www.gagosian.com

  

CORY ARCANGEL – CURRENTMOOD

Posted on 2016-06-06

Reflecting the temporal nature of web-based culture and the American artist’s own transient interests, the new works in this exhibition present something like a ‘listicle’ image dump self-portrait of Arcangel (who often shares his browsing habits on social media via the hashtag #currentmood).

The exhibition takes place at Lisson Gallery London and extends online through an advertising campaign. IRL (Internet slang for “In Real Life”), at 27 Bell Street, new works are presented, created via a variety of media and drawn from a variety of sources, including scans of Ibiza flyers, tracksuits and magazines; default Photoshop image effects; commercial and cell phone photography; low-res screen captures, as well as emulations and re-prints of earlier works by the artist. Encountered within the forum of the exhibition, these are each given equal billing and size despite their varying subject matters and the relative renown of their production methods within the artist’s oeuvre.

Online, the artist will run a series of ads for the show which will appear dispersed across the Internet as ‘promoted content’. In this context, ‘currentmood’ takes the equanimity of Internet culture as its template, embracing the radical disjunctions, open sensibility and non-hierarchical stance in its advances. Arcangel is concerned with the democratization of his own art: by exhibiting the same image both IRL in a white cube and online as ‘click bait’; in the leveling of cultural value, despite variance of image quality; and in his adherence to open source culture (evidenced especially in work titles that double as instructions to make them oneself).

Opposite – Dawgs / Lakes, 2016

Exhibition runs through till July 2nd, 2016

Lisson Gallery
27 Bell Street
NW1 5DA
London

www.lissongallery.com

  

JASON MORAN – STAGED

Posted on 2016-06-06

Moran’s rich and varied work in both music and visual art mines entanglements in American cultural production. He is deeply invested in complicating the relationship between music and language, exploring ideas of intelligibility and communication. In his first gallery exhibition, Moran will continue to investigate the overlaps and intersections of jazz, art, and social history, provoking the viewer to reconsider notions of value, authenticity, and time.

STAGED will include a range of objects and works on paper, including two large-scale sculptures featuring audio from Moran’s STAGED series that were recently exhibited in the 56th Biennale di Venezia. Based on two historic New York City jazz venues that no longer exist (the Savoy Ballroom and the Three Deuces), the sculptures are hybrids of reconstructions and imaginings. Works on paper and smaller objects will be in dialogue with the stage sculptures on many levels: citing performance and process, employing sound, and exploiting the visual history of jazz in America.

Opposite – Three Deuces, 2015

Exhibition runs through till June 30th, 2016

Luhring Augustine
25 Knickerbocker Avenue Brooklyn
NY 11237
New York

www.luhringaugustine.com