ANTONY GORMLEY – CONSTRUCT

Posted on 2016-05-16

The exhibition begins with a life-size work from Gormley’s series of ‘Bodycases,’ Bridge (1985), in the front gallery space. This is one of the earliest works made from a plaster mould of the artist’s body, strengthened with fiberglass and encased in a skin of lead. Gormley sees Bridge as an objective mapping of the subjective space of the human body. The visible soldering lines on its surface form clear horizontal and vertical axes: the body is treated as the location of physical and spatial experience. Bridge is presented alongside Scaffold (2015), a recent work in which Gormley has translated the grid of horizontal and vertical lines of Bridge into a freestanding, three-dimensional mapping of the internal volumes of the body. Together these works propose that we consider the body less as an object and more as a site and agent of transformation.

Opposite – BIG PLUCK 2, 2016

Exhibition runs through till May 29th, 2016

Sean Kelly Gallery
475 Tenth Avenue
New York
NY 10018

www.skny.com

  

ELEANOR ANTIN – WHAT TIME IS IT?

Posted on 2016-05-16

Eleanor Antin: What time is it?, is a solo exhibition of sculpture by the San Diego-based artist. This exhibition will recreate two groundbreaking installations of conceptual portraiture – CALIFORNIA LIVES (1969) and Portraits Of Eight New York Women (1970) – originally presented at alternative spaces in New York City.

Eleanor Antin’s CALIFORNIA LIVES was shown at GAIN GROUND, Robert Newman and Naomi Dash’s space on West 80th Street. The artist, who lived in Solana Beach with her husband, poet David Antin, and son Blaise, returned to New York with a series of portraits of both real and fictitious Californians that she assembled from consumer goods and household artifacts. A narrative text panel accompanied each assemblage.

Opposite – The Murfins, 1969

Exhibition runs through till June 18th, 2016

Diane Rosenstein
831 North Highland Avenue
Los Angeles
CA 90038

www.dianerosenstein.com

  

KYLE MONTGOMERY – EXISTENCE

Posted on 2016-05-16

Sydney artist Kyle Montgomery’s infatuation with the afterlife is intriguing to say the least. He finds himself exploring symbolic items from both religious and spiritual realms then comparing their relevance to one another through various sculptural forms. He’s often hunting antique centres and auction sites for second hand ‘Mary’ statues – a common icon in Christian faith, seen to offer guidance and support on the path to life after death. Montgomery also has a strong interest in crystals and the knowledge and power they are said to contain, symbolise relevance to those on a more spiritual front.

The Crystal Mary – is an intentional collision of two beliefs in physical form, combining religion and spirituality to create the ultimate icon. These sculptural works delve into ideas of re-birth and the after- life, principals and messages he portrayed earlier collage works before transforming them into the three dimensional.

Exhibition runs through till June 3rd, 2016

SLOW CULTURE
943 N. Hill St
Los Angeles
CA 90012

www.slowculture.com

  

GEORG BASELITZ – WIR FAHREN AUS

Posted on 2016-05-09

This exhibition draws together two familiar strands within the artist’s practice: portraiture and the process of ‘remixing’, whereby images are repeated and reinterpreted over time using different techniques and mediums.

For the new, monumental paintings installed across several of the galleries, Baselitz took inspiration from Otto Dix’s candid portrait of his elderly parents sitting side by side on a worn-out sofa (The Artist’s Parents, 1924). In these works, Baselitz revisits an early double-portrait of himself and his wife Elke, from 1975 entitled Bedroom, reinterpreting the image using recent polaroids of himself and Elke nude, sitting in a similar position as Dix’s parents. Painted using a predominantly black and white palette, through portraiture Baselitz explores notions of time passing, physicality and the self, themes powerfully addressed in the earlier, celebrated ‘Avignon’ canvases exhibited at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Continuing to expand his painterly techniques, Baselitz disrupts an easy consumption or reading of his images by using both a characteristic inversion as well as an all-over sprayed ‘haze’, which blurs or diffuses compositional clarity. The paintings take on a spectral, transcendent quality, as if seen through a fog that only gradually lifts as we begin to discern the figures, making reception of them slower, and pushing them towards abstraction.

Opposite – Oh, rosy, oh rosy, 2015

Exhibition runs through till July 3rd, 2016

White Cube
144-152 Bermondsey Street
London
SE1 3TQ

whitecube.com

  

HARLAND MILLER

Posted on 2016-05-09

Tonight We Make History (P.S. I Can’t Be There) is Harland Miller’s first solo exhibition in Germany. Departing from his use of appropriated imagery, the exhibition comprises many new large-scale paintings that incorporate his own designs, which is a first for the artist. He takes formal and conceptual inspiration from the abstract geometrical covers of popular psychology books of the 60s and 70s, an era when positive messaging often masked societal neurosis.

Three metre high paintings with titles such as Overcoming Optimism and Back on the Worry Beads occupy the main space of the gallery. Often the same text appears on different compositions, demonstrating how form and colour relationships can change the way in which titles are interpreted. Interspersed between the larger paintings, a number of smaller works act like punctuation marks. The sentiments of the artist’s phrases remain open enough to imbue every work with a different idiosyncratic significance to each individual viewer. Upstairs, a new body of the artist’s most iconic artworks, The Penguin Books Series paintings, are bought together including; High on Hope, I’ll Never Forget What I Can’t Remember and the titular Tonight We Make History (P.S. I Can’t Be There).

Opposite – Happiness The Case Against, 2016

Exhibition runs through till July 30th, 2016

Blain|Southern
Potsdamer Staße 77-87
10785 Berlin

www.timvanlaeregallery.com

  

SCOTT LISTFIELD – AN AMERICAN ASTRONAUT IN LONDON

Posted on 2016-05-09

Scott Listfield is known for his paintings that feature a lone exploratory astronaut, lost in landscapes which are cluttered with pop culture icons, corporate logos, and tongue-in-cheek science fiction references. For the last fifteen years Listfield has exhibited his oil paintings featuring the astronaut as the protagonist in solo exhibitions throughout America.
Having featured in past group shows (LAX/LHR, Reasons for the Seasons) this will be Listfield’s inaugural solo show at StolenSpace Gallery and in the UK. As such, this new series of work sees his astronauts explore the city of London.
Having been heavily influenced by British culture in the 1990s, Scott plays homage to this time in his life using British urban landscapes as his backdrop and referencing iconic British music; Pulp, Blur, The Stone Roses, and the Spice Girls to name a few. Using his astronauts, he takes us on an alternative journey through the streets of London, creating a strange world of the familiar yet surreal.

Opposite – London Pulp, 2016

Exhibition runs through till May 29th, 2016

STOLENSPACE GALLERY
17 Osborn Street
London
E1 6TD

www.stolenspace.com