Happy Famous Artists

We’re excited to read that Australian painter Lisa Adams, whose work we love and wrote about in the past, has been featured in the new issue of Australian Art Review. Congratulations, Lisa! The online article is unfortunately visible to subscribers only, so we posted some images of the hard copy here on the left, after selection of Lisa’s current paintings. Should be legible, at least for the sharp-eyed.

Opening tomorrow @ 6pm @ Hauser & Wirth Saville Row, is a solo show of Ron Mueck. A debut exhibition with the gallery and Mueck’s first major solo presentation in London for over a decade, it will present 4 of his recent sculptures: Still Life (2009), Drift (2009), Youth (2009) and Woman with sticks (2008). All 4 pieces are executed in the artist’s own hyperrealistic style, using his poignant use of scale and placement.  The eye-catcher is a ’Still Life’ – a dead chicken enlarged to human size, stripped of its feathers and suspended by its bound feet in the centre of the gallery. Besides directly referencing the genre of still life, it also echos the physicality of death (hot topic in London’s art world at the moment ;-)) as opposed to the fecundity of life.

Ron Mueck was born in 1958 in Melbourne, Australia. He was trained & worked as professional puppeteer before becoming an artist, which is reflected in the craftsmanship & amazing execution of his sculptures. He now lives and works in London. Next year, he will have a solo exhibition @Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris.

The show @ Hauser & Wirth will run till May 26 2012. Don’t miss it!

(all images courtesy of Hauser & Wirth)

In Jonathan Schipper‘s slow motion car crash installation, a VW Golf collides into the gallery wall at a pace of seven mm per hour. Therefore when you’re watching the installation, its forward movement is imperceptible, yet over the course of the month the car is destroyed. According to the artist, it displays a dramatic inevitability that reflects our own mortality.

The piece was commissioned by Locus+ and AV Festival & was on display @ Locus+ exhibition space in Newcastle upon Thyne from 1st to 31st of March.

Watch the collision in time lapse video: week 1 & week 3

(all images: courtesy Locus+ and the artist)

What the Grand Palais chose to frame as artistic rivalry and competition, the National Gallery is presenting as an homage, a communion in thought and sensibility. We have, of course, named Claude’s unmistakable, and at times stifling, influence on Joseph Mallord William Turner, hero of British painting, precursor of the impressionists, worshipper of the sun. Once again, this show is about comparing and contrasting the works of both painters, but it goes about its mission in a kind, human and approachable way, highlighting what both artists have in common but also their unique fortes and touch, reminding us all that Art is not a struggle for fame, and neatly avoiding the competitive trap into which Turner had himself fallen. Whether you check it out for the Art or the human interest, it is well worth a visit.

Easter Week-End is a time of tradition, celebration and chocolate. To rekindle the old flame of our youth, we should like to suggest a soundtrack to your day, in the form of Opsound. Initiated by American Artist Sal Randolph, known in certain circles as the Woman avec le pink hair, the collection started as an Art project questioning the motivations, joys and pains of the free, the shared and the collective. Opsound has grown both as an Art project and an Art catalyst, attracting experimental musicians from the world over. But it’s also a fantastic way to consume Art by discovering new genres, new inspirations and new soundtracks to inspire creations of your own, whatever your medium.

Rirkrit Tiravanija will present his performance Soup/No Soup at Le Grand Palais in Paris this Saturday. A unique opportunity for the Paris readers of this blog to experience a work by one of the most exciting artists of the moment. The main space of Le Grand Palais will be transformed into a festive 12hr banquet. Visitors will be offered a bowl of Tom Ka soup – a spicy hot Thai soup.

This performance – a large-scale version of an earlier artwork presented by Tiravanija in 2011 at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in NY – is meant to get the art crowd’s appetite flowing for La Triennale 2012 at the Palais de Tokyo and other institutions.

Without doubt a must-see/must-taste when you happen to be in Paris this weekend!

image via the huffington post

Great animation of Han Hoogerbrugge spotted yesterday in NY Times. Watch how the mirror image gets a neurotic life of its own. Nice one!

Tauba Auerbach, an artist with a background in graphic design & sign painting, has created an impressive and varied body of work in the last years, spanning from paintings, photographs and sculptures through jewelry design to music performances with self-invented instrument. Her elegant compositions look simple, but are often inspired by complex systems of information, with an aim to deconstruct the habitual ways visual and perceptual information is conveyed. Good examples are her “Fold” pieces – acrylic paintings on canvas that simulate folds of the fabric, and exist in “a liminal state between two or three dimensions.”

Auerbach has  exhibited with the LA-based New Image Art gallery, passing through Deitch Projects & finally landing @ Paula Cooper.

↬ Patrick Nguyen

Thomas Ruff’s exhibitions entitled ma.r.s and Nudes that run in parallel in both Gagosian‘s London galleries, bring some “soft” porn to Davies street (we already look forward to reactions from the respectable passers-by’s) and 3-D images from Mars to Britannia Street. Shots from today’s preview @ Britannia street are on our Flickr. Davies street was still in full installation behind darkened windows ;-). Both exhibitions are pretty amazing, so try not to miss them.

Nudes and ma.r.s. will be on display till 14 April 2012.

(photos courtesy Thomas Ruff & Gagosian gallery)

Each year we await with bated breath the release of Nicholas Felton’s annual report, Feltron. Well, yay! the 2010/2011 (biennial) edition is just out and looking spectacular as usual. In flashy purple/cyan/magenta combination, its content explores Philip K. Dick‘s notion that “a person’s authentic nature is a series of shifting, variegated planes that establish themselves as he relates to different people; it is created by and appears within the framework of his interpersonal relationships” by overlapping facets of Nicholas’ behavior and visualizing how his personality varies based on location and company.

 Order your print version asap, as they tend to go pretty quick. This year’s edition is limited to 2500 copies and costs $25 for a numbered & signed copy. Ours is already on its way :-P.

Opening tomorrow between 5-7pm @ Torch gallery in Amsterdam: Anya Janssen‘s solo show The Shapeshifter. The exhibition focuses on a private universe of Ivy, a 12-year old girl, which lives, together with her mother, detached from civilization in a small red mobile home somewhere in the Dutch outskirts. Stories told by Ivy were the inspiration for the works presented, showing Ivy’s way of shifting personalities between civilization and her own world. Anya Janssen has collaborated on the show with a composer, a writer and a video-maker to creates a synergistic Gesamtkunstwerk.

The exhibition will be open until the 7th of April and shouldn’t be missed.

Browsing though our new Flickr contacts, we came across Travess Smalley‘s psychedelic digital collages & videos with some equally psychedelic names (Seraphic Rift to the Infinite Cosmos, Neon Bouquet of Fluorescence or Slowlytowardanunknowndirection). While working mostly digitally, Travess mixes his Photoshop and vector imagery with some more ‘analogue’ tools: paper, pencil, spray paint, cellphone cameras and scanners, to develop funny, fresh and unpretentious visuals. Just watch his spinning Radials & chill.

Opening this Thursday @ Tate Modern is a retrospective of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, showing a wide range of her work since the 1940s till today. Kusama, which is especially known for her playful polka-dots sculptures & installations (if Hirst is the King of dots, then she’s the Queen), is also an accomplished painter, writer and poet. This exhibition will highlight the moments of most intense innovation from the almost seven decades of her career – starting with early series of oil paintings and works on paper, through the minimalist and almost monochrome Infinity Net Paintings (late 50s and early 60s), followed by series of so-called Accumulation sculptures and later on large sculptures and paintings from the 80s and 90s.

Probably the most fascinating and visually striking pieces are 2 room-size installations: I’m Here, but Nothing (2000/2012) – a darkened living room, where all objects, including walls, floor & ceiling have been covered with fluorescent polka-dots; and Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life - a 3-dimensional depiction of infinite space, using mirrors, LED- lights and water. Before you enter this space, a sign on the wall warns you that the effect might have a disturbing to some visitors. We can confirm that experiencing it is indeed hallucinatory – in the best sense!

The exhibition runs till 5 June and is most definitely worth the trip (pun totally meant). After Tate, the exhibition will travel to Whitney Museum in NY.

As a teaser, see our photos from today’s preview.

Might also be of interest:
on Saturday 24th of March, from 1 to 6pm, you can visit Infinite Kusama – a special event organized by Tate Modern, which specifically targets young audience (& is free if u’re aged between 15-25). The event will include fashion and sound workshops, a silent disco and most importantly an online competition of which the lucky winner will have the opportunity to travel to Japan & visit Kusama’s studio.

An exhibition of Iranian-born & Berlin-based artist Maryam Najd, opens on 19th January 2012 in Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Maryam will present new works from the ‘Non Existence Flag Project’, dealing with the symbolic and semiotics employed in the formation of national identities. Mostly abstract paintings are also accompanied by some figurative works, such as Happy New Year My Love, depicted here, a painting of various country’s national flowers, arranged into a bouquet that nods to Jan Breughel.

Opening tonight: The Indifferent Owl, a solo show of Gary Hume, presenting new paintings & sculptures of the artist. The exhibition, his first in London for over four years, brings together a large and varied body of new work that will occupy both the Hoxton Square and Mason’s Yard galleries. The exhibitions will run till 25th of February 2012.

Gary Hume (born 1962) attended Goldsmith’s College in London. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and the Bienal de São Paulo in 1996, the same year he was nominated for the Turner Prize.