Couldn’t make it to London? Here are 9 Exhibitions to see in NYC this Fall!

by ANNE VERHALLEN

Hajime Sorayama, courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch

In the last few weeks, many galleries have opened their doors to their inauguration exhibitions of this Fall season, one of the most exciting times of the year.

MoMA will be opening their doors after a few months of renovation, Kehinde Wiley revealed his first public sculpture in Times Square, and Pace Gallery opened their new eight-story global headquarters on 25th street presenting monographic exhibitions by artists; Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Peter Hujar, and Fred Wilson.

Unable to make it to Frieze week in London this year, and excited by all the shows I have seen these last few weeks, I felt compelled to share some of my favorite exhibitions for you to see in New York City this weekend. Here are 9 must-see gallery exhibitions. Enjoy!

Sarah Sze at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. Image courtesy of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery.

01) Sarah Sze, Tanya Bonakdar
521 W 21st street
Through October 19, 2019

For over two decades, Sarah Sze’s work has defied the limitations of artistic media, employing with equal facility sculpture, installation, video, photography, printmaking, and painting.

Sze’s latest body of work frays “the Seam Between The Real and The Image.” Through complex constellations of objects and a proliferation of images, Sze expands upon the never-ending stream of visual narratives that we negotiate daily, from magazines, and newspapers, television, and iPhones, to cyberspace and outer space.

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Loie Hollowell at Pace Gallery. Image courtesy of Pace Gallery.

02) Loie Hollowell ‘Plumb Line,’ Pace Gallery
540 W 25th street

Opening their new global headquarters with a multitude of solo exhibtions, pace presents a new solo exhibition of new paintings by Loie Hollowell. The female artist has become the biggest art market star, with an increase of 1200% in the last three years. ‘Plumb Line’ will feature eleven large-scale paintings that expand upon the artist’s dynamic use of dimensionality, color, and geometric shapes.

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Hajime Sorayama at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. Image courtesy of Jeffrey Deitch Gallery.

03) ‘Tokyo Pop Underground,’ Jeffrey Deitch
18 Wooster Street
Through Nov 03, 2019

Tokyo Pop Underground, examines the complex history of Japanese contemporary art form the 1960s to present.

Curated by Tokyo Gallerist Shinji Nanzuka, the exhibition includes 14 artists who emerged from pop and underground culture. Including artists are;

Makoto Azuma, Haroshi, Akiyoshi Mishima, Masato Mori, Tetsuya Nakamura, Yoshiro Nishi, Toshio Saeki, Hajime Sorayama, Keiichi Tanaami, Makoto Taniguchi, Hiroki Tsukuda, Kazuki Umezawa, Harumi Yamaguchi, and Yuichi Yokoyama.

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Reginald Sylvester II at R & Company. Image courtesy of R & Company.

04) ‘Chairs Beyond Right & Wrong,’ R& Company
64 White Street
Through Oct 19, 2019

Organized by Raquel Cayra, the group exhibition re-thinking the chair and it’s corresponding form of use and design.

Featuring: Adam McEwen, Al Freeman, Alex Israel, Bunny Rogers, Chris Wolston, Cory Arcangel, Dana Barnes, Daniel Arsham, Darren Bader, Ely Fink and Todd Reime, Ettore Sottsass, Gaetano Pesce, Green River Project LLC, Heji Shin, Jim Lambie, Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan, Jordan Wolfson, Jorge Pardo, Josh Sperling, Joyce Lin, Katherine Bernhardt, Katie Stout, KAWS and Estudio Campana, Lucy Dodd, Margaret Lee and Emily Sundblad, Mathias Bengtsson, Mario Navarro, Martine Syms, Martino Gamper, Mary Heilmann, Misha Kahn, Nate Lowman, Nicole Wermers, Paola Pivi, Peter Shire, Reginald Sylvester II, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rob Pruitt, Rogan Gregory, Sam Stewart, Serban Ionescu, Seth Price, The Haas Brothers, Thomas Barger, Tom Burr, Trisha Baga, Urs Fischer, Wade Guyton.

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City Ji Hye Kim at Foxy Production. Image courtesy of Foxy Productions.

05) Cindy Ji Hye Kim ‘Verses from the apocalypse,’ Foxy Production
2 E Broadway, 200
Through Oct 13, 2019

Helena Anrather in collaboration with Foxy Production is pleased to present Verses from the Apocalypse, an exhibition of new work by Cindy Ji Hye Kim. Comprising paintings, sculptures, and drawings across the two galleries, the artist explores our desire for and dependence on structural limits and boundaries in image-making. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition at Helena Anrather.

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Raúl de Nieves at Company Gallery. Image courtesy of Company Gallery.

06) Raúl de Nieves ‘As Far as UUU Take me,’ Company Gallery
88 Eldridge Street, 5th floor
Through Oct 20, 2019

Raúl De Nieves is a multimedia artist working with performance, music and fine-art investigation beauty and transformation. De Nieves incorporates classical Catholic and Mexican inspirations and motifs to create his own unique mythology, challenging and exploring themes such as sexuality, human body, and history.

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Alex Prager at Lehmann Maupin Gallery. Image courtesy of Lehmann Maupin Gallery.

07) Alex Prager ‘Play The Wind,’ Lehmann Maupin
536 w 22nd Street
Through Oct 26th, 2019

The exhibition features new works and a new film, ‘Play The Wind’  by Alex Prager. Prager continues to combine, cultural references, personal experiences, and different eras. The works reflect on the artist place of origin and frequent inspiration, Los Angeles

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Courtesy of Nahmad Contemporary.

08) ‘Hard Feelings’ Nahmad Contemporary
980 Madison Avenue, third floor
Through Oct 26th, 2019

A group show featuring; Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Wade Guyton, David Hammons, Donald Judd, Barbara Kruger, Cady Noland, Steven Parrino, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Sturtevant, Andy Warhol, and Christopher Wool.

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Richard Serra at Gagosian Gallery 21st. Image courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

09) Richard Serra ‘Forged Rounds’ and ‘Reverse Curve,’ Gagosian Gallery
522 W 21st street
555 W 24th street
Through Dec 7th, 2019

Four new works from Serra’s ‘Rounds’ series will fill the entire 24th street gallery. Each forged-steel sculpture is composed of multiple 50-ton elements of differing diameters and heights.

Dividing the 21st street gallery space in half is the 99ft long and 13ft height ‘Reverse Curve,’ 2005. Originally conceived in 2005 for a public project in Reggio, Emilia, Italy, ‘Reverse Curve’ is finally being realized for the first time.

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9 Exhibitions to see during Frieze London Week

Frieze London week is around the corner and the whole city is getting ready for an inrush of collectors, artists, dealers, and art lovers. The biggest and smallest galleries are ready to open their doors to show the most important exhibitions of the year. There is so much to see, therefore I have listed the most exciting exhibitions for this upcoming Frieze Week for you to see!

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01) Ai WeiWei: Roots
Lisson Gallery in London, 27 Bell Street
02 Oct - 02 Nov 2019

Ai Weiwwi was born in 1957 in Beijing and now lives and works in Berlin. ‘Roots’ presents a series of monumental scuptural works in Iron, cast from giant tree roots sourced in Brazil during research and production for last year’s survey exhibitions, ‘Raiz’, the Oca Pavilion in Ibirapuera Oark, São Paulo.
See more >>

02) Sterling Ruby
Gagosian London
6–24 Britannia Street
28 Sept - 07 Oct 2019

Gagosian’s latest foray into the digital marketplace is an expanded online viewing room premiering during frieze London 2019. The upcoming presentation, developed in collaboration with sterling ruby, will feature seven primary-market artworks from the personal archive of ruby, including one new painting and one new sculpture made for this occasion. Ruby has selected seven pertinent secondary-market works by historical artists to be shown each in dialogue with one of his own.
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03) Watch This Space
Lazinc, 29 Sackville Street
24 Sep - 21 Dec 2019

Opening this month, Lazinc is delighted to be exhibiting a special project curated by guest curator Magda Danysz. Watch this space will transform the gallery into an open studio where over 25 artists will share their processes and create site-specific works over the course of three months. This ephemeral project will play out over both floors of the gallery.
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04) Damien Hirst: Mandalas
White Cube Mason’s Yard
20 Sept - 02 Nov 2019

White Cube mason’s yard presents Damien Hirst’s first major solo exhibition in London in seven years, comprised of new paintings from his ‘Mandalas’ series. Continuing themes from his ‘kaleidoscope’ series, Hirst’s new works take inspiration from the mandala, a symbolic representation of the universe.
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05) Reginald Sylvester Ii | Nemesis
Maximillian William
47 Mortimer Street
27 Sep 2019 – 7 Nov 2019

For its inaugural exhibition, Maximillian William is thrilled to present NEMESIS, a new series of paintings by American artist Reginald Sylvester II. In conjunction with the opening of the gallery’s first permanent space, this exhibition marks the artist’s debut solo presentation in London.
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06) Kara Walker: 2019 Hyundai Commission For Turbine Hall
Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom
02 Oct 2019 - 05 Apr 2020

Tate Modern And Hyundai Motor Today Announced That Kara Walker Will Create The Next Annual Hyundai Commission. Walker Is Renowned For Her Candid Explorations Of Race, Gender, Sexuality And Violence, From Drawings, Prints, Murals, Shadow Puppets And Projections To Large-Scale Sculptural Installations. Her New Site-Specific Work For The Turbine Hall Will Be Open To The Public From 2 October 2019 To 5 April 2020.

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07) ‘Other Spaces’ With United Visual Artists
The Store X 180 The Strand
1 Oct – 9 Dec 2019

A Multi-Sensory Exploration Of Light And Sound.

The Store X The Vinyl Factory Presents A New Exhibition By Uva Called Other Spaces At 180 The Strand In Collaboration With The Fondation Cartier Pour L’art Contemporain, Paris.

Other Spaces Features Three Large-Scale Installations By The Multi-Disciplinary Collective Uva – Our Time, The Great Animal Orchestra And Vanishing Point.

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08) Lucian Freud: The Self-Portraits
Royal Academy Of Arts
27 October 2019 – 26 January 2020

One Of The Most Celebrated Portraitists Of Our Time, Lucian Freud Is Also One Of Very Few 20Th Century Artists Who Portrayed Themselves With Such Consistency.

Spanning Nearly Seven Decades, His Self-Portraits Give A Fascinating Insight Into Both His Psyche And His Development As A Painter – From His Earliest Portrait, Painted In 1939, To His Final One Executed 64 Years Later. They Trace The Fascinating Evolution From The Linear Graphic Works Of His Early Career To The Fleshier, Painterly Style He Became Synonymous With.

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08) Lucian Freud: The Self-Portraits
Royal Academy Of Arts
27 October 2019 – 26 January 2020

One Of The Most Celebrated Portraitists Of Our Time, Lucian Freud Is Also One Of Very Few 20Th Century Artists Who Portrayed Themselves With Such Consistency.

Spanning Nearly Seven Decades, His Self-Portraits Give A Fascinating Insight Into Both His Psyche And His Development As A Painter – From His Earliest Portrait, Painted In 1939, To His Final One Executed 64 Years Later. They Trace The Fascinating Evolution From The Linear Graphic Works Of His Early Career To The Fleshier, Painterly Style He Became Synonymous With.

See more>>

Summer is heating up! Check out my favorite artists to pay attention to this July.

Summer is a busy time in the art world, and I’ve been learning a lot through some personal research and from my clients and colleagues. Specifically, some artists have hit my radar that I’d love to share with you. They’re at different price points, but all under $100k. Some are even available under $20k, which I consider a pretty good deal considering the quality of their works. Although they’re from different backgrounds and their work has its own personality, I believe they are all representative of our time, and have a great sense of humor. Basically, these soon-to-be iconic works are a great steal.

Deborah Roberts

Roberts had an opening at Stephen Friedman Gallery in London with works available at pre-sale to top 200 collectors with prices between $60k-$100k. Her intricate collage and text works explore preteen awkwardness and syncretic nature of black female identity. The images celebrate what it means to contain multitudes.

Roberts (American, b. 1962) is a mixed media artist whose work challenges the notion of ideal beauty. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the USA and Europe. Roberts' work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York; LACMA, Los Angeles, California; Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey; and The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York. Roberts is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2016) and Ginsburg-Klaus Award Fellowship (2014). She received her MFA from Syracuse University, New York. She lives and works in Austin, Texas. 

“I’m always wondering — why can’t society see us for who we are? If you want to see black people, black girls as this monolithic being, I’m going to reject that. When you look at my work, you have to look at every part of the face and make something out of those fragments. That’s one of the gifts of the work — to see people differently, and not just as one being. Blackness is global.” -Roberts, Jenkins Johnson Gallery Interview

Alvaro Barrington

I first explored his work first at his 2017 exhibition at MoMA PS1, New York. He uses breathtaking colors and I guarantee goose bumps when you see his work. Barrington just curated a show with Julia Peyton-Jones at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac London titled Artists I Steal From and Sadie Holes HQ just showed his work at Basel.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Barrington spent the first eight years of his childhood with his grandmother in Grenada. An underlying theme running through his paintings comes from this experience: paintings that feel like they belong in carnival culture, that give you a sense of time and space. They depict or contemplate on a romanticised Caribbean, one taken from memory and that no longer exists: ‘I mean, it’s that kind of idea of what’s real and when you’re thinking about the Caribbean, it can be anything.  It’s your Caribbean.’ Barrington’s multimedia work is a result of his pulling apart of these childhood memories and extracting their materiality. Barrington began to sew as a way to explore historical and cultural references, connecting with his Grenadian aunts, who themselves were masterful sewers. The artist has explored the formal action of sewing as an access point into this otherwise traditionally gendered textile art practice.

“I try to let a painting work itself out over a year to two years. That way I can get the ideas down into the painting. Never try to rush a painting. All the materials are highly selective, and I try to have a conversation with the material as opposed to just using the material or dominating it.” - Barrington, Mousse Magazine Interview

André Butzer

Personally, I am madly in love with his dolls, but Butzer is also an extremely talented abstract painter. I first saw his work at Frieze LA, and became friendly with his LA gallerists. Butzer’s show is currently on view at Metro Pictures in New York through August 9th.

André Butzer was born in 1973 in Stuttgart, Germany, and lives and works in Altadena, California. His work has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover; Kunsthistorisches Museum - CAC Contemporary Art Club at Theseustempel, Vienna; Kunstverein Reutlingen, Germany; and Kunsthalle Nuremberg. It has also been presented in group exhibitions at MOCA, Los Angeles; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; MUMOK, Vienna; Musee d’Art Contemporain de Nimes, France; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.

“There's a rule in painting: light has a proportion. Without it, a painting would be proportionless. And it allows you to begin.” -Butzer, Vice Interview

Javier Calleja

Yoshitomo Nara and Kaws lovers are getting in line to get this hot artist. And better yet- his work is still very affordable at $15,000 for small works and $65,000 for his largest pieces. Calleja currently has a show at Galerie Zink in Germany titled Clouds Through the Window, as well as a solo exhibition titled Those Little Things at Dio Horia Art Gallery in Mykonos, Greece through July 24th.

Spanish artist Calleja apprenticed for several years under Japanese pop minimalist Yoshitomo Nara. But where Nara's cartoonish minimalism is tinged with cynicism, Calleja's paintings are imbued with optimism. Having won several awards himself for his impressions of innocence, as well as being the subject of over a dozen solo exhibitions worldwide including five solo museum exhibitions and 22 solo gallery exhibitions in three continents: Aisho/Nanzuka (Hong Kong), Dio Horia Gallery (Mykonos, Greece), Galerie Zink (Waldkirchen, Germany), Nanzuka Gallery (Tokyo), Galería Rafael Pérez Hernando (Madrid), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Málaga (Spain), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Burgos (Spain) and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Alcobendas (Spain).

“My work is a continuous distortion of scale, as if it were from the worlds of Gulliver...” - Calleja, Truck Art Project Interview

Paul Insect

Also known as a street art darling and favorite for collectors. Last month, Allouche Gallery had a pop up show in Paris where they released prints for sale to friends and family only. Although his works on canvas are difficult to find, his prints can be a good investment. (Prints are like stock IPOs!)

British street artist Paul Insect worked with the likes of Banksy and calls Damien Hirst a collector.  Insect's sharp-edged images combine all the absurdism of Dada with the sleekness of modernism, yielding surreal renderings that point playfully at the deep dark underbelly of adult life. In the 1990s, Insect became known for his witty stencil and spray painted works, before transitioning to the gallery scene with color-drenched canvases which teetered precariously between tradition and something far more messed up. Never before has chaos been channeled in such clean lines. 

“There are two sides to people; the side you want everyone to see, and the side you would rather keep to yourself. Its been a continuing concept through out my work, people hiding their real selves.” -Insect, Juxtapoz Magazine Interview

Sara Cwynar

The Aldrich Museum

By: Anne Verhallen

A Private Viewing of Sara Cwynar’s First East Coast Solo Museum Exhibit

The Canadian born and rising contemporary photographer and artist, Sara Cwynar, shows some of her new and unseen work at her first east-coast museum exhibition at The Aldrich Museum in Connecticut.

Sara Cwynar @ The Aldrich Museum

It is Sunday just past noon when we step into a shuttle organized by The Aldrich Museum and take our seat next to renowned artist Elaine Reichek. Unaware of who we sat next to at the time, Elaine shared her story and that of other New York-based female artists of her generation. We spoke about the changes within the art-world, and the rise of female artists and artists of color. “We have always been here; the difference is people started to pay attention.”  She commented on the significance of the Me Too movement and how women of her generation “just dealt with it” while being on the look out for each other. “But why should we just deal with it?” 

Time flew by and before we knew it we were surrounded by the beautiful landscape of Connecticut as we entered the Museum’s driveway. After a warm welcome by the staff members of the Aldrich Museum, we were advised to visit the other exhibitions before Sara’s arrival, including a two-floor survey of works by feminist, lesbian scholar, activist and author, Harmony Hammond.

Harmony Hammond: Material Witness, Five Decades of Art @ The Aldrich Museum

Hammond is featured in three important exhibitions around the United States. Harmony Hammond: Material Witness, Five Decades of Art exhibit shows some of her most important works curated throughout multiple rooms, presenting a perfect oevre of the artist’s work. Our personal favorite, Floor Piece (1973) is considered one of her most radical pieces referring to women’s traditional arts.

Floor Piece, Harmony Hammond @ The Aldrich Museum

As we waited in the sunny sculpture garden of the museum, Sara Cwynar arrived accompanied by her gallerist Foxy Production and museum curator Amy Smith-Stewart. We follow the artist to her exhibition and are introduced to the artist’s work in an intimate space that displays two significant works on wallpaper she designed.

Artist Sara Cwynar and Curator Amy Smith-Stewart

The young artist speaks humbly about her work and gently touches upon her subject matters. Sara’s art has a clear encyclopedic aspect. She uses photographs of found images and objects from advertisements, postcards and catalogues to create colorful photographic collages and films. The works are displayed in a spacious room on the second floor of the museum. The repetition in her works, use of collected commercial materials and remodeled historical images reflect on their influence these marketing themes to infiltrate the public conscious.

Sara Cwynar @ The Aldrich Museum

Sara introduces us to her model Stacey, a close friend and model of the artist for 15 years. Stacey is carefully positioned in a way Sara believes many women have been portrayed as in the past, the pose reminding me of an odalisque woman with a soft gaze toward the camera.

Sara Cwynar @ The Aldrich Museum

Her newest flat photographic work features a different model found on an e-commerce website. She used the images from the e-com site and combines them with her own photographs of the same model, posing identical to the classic e-commerce poses. However, Sarah photographed the girl without make-up or Photoshop, in a gesture to reclaim the girl’s identity. It is clear the work comments on the endlessly-clicking consumer, with unlimited access to some version of this "modern woman" defined by today’s unattainable standards.

Sara Cwynar @ The Aldrich Museum

As she points to the wallpaper used in the first exhibition room, she smiles and explains her passion for collecting imagery and encyclopedias. The paper is a compilation of 72 famous modern paintings carefully selected by Sara from encyclopedias.

Sara Cwynar @ The Aldrich Museum

The room opens up to questions from the guests of the museum and someone points out the drop shadows left in the images and tape on the studio floor. Sara explains her love for these flaws and imperfections; she likes to leave room for error as she prefers her work to be slightly quirky and not too serious.

Sara Cwynar @ The Aldrich Museum

Besides her still-photography, her book Kitsch Encyclopedia (2013) and two short films, Cover Girl (2018) and Christina (2019), are included in the exhibition. Her video works were very popular amongst the visitors, many of them viewing the films more than once. 

 Within the films, Sara's talent for and use of color stands out. Her usage of color as a tool and as a subject to convey her messages lay at the forefront. Cover Girl mixes video footage of Stacey recorded in the artist’s studio with video footage recorded inside a cosmetic assembly line. The film tackles society’s change in perception of color, consumerism, sexism, beauty, desire and branding.

Sara has a bright future, and I thoroughly enjoyed her use of color to tell her story, and that of other women. Both Sara Cwynar and Harmony Hammond grab your attention and showcase what is important to women of their own generation. I highly recommend visiting The Aldrich Museum and viewing these two artists’ exhibitions.

Sara Cwynar’s ‘Gilded Age’ will be on view through November 10, 2019 at The Aldrich Museum.

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The Bauhaus Spirt @ Wadsworth Atheneum

Five exhibitions to see this summer in Connecticut:

The Bauhaus Spirit at the at the Wadsworth Atheneum, opening July 13th >> See More

From Expressionism to Surrealism: Highlights of Modern Art from the Collection at the Wadsworth Atheneum, opening June 29th >> See More

In Bloom: The Botanical Painting of T. Merrill Prentice at the New Britain Museum of American Art, now on view until September 8th >> See More

Expanded Field: Photography from the Collection of the NBMAA at the New Britain Museum of American Art, opening August 2nd through September 29th >> See More

Photographs | Contemporary Art: Recent Gifts and Acquisitions at the Yale Center for British Art, opening on June 20th through September 8th >> See More

Anyone else stay in New York this holiday weekend? Check out my Whitney Biennial picks.

Attention art collectors! If you’re looking for new artists to collect, pay attention to these highlights of this year’s Whitney Biennial. Curators Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley have visited artists over the past year in search of the most important and relevant work. Featuring seventy-five artists and collectives working in multiple mediums including sculpture, installation, film and video, photography, performance and sound, the 2019 Biennial takes the pulse of the contemporary artistic moment. Introduced by the Museum’s founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1932, the Biennial is the longest-running exhibition in the country to chart the latest developments in American art. I highlighted ten favorite artists and their works to check out at the exhibition now. 

TODD GRAY

Born 1954 in Los Angeles, LA. Lives in Los Angeles, CA, and Akwidaa, Ghana | @toddgrayla

Todd Gray’s works draw from his archive of photographs amassed during the past forty-five years. Taken in locations from Hollywood to Ghana (where he maintains a studio), these images have been selected by the artist to explore the complex interrelation of Blackness, diasporic identity and historic systems of exploitation. For his ongoing series Exquisite Terribleness, started in 2013, Gray collages photographs into layered arrangements of thrift-store frames, creating compositions of fragmented bodies. Many of the individual photographs Gray uses for the collages were shot following his own creative vision; others were commissioned, including many he took as Michael Jackson’s personal photographer in the 1970s and early 1980s. Jackson is significant here for Gray, not as a celebrity or a figure of controversy, but as a global phenomenon whose mythic status serves to frame the complex issues explored in Gray’s work.

NICOLE EISENMAN

Born 1965 Verdun, France. Lives in Brooklyn, NY | @NicEisenman

The figures in Nicole Eisenman’s sculptural ensemble Procession appear downtrodden, yet they carry on and move forward. For the artist, this tension poses questions about what it looks like to be disenfranchised, but also part of a community, and about how to protest when protests feel like a constant cycle. Eisenman often combines traditional materials such as bronze and plaster with foam, sneakers, clothing, fog machines, and fountains that hint at bodily realities that sculpture has traditionally worked to transcend. Ultimately Eisenman seeks to pull the viewer into her mirrored view of the world, which she has created as a means of carefully examining our own. Procession also features a live video feed of the Museum’s eighth-floor gallery where Gamma Delta (1959–60) by Morris Louis is on view as part of the exhibition Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s. The video presents a thermal mapping of the gallery overlaid with an animation. Museums and art institutions have often been characterized as secular temples dedicated to the vision of the historically male “genius.” In the video feed, Eisenman subverts the sanctity of that space and questions the cultural framework that has been built up around such places. Eisenman’s piece also have a market her piece DEATH WAITS IMPATIENTLY CO-STARRING CLIVE BANKS was sold in Sotheby's London Contemporary Art Day Auction on June 27, 2018 for $131,371.

ALEXANDRA BELL

Born 1983 in Chicago, IL. Lives in Brooklyn, NY | @yesitsalex

In her prints, Alexandra Bell revisits articles from the New York Daily News that reflect the paper’s coverage of the now infamous 1989 Central Park Five case, in which five innocent teenage boys of color were wrongly convicted of assaulting and raping a white female jogger in Central Park. Bell highlights headlines and body text and redacts photos to draw attention to latent failings in journalistic objectivity, and to interrogate how journalism can perpetuate racialized violence through language.

The title of Bell’s series refers to a 1994 essay by critical theorist Sylvia Wynter, No Humans Involved, in which the writer responds to a radio report on the riots that followed the 1992 acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers who brutally beat an unarmed Rodney King. According to that report, public officials in the city routinely used the acronym NHI—“no humans involved”—to describe cases involving young Black men like King.

CALVIN MARCUS

Born 1988 in San Francisco, CA. Lives in Los Angeles, CA | @calvinmarcus

The paintings in a new body of work by Calvin Marcus are diverse in their subject matter, but linked to each other formally and through their playful, exploratory sensibility. In works that often confront their audience with bold colors and dark humor, Marcus plays with viewers’ expectations, throwing their perceptions into question. At the same time, the paintings are direct in their approach. “The work has no tricks,” the artist has explained, “it is as people see it and that’s fine.” A work offered by White Cube, London titled Automatic Drawing #1, which was estimated to reach $40k-$60k, fetched $68,750 at Phillips 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale Afternoon Session on May 15, 2019.

JENNIFER PACKER

Born 1984 in Philadelphia, PA. Lives in New York, NY | website

Absolutely my favorite and the most beautiful work was by artist Jennifer Packer. “It’s not figures, not bodies, but humans I am painting,” Jennifer Packer says of her intimate, figurative portraits. Packer’s subjects are friends and family members, depicted in casual, candid poses that suggest both familiarity and affection. Often working on an individual painting over an extended period of time, Packer combines areas of thin washes and sweeping gestural brushstrokes, scraping away layers of paint as she works to withhold as much detail as she reveals. While Packer captures a sense of each sitter’s personality, she resists exposing them too fully to the viewer—a decision that communicates her desire to “present or protect humans in the work.”

KEEGAN MONAGHAN

Born 1986 in Evanston, IL. Lives in Brooklyn, NY | website

With their tactile, heavily worked surfaces, glowing light sources, and emphasis on subjective points of view, Keegan Monaghan’s paintings channel aspects of Impressionist painting, but they are very much of today’s image-centric world. Monaghan employs visual tricks to make small items appear disproportionately large, skewing our perspective. The enormously clunky telephone in Incoming, for example, appears within a tightly cropped space, dwarfing the chair behind it. Other paintings play with a sense of inclusion and exclusion, positioning the viewer as a voyeur peering on to a scene through a peephole or fence. It is not always clear in Monaghan’s work whether the viewer is looking out or looking in, excluded or implicated.

BRIAN BELOTT

Born 1973 in East Orange, NJ. Lives in Brooklyn, NY | @brianbelotti

Brian Belott plays with and expands the parameters of painting, collage, and sculpture by encasing various pigments and abject objects that he has accumulated—among them, toothpaste, doorknobs, mustard, and an abacus—into rectangular blocks of ice. Backlit by light boxes inside industrial freezers, these frozen slabs of everyday detritus are temporarily transformed into spectacular multicolored ingots suggesting stained glass. Also part of his installation is Untitled (Fan Puuuuuuuff), which incorporates a working box fan. The artist started his Puuuuuuuff pieces in the late 1990s, covering canvases with cotton balls coated in thick, colorful paint to create textured, three-dimensional surfaces that riff on the tradition of modernist abstract painting. By infusing his works with humor and absurdity, Belott makes a space for creativity and invention, stating, “A well-delivered joke could save the world.”

JANIVA ELLIS

Born 1987 in Oakland, CA. Lives in Brooklyn, NY, and Los Angeles, CA | @ducatimist

In her paintings, Janiva Ellis makes pointed use of humor, repurposing imagery from popular media and art that informed her youth, appropriating animated characters that often represent underlying tension in her paintings’ narratives. In the foreground of the hybrid landscape presented in the Biennial, a mysterious scene unfolds in which a graphically rendered figure guards a morphing cartoon that is carefully blended together from multiple applications of paint. Simultaneously projecting determination, amusement and stress, the forms are exaggerated yet dwarfed by the vastness of the landscape. While the characters are not bound together by an explicit narrative, their relationship to one another becomes an engine of intrigue. It also serves as a complex point of entry to the monumental landscape, which is executed in brilliant colors and with vivid attention to the materiality of paint, creating a distinctive backdrop.

SIMONE LEIGH

Born 1967 in Chicago, IL. Lives in Brooklyn, NY | @simoneyvetteleigh

Simone Leigh developed the visual language of her sculptures from a wide variety of sources, including the art of ancient Egypt, traditional West African adobe structures, American vernacular architecture, and craft—including, in some cases, racist forms stemming from the Jim Crow era. As Leigh’s complex and contradictory sources would suggest, the female figures resist being reduced to a sum of their parts. Multifaceted and inward-gazing, they are conceived with Black women as their primary audience. A trained ceramist who has long engaged with radical Black feminist thought, Leigh has fashioned a multivalent response to outmoded notions of the female body as a vessel. Using sensuously textured materials—here, ceramic and bronze—she examines ways in which objects embody and communicate specific cultural traditions and histories through both material and form.

WALTER PRICE

Born 1989 in Macon, GA. Lives in Brooklyn, NY | website

With elements of both figuration and abstraction, Walter Price’s paintings shift between everyday realities and invented worlds. Couches and cars float and merge into landscapes as space expands and contracts. Price’s subjects are drawn from his own experiences as well as familiar cultural symbols. The artist’s fluency with color, texture, and form gives physical weight to these liminal, dreamlike spaces. In making each new series of works, Price also sets limits. Sometimes he challenges himself to create a big impact on a small scale; in other paintings he reduces his palette to only a few colors. Mixing fragments of memory, recurring signs and symbols, and abstract figures engaged in unclear, ambiguous interactions, the paintings refuse the viewer’s efforts to find a fixed perspective or narrative. Price is currently represented by Karma, New York.

Text and image credit to the Whitney.

Artist Spotlight: David Wojnarowicz

American photographer, painter, sculptor, filmmaker, writer and activist- David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) created a body of works that encapsulated New York in the 1980s, a time marked by culture wars and the AIDs epidemic. 

Fire, 1987. Acrylic and pasted paper on wood, two panels, 72 x 96 inches.

Hear from the artist directly in this interview by writer Matthew Rose, originally printed in Arts Magazine in 1988 and later republished in Art in America. Matthew walked into Gracie Mansion Gallery in the East Village where he first saw David’s work casually propped on the floor against a wall. Thinking they weren’t selling but immediately captivated by the synthesis of advertising with text and images, Matthew inquired about contacting the artist to do an interview. Excerpts from this powerful interview are below. 

Untitled (Buffalo), 1988-89. Gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches.

On production:

MR: Does it take you a long time to finish a painting?

DW: I do a large painting over a period of time and I'm usually working on many things at once. I started this last show with notebook ideas, images, basic concepts of things. I used to paint directly-- whatever came into my head. When I started the work with the four elements--Air, Earth, Fire, Water-- the first images that occurred to me I knocked down, whether it was in words or drawings. I tried to push toward their references, their hidden meanings.

MR: Give me an example.

DW: With Fire, I would write out a series of ideas and associations relating to fire. Fire could be everything from the elemental fire to heat, anger, weaponry or impulses. With lists of these associations, I'd come up with thirty images, then I'd pull out maybeseven.

MR: What do you find when you finish a series of paintings?

DW: It's more what I find in the process. Understanding more about the source of my images, why they occur, their relation to my childhood. I'll look at things in a natural environment and small things like ants. In Earth, there are ants, timelessly pushing the earth around. I began to think about tractors, which do the samething…

History Keeps Me Awake at Night (for Rilo Chmielorz), 1986.

On the art world:

MR: What is the art world for you?

DW: Well, I haven't ever felt the art world is really about art, but about things that look like art…People love to pick up what they recognize already or what's been recognized for them as art. That's why you have these flurries of groups rushing off to find the next new style. It's never really anything about the art itself but what's turned up at the moment, so it must be art.

MR: But at the same time, you're willing to go about pursuing your own ideas and submit them to a society that doesn't understand what your paintings are about, or perhaps doesn't really care.

DW: I agree with you, but I think there are people who do, although they're hard to find. And there are people who use their own judgment and their own honest reactions to what they're looking at and attempt to deal with the work…the whole process is sort of a joke and at the same time, it's not.

Americans Can’t Deal with Death, 1990. Two gelatin silver prints, acrylic, string, and screenprint on composition board, 60 x 48 inches.

On life:

MR: You mentioned you lived with ex-convicts.

DW: When I came off the street I lived with several ex-convicts in a halfway house for about two years. I had run into someone in Times Square who took me in to his room in a hotel there. At some point he wanted to get rid of me because I was turning his house into a menagerie, shoplifting animals from pet shops.

MR: You slept in doorways?

DW: I slept in doorways in Times Square. I managed to find my way--a place to sleep, something to eat. I was taken care of by different people. I found a job at this halfway house and met people coming out of prison--people who went around passing bad checks, stealing left and right. One guy who got me into the halfway house presented himself as a psychologist; he was a fake. But once in, I had a certain amount of structure where I could kind of repair the damage and get off the streets, find work, live a regulated lifestyle for a couple of years. And it worked, because one thing I discovered living on the streets is that you can't change it. People yell, "Get a job," but you can't get out of it; you carry a certain amount of energy that no matter how good your clothes are, you're surrounded by this energy and people pick up on it right away. They see it in your eyes. It took me close to a year when I finally got off the streets to find some janitorial job in a warehouse.

You can read the entire article here. Matthew is an artist and writer living in Paris who regularly contributes to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Artblog and Modern Painters. Check out Matthew’s artwork on Instagram.

Science Lesson, 1982-1983. Acrylic, spray enamel and photographs mounted on four Masonite panels, 96 x 144 inches.

Today, David’s estate is controlled by P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York. Although finding his works can be challenging, if you can, he’s worth the investment. A 1982-83 collage painting sold for $708, 500 (estimate at $400k-$600k) at Christie’s Post-War Contemporary Art Evening sale in New York on May 17, 2018. 

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One of David’s most iconic works, the film titled A Fire in My Belly, can be seen below.

Artist Spotlight: Oasa DuVerney

Powerful and bold- Oasa DuVerney is not afraid to be authentic and let her work challenge the status quo. Creating a narrative that speaks to universal themes of systemic racism, gentrification and politics, her graphite drawings found in her Dumbo studio contextualize these issues as a black female artist living in the United States today and challenge society to change the collective conscious. We are equal, and we are enough.

Be sure to check our her collaborative fence weaving installation titled DO NOT DISAPPEAR INTO SILENCE on the façade of the Brooklyn Museum, courtesy of her community project Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine, as well as her work in the Spring/Break “TV Guide” in New York. This year, Oasa will be transitioning from her residency at BRIC Artist Workspace to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum to continue her important work.

5 Exhibitions to see outside of Frieze art fair. (my personal picks)

1.] KENNY SCHACHTER: Artist

Kantor Gallery | Feb. 12 - March 15, 2019

The world of renowned Art dealer Kenny Schacter is taking on new colors and forms. Stay tuned and check out this video: https://vimeo.com/315940916

2.} LEE QUIÑONES : If These Walls Could Talk

Charlie James Gallery | Jan. 12 - March 2, 2019

Four decades on from his influential mark on New York City’s graffiti movement of the late 1970s that eventually pushed the illicit visual vernacular of the subway graffitists through the lips of contemporary art society, Lee Quiñones has created intimate new works meditating on the passage of time and the organic process by which meaning speaks through his artistic practice.

3.} RAUSCHENBERG: The ¼ Mile

LACMA | Oct. 28 - June 9, 2019

The 1/4 Mile reveals the broad scope of Rauschenberg’s practice through the multitude of mediums and techniques employed, and serves as a self-contained retrospective of his oeuvre. This presentation is the first time The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece will be exhibited in its entirety

4.} SARAH CAIN: The Sun Will Not Wait

Honor Fraser Gallery | Jan. 12 - March 9, 2019

The artist will create a new floor painting onsite prior to the opening along with a body of new canvases concluding with an upward view through a skylight work inspired by a major commission by the San Francisco Arts Commission for a stained-glass wall at the San Francisco International Airport to be unveiled in June 2019.

5.} THE MISTAKE ROOM (TMR): Ceramica Azul

1811 20th ST. LA | Through March 16, 2019

Established in 2014, TMR operates from a renovated industrial warehouse along the Alameda Corridor at the southernmost edge of Downtown LA’s Arts District. The use of our physical venue changes according to each curatorial cycle. Its purpose however, remains constant—to be a dynamic nexus through which Los Angeles connects to people, places, and histories well beyond its confines.

FRIEZE LA INSTA ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW

Select accounts that really stand out this year and keep you plugged in!

Simco's Club Founder brings you the best in emerging art. Members get access to new artists and works at affordable prices

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Senior Art Critic for New York Magazine 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism
2015 ASME Award for Criticism

LA POP UP

Exclusive pop-up event celebrating the launch of RIMOWA x Alex Israel, a new special edition collection of color-graded aluminum suitcases inspired by Israel's hometown of Los Angeles.

Join us at 8495 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood for a memorable event featuring an immersive experience, music, special surprises, and curated refreshments courtesy of LA-based coffee company Alfred.

Open daily from February 14 – 16, 2019, 11am-6pm.

LET'S GO

What’s a BLUE CHIP ARTIST? (and who cares?)

In standard poker sets, blue chips have the highest value. 

And after a storied visit to the Stock Exchange, a Journalist accidentally coined the phrase "Blue Chip" and over time our culture now recognizes Blue Chip Stocks, Blue Chip Companies, or Blue Chip Art - and they all equal one thing = High Value (and the resultant HIGH VALUE OF RETURN ON INVESTMENT)

The excitement of each year (2019 is already off to an amazing start) can be found in obscure and up and coming artists, who cross the threshold and go on to become bonafide BLUE CHIP ARTISTS.

I always look at each new artists collections and assess what or when or how a piece of theirs can speak to culture in such a way as to hold that possibility. There is nothing more gratifying than both helping an artist on that road, alongside enriching my collectors acquisitions with pieces that go on to become seminal blue chip art.

Some classic Blue Chip artists (Partial List)

Picasso, Pollack, Francis Bacon, Barnett Newman, Fernand Leger, Mark Rothko, Kandinsky, Miro, Giacometti, Brancusi, De Kooning, Basqiuat, Salvidor Dali, Anselm Kiefer, *Glenn Ligo, Henry Moore, Tracy Emin, Tyeb Mehta, Mark Flood, Yoshitomo Nara, Agnes Martin, Takashi Murakami, Lucien Smith, Anish Kapoor, Manjit Bawa, Jan Chobolits, Neo RauchIrma, Stern Albert, Oehlen, Sol Lewitt, Mark Grotjahn, Alberto Burri, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring, Jay DeFeo, Alexander Calder, Sigmar Polke, Jeff Koons, *Damien Hirst, *Gerhard Richter, * Jasper Johns, * Robert Motherwell, Christopher Wool, * Kazimir Malevich, Lucio Fontana, *Brice Marden, *Bruce Nauman', *Robert Ryman, *Richard Prince, *David Hammons, *Ed Ruscha, * Martin Kippenberger Helen Frankenthaler Simon HantaiSam FrancisJules Olitski Bernar VenetLarry Rivers Lee Krazner, Eva Hesse, Wilfredo Lam, Botero, & Roberto Matta * Living Blue Chip Artists 

Lisa Frieman steps into an Independent Curatorial role with a Paul Stephen Benjamin exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery

Here is an exhibition I am excited to attend, and a woman in the industry that inspires me greatly. She has been a tireless and passionate force in the industry and I can’t wait to see all that is accomplished in 2019!

In a release announcing Freiman’s departure from VCU Institute for Contemporary Art, which noted her work completing a $37-million capital campaign for the museum alongside the completion of a new building, VCU’s provost, Gail Hackett, praised the director’s leadership and said, “Lisa advanced the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion in the arts and worked to integrate the strategic goals of the university into the ICA.”

Her first project after her term at VCU is fast on the heels, opening January 19th:

Marianne Boesky Gallery Announces Exhibition

Of Work by Paul Stephen Benjamin,

Curated by Lisa Freiman

Pure, Very, New Marks the Atlanta-Based Artist’s First Solo Show in NYC

On View January 19 - February 16, 2019

Opening Reception January 19, 6:00-8:00 PM

On January 19, Marianne Boesky Gallery will open Pure, Very, New, Atlanta-based artist Paul Stephen Benjamin’s first solo exhibition in New York. Presented across both of the gallery’s Chelsea locations, at 509 and 507 W. 24th Street, the exhibition will feature Benjamin’s paintings, photographs, sculpture, and single and multi-channel video installations, as well as a new site-specific black light installation to be created in the internal passageway between the two spaces. Curated by independent curator Lisa Freiman, the exhibition will highlight Benjamin’s years-long examination of the word “black” as a linguistic, conceptual, and cultural construct. Pure, Very, New, which will be accompanied by a catalogue, will remain open through February 16, 2019.