Hauser & Wirth announces worldwide representation of artist Gary Simmons

March 26, 2021

Born in New York City in 1964, Gary Simmons has achieved wide acclaim over the past three decades for a profound and energetic practice that explores notions of race, class, social stereotypes, and politics through painting, sculpture, sound, and architectural environments. Simmons’ work considers the influence of the past upon the present, grappling specifically with the unfixed nature of memory and the American penchant for revising or even replacing personal and collective experience. Best known for illustrative paintings in which white outlines of figures and words – 20th century cartoon characters steeped in the racist traditions of minstrelsy, disappeared architectural sites, vintage film title cards, evaporating clouds of smoke, twinkling stars – are painted on chalkboard-like surfaces, then blurred and smeared by hand. Through this signature ‘erasure’ technique, Simmons has uniquely captured the effect of history being altered while its energy continues to shape life in the present day.

Bonhams New York to auction rare and unseen early works by Yayoi Kusama

March 25, 2021

Some of the earliest recognized works by Yayoi Kusama – which have never been exhibited in public – will be offered in a special single-owner collection sale at Bonhams New York on Wednesday 12 May. The auction, Kusama: The Collection of the late Dr Teruo Hirose, comprises three paintings and eight works on paper, gifted by Kusuma herself to Dr Hirose, her lifelong friend and doctor whom she consulted in her early years in New York in the 1960s, when she was a struggling young artist in need of medical aid.

The highlights of the sale include two of Kusama's River paintings – Mississippi River and Hudson River, both created in 1960 – featuring early examples of her iconic Infinity Net motif. These early works are exceptionally rare due to Kusama's use of the colour red - almost all her other works of this period are white. The third painting in the collection, Untitled, is a very early example of Kusama combining vibrant colours and the scale of the work lends an immersive quality, something that foreshadows the artist's later work such as her Infinity Rooms. The eight works on paper, executed by Kusama before she arrived in the United States in 1957, are corner stones of the artist's practice, laying the aesthetic groundwork for her career to follow. Painted when Kusama was in her twenties, the works show the genesis of her Infinity Nets, as well as elements such as polka dots and flower imagery for which she would become known.

Serpentine hosts Portraits for the Future: A Celebration of James Barnor

March 24, 2021

Join the Serpentine on Wednesday 31 March at 7pm BST for Portraits for the Future, a unique virtual event celebrating visionary photographer James Barnor’s practice and his influence on generations of artists, looking forward to his major survey show at the gallery later this year. Hosted by Clara Amfo, the event features James Barnor in conversation with photographer Tyler Mitchell and Hans Ulrich Obrist; music by Ebo Taylor; poetry by Nii Ayikwei Parkes; a look through the archives with Black in the Day; contributions from Sir David Adjaye, Naomi Campbell and British Vogue Editor-In-Chief Edward Enninful; plus instructions, reflections and tips from some of the most exciting photographers working today, including Liz Johnson Artur, Samuel Fosso, Eric Gyamfi, Zohra Opoku, Dayanita Singh, Ming Smith and Tourmaline.

Portraits for the Future brings together artists, photographers, musicians and leading cultural figures inspired by Barnor’s visionary work to explore how his vision is a crucial guide for the future. In conjunction with the event the Serpentine will launch a campaign on Kickstarter to build a community to realise a programme of activity to bring Barnor’s work to the widest possible audiences. Exclusive rewards such as special limited edition prints by James Barnor, curator tours and more launch on Wednesday 24 March.

“Helmut Newton: High Gloss” now available from the GalleriesNow Shop

March 23, 2021

Published by Hamiltons to accompany the gallery’s eponymous exhibition, the limited-edition book features 33 duotone plates and essays by Newton’s personal friend and renowned photography specialist Philippe Garner, and The Irving Penn Foundation’s Vasilios Zatse.

In celebration of what would have been Newton’s 100th birthday on 31 October 2020, Helmut Newton: High Gloss presents many of Newton’s most famous photographs and exceedingly rare ‘ferrotyped’ prints from the 1970s, including Elsa Peretti, Rue Aubriot and Woman Examining Man. The exhibition is on view at Hamiltons until Friday 28 May.

Gazelli Art House announces a programme of online events in conjunction with the gallery’s latest exhibition

Taking place every Thursday from 25 March to 15 April 2021, the gallery will host one of the four artists presented in Curtain Twitching - Adam de Boer, Khaleb Brooks, Max Prus & Niyaz Najafov - with each one discussing the processes and motivations for their works.

On Thursday 25 March, Niyaz Najafov will present a workshop in his Paris studio. The following Thursday, 1 April, Adam de Boer will conduct a Batik workshop delving into his Eurasian ancestry and traditions from the region. On 8 April, Max Prus will screen an exclusive film with a backing track of self-made music where he returns to the seaside areas of Norfolk seen in his 2020-2021 works. Finally, on 15 April, Khaleb Brooks will perform a piece on identity at the Dover Street gallery where guests will be able watch from the outside in. Follow the gallery on Instagram to access the events.

Galerie Barbara Thumm represents Sarah Entwistle

March 22, 2021

Fascinated with the malleable nature of materials, and the architectural historical practice of spolia - the appropriation of materials into new forms - as a potent counter force to inherited personal and cultural determinism, Sarah Entwistle’s broader project is a continued dialogue and dismantling of the archive of her late grandfather and fellow architect, Clive Entwistle [1916-1976], whom she never met.

Entwistle trained as an architect, at The Bartlett, UCL and Architectural Association, London. In 2019 she received the main prize for Mostyn21, Mostyn Gallery and in 2017 was the recipient of the Artists’ International Development Fund, Arts Council England. In 2014 she received the Foundation Le Corbusier Grant for Visual Artists and in 2015 presented a solo exhibition, He was my father and I an atom, destined to grow into him, at the Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris. The exhibition coincided with the publication of her experimental biography, Please send this book to my mother, Sternberg Press, 2015, published with the support of The Graham foundation for the advanced studies in fine art, Chicago.

In 2020 Sarah Entwistle presented a solo-show on the gallery’s online platform New Viewings curated by Alfredo Cramerotti, together with Paul Kumiet.

The artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, The Knots of Tender Love are Firmly Tied, is planned for June 2021, coinciding with the publication of her new monograph entitled Junk Own, published by Distanz, Berlin.

Chris Martin joins Timothy Taylor

March 19, 2021

Born in 1954, the Brooklyn-based artist Chris Martin makes vibrant works animated by a spirit of radical experimentation, from glittering paintings to delicate watercolors and foil-encrusted collages in rainbows of psychedelic colour. Martin blends elements of Abstract Expressionism and geometric forms freely with references to music, pop culture, astrology, and Eastern and Western forms of spirituality and mysticism. This alchemic approach reflects the artist’s personal outlook on painting: that art can and should reflect the kaleidoscope nature of contemporary life today. As such, his paintings often seem keyed into the synapses of our shared imagination, intuitively reflecting the quirks, obsessions, and fascinations of our time.

In April 2020, Martin curated the online exhibition Painting the Essential: New York, 1980 – Present for Timothy Taylor, featuring works by Martin's friends and peers in the artistic community of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn in the 1980s, united by their exuberant use of colour, focus on process and intuition, and inventive approach to different forms of media.

The artist’s inaugural exhibition of new paintings with the gallery will take place at Timothy Taylor, London in May 2022.

James Cohan now represents Naudline Pierre

March 18, 2021

Naudline Pierre’s paintings draw from fantasy and iconography to conjure alternate worlds. Swirling with jewel-toned texture, her works center ecstasy, devotion, and tenderness in epic scenes that generate space for rescue and healing. Pierre’s winged figures are enveloped in vast, horizonless landscapes, where they come together in acts of intimacy and salvation: they reach longingly outward toward each other, congregate, and embrace, emoting protection and care.

Pierre’s work situates personal mythology and transcendent intimacy alongside canonical narratives of devotion. Her works continue the art-historical tradition of portraying encounters between the earthly and the otherworldly, extending this lineage of image-making by injecting the conventions of her discipline with ephemerality and ambiguity. Referencing the Renaissance format of the altar triptych, for example, or incorporating flattened space and forced perspective, she reconfigures formal systems from the past to generate new possible futures grounded in the here and now.

The gallery will present a solo exhibition of the Brooklyn-based artist’s work in April 2022.

Turi Simeti, one of the most important representatives of Italy’s ZERO movement, has died at 91

March 17, 2021

Associated with Burri and Fontana at the beginning of his career, Turi Simeti (b. 1929 Alcamo, Italy) developed his own unique research and practice, with exhibitions at Galerie M Bochum, Germany, the Bettina Gallery, Switzerland and, notably in 1965, Lucio Fontana’s Studio alongside the ZERO avant-garde group including Manzoni, Castellani, and Bonalumi.

Simeti’s practice developed from the flat collages of the late 50s and early 60s, to the spatial complexity of his successive works up until the present day. Whilst it may seem mathematically sequential, his art is evocative of notations of a musical composition, his distinctive extroflexed canvases offering a delicate breech of the traditional boundaries of visual art asking light itself to be the agent of meaning.

Yancey Richardson hosts a conversation between David Alekhuogie and Drew Sawyer

March 15, 2021

In conjunction with the exhibition Naïveté, on view at the gallery until April 10, 2021, David Alekhuogie will be in conversation with Drew Sawyer, Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator, Photography at the Brooklyn Museum, to discuss Alekhuogie’s practice and the works in the exhibition. Join the gallery on Wednesday 17 March at 6.30pm EST via Zoom.

For Naïveté, Alekhuogie has made photographs using African sculpture and textiles to examine ideas of authorship, the relationship between photography and textiles as mediums of storytelling, and the route through which much of the African diaspora learn about their cultural heritage. Central to the show is the series “A Reprise” which proposes a revision of Perfect Documents, the exhibition catalogue of Walker Evans’s photographs of African sculptures commissioned by MoMA in conjunction with their 1935 exhibition African Negro Art. In the project gallery, a selection of works from To Live and Die in LA, Alekhuogie’s 2018 series which considers the landscape as a vehicle for personal and political identity, is on view.

Whitechapel Gallery celebrates its 120th anniversary

March 12, 2021

To commemorate the occasion, the Gallery is launching a twelve-month interactive campaign online, sharing rarely-seen material from its historic archives and inviting those with memories about the Gallery to get in touch.

For over a century the Whitechapel Gallery has premiered world-class artists from modern masters such as Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Frida Kahlo and Hannah Höch to contemporaries such as Zarina Bhimji, Sophie Calle, William Kentridge, Eduardo Paolozzi and Michael Rakowitz. Its historic campus houses exhibitions, artist commissions, collection displays, historic archives, education resources, inspiring art courses, talks and film screenings, the Townsend dining room and the Koenig Bookshop.

Perle Fine and Khaleb Brooks are now represented by Gazelli Art House

March 11, 2021

Perle Fine’s fifty-year career was led by her aesthetic confidence which enabled her to step beyond the mainstream and establish herself among male counterparts, despite the macho 1940s New York art scene. Fine socialised with key members of the New York School and European painters including Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Ad Reinhardt to Piet Mondrian. Gazelli Art House is the first to represent the artist in the UK.
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Khaleb Brooks is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and writer exploring blackness, transness and collective memory. Meshing the black queer figure with surreal environments in paintings, using printmaking to question the politics of desire and entering transcendental states in performance they force their audience to confront the literal and social death of black people globally.⁠ Over the last year Khaleb has been an artist in residence at the Tate Modern, where they used the museum’s collection to lead weekly workshops and create work around the Trans Atlantic slave trade.⁠

Cindy Sherman joins Hauser & Wirth

March 10, 2021

Widely recognized as one of the most important and influential American artists of her generation, Cindy Sherman has since the late 1970s made powerful images of an ever evolving panoply of adopted personae in order to explore key issues of identity and its construction, and to question assumptions about artistic representation.

Born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman lives and works in New York NY. Coming to prominence in the late 1970s with the Pictures Generation group alongside artists such as Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Louise Lawler, Sherman studied art at Buffalo State College in 1972 where she turned her attention to photography. In 1977, shortly after moving to New York, Sherman began her critically acclaimed Untitled Film Stills. A suite of 69 black and white portraits, Untitled Film Stills sees Sherman impersonate a myriad of stereotypical female characters and caricatures inspired by Hollywood pictures, film noir, and B movies.

Sherman is joining the Hauser & Wirth roster following the announcement that her longtime representative Metro Pictures is planning to close toward the end of 2021, after 40 years of operation.

Image: Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21, 1978 © Cindy Sherman

GalleriesNow x Hostler Burrows for Collect 2021

March 9, 2021

Join Juliet Burrows, director of Hostler Burrows, on Thursday 11 March at 6pm GMT for a tour of her New York gallery, followed by a talk about the work on show. Interior designer Natalie Tredgett will join to discuss the use of colour in the work, with Patrick Fetherstonhaugh, director of GalleriesNow, chairing the discussion.

Hostler Burrows was founded in NY in 1998 by Juliet Burrows and Kim Hostler. Initially dedicated to historical Nordic design and studio arts, the gallery has evolved its programme to integrate a full roster of contemporary artists, both established and emerging. While international in scope, the gallery’s primary focus remains in Scandinavia and rooted in the tradition of studio ceramics, particularly work by female artists.

This event is part of the Collect Art Fair VIP programme. We have arranged access for GalleriesNow subscribers to this private event, on Thursday 11 March at 6pm GMT please use the Zoom Event Link with Meeting ID 868 5116 4086 and Passcode 924527.

Lullin + Ferrari inaugurates newly extended space in Zürich

Galerie Barbara Thumm announces the global representation of the estate of Teresa Burga

Lisson Gallery now represents American artist and filmmaker Garrett Bradley

March 8, 2021

Born in 1986, Garrett Bradley works across narrative, documentary and experimental modes of filmmaking to address themes such as race, class, familial relationships, social justice and cultural histories in the United States. Adopting archival material alongside newly shot footage, Bradley’s films exist simultaneously in the past, present and future, not only disrupting our perception of time, but also breaking down our preconceived ideas about objectivity, perspective and truth-telling. These narratives unfold naturally in both feature-length and short form, rather than being forced into a singular definition or perspective, and consequently reveal the characters’ multifaceted individual and collective stories. What unites all of her works – whether in documentary mode or in a gallery context – is a pervasive, all-seeing dream-like state, featuring any number of temporally fugitive, criss-crossing timelines, as well as imagery that is both uplifting and celebratory of Black bodies and minds.

Lisson Gallery is the exclusive worldwide representative of the artist.

Kader Attia announced as Curator of 2022 Berlin Biennale

March 6, 2021

The French-Algerian artist has been appointed by an international selection committee including artist Yael Bartana, Director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art Krist Gruijthuijsen, and the 2017 Berlin Biennale curator Gabi Ngcobo, among others, to curate the 12th Berlin Biennale, scheduled to open in 2022.

Kader Attia (b. 1970, France), grew up in Paris and in Algeria. Preceding his studies at the École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and at Escola Massana, Centre d’Art i Disseny in Barcelona, he spent several years in Congo and in South America. The experience with these different cultures, the histories of which over centuries have been characterised by rich trading traditions, colonialism and multi-ethnic societies, has fostered Kader Attia’s intercultural and interdisciplinary approach of research. For many years, he has been exploring the perspective that societies have on their history, especially as regards experiences of deprivation and suppression, violence and loss, and how this affects the evolving of nations and individuals — each of them being connected to collective memory.

Claire Falkenstein masterpiece inspires luxury silk fabric from Venetian textile firm Rubelli

March 5, 2021

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery celebrates a unique collaboration between textile firm Rubelli and the Estate of Claire Falkenstein (1908-1997), represented by the gallery. This week, Rubelli, a Venetian textile firm, is releasing Beyond, a new luxury silk lampas inspired by Claire Falkenstein’s masterpiece Entrance Gates to the Palazzo (1961) at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. In 1960, Falkenstein was commissioned by art patron and collector Peggy Guggenheim to design and execute the entrance gates to her residence. The iconic and historically significant gates have welcomed museum visitors for decades at the entrance to the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, now the site of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. With their magnificent jewel-like clusters of Murano glass fused to iron webbing, the gates exemplify Falkenstein’s signature style and reflect the craft of glass, long associated with the city of Venice. The gates embody on a large scale Falkenstein’s concept of the “never-ending screen,” a sculptural approach inspired by infinity and the potential of endless expansion that she developed and deployed throughout her career. Falkenstein intended the work to convey an open flow with movement, stating, “[...] If I can reach through and touch the other side, if I may look through and focus beyond, my feeling verifies the idea that motion is space”. The gates remain Falkenstein’s most famous commission.

Whitechapel Gallery announces new dates for the upcoming Eileen Agar retrospective

March 4, 2021

Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy, a major survey of the work of Eileen Agar (1899-1991), will open at the Whitechapel Gallery in London on 19 May and run until 29 August 2021. The exhibition is the largest of Agar’s work to date and celebrates the crucial role that Agar played within the development of European twentieth century culture. It features over 100 paintings, collages, photographs, assemblages and archive material, much of which has been rarely exhibited. Throughout her nearly 70-year career, Agar synthesised elements of two of the twentieth century’s most significant artistic tendencies: Cubism and Surrealism. The exhibition explores how these early inspirations rapidly developed into her very personal style that offered a moving commentary on society over a period of tremendous social change. Fascinated by classical art, ancient mythologies, the natural world and sexual pleasure, Agar mined these subjects and her own biography for the forms and content that filled her works.