Simon Lee Gallery announces representation of Erin Shirreff

February 1, 2021

With her multimedia practice that includes photography, sculpture and video, Erin Shirreff (b. 1975, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada) raises questions about the experience of three-dimensional sculptural form in an age of digital dissemination, inviting her audience to decelerate observation. Shirreff’s interest in the relationship between an object and its representation explores fine art photography as part of a wider culture of images, which exposes the slippage between an understanding of an object in real space and its mediation in two dimensions. The gallery will present its first exhibition of Shirreff’s work in London in 2022.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York receives a gift of Georg Baselitz paintings

January 28, 2021

The museum announced today that the German artist Georg Baselitz and his wife, Elke, have gifted six landmark paintings by the artist to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in honor of its 150th anniversary in 2020. The portraits, made in 1969, are among the first that Baselitz created using the radical strategy of inversion, in which the pictorial motif is literally turned upside down, enabling the artist to focus on painting's possibilities, rather than the image of the sitter in direct relationship to the viewer. The six paintings will remain on view in Georg Baselitz: Pivotal Turn in The Met's Robert Lehman Wing through 18 July, 2021.

Independent announces new dates and a new venue for 2021

Scheduled to take place from 9 to 12 September, this year’s Independent art fair will feature approximately 40 leading international galleries, each invited to present specially commissioned, museum caliber presentations by leading artists that are both relevant and timely to our current moment. The fair will be held at Cipriani South Street in New York City, a landmark building due to fully launch later this year.  The 2021 edition of Independent takes its inspiration from Independent Projects, a special edition of the fair at the former Dia Center for the Arts in 2014, which at the time was praised by The New York Times as a “welcome mutation” to the traditional art fair format.

Gagosian highlights Nathaniel Mary Quinn as part of the gallery’s Artist Spotlight series

January 27, 2021

In his composite portraits derived from sources both personal and found, Nathaniel Mary Quinn probes the relationship between visual memory and perception. Fragments of images taken from online sources, fashion magazines, and family photographs come together to form hybrid faces and figures that are at once Dadaesque and adamantly realist, evoking the intimacy and intensity of a face-to-face encounter. The gallery will unveil a new painting by the artist on Friday 29 January at 6pm EDT.

Edmund de Waal donates “library of exile” to the Mosul University Library in Iraq

January 25, 2021

Following presentations in Venice, Dresden, and London, British artist and author Edmund de Waal will donate almost 2,000 books from his acclaimed installation library of exile to the Mosul University Library in Iraq to help rebuild its collection which was almost destroyed in 2015 by the group calling itself the Islamic State. The Mosul University Library will be the final home for the library’s collection recently on display at the British Museum, and features the work of writers from over a hundred countries in dozens of languages from antiquity to the present day by over 100 writers from across the world who have experienced exile, loss and displacement. Following its presentation at the British Museum, the external walls of the library of exile - painted with liquid porcelain and inscribed with the names of the great lost libraries of the world - are being gifted to The Warburg Institute, London, by the artist and will be incorporated into the institute’s redesign, due to be completed in 2023/24.

Cristea Roberts Gallery launches a new podcast series exploring the relationship between artists and printmaking

January 22, 2021

The first episode of Making a Mark explores the work of Richard Hamilton. Michael Bracewell, cultural critic and writer and the author of Modern World: The Art of Richard Hamilton, and gallerist and art dealer Alan Cristea, who worked with Hamilton for 35 years, discuss the art and ideas of an artist whose achievements and legacy remain unparalleled today. Contributors include the Guardian’s art critic Jonathan Jones, writer and curator Gill Hedley, and art director and graphic designer Peter Saville.

Art Basel postpones Basel show to September and announces three Online Viewing Rooms for 2021

January 21, 2021

Due to the ongoing impact of the pandemic and travel restrictions worldwide, the 2021 edition of Art Basel will now take place at Messe Basel from 23 to 26 September, with preview days on 21 and 22 September, 2021. This year, the fair will also present three Online Viewing Rooms, to which all galleries accepted to Art Basel's shows between 2016 and 2021 will be invited to apply. ‘OVR: Pioneers’, taking place from 24 to 27 March, will be dedicated to artists who have broken new grounds aesthetically, conceptually, or socio-politically. A second thematic Online Viewing Rooms will take place from 16 to 19 June, with the fair's curators determining themes and helping to select the participating galleries. At the beginning of November, ‘OVR:2021’ will exclusively feature artworks created this year.

galerie frank elbaz announces the selection of Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award 2021

January 20, 2021

Among 11 projects shortlisted for the 2021 prize, Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili's work will be on display at the next Rencontres d'Arles, an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by photographer Lucien Clergue, writer Michel Tournier and historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette, scheduled to open in July.

Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) presents an Online Masterclass on Japanese Post-War Photography

January 19, 2021

The first in the series of three masterclasses will be presented by Simon Baker, director of the MEP, on Thursday 21 January at 6.30pm CET, and will cover the rise of documentary practice following the atomic bombings, to the avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s. MEP is celebrating Japanese photography this year with Moriyama – Tomatsu: Tokyo, a historic exhibition of two masters of Japanese photography.

Gagosian to host a conversation between Giuseppe Penone and Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, London

January 18, 2021

On Tuesday 26 January at 1pm EST, the pair will discuss the artist’s practice, which is deeply engaged with nature and time, as well as his outdoor installation in San Francisco. Two large-scale bronze sculptures cast from trees—La logica del vegetale (The Logic of the Vegetal) (2012) and Idee di pietra (Ideas of Stone) (2004)—are dramatically installed in Fort Mason’s Great Meadow, overlooking San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, through March 2021.

The John Giorno Foundation Announces the First Posthumous Presentations of the Artist’s Work in Spring and Fall, 2021

January 15, 2021

Recognized as one of the most innovative poets and artists of the 20th Century, John Giorno’s (1936-2019) kaleidoscopic work fused and furthered poetry, visual art and activism, pushing text off the printed page and into the social realm. Following the formation of the John Giorno Foundation in 2020, the artist’s work will be jointly represented by Sperone Westwater and Almine Rech, alongside Galerie Eva Presenhuber. Sperone Westwater, New York will mount an in-depth presentation of Giorno’s work from March through May 2021, showcasing the range of Giorno’s artistic production and collaboration, incorporating several series by the artist, some of which have never been exhibited. This will be followed by an exhibition at Almine Rech, London in the fall, focusing on the final painting series created by the artist, titled “Perfect Flowers,”and  marking the debut of this series in the UK and Europe.

Fabrice Gygi awarded the Prix de la Société des Arts of Geneva

Fabrice Gygi is one of Switzerland’s leading artists of his generation. Marked by nomadism, his career as an artist has made him carry out a constantly renewed formal research. For more than thirty years, he explored the ambivalence of artefacts he made — at the crossroad of practicality and art. This orchestrated ambiguity enabled him to free himself from a normative society obeying logics of power.

Hollis Taggart announces representation of Suchitra Mattai and Alexandros Vasmoulakis

January 14, 2021

Both artists were featured in group exhibitions at Hollis Taggart in 2020. Mattai was included in the two-person exhibition History Reclaimed in March as well as the summer group presentation Look Again, while Vasmoulakis’s work was shown in the exhibitions Perceived Realities in June and Remix in the fall. The gallery is currently scheduling solo shows for both artists for after 2021. It will share representation of Mattai with the Denver-based gallery K Contemporary and grayDUCK Gallery in Austin. Hollis Taggart will represent the Athens and Windsor-based Vasmoulakis in the United States.

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam to receive a library of Surrealist works

The gift from the collectors Laurens Vancrevel and his partner Frida de Jong includes monographs, catalogues and literature on Surrealism, ranging from poetry and prose to essays, published in several languages. More than four thousand, mostly unique, titles from the beginnings of Surrealism up to the present day will be transferred to Boijmans, meaning that the museum will have a very extensive Surrealism library in the future. With this in mind, the museum has conceived the idea of opening a study centre to focus on Surrealism, which will be the first in the world.

Brenna Youngblood Now Represented by Roberts Projects

January 12, 2021

Born in Riverside, California in 1979, Brenna Youngblood takes as her subject the distilling and revising of an alternative Americana as seen through a dry art historical lens. Her work incorporates both autobiographical and fictional narratives to explore the iconography of the Black experience, the methods, politics and ethics of representation, and the legacy of abstraction. Youngblood often integrates found objects and materials into her compositions, imbuing her work with a sensual, tactile quality. This strategy is perhaps clearest in her most recent paintings–which explore the formalities of the painted surface–and are similar in certain aspects to the works of Color Field artists of the 1960's and 70’s, yet examine more complex political subject matter in a symbiotic-like network of aesthetic relationships. The artist's debut exhibition with the gallery will be on view March 6 – April 17, 2021. 

Alison Jacques Gallery presents a Virtual Talk and Film Screening on The Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers

January 11, 2021

Join the gallery on Tuesday 19 January at 6pm GMT for a live conversation between Gee's Bend artists Loretta Pettway Bennett and Mary Margaret Pettway, and Raina Lampkins-Fielder, curator of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. To coincide with the talk, the award-winning film 'The Quiltmakers of Gee's Bend' (2005), directed by Celia Carey, will be screened online on the gallery's website in a week-long event from 11-18 January.

Julian Charrière nominated for the Marcel Duchamp Prize 2021

January 8, 2021

Born in 1987, Julian Charrière uses a range of artistic approaches including photography, performance, sculpture and video to address questions relating to the passage of time and the relationship of our contemporary societies to the natural world. His research practice merges art, science and anthropology, highlighting the tensions that mark the relationship between man and his environment.

Created in 2000 by Gilles Fuchs, Founder and president of ADIAF, the Marcel Duchamp Prize aims to highlight the creative abundance of the French scene at the beginning of the 21st century and to support artists in their international career. The four artists nominated for the 2021 Prize are Julian Charrière, Isabelle Cornaro, Julien Creuzet and Lili Reynaud-Dewar. A collective exhibition will open at Centre Pompidou on 6 October, with the international jury announcing the winner on Monday 18 October, 2021.

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA receives Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon 2021 Award

January 6, 2021

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (b. 1962, UK) is the eighth artist to receive the prestigious annual Art Icon award. On Monday 22 March 2021, the award will be presented during a virtual gala celebration Whitechapel Gallery has announced that Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (b. 1962, UK) is the eighth artist to receive the prestigious annual Art Icon award. On Monday 22 March 2021, the award will be presented during a virtual gala hosted by Iwona Blazwick OBE (Director, Whitechapel Gallery), and feature an exclusive musical performance from four-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo. To protect the safety and welfare of all attendees, the event will be hosted on a digital platform and will celebrate the Gallery’s continued commitment to youth programmes and educational activities through an evening of live presentations.

Almine Rech announces the passing of Kim Tschang-Yeul (1929-2021)

Considered one of the pre-eminent figures in the establishment of contemporary Korean art on the international scene, Kim Tschang-Yeul‘s work has been shown around the world for more than fifty years. Born in 1929 in the north of the then unified Korea, he migrated to the south to escape the communist regime. He subsequently left for New York to pursue his artistic dreams before finally settling in Paris in 1969. There, he began to nurture, over a period of forty years, a unique motif: the drop of water. The waterdrop was the starting point for a singular and iconic body of work, which stands at the confluence of lyrical abstraction, Pop art and Chinese calligraphy. This simple and limpid œuvre subtly fused Taoist wisdom, modern conceptual irony and the tragedy of war.

Christopher Le Brun Knighted in the 2021 Queen’s Honours List

January 5, 2021

Le Brun has been a celebrated British painter, printmaker and sculptor since the early 1980s, and was a prizewinner at the John Moores Liverpool exhibitions in 1978 and 1980. He was elected to the Royal Academy in London in 1996, where he became its first-ever Professor of Drawing, and has also been an instrumental public figure in his role from 2011–2019 as the RA's President.