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Petzel Gallery to relocate to West 25th Street in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood

July 12, 2021

The gallery will be moving from its current 456 West 18th Street location, more than doubling its footprint with a new ground-floor space at 520 West 25th Street in New York.

Friedrich Petzel Gallery, founded in 1994, first opened on Wooster Street in the Soho area of New York City. The gallery has continued to develop its program around a group of contemporary artists who are renowned internationally, including Yael Bartana, Walead Beshty, Ross Bleckner, Simon Denny, Keith Edmier, Thomas Eggerer, Derek Fordjour, Wade Guyton, Stefanie Heinze, Georg Herold, Asger Jorn, Sean Landers, Maria Lassnig, Allan McCollum, Adam McEwen, Rodney McMillian, Sarah Morris, Jorge Pardo, Joyce Pensato, Seth Price, Stephen Prina, Jonathan Pylypchuk, Willem de Rooij, Pieter Schoolwerth, John Stezaker, Nicola Tyson, Corinne Wasmuht, Heimo Zobernig, among others.

Artangel Co-Directors announce decision to step down

July 9, 2021

James Lingwood and Michael Morris, who have been the renowned art commissioning body’s Co-Directors for 30 years have announced that they are to step down in 2022.

The organisation - which has produced over 125 projects including such notable works as Rachel Whiteread’s House, Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 4, Michael Landy’s Breakdown, Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave, Gregor Schneider’s Die Familie Schneider, Francis Alÿs’s Seven Walks and Roger Hiorns’s Seizure - will begin the recruitment of a new Director immediately.

Lingwood and Morris said: “It’s been a rollercoaster ride, without always knowing when the track is about to loop. Working like this demands great faith from artists, angels, our staff and board, funders, and friends too. Without their belief, Artangel could not have thrived over the past three decades and our most memorable projects would never have seen the light of day. We’ll be stepping off the rollercoaster at the end of 2022. Artangel will move forward, imagined afresh under new leadership. We’re excited to see what happens next.”

Photograph: Geraint Lewis, 2001

Teresa Margolles awarded Fourth Plinth Commission

July 5, 2021

Congratulations to Teresa Margolles, whose work has been selected for the Mayor of London's Fourth Plinth Commission in Trafalgar Square in 2024.

For the Fourth Plinth, Teresa Margolles will install an ephemeral work in Trafalgar Square entitled 850 Improntas, made with plaster cast molds of the faces of 850 transgender people. The molds will be created in collaboration with trans people living in locations around the world, by applying plaster directly onto each individual's face. The resulting object is both a visual record of their respective features and, imbued with hair and skin cells, a material infusion of their physicality.

The plaster components will be arranged into an array on all four sides of the plinth, taking inspiration from Tzompantli, brutalist early prehispanic reliefs. Due to London’s rainy and humid climate, the work will inevitably deteriorate and fade away, dripping into residual material—an anti-monument—on the plinth and steps below.

Margolles states (translated): “It is necessary to visualize and signal transfemenicide. This year marks the six-year anniversary of the homicide of Karla, a transgender woman who was engaged in prostitution. She was murdered on December 22, 2016 in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. This commission is for her, and for all the others who were murdered. But above all, for trans people who are still living.”

Christina Quarles joins MOCA Board of Trustees

July 2, 2021

Pilar Corrias announces that gallery artist Christina Quarles will join the MOCA Board of Trustees.

“I am so proud and happy to be joining MOCA’s Board at this significant moment, as Los Angeles begins to reopen and we embrace the ever-rising standards of accountability, transparency, and inclusion.” - Quarles

“I look forward to working with Christina in furtherance of the Museum’s mission as we expand our institution’s reach into the artistic and broader community,” - Klaus Biesenbach, MOCA Director

Quarles’ appointment continues MOCA’s commitment to artist representation on its board. “Artist representation on our board is an essential part of MOCA’s history and DNA since its founding over 40 years ago. We are thrilled to warmly welcome Christina as a fellow trustee to our board. Christina brings a wealth of experience and a unique point of view, and we all look forward to working together,” - Maria Seferian, MOCA Board Chair

Quarles’ exhibition at the South London Gallery, London is on until the end of August.

Alex Barlow joins Sélavy by Di Donna as Director

June 29, 2021

A leading expert in 20th century design, with a focus on French Art Deco as well as international design from the turn of the 20th century to the present, Barlow will oversee design for the gallery in Southampton and shoppable online salon of art and design.

“We are delighted to welcome Alex to Sélavy by Di Donna. We founded Sélavy because we saw that our friends and collectors were seeking works of extraordinary design to round out a sophisticated home. I have known Alex for years and look forward to showcasing his impeccable eye in Sélavy’s salons.” – Emmanuel Di Donna

Gagosian announces representation of Jim Shaw

June 28, 2021

Gagosian announces the representation of LA-based artist Jim Shaw.

Since the 1970s, Jim Shaw has mined the dreams and conflicted realities of American culture, finding inspiration in comic books, pulp novels, rock albums, protest posters, and thrift store paintings. Often unfolding in long-term narrative cycles, Shaw’s works frequently place in dialogue images of friends and family with world events, pop culture, and alternate realities, blending the personal, the commonplace, and the uncanny.

Jim Shaw was born in 1952 in Midland, Michigan, and lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had major solo exhibitions at the New Museum, New York (2015–16); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England (2012); and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2012). Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Photo: LeeAnn Nickels

Skarstedt set to open an additional space in Paris this fall

June 24, 2021

Located at 2 Avenue Matignon, the two-level 240 m2 space is the previous Hopkins Gallery, across the street from Christie’s Parisian headquarters. The space will be completely renovated by Jacques Grange.

Skarstedt Paris will open in October coinciding with FIAC. The inaugural show will be dedicated to Eric Fischl’s studies for “Krefeld Paintings”, a series of works from 2001. Future plans for the gallery’s programming include shows featuring Francis Bacon and Martin Kippenberger.

“While keeping a strong commitment to London, I am thrilled to establish our gallery in Paris, a city with outstanding cultural offer that I have always felt close to and wanted to engage with, particularly in this time of artistic thrive and post pandemic awakening. We will present historical and contemporary shows along with new collaborations that will be complementary with the rest of our program.” – Per Skarstedt

Maria Cifuentes joins Skarstedt as Senior Director in Paris, with over a decade of experience in Contemporary Art.

Having led Phillips' 20th Century & Contemporary Art department in France, Maria has developed relationships with seasoned and emerging collectors both in Paris and internationally. Overseeing the launch of their offices and exhibition space in France in 2014, Maria was also responsible for setting the exhibitions and events program, working with renowned single owner collections and curated exhibitions. Prior to that, Maria was associate Director at Galerie Templon and worked closely with its roster of artists.

“I am honored to be part of the global Skarstedt team, whose exhibitions I have always regarded as of outstanding quality. It is exciting for the gallery to engage in this moment of renewal and growth within this historic art capital and its community."

Bartha Contemporary announce the opening of a new space in London’s Notting Hill

June 22, 2021

Returning to their West London roots, Bartha Contemporary are happy to announce the opening of their latest space in London’s Notting Hill. Located at 7 Ledbury Mews North off Ledbury Road, the former photography Studio offers art enthusiasts an unexpected setting to enjoy and purchase art. The street-level space will host displays by artists that share an interest in abstraction in a focused and relaxed setting.

The gallery, founded in 2000, is run by Daniela & Niklas von Bartha; the German/Swiss couple’s interests in Art, Design, and Architecture continue to inform the gallery’s program. Shows at Bartha Contemporary are often on display for a short time and change regularly. An exhibition of recent large-scale works on paper by London based Italian artist Giulia Ricci starting June 22 will be on display until mid-July. The show, accompanied by a limited edition publication available online for free at gricci.art, was initially planned for the spring of 2020 at the former St James's showroom and postponed due to the pandemic.

An exhibition by London based artist Susan Morris, a two-person presentation with Lucinda Burgess and Frank Gerritz and a showcase of works on paper by Marfa TX-based artist Nick Terry and recent paintings by Cologne-based artist Stephan Baumkötter are some of the presentations planned this year.

Bartha Contemporary is a member of the recently formed Gallery Climate Coalition, Board member of the Foundation for Conceptual Art, Soest, Germany and an advisor to the James Howell Foundation, New York, USA.

New Phyllida Barlow sculpture to be installed in London’s Highgate Cemetery

June 21, 2021

The new large-scale sculpture, titled “Act” and on view in the cemetery in July and August 2021, will be over five metres tall, five metres deep and seven metres wide. Barlow describes it as a stage, that will include a “tower of fabric wrapped poles”. The work responds to the grand setting of the famous cemetery, and the Victorian obsession with honouring the dead.

Highgate Cemetery in North London is one of the capital’s most impressive and includes the graves of many notable people, including George Eliot, Karl Marx, Christina Rossetti, George Michael, Lucien Freud and Patrick Caulfield.

untitled: stack - photograph: Damian Griffiths

galerie frank elbaz announces representation of Kenjiro Okazaki

June 16, 2021

galerie frank elbaz is pleased to announce the representation of Kenjiro Okazaki.

Okazaki’s exhibition “Kenjiro Okazaki: TOPICA PICTUS / Rue de Turenne” was at the gallery in Paris earlier this year.

Okazaki (born in 1955 in Tokyo) is a Japanese visual artist whose works span several genres including painting, sculpture, landscape and architecture. His works have been featured in public collections throughout Japan and in exhibitions internationally. In 2002, Okazaki was selected as the director of the Japanese pavilion of the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice Biennale. His works include a collaborative performance ‘I Love my Robot’ with choreographer Trisha Brown. He received the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (HMSG) in 2014.

Okazaki is extremely active as a theoretician and critic, and is the author or co-author of several books, including “Renaissance: Condition of Experience” featuring his analysis of Filippo Brunelleschi, and “Abstract Art as Impact: The Concrete Genealogy of Abstract Art”, which received the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2019.

image courtesy Kenjiro Okazaki

Pilar Corrias to open second London space in July

June 11, 2021

Pilar Corrias has announced the opening of a second London space located at 2 Savile Row.

The 1,200-square foot gallery is being designed by London and Oslo-based architects Hesselbrand and will open on 8 July 2021 with an inaugural exhibition by Tala Madani.

“I am thrilled to be opening a second London gallery in Mayfair this summer. This expansion will present exciting new opportunities for our artists, with the unique character and history of 2 Savile Row complementing the Eastcastle Street gallery and offering its own distinct possibilities. I am proud to reaffirm the gallery’s commitment to London and the city’s vital cultural contribution.” - Corrias

Almine Rech announces representation of Haley Josephs

June 9, 2021

Almine Rech is pleased to announce the representation of Haley Josephs in Europe, the United Kingdom, and China.

The artist’s inaugural solo exhibition featuring new paintings at the gallery’s Brussels space will open in September.

Drawing inspiration from notions of transformation, mortality, and femininity, Haley Josephs paints solitary figures in fantastical yet foreboding environments that transcend time and space. A recurring character within Josephs’ work is the artist’s late sister, who is often evoked in bold, almost daring, portraits that amalgamate intimate and personal narratives of the artist with the universal human condition. Her enigmatic paintings are colorful and whimsical yet also present a dark twist. An underlying sense of power and balance pervades her works, hinting a moment of liberation from one’s ostensibly everlasting psychological conflicts.

Portrait of Haley Josephs, 2021 / © Haley Josephs - Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech - Photo: Dan Bradica

Serpentine announces 2021 Pavilion and new £100,000 fellowship programme

June 8, 2021

The 20th Serpentine Pavilion is designed by Johannesburg-based practice Counterspace, directed by Sumayya Vally.

Vally is a TIME100 Next List honoree as well as the youngest architect to be commissioned for the renowned architecture programme. The Serpentine Pavilion 2021 is being supported by Goldman Sachs for the seventh consecutive year.

The Pavilion design is based on past and present places of meeting, organising and belonging across London. The forms in the Pavilion are a result of abstracting, superimposing and splicing architectural elements, varying in scales of intimacy, from various locations, translating the shapes of London into the Pavilion structure in Kensington Gardens.

A new £100,000 fellowship programme to support artists, Support Structures for Support Structures, is being announced on the occasion of the 20th Pavilion to create a legacy for this unique commission and signal a new chapter in the commission’s history. 

For the first time the commission will also extend outside the park, with four fragments installed in locations across London to support and facilitate gatherings and impromptu interactions and honour places that have held communities over time. 

The partners hosting these fragments are: New Beacon Books in Finsbury Park, one of the first Black publishers and booksellers in the UK; multi-purpose venue and community hub The Tabernacle in Notting Hill; arts centre The Albany in Deptford; and the new Becontree Forever Arts and Culture Hub at Valence Library in Barking and Dagenham, which was established this year to commemorate the centenary of the UK’s largest council housing estate.

A specially commissioned programme for the Pavilion, Listening to the City, will feature work by artists including Ain Bailey and Jay Bernard, connecting visitors to the stories and sounds of lost spaces across London.

Sumayya Vally of Counterspace said: “My practice, and this Pavilion, is centred around amplifying and collaborating with multiple and diverse voices from many different histories; with an interest in themes of identity, community, belonging and gathering. The past year has drawn these themes sharply into focus and has allowed me the space to reflect on the incredible generosity of the communities that have been integral to this Pavilion. This has given rise to several initiatives that extend the duration, scale and reach of the Pavilion beyond its physical lifespan. In a time of isolation, these initiatives have deepened the Pavilion’s intents toward sustained collaboration, and I am excited to continue this engagement with the Serpentine’s civic and education teams and our partners over the summer and beyond.

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, and Bettina Korek, Chief Executive, Serpentine, said: “We look forward with great excitement to welcoming London to this remarkable space this June. Our deepest appreciation goes to Sumayya Vally and to all our supporters and contractors for their enduring commitment to the Serpentine Pavilion. The spirit of community that has carried us as an institution throughout such a challenging year is the same that we hope to enliven this project. Here’s to a new chapter.

Serpentine Pavilion 2021 designed by Counterspace, Interior View © Counterspace, photo: Iwan Baan

An Evening of Music at Timothy Taylor, New York

June 4, 2021

Timothy Taylor New York to host an evening of music at their West 19th Street space on Wednesday 9 June.

“an evening of music inspired by our current group exhibition of early-career, UK-based artists, Reconfigured, conceived and presented by the sound collective GEORGIA and programmed by Emulsion magazine. Focusing on work concerned with figuration and the human body, Reconfigured explores how a new generation of artists is challenging visual traditions and cultural assumptions surrounding depictions of the self. This is the third event in a series of interactive events with New York-based artists, musicians and curators, created to respond to the themes and concepts within the exhibition.”

image: Isabella Benshimol Toro, Soft Shell Cochlea N.2, 2021

More information

The death is announced of Dani Karavan

June 1, 2021

Dani Karavan has died, at the age of 90, on Saturday May 29 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1930, Karavan studied art from an early age and traveled to Florence in his mid-twenties to study Fresco painting at the Accademia delle Belle Arti, then on to Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.

In the early sixties he created a stone bas-relief in the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem as well as his first site-specific environmental sculpture – the Negev Monument, which became a landmark in Environmental Art.

Karavan represented Israel in the 1976 Venice Biennale and a year later participated in Documenta 6 in Kassel. He went on to create environmental sculptures in countries including Israel, France, Germany, United States, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

“Karavan inscribes in landscape human signs, that is, those of both reason and sacredness” - Georges Duby

portrait of Dani Karavan @ Jeanne Bucher Jaeger

Simon Lee Gallery announces representation of Sonia Boyce

May 28, 2021

Artist and academic Sonia Boyce was born in London in 1962. She came to prominence in the early 1980s as a key figure in the burgeoning Black Arts Movement of that time with figurative pastel drawings and photo collages that addressed issues of race and gender in Britain. In 1987, she became one of the youngest artists of her generation to have her artwork acquired by Tate and the first Black-British female artist to enter the collection. Since the 1990s Boyce’s practice has taken a significant multi-media and improvisational turn by bringing people together in a dynamic, social practice that encourages others to speak, sing or move in relation to the past and the present. Incorporating film, photography, print and sound in multi-media installations, Boyce’s practice is fundamentally collaborative and inclusive, fostering a participatory approach that questions artistic authorship and cultural difference. At the heart of her work are questions about the production and reception of unexpected gestures, with an underlying interest in the intersection of personal and political subjectivities.

Boyce was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s 2019 New Year’s Honours List, for her services to art, as well as an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art. She has been commissioned by the British Council to represent Britain with a major new exhibition at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2022. Simon Lee Gallery’s inaugural exhibition with the artist will take place in London in Autumn 2022.

David Zwirner to represent the Estate of Robert Ryman and artist Merrill Wagner

May 26, 2021

American artist Robert Ryman (1930–2019) is widely celebrated for his tactile monochromatic works, which he executed using a range of painterly media on various supports, including paper, canvas, linen, aluminum, vinyl, and newsprint. Emerging in the 1960s, Ryman eschewed self-contained representational and abstract imagery, instead giving precedence to the physical gesture of applying paint to a support.

Since the 1960s, American artist Merrill Wagner (b. 1935) has created a distinctive body of work that is characterized by its expansive approach to abstraction and to painting. In its emphasis on the materiality and mutability of paint, her inventive work elides the categories of painting, relief, sculpture, and installation.

Ryman and Wagner were married in 1969, until Ryman’s death in 2019.

Shortlist for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth announced

May 25, 2021

Two designs, which will go on display in 2022 and 2024 respectively, will be chosen by the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group in late June. The six shortlisted proposals are GONOGO by Goshka Macuga, a giant rocket which encourages people to look beyond their immediate surroundings and up to outer space; Improntas (Imprint) by Teresa Margolles, which features casts of the faces of 850 trans people; On Hunger and Farming in the Skies of the Past 1957-1966 by Ibrahim Mahama, a grain silo like those used by Eastern European architects in Ghana in the early 1960s; Bumpman for Trafalgar Square by Paloma Varga Weisz, a figure inspired by the German Wundergestalt tradition and the spirit of German folklore; The Jewellery Tree by Nicole Eisenman, which features the household objects mixed with British military memorabilia; and Antelope by Samson Kambalu, which restages a 1914 photograph of Baptist preacher John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley.

The current artwork - Heather Phillipson’s sculpture THE END - will be on display until September 2022.

Karsten Schubert London now represents Cathie Pilkington

May 21, 2021

Cathie Pilkington is an artist whose work engages passionately and critically with the canonical history of figurative sculpture. Crossing the borders of traditional, modern and contemporary idioms, her work combines intensively modelled and painted sculptures within immersive installations comprising a diverse array of props, materials and studio furniture. Her site-responsive installations are balanced ambivalently between chaos and precision and have been described as a kind of art historical fly-tipping.

Pilkington studied at Edinburgh College of Art (1985–91) and the Royal College of Art (1995–97). In 2014 she was elected a Royal Academician and was awarded the Sunny Dupree Family Award for her work Reclining Doll. In 2016 she became Professor of Sculpture and in 2020 she was elected Keeper at the Royal Academy Schools.

Her work is held in the collections of Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester; The Hunterian, Glasgow; Omer Koc Collection and the David Roberts Art Foundation.

Pilkington’s solo exhibition Estin Thalassa opens at Karsten Schubert Room 2 on June 1.

Lisson Gallery, Maureen Paley, franklin parrasch gallery and Axel Vervoordt Gallery announced as participants of the 2021 Independent Art Fair

May 20, 2021

The 2021 edition of Independent, held for the first time at Cipriani South Street in the historic Battery Maritime Building in New York, from September 9 - 12, takes its inspiration from Independent Projects, a special edition of the fair at the former Dia Center for the Arts in 2014. Galleries have been invited to present specially commissioned, museum caliber presentations by leading artists that are both relevant and timely to our current moment.

From a network of over 250 galleries assembled since its inception, 40 galleries and institutions have been nominated for the 2021 edition, with 11 galleries making their Independent debut (*). The exhibiting galleries are: Adams and Ollman, Alexandre Gallery*, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, BROADWAY*, Matthew Brown Los Angeles*, CANADA, Creative Growth, Delmes & Zander, Downs & Ross, Andrew Edlin Gallery, Derek Eller Gallery, Fazakas Gallery, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Fortnight Institute, Gordon Robichaux, Higher Pictures Generation*, Karma, Lisson Gallery, MAGENTA PLAINS, The Modern Institute, moniquemeloche, Morán Morán, Mrs.*, Off Paradise*, Maureen Paley, Parker Gallery, franklin parrasch gallery, Peres Projects, The Ranch*, REGULARNORMAL*, Reyes | Finn, Ricco/Maresca Gallery, ross+kramer gallery*, Vito Schnabel Gallery*, Kerry Schuss Gallery, STANDARD (OSLO), Various Small Fires, Axel Vervoordt Gallery*, White Columns, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff.

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