FRANZ WEST

Posted on 2017-12-11

West is without doubt one of the most important sculptors and environment artists of contemporary art. His oeuvre is characterized not only by the forms he invents, but also for the communicative quality with which he directly addresses the viewer, urging him/ her to participate. The exhibition brings together various aspects from the broad oeuvre of Franz West. Both collages, sculptures from papier-mâché, plaster and polyester, furniture, an outdoor sculpture in aluminium and installations from different periods of his career are shown.

In the mid-1970s, West made his so-called Paßstücke (Adaptives), movable sculptures made of plaster and metal that were intended to be moved, touched, and handled—transforming viewers into participants. For West, the essence of the artwork is not the aesthetic quality, but how the work is used. These objects stimulate the ingenuity of the public and disrupt conditioned behavior in the exhibition space. From the 80s, he incorporated more fragile materials, such as papier-mâché and glass bottles in his sculptures, which he combined in the Labstücke (Refresher Pieces).

Opposite – Uncle chair, 2001-2010

Exhibition runs through to January 20th, 2018

Tim Van Laere Gallery
Verlatstraat 23-25
2000 Antwerp
Belgium

www.timvanlaeregallery.com

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KARL HORST HÖDICKE

Posted on 2017-12-04

Approaching his 80th birthday, Hödicke’s early influences during the 1960s included filmmaking in New York to the role of artist-as-curator in Berlin, where he set up the influential ‘self-help’ gallery Großgörschen 35 with Marcus Lüpertz. He was subsequently a pioneer of German Neo-Expressionism and New Figuration with Baselitz, Immendorf and Penck. He was one of the main protagonists and drivers of the New Savages or Junge Wilde movement in 1978, which arose in the Germanspeaking world in opposition to established Minimal and Conceptual strategies. In this respect, Hödicke’s figuration, and his connection with various formal ‘networks’ in painting – as well as new social systems for small organisations represented by the model Großgörschen 35 – sit together with a tradition on pushing gesture and spectacle through expression. It’s important to consider that Hödicke’s main subject – the changing nature of Berlin – has been consistent for the last forty years. This is important, because, if the city of Berlin embodies history itself, then Hödicke’s pictures present not only a complex overlapping structure of alternative art historical and aesthetic time, they also show a subjective response to the ever-changing nature of political, social and economic world historical time.

Opposite – Potsdamer Straße, 1977

Exhibition runs through to December 23rd, 2017

König Galerie
259-269 Old Marylebone Road
Winchester House
NW1 5RA
London

www.koeniggalerie.com

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DAVID NOONAN – A DARK AND QUIET PLACE

Posted on 2017-12-04

Noonan’s first film in over a decade is an experiential reflection on theatre, performance, time and the tension between figuration and abstraction. The film is a durational work comprising of still images that gradually dissolve and shift, creating new connections and juxtapositions. A Dark and Quiet Place montages imagery from Noonan’s extensive archive to create an immersive experience supported by a minimalist electronic soundtrack.

The archival imagery in the film is assembled from disparate sources from the 20th century to the present that are interleaved with oscillating sequences of sculptural neons and geometric visuals. A de-linear sense of time has been a central concern of Noonan’s practice to date. Mirroring methods within Science Fiction, Noonan recycles the past to create an alternate view in the present. In the film’s imagery, performers and set pieces have been removed through photo-editing to expose architectural elements and to create new readings of these theatrical spaces. This editing questions the veracity of archival imagery while reflecting the artificial nature and alternate realities present in stage and set design.

Opposite – Untitled, 2017

Exhibition runs through to January 20th, 2018

Stuart Shave/Modern Art
50-58 Vyner Street
E2 9DG
London

www.modernart.net

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JOHN BALDESSARI

Posted on 2017-12-04

John Baldessari’s name is synonymous with the art scene in his native West coast. His career as a highly influential artist and venerated teacher has spanned over fifty years and includes a diverse oeuvre of painting, photography, sculpture and video. From his earliest text paintings in the late 1960s to his more recent ‘storyboard paintings’, Baldessari has always reveled in the playful dislocation between text and image, expanded here in this most recent body of work. Created earlier this year, the Emoji paintings focus on the increasingly complex ways in which we exchange and interpret information in everyday life. Emojis’ are a pictograph-specific keyboard that features glyphs in categories such as ‘smileys and people’, ‘animals and nature’, ‘food and drink’, ‘objects’, and ‘flags’. They are increasingly used as a form of electronic communication, but their equivocal nature means that issues of context and cultural specificity often complicate their interpretation by recipients – it is this theme that the artist explores in his paintings.

Opposite – THE DON’S OFFICE – NIGHT PAUL NAW, IT’S ALRIGHT…THANKS…, 2017

Exhibition runs through to December 9th, 2017

Sprüth Magers
5900 Wilshire Boulevard
CA 90036
Los Angeles

www.spruethmagers.com

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KATRINE GIÆVER – DIP

Posted on 2017-11-27

After several years of experimenting with compositions created by spraying and pouring enamel paints on aluminum plates, her works from the last years have mostly been executed with acrylic paints laid down with spatula in precise, overlapping shallow reliefs on hard surfaces like alucore and plywood. In several of these later works Giæver has lifted up and folded away some of the pictorial elements, as if to expose their underside and introduce diagonals in compositions otherwise dominated by rectangles.

In her new series Dip, inspiration for the method can be traced to the fundamental technique of dyeing fabric, where the immersion of textiles in a bath of pigmented liquid allows color to soak through the woven structure. A search for new flexible supports with an interesting texture led to readymade mats of coarse jute. The large mats have been hoisted up and dipped into custom-made baths filled with commercial household acrylic paints, then hung to dry and dipped again with a different color. This creates a sculptural painted object with identical bands of color on both sides, leaving a sizable amount of the raw jute as part of the composition.

Experimenting with repeated folding and dipping of sheets of paper showed the possibility of making more complex compositions, which Giæver has perfected in a series of smaller and medium sized works on raw linen canvas that have been dipped and mounted on stretcher frames. Traditional painting materials are given a fresh approach in these works with dense patches of color, reserved areas of untreated linen, and traces of folds.

Opposite – Collected Colors #6, 2017

Exhibition runs through to December 22nd, 2017

Galleri Riis
Arbins gate 7
NO-0253 Oslo
Norway

galleririis.com

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DAMIEN HIRST- VISUAL CANDY AND NATURAL HISTORY

Posted on 2017-11-27

Since emerging onto the international art scene in the late 1980s as the protagonist of a generation of British artists, Hirst has created installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings that examine the complex relationships between art, beauty, religion, science, life and death.
Through mediums as diverse as household paint and butterfly wings, he has investigated and challenged contemporary belief systems, tracing the uncertainties that lie at the heart of human experience. This exhibition juxtaposes the joyful, colorful abstractions of his ‘Visual Candy’ paintings with the clinical forms of his ‘Natural History’ sculptures. The ‘Visual Candy’ paintings allude to movements including Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, while the ‘Natural History’ sculptures—glass tanks containing biological specimens preserved in formaldehyde, reflect the visceral realities of scientific investigation through minimalist design. Despite their stark formal differences, the two series were made during the same period and share conceptual foundations: an exploration of the relationships between pleasure and pain, transience and permanence, logic and emotion.

Opposite – Happiness, 1993 – 1994

Exhibition runs through to January 13th, 2018

Gagosian
7/F Pedder Building
12 Pedder Street
Central, Hong Kong
Hong Kong

www.gagosian.com

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