"Fire It Up" at Dienstgebäude, Zürich
Christian Gonzenbach is participating in "Fire It Up: Ceramic as Material in Contemporary Sculpture" at Dienstgebäude, Zürich.
Why is it that Modernism, despite Roger Fry’s admiration for the material, relegated fired clay works to the area of craft? And why is craft a bad word in contemporary art? Even today, after many important modern and contemporary artists tried their hand at it, fired clay still remains for so many others a material not worthy of being used in contemporary sculpture. A reconsideration of the clay-based material in contemporary sculpture is thus necessary.
"Fire It Up" explores the work of ten Swiss artists from Romandie and Zurich who reference, or use, fired clay as their material of choice, and proposes that craft, once liberated from function, should be once again embraced as a necessary element in art-making.
With Mai-Thu Perret, Fabien Clerc, Christian Gonzenbach, Mark Divo, Pascal Häusermann, Mickry 3, Guillaume Pilet, Loredana Sperini, Aubry/Broquard, and Maude Schneider.
Dienstgebäude, Zurich
May 30 - June 30, 2013
"I am your neighbour!" at Bromer Art Collection, Roggwil
Christian Gonzenbach is participating in "I am your neighbour! Young artists and portraiture" at the Bromer Art Collection in Roggwil, Switzerland.
The exhibition seeks to present a broad spectrum of current artistic engagement with portraiture and thus provide an insight into various artistic approaches, contents and tendencies. A central aspect will be the nature of the relation between perception by an other and the representation of self derived from it. By reworking the photographic portraits using their own means of expression, the artists generate parallel and new perspectives, and reinvest them with new significance.
Bromer Art Collection, Roggwil, Switzerland
June 14 - July 21, 2013
"Arena" at Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Gary Simmons presents "Arena", a solo show at Regen Project.
Regen Projects, Los Angeles
May 18 - June 22, 2013
A Gary Simmons solo exhibition will open at SAKS September 12, 2013.
Image: "Right Drop", 2012. Charcoal and paint on paper, 38 x 24 in (96.5 x 61 cm)
"Mise En Abyme (De Cajas Chinas)" at Casado Santapau, Madrid
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet is presenting his first solo show at Casado Santapau gallery in Madrid.
For his first exhibition in Spain at the Casado Santapau gallery, Jean-Baptiste Bernadet shows three groups of paintings, each representing a different punctum (from the Latin punctum: a small distinct point, a sting). Demarcating the field of vision, the punctum extend from the punctum remotum, the farthest visible point, to the punctum proximum, the closest.
The first group of paintings, entitled "Carlsbad", comprises large format canvases with multiple perspectives. Then, the small format series "Punctum" is a counterpoint, acting in diametric opposition. Symbols rather than figures, each painting represents a fixed, open eye. Finally, there is a third group of medium-sized paintings entitled "What Happens Here Stays Here". Like blind mirrors, their slippery surfaces are marked by subtle clues reflecting studio practice and suggesting a layer of air of some sort: a sfumato.
Casado Santapau, Madrid, Spain
May 16 - June 22, 2013
"An Artist's Delight" at Alimentarium, Vevey
Christian Gonzenbach is participating in "An Artist's Delight, Revealing the Fantaisies of Still Life" at the Alimentarium in Vevey.
This final emblematic temporary exhibition marks the end of a chapter for the Alimentarium, summing up the past years and forecasting the changes ahead. Some of 33 works of art presented are by famous artists who have made their mark in history, alongside the work of contemporary Swiss artists such as Christian Gonzenbach (Geneva), Roberto Greco (Geneva), Guido Mocafico (Vevey), Joachim Lapôtre or Laurent Meynier, illustrating the evolution of current eating habits.
Alimentarium, Vevey
May 3, 2013 - April 30, 2014
"De l'inachevé", Visarte, Halles CFF, Lausanne
Christian Gonzenbach and Hadrien Dussoix are participating in "De l'inachevé", a collective exhibition organised by Visarte Vaud.
At the future location of Lausanne's art, design and photography museums, next to the main station of Lausanne, Visarte Vaud dedicates an exhibition to drawing. In the monumental CFF building, glass display cases are installed on the very rails, presenting of 400 works by 74 Swiss and international artists, arranged in five parts each curated by an artist and addressing a different dimension of the "achevé" (unfinished, uncompleted).
Halles CFF, Lausanne
May 3 - May 26, 2013
"Scenic Drive" at Marfa Book Company
Two years after his Artist’s Residency at the Chinati Foundation, Jean-Baptiste Bernadet presents "Scenic Drive", a new body of paintings, at the Marfa Book Company Gallery: a prolonged meditation on the possible equivalencies between the mineral, human and pictorial realms unites the work.
Marfa Book Company, Marfa, Texas
May 1 - May 26, 2013
"The Capitol Project" at Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield
Robert Longo's solo exhibition at Aldrich Museum comprises two parts: two groups of eighty-one studies—"The Essentials" (2000–08) and "The Mysteries" (2009–13)— and "Capitol" (2013), an immense seven-panel drawing of the US Capitol Building.
Longo refers to "The Essentials" as his creation myth, complete with a libidinal universe and its Godhead: the galaxy, sleeping children, sharks, roses, waves, bombs, and the interior of Sigmund Freud's apartment one day before he fled the Nazis. Icons of politics, pop culture and sports, symbols of Americana, impossible landscapes, tools for aggression, and objects of desire comprise "The Mysteries", drawings of a populace left to roam, replicate, and self destruct.
"Capitol" (2013) hangs alone on the longest wall, its placement and dimension reminiscent of a cinema screen. The drawing's compositional perspective and the minimal yet dramatic illumination of the artwork signal a durational effect, suggesting that like the building itself, Capitol is watched as well as seen. A drawing, a screen, a surface, it projects meaning but is also projected upon, a spectacular event preceded by the atomized storyboard of studies.
Text by Kelly Taxter, curator
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut
March 24 - August 25, 3013
"Abstract Generation: Now in Print" at MoMA
Sarah Crowner is participating in "Abstract Generation: Now in Print" at MoMA, New York.
Since the early 20th century, abstraction has been associated with so many artistic movements, from Suprematism and Constructivism to Abstract Expressionism and Op art, that it can no longer be defined by any one style or tradition. Indeed, abstraction exists now as a rich and varied trove of formal languages and ideas—an open source of inspiration that extends well beyond the boundaries of art. This exhibition focuses on the print medium, highlighting ways in which abstraction has played a generative role in works of the past decade. Featuring prints, artists’ books, and multiples from the Museum’s collection—by artists such as Cory Arcangel, Tauba Auerbach, Philippe Decrauzat, Liam Gillick, Wade Guyton, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, R. H. Quaytman, and Charline von Heyl—Abstract Generation examines contemporary notions of abstraction through a range of contemporary practices.
MoMA, New York
March 15 - June 24, 2013
Image: Sarah Crowner's "Untitled (Geometric Park) II", currently on view at SAKS, featured in the latest issue of Vogue (US).
"Humus Musculus", Experimenta 13, Basel
"Humus Musculus" is the latest public art project by Christian Gonzenbach: the tale of a life-size whale, washed-up in Basel after fleeing the swiss replica watches acid waters from the oceans and the Rhein, and transformed by the citizens in a fertile garden.
Experimenta 13, Messeplatz, Basel
February 26 - June 16, 2013
"NYC 1993" at New Museum, New York
Gary Simmons is participating in "NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star". Centering on 1993, the exhibition is conceived as a time capsule, an experiment in collective memory that attempts to capture a specific moment at the intersection of art, pop culture, and politics. The social and economic landscape of the early ’90s was a cultural turning point both nationally and globally. Conflict in Europe, attempts at peace in the Middle East, the AIDS crisis, national debates on health care, gun control, and gay rights, and caustic partisan politics were both the background and source material for a number of younger artists who first came to prominence in 1993. This exhibition brings together a range of iconic and lesser-known artworks that serve as both artifacts from a pivotal moment in the New York art world and as key markers in the cultural history of the city.
New Museum, New York
February 13 - May 26, 2013
Laureate of the EEP Bellevue competition
Chevrolet's steel bust in production in Taipei
With a projected height of five meters, the impressive sculpture is on track to become Switzerland's largest steel bust. It will consist of 71 pieces of cast stainless steel which will be hand-polished, giving it an ultra-smooth and shiny surface. Christian Gonzenbach's project was selected as the best of four highly creative entries by an international jury in a competition earlier this year. The artwork will conclude a series of initiatives that marked the one hundredth birthday of Chevrolet, the world's fourth largest car brand, in 2011.
The ten-ton head is being cast and welded in a foundry in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei. "Given the scope of the project, I realized that I had to think out of the box in finding specialized manufacturing expertise" Gonzenbach said.
The Chevrolet Centennial artwork is to become one of La Chaux-de-Fond's main tourist attractions and will be erected in the city's centrally located Parc de l'Ouest.
media.chevroleteurope.com/centennial-artwork
Image: Christian Gonzenbach in front of a life-sized prototype of the Chevrolet Centennial Artwork © Ayo Liu
New book : "Gary Simmons : Paradise"
"Gary Simmons: Paradise," published by Damiani Editore, is the first book to bring together Gary Simmons's photographs, installations, sculptures, drawings and paintings. Alongside approximately 150 plates, "Paradise" includes an in-depth interview with Okwui Enwezor, critical essays by Gwen Allen and Charles Wylie, and a reprint of an important early text by Nancy Princenthal.
Excerpt by Gwen Allen:
“Far from suggesting that we are beyond race, [Simmons] insists on [race’s] unresolved nature, encouraging us to think critically and expansively about the way race informs both our current reality and the state that we are striving toward. […] Simmons does not ignore the deeply troubling past of race; as his erasure drawings so insistently demonstrate, history is not a blank slate. Yet while he acknowledges history’s weight upon the present, he renders its meaning and possibilities unpredictable and open-ended, ready to be seized upon, reimagined, reinvented.”
This publication coincides with Simmons' survey exhibition at Metro Pictures, New York, which is the first overview of Simmons’s career.
"Charcoal", "the biggest monograph published on Robert Longo ever" in the words of its editor, has been short-listed for "Best German book design", for which 889 books from 396 competitors were evaluated by the jury.
The German Editor Hatje Cantz has released "Charcaol", a monograph of Longo's drawing from the past decade, in May 2012. This large-format, elaborately designed book, has been created in close collaboration with the artist and affords a comprehensive overview of his charcoal drawings. Texts by Hal Foster, Kate Fowle, Thomas Kellein, and foreword by Robert Longo himself.
"The enormous, photorealistic charcoal drawings by American artist Robert Longo (*1953) show the beauty and horror of the present day and age. His large-format works contrast the innocence of sleeping toddlers, the tranquil grandiosity of Earth and the planets, roses in bloom, and Gothic cathedrals with threatening images of atom bomb explosions, fighter pilots, monster waves, sharks, and the muzzles of revolvers. Inexorably and seismographically precise, Longo records the state of our world. Longo’s powerful motifs give form and expression to the feelings of fear and longing felt by people in the twenty-first century, and affect the viewer with the full force of the medium."
The book is currently available, printed on natural paper using a tritone process, bound in half cloth and distributed in four different cover designs - Wave, Shark, Bomb, Pilot - sold at random choice.
www.hatjecantz.de
And for the special enthusiasts of Robert Longo's work, there is also a very special Collector's Edition with 4 archival pigment prints on watercolor paper,
in folder, sheet size: 50 x 40 cm each, limited edition of 35, signed and numbered.
www.hatjecantz.de/en/collectorseditions/detail.php?titzif=09203196
The 9 NYC Artists You Need To Know Now
Discover Andrea Cashman's list of her nine artists to watch : you will find among them Ruby Sky Stiler & Evan Gruzis !
If the only artist you know is McQueen (we get it, you went to the Met), we're here to help you get your art game on. And hard. To keep you current with the new class of creatives that everyone's buzzing about, we spoke with a real-deal art pro who does this stuff, you know, for a living. As the director of Chelsea institution, the Andrea Rosen Gallery, Andrea Cashman spends her time jetting to Frieze, Venice, and both Swiss and Miami Basel in order to survey the newest and most-talked-about artists. (Oh, and she's an alum of Deitch Projects, the most rabble-rousing, party-throwing, and cool-kid-featuring gallery of the aughts). We tasked Cashman to, very literally, curate a list of her nine artists to watch, complete with all the insider dish. So, while plenty of collectors pay top dollar for Andrea's thoughts, she's given us a 2012 artist cheat sheet, with an exclusive glimpse into the future of art.
The 9 NYC Artists You Need To Know Now :