Perez Art Museum, Miami, Dec 4 2013 to March 16 2014
Ai Wei Wei: According to What
You might also like:
Gary Hume
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, New York November 10 to December 22, 2023
These new works are signature Gary Hume: slick, flat, and glossy. He explores his languid forms with household alkyd paint, leaning, in this case, toward abstraction. The shapes are seemingly unchallenging and easy to digest — is this the visual equivalent of Nickelback? — although the color palette has some interesting dissonance. The motif of swans heads is scattered through the paintings, but they are abstracted and non-specific in their storytelling.
The housepaint used is interesting as some of the early work that established his reputation is starting to effloresce, as house paint alkyd contains different sets of acids than fine arts paints. The substrate is aluminum, which Hume has found balances the need for a visually perfectly flat surface with lightness, strength, and stability.
The questions on this work revolve around the level of seriousness. Is this work glib? Is it overly stylized? Does it have a narrative tension? Not sure that this is much more than law firm conference room art.
Hume (England, 1962) works in both London and the Catskills, New York, although recently put the Catskills studio up on the market.
Picasso: 14 Sketchbooks, 1900-1959
Pace Gallery, New York, November 10 – December 23, 2023
A fascinating show of Picasso’s sketchbooks ranging through his career at Pace.
From the Gallery’s site:
Organized in collaboration with the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Madrid (FABA)—with whom our gallery has maintained a longstanding relationship—this exhibition of Picasso’s sketchbooks will offer a unique and intimate view of the ways in which the artist worked, tracing the evolution of his observations and ideas into plans for his compositions across painting and sculpture.
Ann Hamilton: As After Is Before
T Space, Rhinebeck, New York, July 16 to October 1 2023
I met Ann Hamilton in 1998 when she installed her piece “Myein” at the Venice Biennale (I was working to install the Philip Johnson exhibition at the Ca’ Zenobio). Was delighted to see her again here at her work exhibited at Steven Holl’s T Space room.
This piece is an installation of wool coats and sheep fleece, as aromatic as it was beautiful
Inscribed on a stone near the coats are her words:
as outside is to inside
-Hamilton
as animal is to human
as stone is to words
as sound is to song
as image is to object
as made is to grown
Bridget Riley Drawings: From the Artist’s Studio
Morgan Library, New York, June 23 through October 8, 2023.
I have never really considered that preparatory drawings might be an important part of Bridget Riley’s workflow, but this exhibit at the Morgan proves it. The works are all donated for the show by the artist herself, from her personal collection.
Riley is one of the most accomplished abstract artists of the period, and live in a middle range between Op Art and Minimalism. Seeing the discipline of these small sketches as generators of the larger finished ideas is a revelation.
The exhibition introduction notes that this is the first show of Riley’s drawings in fifty years.
Drawing is having an eye at the end of a pencil
-Riley
