Paul Pfeiffer. "Empire," 2004. Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Photo courtesy of the artist.
In this week’s roundup Paul Pfeiffer and Cao Fei are exhibiting in Istanbul, John Baldessari is honored in LA, Andrea Zittel presents work from the Mojave desert, and more.
- Paul Pfeiffer‘s single-channel video Empire is currently on view at SALT Beyoğlu (Istanbul). The once real-time video documented the three-month development and life cycle of a wasp nest. This work highlights the artist’s expanded use of original footage as a commentary on the analogies between the structure of our society and the process of the queen building her nest, laying her eggs, and becoming the matriarch of her community. This video is on view until December 31.
- John Baldessari will be honored with Clint Eastwood at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Art + Film Gala on November 5. The evening will celebrate the art of the moving image and will bring together luminaries from both communities. Proceeds from the gala will be used to support LACMA’s initiative to make film more central to the museum’s curatorial programming, while also funding LACMA’s broader mission.
- Andrea Zittel has a completely new and large-scale piece on view at Magasin 3 (Stockholm). Lay of My Land is a sculptural installation–a dramatic topographical figuration of the landscape that surrounds her site A-Z West in the Mojave desert. An extensive new monograph on the artist accompanies the exhibition. This work is on view until December 11.
- James Turrell is at Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Santa Monica, CA. The gallery is presenting a selection of Turrell’s works, including Present Tense, a space division construction dating from 1991, and Yukaloo, an installation that shows off the artist’s glass works. Each piece of the latter work contains an LED, which is carefully programmed to evolve with the colors of the sky as the day progresses. This exhibition closes December 17.
- Bruce Nauman and Richard Serra are featured in Extended Drawing at Bonnefantenmuseum (The Netherlands). It shows works in which line and drawing are taken beyond their original boundaries. Nauman used the outlines of the bodies of himself and his wife, in different colors indicating where neon is to be used. Serra’s paintstick drawing enabled him to work large surface areas with a single movement. The exhibition closes January 15, 2012.
- Pierre Huyghe‘s Influants is at Esther Schipper gallery in Berlin. The artist continues to inquire into the way we relate inside and outside of the exhibition context. Arriving in the gallery space, a male door attendant loudly announces the visitor’s name and surname (in a piece titled Name Announcer). At first sight, the rooms look empty, but in reality live insects and contagions abound. Fifty live spiders move towards the corners of the ceiling, captured by CCTV security cameras. This work is on view until October 22.
- Cai Guo-Qiang: Move Along, Nothing to See Here is on view at Brown University’s Cohen Gallery (Providence, Rhode Island). Cai Guo-Qiang‘s inaugural exhibition celebrates The Year of China, a series of public lectures, cultural events, academic conferences, and multimedia activities focusing on the history, politics, culture, arts, and economy of China and its rapidly growing global impact. This show closes October 28.
- Walton Ford‘s exhibition of nine new, large-scale watercolor paintings will soon be on view for the first time at the Paul Kasmin Gallery (NYC). Of the works on display, one comprises three portraits of King Kong and the other six meditations on a passage from the memoirs of the ornithologist John James Audubon. Both series were painted in 2011, and are consistent with Ford’s practice of expanding the visual language and narrative scope of traditional natural history painting.
- Cao Fei‘s Cosplayers is now on view at YEM Building-Industrial Center (Istanbul). This work is part of the Space Invaders: Video Game Art and Environment exhibition that explores the connection between video games and art, as well as to what extent games and art are intertwined. The work is on view until September 23.