Art21 New York Close Up

Weekly Roundup

Gabriel Orozco. Astroturf Constellation, 2012. Image courtesy the artist.

Gabriel Orozco. "Astroturf Constellation," 2012. Image courtesy the artist.

In this week’s roundup, Gabriel Orozco exhibits detritus, Cai Guo-Qiang, Jeff Koons, Shahzia Sikander, Kiki Smith and Carrie Mae Weems are honored, Sally Mann in Stockholm and more.

  • Gabriel Orozco has chosen to exhibit two collections of artwork at Deutsche Guggenheim (Berlin). Sandstars is culled from the wildlife reserve in Isla Arena, Mexico, and Astroturf Constellation take as its inspiration a soccer field on pier 40 in New York City.  Asterisms was arranged from collections of detritus to create a catalog of human and natural impacts on two separate environments, one organic, and the other manufactured. This work is on view through October 21.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOKjqrrxSv4]

  • Mel Chin: High, Low and In Between features a new installation of The Funk & Wag from A to Z at the Asheville Art Museum (NC). For the show, Mel Chin extracts images from all 25 volumes of the 1953 Funk & Wagnall’s Encyclopedia and reconfigures them as collages, unleashing the potentiality of images trapped by historical context in this new configuration of the work for the museum. The exhibition runs through November 25.
  • Sally Mann has artwork on view at Fotografiska (Stockholm). A Matter of Time presents nearly five decades of Mann’s work. Her subjects have ranged from her children and animals, her surroundings, the overarching concept of mortality, and the conflicted beauty of the deep South, to her intimate portraits of her husband, suffering from the ravages of a wasting muscle disease. The exhibition is open through September 30.
  • Hiroshi Sugimoto‘s Five Elements is currently on display as part of Phantoms of Asia, the current exhibition at the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco). This work comprises an alignment of seven optical glass pagodas set atop eye-level pedestals spanning the length of the room. A luminous white wall serves as a backdrop. This exhibition closes September 2.
  • Kara Walker received Anderson Ranch Art Center’s National Artist Award this year and was honored at the center’s annual recognition dinner on July 21. Walker also presented a lecture at the center in Snowmass Village, CO on her work and the inspiration behind it.
  • See Shana Moulton‘s alternate persona, Cynthia, in Whispering Pines 10, as she inhabits a virtual environment of live animation alongside an electronic opera score by Hallett, featuring soprano Daisy Press. This was performed July 19, 21 and 22, 2012 at SFMOMA as part of Stage Presence. Video of the performance is online.
  • Maya Lin presented to TEDxEast photographs of her work and shared where she finds her inspiration.

 [youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvLNOakflRs]