© Mary Heilmann; Private Collection, London. Foto Alex Delfanne.
In this week’s roundup An-My Lê and Jeff Koons are honored, Kiki Smith and other artists’ work in Italy, several artist retrospectives and more.
- An-My Lê is being honored among 23 MacArthur Fellows for 2012. The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. The fellowships come with a no-strings-attached $100,000 a year for five years.
- Jeff Koons will be honored at the Hermitage Museum Foundation’s (HMF) 3rd Annual Gala co-hosted withPhillips de Pury & Company on November 10, in New York. Hermitage Museum Director Dr. Mikhail B. Piotrovsky will present Foundation Awards to Koons and Erik Bulatov for their lifelong artistic achievements and contributions to contemporary art.
- Kara Walker has a solo show at the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery (Portland, OR). More & Less includes Walker’s most recent film—Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale (2011)—and a body of prints and works that explore the symbolism and theatricality of imagined historical space and the visual and pictorial history of the Civil War through appropriated images from the popular periodicals of the time, namely Harper’s Weekly. The show closes November 18. You can listen to Walker’s talk on October 2 here.
- Mary Heilmann‘s first European retrospective is on view at BACA Projects, the Bonnefantenmuseum (Maastricht, NL). The exhibition Good Vibrations is devoted to the 2012 BACA Laureate and it is the only major award for international visual art in the Netherlands. The exhibition gives insight into the varied work she has created over fifty active years, which comprises gouaches, graphic work, sculpture, furniture and ceramics, along with paintings. This exhibition runs through January 27, 2013.
- Kiki Smith‘s photographs are being exhibited at Galleria Raffaella Cortese (Milan, Italy). By the Stream is Smith’s third solo exhibition at the gallery and features photographs that evoke a fairytale tradition and build an iconographic narrative laden with femininity. Using the camera, Smith draws a conceptual dimension of space and body set in a world of childlike dreams. The show closes November 15.
- Rashid Johnson presents his first London exhibition at the South London Gallery (London, England). Rashid Johnson: Shelter is inspired by the idea of an imagined society in which psychotherapy is a freely available drop-in service. Johnson’s installation questions established definitions of the art object and its limitations, as well as the relationship between individual and shared cultural experience. This work is on view through November 25.
- Raymond Pettibon: The Punk Years, 1978-86 is on view at the McIntosh Gallery (London, Canada). The show includes over 150 examples of Raymond Pettibon‘s zines, fliers, posters and album covers made for punk bands such as Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Go-Go’s, Meat Puppets and the Ramones. The exhibition runs through November 3.
- Mike Kelley: Themes and Variations from 35 Years is scheduled to debut at Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) in December. The exhibition will include work from the 1970s right up until Mike Kelly‘s death, including 250 paintings, sculptures, objects, works on paper and videos. The show is expected to travel to MoMA PS1 in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in L.A., according to the site GalleristNY, but dates haven’t been announced.
- Marina Abramović, El Anatsui and Tabaimo were featured via Art21 for Festival Artecinema (Rome, Italy) that ran October 4–7.
- Mark Bradford waxes poetic on MOCAtv, an extension of the legendary Los Angeles art museum into the digital realm with the first-ever original YouTube channel devoted to contemporary art. The YouTube page features five-minute videos with artists.
- Barry McGee completed a mural called Untitled 2012 on the east wall of the Mark Morris Dance Center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn (NY). Vanity Fair commissioned McGee as part of their Art in the Streets program. The mural will be photographed by Jason Schmidt and showcased in the December issue of Vanity Fair magazine.