Ai Weiwei. “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn,” 1995. Photo by Melina Mara for the Washington Post. Courtesy the artist and the Newseum.
In this week’s roundup, Ai Weiwei’s work is part of the celebration of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration, Trenton Doyle Hancock wins the Greenfield Prize, several artists participate in group shows and lectures, and much more.
- Ai Weiwei‘s work was projected on the facade of the Newseum (Washington, D.C.) during Presidential Inauguration weekend. The outdoor installation included Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn and quotations about freedom.
- Trenton Doyle Hancock has won the 2013 Greenfield Prize from the Hermitage Artist Retreat. The Greenfield Prize rotates among theater, visual art, and music disciplines. Hancock will have two years to produce a work of art to be exhibited at the Ringling Museum of Art (Sarasota, FL).
- Robert Ryman is in a group show at the Wade Wilson Gallery (Houston, TX). The Illusion of the Precise is an exploration of the conversation between the language of line and the language of space, and the emotive and aesthetic responses the dialogue elicits. The exhibition brings a curated selection of works from each artist to explore their breadth of possibility. The show closes February 2.
- Pierre Huyghe‘s work is part of a group show at the Istanbul Modern (Turkey). Modernity? Perspectives from France and Turkey looks into the phenomenon of modernity and the confrontation of artists with the modernity project, which is still valid today. The exhibition runs through May 16.
- William Wegman: The Traveler will be at the Westport Arts Center (Westport, CT). The exhibition will feature a collection of postcard paintings, drawings, Polaroids, and video, illustrating William Wegman’s work with found images. Works date from the mid-1980s to the present with new paintings on view for the first time. This show continues through March 24. An opening reception will be held on January 25 at 6:30 pm; it is free and open to the public.
- Shana Moulton, Charles Atlas, Diana Al-Hadid, and Carrie Mae Weems will lecture as part of the Spring 2013 School of Art Lecture Series at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburg, PA). Moulton will speak on February 5, Atlas on February 12, Al-Hadid on February 26, and Weems on March 26. All lectures will take place at 5pm in the CMU Kresge Theater.
- Trenton Doyle Hancock, Kalup Linzy, and Carrie Mae Weems are among several artists whose works are featured in Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. This exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black visual artists. The show runs through February 15.
- Kalup Linzy is performing in conjunction with Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. In Dialogue: Kalup Linzy takes place January 26 at 2pm and there will be a performance by the artist at the Houston Museum for African American Culture.
- Mary Heilmann was interviewed for the Hyperallergic blog. In Wild, Punk and Slightly Off-Kilter Heilmann discusses her work that straddles the space between “Pop, Minimalism, abstraction and craft, and has been extremely influential to succeeding generations of artists.”
- El Anatsui‘s largest installation to date was commissioned specially for the High Line (NYC). Broken Bridge II was created using recycled pressed tins, which have been overlaid and contrasted with mirror panels. The work is on view through summer 2013.
- Barry McGee was featured in a video for Cadillac’s Art in the Streets. Produced by Vanity Fair Magazine, the video follows the artist as he creates a mural at the Mark Morris Dance Center (Brooklyn, NY).
- Louise Bourgeois has been honored by the Museum of Modern Art (NYC). The museum launched Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints & Books, a major website documenting Bourgeois’s extensive work in printmaking. This site offers a range of innovative, interactive approaches to the artist’s work, including the ability to examine her creative process, and place her prints and illustrated books within the broader context of her sculpture and drawings.
- Kerry James Marshall presented a lecture, titled Image is Everything, in celebration of the Birmingham Museum of Art’s recent acquisition of his painting School of Beauty, School of Culture.