Last week Snapchat released an augmented reality collaboration with artist Jeff Koons, virtually “placing” his iconic sculptures in ten locations around the world. If you’re in one of those locations, you can see and capture the digital work using the Jeff Koons Lens in the Snapchat app. It wasn’t long before the virtual sculpture was virtually vandalized by graffiti artist Sebastien Errazuriz, who created a mockup of a graffitied Balloon Dog as a means of questioning the power corporations have over our shared digital spaces.
Also this week:
- The Ford Foundation awarded social change grants to 25 artists including Fred Wilson and Jason Moran.
- Marina Abramović designed a macaron for Kreëmart’s “Pastry Portrait” series.
- And today is the public opening of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Enoura Observatory, an art complex with three outdoor stages in Odawara, Japan.
Events & exhibitions
New York City
- A new group exhibition at the Guggenheim features work by Ai Weiwei, Cai Guo-Qiang, and Cao Fei among others. Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World is open through January 7, 2018.
- Tuesday, October 10 at 7pm—Daniel Gordon is giving an artist talk at the Aperture Foundation about his photography-based practice.
- Ai Weiwei’s Public Art Fund project Good Fences Make Good Neighbors opens Thursday at various locations throughout the city. All works will be on view through February 11, 2018.
- On Thursday, New York Close Up artist Eddie Martinez is opening a solo exhibition at The Drawing Center. Entitled Studio Wall, the show will feature thousands of sketches that will change throughout the exhibition’s run.
- This Saturday is the last day to see Marlborough Gallery’s exhibition of Louise Bourgeois’s prints.
Philadelphia
- Tuesday, October 10 from 6-8pm—LaToya Ruby Frazier is giving a talk at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, as the school’s second annual Jack Wolgin Visiting Artist Lecture.
Washington D.C.
- Friday, October 13 at 6:30 pm—Theaster Gates is presenting the second installment in his Processions series at the Hirshhorn. Entitled Plantation Lullabies, the performance explores unexpected connections between sacred music, African and African American culture and history, theater, world dance and chant.
- Kara Walker’s print series Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated) is opening this Friday at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where it will be on view through March 11, 2018.
- Also on Friday, the group exhibition Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today is opening at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The show features work by Abigail DeVille among others, and will be on view through January 21, 2018.
Tampa
- A survey exhibition of Tim Hawkinson’s work opened last week at the University of Tampa’s Scarfone/Hartley Gallery. Entitled Tim Hawkinson: BodyCon, the exhibition is on view through November 3.
Chicago
- Monday, October 9 from 6-7:30pm—The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is hosting a lecture by Do Ho Suh.
Cleveland
- The Museum of Contemporary Art just opened the group exhibition A Poet*hical Wager, which features work that uses abstraction, minimalism, and assemblage to explore complex ideas that can’t be addressed through representation. The exhibition includes work by Abraham Cruzvillegas and Rashid Johnson, and will be on view through January 28, 2018.
Conway, Arkansas
- Thursday, October 12 at 6:30pm—The Los Angeles episode of Season 8 of Art in the Twenty-First Century is screening at the University of Central Arkansas’s Baum Gallery. The screening is free and open to the public.
Dallas
- Kiki Smith’s new exhibition at Dallas Contemporary, Mortal, explores “life as a pilgrimage” and features works from the last decade of the artist’s career. [Read a review in D Magazine.]
Los Angeles
- Friday, October 13 and Saturday, October 14 at 8pm—Stan Douglas’s Helen Lawrence is being performed twice this weekend at the Center for the Art of Performance.
West Bretton, UK
- Alfredo Jaar’s The Garden of Good and Evil opens Saturday at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The show features a major new commission as well as a selection of the artist’s older work. On view through April 8, 2018. [Read a preview in The Art Newspaper.]
Woodstock, UK
- The Blenheim Art Foundation recently opened SOFTER: Jenny Holzer at Blenheim Palace. Featuring newly commissioned site-specific installations, the exhibition is on view through the end of the year. [Read a review in VICE.]
Santander, Spain
- On Saturday Fundacion Botin is opening a new solo exhibition of Julie Mehretu’s work entitled A Universal History of Everything and Nothing. Featuring a selection of 30 paintings and 60 drawings, the show will be on view through January 21, 2018.
Basel
- This is the last week to see Richard Serra: Films and Videotapes at Kunstmuseum Basel. A presentation of 16 works made between 1968 and 1979, the exhibition closes this Sunday, October 15.
Lausanne, Switzerland
- Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts recently opened a new solo exhibition by Ai Weiwei. Entitled D’ailleurs c’est toujours les autres, the show is on view through January 28, 2018.
Johannesburg
- William Kentridge’s interdisciplinary incubator space The Centre for the Less Good Idea is hosting its Season 2 October 11-14. The result of collaborations between more than 40 multi-disciplinary artists, the Season is comprised of three core programs repeated over the four evenings.