Weekly Roundup

John Baldessari. "Brain/Cloud (with Seascape and Palm Tree)," 1250 Prospect Street, La Jolla, CA. Photo courtesy of The La Jolla Community Foundation.

In this week’s roundup, Ann Hamilton and John Baldessari create murals in La Jolla, Martin Puryear honored at the White House, Walton Ford to speak in Connecticut, Tim Hawkinson explores the human body, Laylah Ali draws from conversations, and more.

• Ann Hamilton has been commissioned to create a mural later this year as part of the Murals of La Jolla (CA), a beautification and arts enhancement project sponsored by The La Jolla Community Foundation. The Foundation has funded the installation of murals on private buildings throughout the city — all by contemporary artists of note, selected by committee. Brain/Cloud, a mural by John Baldessari, was put up last October.

• Martin Puryear was honored with a National Medal of Arts at the White House. The medals are the highest government honors given to scholars, writers, artists, and entertainers. Honorees receive the award for their “contribution to a greater understanding of human nature and the human condition.”

• Carrie Mae Weems‘s work is included in Black Women in Art and the Stories They Tell at the Museum of Art and Archeology (Columbia, MO). This exhibition explores the stories embodied in art created by black women, as well as the narratives expressed and symbolized in artworks portraying black women created by artists of differing races and genders. Weems’s photographs contain the words “Grabbing, Snatching, Blink and You Be Gone” that are juxtaposed between photos of former slave holding cells in Senegal. The show closes April 29.

• Walton Ford will speak at Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Old Lyme, Connecticut on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at 7pm in the lecture hall at the College.  The lecture is free and all are welcome, but reservations are required as seating is limited.

• The Cindy Sherman: Becoming feature in New York Magazine highlights the upcoming retrospective of Cindy Sherman’s work that opens at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) on February 26 and will run until June 11.

• Janine Antoni is part of the group exhibition, Into the Mix at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft (Louisville). The show explores materiality and how the complexities of cultural stereotypes take on new meanings in a Caribbean context. The creation of this artwork is influenced by the economic opportunity presented through tourism, yet also represents how visitors’ interests can be taken out of context. The exhibition is on view until April 14.

• Vocabularies Revitalized: Ellen Gallagher and Rammellzee inPrintin’ features work by Ellen Gallagher whose work is included in the exhibition Printin’ at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC). In this series of 60 works, Gallagher takes preexisting printed material—from newspaper articles about the Harlem riots to advertisements from black lifestyle magazines of the 1930s to the 1970s—as her source material.  The show closes May 14.

• Laylah Ali: Note Drawings at John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI) presents works by Laylah Ali that link drawing, language and writing. In this show Ali takes inspiration from snippets of overheard conversations, media sound bites, and her own thoughts collected on scraps of paper. These snippets are organized into numerical lists and some are hand written and arranged with attention to rhythm and syntax. This work is on view through April 1.

• Matthew Barney and Raymond Pettibon have work in Houdini: Art & Magic at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI). The show includes work by contemporary artists who have been influenced by Houdini, as well as historic photographs; dramatic Art Nouveau-era posters and broadsides; theater ephemera; and archival and silent films illuminating Houdini’s role as a world-famous celebrity who commanded a mass audience in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This work in on view through May 13.

• Mark Bradford talks about Diana Ross for a Los Angeles Times music blog, Ledisi, Questlove, Mark Bradford pay tribute to Diana Ross. Bradford and other artists were interviewed about how they were influenced by Ross, the magnitude of the effect of her music on popular culture, and how her work and work ethic has inspired them individually.

• Mary Heilmann Visions, Waves and Roads will soon be on view at Hauser & Wirth (London). The show will present a large group of new paintings by Mary Heilmann as well as ceramic sculpture and furniture. Ceramic tiles put up alongside the artist’s paintings will dot the gallery walls to mimic the color palettes of the paintings and enhance the physical properties of the work. The exhibition will run from February 23 – April 5.

• Tim Hawkinson is in a three-person show, Death and Life of an Object, at Edward Cella Art + Architecture (Los Angeles).  Hawkinson explores the human body (his own) in portraits made from sculpted foam and found eyeglasses; sculptural work that is an enlargement of his actual footprint; and an enlargement of his fingers posed in an unusual position.  The exhibition is on view through March 31.

• Shana Moulton was selected as one of Smack Mellon’s 2012 Studio Artists. The program provides artists working in all visual arts media a free private studio space accessible 24/7 and a $5,000 fellowship (dependent upon funding).