James Cohan Gallery has announced two shows taking place in the New York area featuring the work of acclaimed British-born Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE. Shonibare's artistic practice explores the construction of cultural identities by examining issues of class, race, and colonialism. He is known for his use of brightly colored wax-resist textiles, often seen clothing headless mannequins in tableaux-style installations, as in How To Blow up Two Heads at Once (Ladies), 2008.

These fabrics were initially associated with the Indonesian archipelago, and were later manufactured in the Netherlands and exported to Africa, where they became a symbol of national pride. Shonibare draws upon this complicated history to show the socioeconomic dominance of Europe established through trade and colonialism. The distinctly Victorian style of dress seen on the mannequins refers to the period of British history when Africa was colonized. The fabric is both a tool for investigating contemporary African identity and a metaphor for the interwoven, and often inequitable, historic nature of a global culture.

The Brooklyn Museum is currently exhibiting the most comprehensive survey of Shonibare's work to date, featuring over twenty sculptures, paintings, large-scale installations and films. The exhibition was launched at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia, and will later travel to the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. It will remain on view at the Brooklyn Museum until September 20th. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue which includes an interview conducted by Anthony Downey, Ph.D., Program Director of the M.A. in Contemporary Art at the Sotheby's Institute of Art in London.

In addition to this survey exhibition, a site specific installation by Yinka Shonibare MBE is on view at The Newark Museum until January 3, 2010. Party Time: Re-imagine America was commissioned by the museum to celebrate their centennial anniversary. The installation is set in the dining room of the historic Ballantine House, a wing of The Newark Museum since 1937, which was originally built for the prominent Newark brewing family in 1885. The installation recreates a formal dinner party as it could have happened at the time of Jeannette and John Holme Ballantine, for whom the house was built. As stated in the press release, Party Time: Re-imagine America "considers at its core the discrepancy of wealth generated by turn-of-the-century enterprise, where excess and self-indulgence are achieved through the subservience of others."

Shonibare was born in London in 1962. When he was three, his family moved to Nigeria, but maintained a residence in South London to spend summers. Shonibare attended Goldsmiths College from 1989-1991 (after Byam Shaw School of Art). The artist was short listed for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2004 and designated a Member of the British Empire by Prince Charles.

Shonibare has recently exhibited at James Cohan Gallery in New York as well as the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California. In addition to the two exhibitions taking place now, the artist also has an upcoming show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2010.

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Currently on view at Kerlin Gallery in Dublin is a solo exhibition of new work by British painter Phillip Allen. The elements of Allen's paintings exist almost independently of one another, with geometric patterns and blocks of color tidily trailing over the center of the canvas, while bright rays of beaming light penetrate the negative spaces and connect the shapes. And then, on the same canvas but in an entirely divergent approach, Allen layers thick applications of paint onto the top and bottom of the piece, as if rebelling against his own cleanly constructed geometries. The two styles seem to be at once fused through harmonious choices from the palette, and contradictory in terms of technique and style. Allen's work is also on view right now inClassified: Contemporary Art at Tate Britain.

Phillip Allen lives and works in London. He earned his BA at Kingston University, London and his MA at Royal College of Art, London. His work has been shown throughout the United Kingdom and internationally at Xavier Hufkens Gallery, Belgium, Brussels; PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, NY; and The Approach, London, UK, among others.

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John Wesley's engaging retrospective is taking place at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, in conjunction with the Venice Biennale, and will be on view until October 4th. The project, which is curated by Italian curator Germano Celant for the Fondazione Prada, features more than 150 works from 1961 to 2007.

John Wesley distinguishes himself for his highly recognizable style characterized by simple tracings, flat areas of color, and the use of a palette dominated by pastel-like colors. Light blue tones and a decorative yet sensuous pink seem to be his favorites. Poster-like, flat, colorful and figurative, Wesley's paintings are a masterful fusion of tradition and pop cultural references. The linear technique, the essential painterly effects, and the often schematic format, all contribute to cartoons and comic strip appearance of Wesley's work.

Associated with Pop Art, reductionism, Surrealism, Art Nouveau, as well as artists such as Matisse, Wesley also incorporates clues from popular culture and Japanese iconography and mixes humor and sex in a way which is unpredictable, seductive and poetic. Delightfully painterly, his unique and compelling compositions present a variety of female and male characters, pretty human faces, naked bodies, details of lips, legs and thighs, animals, comic book characters, all populating a narrative that loops between the dreamy-like imagery of the unconscious and contemporary culture. Glamorous and irresistibly appealing, the works on show in Venice certainly bolster Wesley's position as one of America's most significant artists.

John Wesley was born Los Angeles, California, in 1928. He has no formal art training, and after holding various jobs, he began painting at the age of 22. In 1960 he left his native Los Angeles to move to New York city, where he met many artists of the time--among them, Donald Judd, who soon became a friend and supporter. He started exhibiting his work at the Robert Elkon Gallery in 1963. The current retrospective at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice is Wesley's second major solo show after the one held at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York city in 2000. He currently lives and works in New York city.

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Beset with bling and astral opulence, Hilary Pecis' collages are popping up everywhere; in contemporary art blogs, and reputable print publications. Currently, the artist has work in a solo exhibition titled Intricacies of Phantom Content, on view at San Francisco's multi-disciplinary art space, Triple Base Gallery and in the exibition Remix at Catherine Clark Gallery. Pecis is an emerging Bay Area artist whose work has been featured in Juxtapoz Magazine and twice in New American Paintings. In 2008, Pecis received the SF Examiner's Mastermind Grant and the San Francisco Arts Commission's Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship. Over the past five years, while garnering awards and gallery shows, Pecis managed to complete both her BFA and MFA degrees from California College of the Arts.

Pecis entrances viewers with meticulous depictions of angular patterns, whether they are the varying facets of cut gemstones or the repetitive planes of her trademark ink doodles. She utilizes the four C's of diamond grading in her own work: carat, cut, color, and clarity. All are working to entice and bedazzle the eye. Her collages are compositionally sound, linked by ribbons, shards, and broad patches of CMYK color. Cosmic landscapes are brimming with glimpses of society's prized commodities, however, they are void of humanity itself. The absence of a human population evokes a post-apocalyptic feeling and causes us to contemplate the lifestyle that may very well lead to our demise.

Intricacies of Phantom Content will be on display at Triple Base until July 26th. A video Installation by Elyse Mallouk, Trickle-down: Yours for the Mining, accompanies the exhibit in the gallery's basement. In addition, Pecis and Mallouk will curate a performance series throughout the month of July. The closing reception is on Sunday, July 26th from 3-6pm. There will be special performances by Raphael Noz & Trap Doors (Michael Guidetti.)

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The Rise and Fall of Shame, Jason Yates' summer exhibition at Circus Gallery, blurs the boundaries between high and low art, making the art world's obsession with cultural elitism seem prosaic and stifling. On Circus' first floor, Yates' ink, paper and mylar "paintings" riff off of Jasper Johns' Corpse and Mirror vocabulary, using hatch marks to set up a striking conversation between minimalist clarity and expressionist mark-making. Upstairs, Yates' posters (he makes these under the name "Fast Friends Inc") marry the same hatch-mark patterns with rock-fan exuberance. Jagged patterns drawn on the gallery walls make Yates' point decidedly clear: there's not much difference between the canvas-confined marks we art-snobs value and the language of taggers and punks.

In 2000, Yates' graduated from Art Center in Pasadena. He has since shown at A+D Museum, Glendale College Gallery, and Black Dragon Society, among other venues (and non-venues--Yates doesn’t let his work be solely confined to galleries). Over the past two decades, he has also made posters for numerous bands and concerts.

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Ofer Wolberger's solo exhibition, (Life With) Maggie, is currently on view at Michael Hoppen Contemporary in London. The photographs on view depict Maggie--a fictional character with a a rosy-cheeked, stale-smiled, plastic-masked face and a wardrobe that would make any fan of vintage swoon--posing stiffly at various locations around the world. Like a retro poster child for the Independent Woman, Maggie is traipsing the globe in search of self-identity within a global context. Wolberger presents us with Maggie's journey in contrast to the web-based social networking that connects so many of us worldwide these days, though we generally do so without ever leaving our desk chair. The irony is that "Maggie" is portrayed by the artist's fiance, Billie Martineau--whom Wolberger met via an online social networking site before meeting in person.

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Aleksandra Mir's work at the 53rd Venice Biennale, VENEZIA (all places contain all others), is highly appropriate given that Venice is often considered to be the ultimate tourist destination. Responding to the global souvenir postcard phenomenon, Mir has printed one million copies of her own postcard designs for the exhibition. These postcards are available free-of-charge to each Biennale visitor in both the Arsenale and the Giardini exhibition venues. The artist's basic intention is to have the participant write on and mail the stamped post card using an onsite letter box, dispersing the work globally.

In each of her 100 postcard designs, Mir pairs the designation 'Venezia,' with appropriated images of tourist destinations from around the world. However, none of the postcard images actually depict Venice. The locations vary widely, featuring tropical and snow-covered climates, cityscapes and miscellaneous natural wonders. At times, well-known landmarks such as the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Chateau de Chambord in France are attributed to Venezia.

Mir's ultimate goal seems to be for these postcards to connect places around the globe in a similar fashion as the bodies of water featured on the postcards. The gallery visitor completes Mir's work by sending it out into our globalized world, thus creating unexpected encounters.

Aleksandra Mir was born in Lubin, Poland in 1967. Mir has shown internationally since the mid 1990s and was a founding member of the collective M.I.M.E. She attended Gothenburg University, the School of the Visual Arts (NYC) and the New School (NYC). Today, she is a citizen of both Sweden and the United States, while living and working in Palermo, Italy.

VENEZIA (all places contain all others) will remain at the Biennale until the closing on 22 November 2009.

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