 A recent collection of works by Indian artistic duo Jitan Thukral and Sumir Tagra are currently on display at Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Waterloo. Known for their prolific use of color, their works often reference advertising and consumerism as a response to contemporary culture. Entitled Somnium Genero 02, their current exhibition is a combination of paintings and sculptural works, all of which include vibrant imagery and surrealist influence. Symbols of man-made technology including planes, television screens and radio transmitters are interwoven with images of flowers, evoking a sense of natural beauty. Such hybrid imagery is affixed to canvases and some circular sculptural works, causing them to appear almost as enlarged, ornate Christmas decorations. Thukral and Tagra were both born in New Delhi, where they still currently live and work. Both artists attended Delhi College of Art, while Thukral furthered his studies at Chandigarh College of Art, Tagra chose to do so at The National Institute of Design, Ahmadabad. They have collaboratively exhibited at institutions including Bose Pacia, United States, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai and Teatro Armani, Milan. In 2006 they were honored on the list of 101 Emerging designers of the world, as featured in Wallpaper Magazine. | |||
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 Cathy Akers' current show at Honor Fraser Gallery in Los Angeles takes on a big issue: the history of the human race. Akers' dioramas depict Adam and Eve like figures in surroundings that resemble Eden. Yet the world depicted in Akers' exhibition, titled Hertopia: An Illustrated History of the New World, is more delinquent than it is idyllic. This is Akers first solo exhibition since graduating from the MFA program at California Institute of the Arts in 2006. Prior to now, she's exhibited in group shows, like (Tender) Assembly at the Show Cave and a Juried Exhibition at the Torrance Art Museum. Interested in the large-scale dilemmas of evolution and human nature, Akers wants to push the envelope where ideas of utopia and "natural" human interactions are concerned. In 2007, she made a sculptural cake called "Natural Selection." Gallery visitors ate away at the cake, naturally selecting parts of the edible world Akers had created. In Hertopia, Akers' utopias are childishly hellish. She at once captures the jubilance associated with lush, green terrain and uninhibited nakedness and the brutality of human beings. The lack of inhibition in her sculptures leads to a disconcerting world in which characters pursue their desires both to their own benefit and detriment. Hertopia will be on exhibit through May 17th. | |||
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 Munich-based artist Tom Schmelzer describes himself as a concept artist who uses brilliant aesthetics in his illusionary sculptures and moving objects to "make a point" to the viewer. After being drawn in by the theatricality of the object presented, the viewer soon discovers a message. These messages concern social and cultural issues such as in Show Off, an enormous engagement ring followed by a woman. In this piece, composed of silicone, silicone paint, polyurethane, 925 silver, diamond, french nails, and metal, Schmelzer addresses the cultural expectations surrounding success and its manifestations. For example, men are expected to make more money than their fathers and to purchase engagement rings for their fiancees worth approximately three month's salary. In a 2006 installation, Schmelzer took on the expectations of the United Nations, who at a 2005 summit declared that individual states were responsible for protecting their people from crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and the like. If a state is unable to do so, the international community should step in. In Responsibility to Protect or To Whom It May Concern, Schmelzer asserts that collective action is only taken when whites are involved, when Christians are involved, when petroleum is involved, or when natural gas is involved. The installation consists of a white oil drum with Jesus figures encircling the rim of the drum, which contains petroleum and a pump to create gas bubbles. A literal but quite successful way to "make a point". Schmelzer's seductive sculptures immediately capture our attention, a task that is becoming increasingly difficult in the 21st century. He does this by moving past the aesthetic neutrality of previous conceptual art and reinforcing his appealing objects with sound conceptual statements. Jozsa Gallery in Brussels is currently featuring Schmelzer's work in their exhibition Let's Call it A Year until May 10th. The artist has previously shown at the Riviera Gallery in New York, White Trash Contemporary in Hamburg, and Galerie Jaspers in Munich. | |||
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 Landon Wiggs works with cultural paraphernalia, incorporating signs, text, and flashing lights into new contexts in the form of sculptures and collages. He plays with certain formal characteristics of his media like symmetry and repetition as well as with the semiotics and connotation of words. In each of his works, a sense of the familiar is perceived, but distorted to develop narratives based on each individul's own cultural associations and understandings. Landon's skills in manipulating and repurposing pre-existing everyday imagery can be seen in one of his past public projects. In 2006, he altered the text on an American Apparel bench advertisement (well known for their provocative nature) in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to read "ReAppear in lacmA." The project remained undisturbed for weeks as cleanup crews removed various stickers and graffiti tags around the bench. American Apparel later removed all bench advertisements in the area, thus ending the subversive public project. Earlier this year, Landon exhibited with Adrian Paules at Jail Gallery in the show Educated Dreamer. Both artists received their M.F.A.s from Yale University in 2003 and currently share a studio building in Los Angeles. Landon has also been featured online by Beautiful/Decay Magazine. | |||
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 Peak Gallery in Toronto presents Susy Oliveira's first solo exhibition at the gallery, The Girl and The Bear. Oliveira graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 2000 and holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Waterloo. She currently lives and works in Toronto. The Girl and the Bear includes three photographic sculptures, one collage series and one print. The girl and the bear, composed of C-prints on archival card and foamcore, is shown above, and comments on our reproduction of nature. The artist's intent is to form a simulated reality to remind us of our habit of replacing the natural world with our own fabricated versions. She mentions the garden in her artist statement, a domestic metaphor for things we create composed of organic elements, but for our own enjoyment. In Oliveira's three dimensional works, there exists a playful dynamic between the flat characteristics of photography and the round aspects inherent to sculpture. Their angular rendering recalls computer graphics from the 1980s or an over-sized origami project. Her collages depict outdoor scenes and are perforated with various sizes of cuts. In her photographic print, she placed holes in the sky, allowing real sunlight to shine through. Oliveira has exhibited at Niagara Gallery and A.W.O.L. Gallery in Toronto and has been reviewed by NOW Magazine and ECHO Weekly. The Girl and The Bear will remain at Peak Gallery until April 26, 2008. | |||
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 Anna Sew Hoy, a young artist who splits her time between Los Angeles and New York, makes work that sometimes seems therapeutically lyrical and sometimes seems tongue-in-cheek. Her current solo show Pow! once again straddles the line between lyricism and banter. At LAX Art in Los Angeles, Pow! includes two oversized casts, one for a giant ankle and another for an arm. Sew Hoy invites visitors to autograph the casts and the huge sculptures are already brimming with light-hearted consolations and one-liners. Sew Hoy participated in the Hammer Museum's 2007 exhibition Eden's Edge, a show that featured fifteen Los Angeles artists, including Ken Price, Lari Pittman, and Jason Rhoades. Her work for Eden's Edge had notable affinities with Ken Price's work; her ceramics took organic forms and she questioned art's decorative potential. In Pow!, Sew Hoy asks different questions. She explores medical practices and the social nature of the body by re-envisioning a casts on a massive scale. Sew Hoy received her BFA from the School of Visual Art in New York and she is currently completing her MFA in Bard College's low residency program. She has had solo exhibitions at Karyn Lovegrove Gallery, Peres Projects, and Massimo Audiello Gallery. Pow! runs through April 26, 2008. | |||
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 The objects of sculptor Peter Iannarelli are seemingly commonplace in nature, yet the artist cleverly liberates the forms through the tinkering of their materiality. By utilizing both logic and abstraction, Iannarelli reduces the forms to a common denominator linking and balancing concept with form. The work, which is seemingly accessible to a wide audience, offers depth beyond its initial appearance. Using the familiar materials, the artist draws the viewer into the work and then flips the meaning in a way that re-contextualizes both the physicality and the meaning of the object. Also, the work is often summed up by a clever title which neatly puts together any conceptual loose-ends. Peter Iannarelli received his BFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. He has attended the DIA Center as a visiting artist and has a grant recipient of the Vermont Studio Center. The artist has a forth coming exhibition at Van Brunt Gallery in Beacon, NY and recently exhibited at the Dorsky Museum in New Paltz, NY and the Albany Center Gallery in Albany, NY. | |||
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 Pocket Room has recently opened in Antwerp. Why new galleries continue to open, while the local art market continues to shrink, is anyone's guess. Maybe it's the image of success postulated by the other new galleries that spur them on. Let's hope it's the pure love of art that has inspired Pocket Room to open their doors. To kick start this new gallery, they have turned to an elder statesman of the Antwerp art scene, Guy Rombouts. Over the last 20 years, as one part of the artist team Rombouts/Droste, he has developed a visually-based alphabet, based on squiggles and color. He recently developed this into a fun Web site entitled "AZART". This exhibition marks a turn to a more traditional sculpture making practice. Using odds and ends found around the house, it recalls the work of the Belgian artist Rene Hayvaert. The combining of two objects into one sculpture appeared in Belgium in the mid 90's with the work of Dutch artist Jan Vos. With his insistence on not gluing, welding, or nailing, Rombouts seeks to leave room for the possibility of life within the sculpture, rather than locking it into a lifeless position. Although this stance does require some balancing, pinching, and clamping, it makes it all the more important that Rombouts is able to find the proper fit for the disparate objects. Works on view include a hammer fitted with a rolled up piece of paper for a handle, cribs turned into cages, and a cane made into a chair. In one of the most poignant works, three table clamps squeeze each other in position, allowing the sculpture to reach for the sky. This piece works as a metaphor for what the Antwerp art world could be. Here each part supports the other, allowing for unlimited potential. Rombouts has previously shown at Gallerie Tanya Rumpff, Holland and Zeno X, Belgium. Guy Rombouts at Pocket Room, February 17-April 5th. | |||
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 At Gagosian Gallery's New York location, an all-star cast of appropriation artists have joined forces to present a haven of prefabricated art objects. Prefab includes work by Richard Prince, Rudolph Stingel, Rosmarie Trockel, Sherrie Levine, Martin Kippenger, Mike Kelley, Jeff Koons, Richard Artschwager, and Alighiero e Boetti. Together, the often tongue-in-cheek work of these nine artists begins to look surprisingly serious, especially since all the work in the show adheres to painting’s traditional rectangular format. Prince's unapologetic appropriations, for instance, become more severe next to the residue of Stingel's Styrofoam. The exciting aspect of Prefab is its integration of seemingly unlike artists. Sherrie Levine's conceptually steeped re-photography has never been this smoothly related to Jeff Koons' flamboyant fabrications, and Alighiero e Boetti has never seemed so closely related to the over-intellectualized genre of prefabricated art. The timing of Prefab is also interesting, giving the current trajectory of these artists' careers. Prince is coming out of a retrospective at the Guggenheim; a survey of Stingel's work was recently on display at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as other national museums; Trockel's work was featured in a traveling IFA exhibit; Koons' sculptures dominate the third floor of the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum. Prefab makes these artists, many of whom have become canonical art world figures, seem relevant and contemporary again. Prefab runs through April 19th. | |||
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 The Whole of Everything,a recent collection of works by Del Kathryn Barton is currently showing at Karen Woodbury Gallery, Richmond. Often of a dark, fantastical nature, Barton's paintings, sculptures and ink works portray child-like characters, mutant creatures and deranged human forms. Best known for her vibrant water colours, Barton's monochromatic, whimsical ink works also make a prominent appearance within the exhibition, and depict a sexualized fusion of fantasy worlds and naked bodies. Barton currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts, Paddington, where she later worked as a drawing lecturer. She has won various awards for her art practice, and most recently became the winner of this year's prestigious Archibald Prize - for a self portrait with her two children entitled You Are What Is Most Beautiful About Me, A Self Portrait With Kell and Arella. Her work has appeared in various solo and group exhibitions around Australia, while also appearing internationally in 2002 within Half a World Away: Drawings from Glasgow, Sao Paulo and Sydney, at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Centre, New York. | |||
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 Israeli sculptor Zadok Ben-David brings his internationally acclaimed exhibition Blackfield to Australia. Currently showing at Annandale Galleries,the display includes large scale works replicating the human form and a monumental 5000 piece installation consisting of miniature flower and plant sculptures. Each of the small pieces that make up the work are painted black on the front and tinted in various colours on the reverse side. This is intended to deceive the audience's vision as they slowly rotate around the installation and view the work changing colour right before their eyes. Ben-David was born in Yemen before immigrating to Israel later that year. He studied at Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Jerusalem, Reading University and St. Martin's School of Art, London. He has received various awards including the 2005 Tel Aviv Museum Prize for Sculpture and the 2007 Grande Premio at the XIV Biennial Internacional de Arte de Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal. He has been commissioned to create a sculptural work for the Beijing Olympics and has exhibited largely on an international scale at spaces including 121 Gallery, Antwerp, Galerie Albrecht, Munich, and Ambrosino Gallery, Miami. | |||
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 Through the medium of ceramics artist Kim Simonsson questions the role of the child and nature in the modern world. Often referencing Manga cartoon imagery, children and sometimes animals are presented in Simonsson's work to challenge tradition, cultural habits and beliefs for both the East and West. These traditions are also challenged through the artist's choice of material. Simonsson uses ceramics to draw a parallel with decorative China figurines and traditional ceramic craft of the West, updating both by saturating them in elements of pop-culture. Simonsson graduated from the University of Arts and Design, Helsinki, Finland (2000). Recent solo exhibitions in Finland include Galleria Huoltamo, Tempere, and Arabia Gallery Helsinki. The artist is also represented by Nancy Margolis Gallery, NYC, and has received project funding from the Stina Krook Foundation and the Svenska Kulturefonden. | |||
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 UK born sculptor David Spriggs creates work which explores both the deconstruction and systematic ordering of forms in space. Spriggs creates his dynamic work by layering sheets of transparent film which contain drawings and paintings that are specifically spaced apart to appear to be three dimensional in form. The combination of layers allows the viewer to walk around the work to see it fully in the round. The Spriggs received an MFA in Sculpture at Concordia University in Montreal and his BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. His exhibition, 'Archaeology of Space' is currently on view at The Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge, Alberta and will be exhibited again this May at Rodman Hall Arts Centre Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.The artist has exhibited with Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto and the Third Avenue Gallery in Vancouver. | |||
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 Greatly inspired by Germaine Greer's infamous publication The Female Eunuch, Melbourne artist Emily Floyd has created a 100 piece sculptural installation devoted to the book. Now showing at Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, the wooden fragments include pieces which have been shaped to resemble the female form, referencing not only the book's feminist contents but its notorious cover image designed by surrealist painter, John Holmes. Entitled The Temple of the Female Eunuch,the exhibition includes carvings containing text exerts from the book, often in vibrant, psychedelic colors,reflecting the period in which the book was written. Emily Floyd earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in sculpture from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She has been granted several awards and artist residencies, including the 2000 Cinemedia Digital Arts Fund and The University of Melbourne Asia link Residency, which sent her to work in New Delhi.She has had various solo exhibitions within Australia at institutions including The John Curtain Gallery, Perth, The Institute of Modern Art,Brisbane and Studio 12 at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne. | |||
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 Being a Palestinian born in Lebanon, Mona Hatoum, who currently shuttles between London and Berlin, is in a good position to make commentary on the difficulties a foreigner faces when trying to find a place to call home. This subject has been a reoccurring theme in her work for many years. She continues to investigate this idea in her newest exhibition currently on view at Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris. While her work can be viewed with humor, it is also not afraid to address the darker challenges that face every one of us in our deeply troubled world. Works on view here include a barricade that also serves as a place for growth for that most sought after item, grass. Grenades that have been lovingly hand crafted are displayed on a table, ready to be wheeled into action. And the warmest of all household items, a carpet that seems to have been picked at, revels an "area-correct" map of the world without its arbitrary political divisions. Hatoum work is most impressive when presented on a large scale, such as "Mobile Home". This work shows an assortment of household items that move gently along a pulley system that is confined between two barriers. This piece suggests that we must remain prepared to move as society is always in a perpetual state of flux. While large scale work can be stunning, an artist must realize that resources can dry up at anytime, and they need to be able to work with much humbler means, while remaining creative. Hatoum demonstrates her awareness to this creativity, with her small scale drawings on cardboard trays and paper cutouts. The cardboard trays are named after clouds, (think of lying in the grass dreaming), but they also suggest continents, what was or what could be. The paper cutouts remind us of the simple fun we had as children, and the cozy loving warmth that is perhaps the most important commodity of all. The well traveled Hatoum has previously shown at the Venice Biennial, Sao Paulo Biennial, Documenta, SITE Santa Fe, Kwangju Biennial, as well as most major museums in the world. Besides Gallerie Crousel she is also represented by Gallerie Max Hetzler Berlin, White Cube London, Alexander and Bonin, New York. | |||
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 "Supernova" is the latest exhibition by husband and wife collaborative duo Eleanor and James Avery. Currently showing at Grantpirrie, Redfern, the display showcases a selection of large scale sculptural works created by the pair. Appearing almost like over sized Christmas decorations, the angular structures are an exploration of contemporary culture and the interplay between reality and fiction. Both artists were born and educated in England, with James earning a Masters of Art and Design Education from the University of Warwick, Coventry and Eleanor completing a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Central England, Birmingham. They were recently commissioned by the Queensland Government to create a series of sculptural works for Brisbane Cycle Centre. Both artists also have fruitful solo careers, with Eleanor set to participate in a group show at Gitte Weise Gallery, Berlin later this year while James has had his work displayed at various institutions including Leicester City Gallery, UK, West Space, Melbourne and Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Queensland. | |||
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 Rachel Mason's solo show at Circus Gallery is certainly timely. The Candidate includes a slew of dumb-fisted charcoal, ink and pastel renderings of politicians. The drawings span the gallery walls and Mason has installed mock podiums around the space. Arms protrude from the podiums, grasping microphones and suggesting the podiums might double for politician's bodies. Circus Gallery is appropriately taking advantage of The Candidate's timeliness, hosting a February 2nd speech by candidate Mike Gravel and a February 5th viewing of the media's primary coverage. Rachel Mason received her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2004 and her BFA from University of California Los Angeles in 2001. It's only taken her three years to become an internationally known artist and she showed or performed extensively in 2007, exhibiting at Newman-Popiashvili Gallery in New York and The Henry Art Gallery in Seattle among other venues. Mason's projects tend to have an interactively political overtone, and she is currently maintaining a campaign journal that tracks the 2007/2008 primaries. Presented in a news-like page format, Mason's journal is no where near as dry as it appears. Instead, she makes colorful, biting observations that call into question the behind-the-scenes aspect of politics. The Candidate runs through February 16th. | |||
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 Jim Shaw's "Dr. Goldfoot and his Bikini Bombs" at Metro Pictures re-opened January 4th with the addition of many new works. The original exhibition of paintings, drawings, and sculpture, on view since November 30 has doubled in size with the addition of Shaw's previously self-edited work. Included in the show are Shaw's series of "Dream Objects" that use sculptural forms of human body parts. Also on display are giant sculptures of half heads and noses, as well as a monumental 11x15 foot painting that merges a self portrait of the artist with one of Vincent Price. During the initial installation in November, Shaw edited works he deemed as unresolved, undesirable or noncommercial. His vision of a "traditional" gallery exhibition is placed aside in the second half of the show as he vulnerably exposes these "unfinished" pieces, illustrating the ongoing artistic practice. Jim Shaw has exhibited widely in the US and internationally since the late 1980s. Among his previous series are "My Mirage" (1985-1990) which follows the experiences of a fictional boy named Billy as he grows up during the 60s and 70s; "Dream Drawings" and "Dream Objects," (1991-present) featuring recreated imagery and art objects from the artist's dreams; and works defining the evolution, dogmas and rites of his fictitious religion "Oism" (2000 to present). Recent solo shows include PS1, New York ("The Donner Party"); Magasin Center of Contemporary Art, Grenoble; and Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland. | |||
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 In an upcoming exhibition at the Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco, artist Seth Koen will present "Ellipsis," opening next week and continuing through March 1st. Koen's sculptures are minimal in their physical presence, humbly created out of crocheted yarn and modestly referencing domestic homemade craft. Yet the work speaks through the language of formal painting and contradicts its immediate associations by being rooted in conceptualism and in dialogue with recent art history. Koen lives and works in both Oakland and Sacramento California. He graduated from Mills College in 2002 and has since exhibited at The LAB in San Francisco, Richmond Art Center in Richmond, CA and at Brewery Project in Los Angeles. Koen has received awards such as the JayDeFre Prize, the SF Foundation's Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship and has conducted lectures at California College of the Arts (CCA) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). | |||
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 For his first major solo museum exhibition in the U.S., artist Tom Sachs presented "Logjam," a series of objects and installations that reflect the mechanics of their own production and emphasize the process of their creation. The show was curated by Jeff Fleming, the Director of The Des Moines Art Center and was presented at Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum last fall. The exhibition consisted of a series of work stations that allow the artist to create, while being works of art in their own way. The many mixed media works in the show are composed from previously used tools and other used mechanical components. The name "Logjam" is actually a reference to a box the artist keeps in his studio that contains screws and nails which have broken during the creation of a work. The exhibition was reviewed in the recent Issue U of Beautiful Decay Magazine and also appeared in an article with the Boston Globe. Sachs has exhibited internationally and recently showed the exhibition "Space Program" at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles. | |||
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 Opening January 11th at Freight and Volume Gallery in New York City will be the work of British Artist Peter Hutchinson in his latest exhibition "Constructions and Collages." The artist, who is now approaching 80 years old, has remained a prominent figure through the many stages of his career, including conceptual art in the 1960's and more narrative forms of art making in the 1970's. The artist eventually departed from these artistic movements for a more naturally rooted and poetically expressed art form. For his upcoming exhibition in NYC, Hutchinson will present a series of constructions and collages that resemble photo-assemblages and include text, small sculpture, found object, and other raw materials. The artist has exhibited internationally with works at AEROPLASTICS Contemporary in Brussels and Galeria Helga de Alvear in Madrid. In addition, the artist is included in the collections of the Musee d'Art Moderne/Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
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 Paul McCarthy has used Belgium to stage the largest presentation of his work to date, with over lapping exhibitions, first at Middelheim Sculpture Park, in Antwerp, and now currently showing at S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum Actuele Kunst) in Gent. This seminal Los Angeles artist, after having toiled away in virtual obscurity for more than 30 years, first began showing at LA's Rosemund Felsen Gallery, then burst on the international scene in the early 90's, when his influence on generations of artists was finally acknowledged. In filling the museum to the brim, McCarthy utilizes practically all medias available to an artist today. Drawing, Sculpture, Installation, Photography, Video, etc.... are all crammed together. He also touches on most art movements from the past 40 years, blending Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Neo Expressionism, Neo Realism, Deconstruction, Performance, and everything in between. This exhibition also reveals McCarthy's interest in referencing the art of his contemporaries. In works such as, "Dreaming" (Duane Hanson), "Mechanical Pig" (Wim Delvoye), "Destroyed Walls" (Gordon Matta Clark), "MJBH" (Jeff Koons), among many others, the playful McCarthy seeks to do his colleagues one better. A dangerous game, but all his gestures maintain that distinct McCarthy touch. This jammed packed installation leaves no room for rest, for the eye or the mind. "AIR BORN/AIR BORNE/AIR PRESSURE" at Middelheim museum Antwep, Belgium. May 27, - Oct. 26, 2007 "Head Shop/Shop Head (works 1966 - 2006)", S.M.A.K. October 13, - February 17, 2008. Paul McCarthy is represented by Hauser & Wirth, Zurich / London | |||
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 Tim Hawkinson's first Australian exhibition "Mapping the Marvellous," is currently on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. In addition to photo collages and drawings, The Los Angeles based artist is best known for creating theatrical sculptural and installation works through the use of mundane materials. Works on display include a bat constructed from plastic bags and an iris made of green biros. Hawkinson initially graduated from San Jose State University before later earning his MFA at the University of California. Exhibitions in which he has previously displayed his work include the 1999 Venice Biennale, "Zoopsia" - a solo exhibition at the Getty in Los Angeles and "How Man is Knit" at the Pace Wildenstein, New York earlier this year. | |||
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 The Happy Lion Gallery, located in Los Angeles' Chinatown, is currently presenting a collaborative exhibition titled The Sundowners. Six emerging LA artists, Seann Brackin, Naomi Buckley, Spencer Douglass, Aragna Ker, Candace Lin, and Maeghan Reid participate in the exhibition, grappling with the terrain of history, memory and illusion. Performance artist Anna Oxygen also contributed to the show, performing at the opening on November 10th. Candice Lin received her MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute, but each of the other artists received an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. The exhibition's title is intricately related to its theme; the word "sundowner" refers to a vagrant or nomad and the art at The Happy Lion has a nomadic, searching quality. The Sundowners is a both foreboding and tender grouping of work: Ker's sculls and Lin's psychological portraits of young women contrast with Buckley's nostalgic sculptural assemblages and Reid's urban portraits. While each artist takes a distinctly different approach to image making, each uses unconventional materials, like duct tape, matchsticks, pushpins, or magnifying glasses, to create illusionistic landscapes. The Sundowners will continue through December 22. | |||
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 Brazilian artist Jorge Mendes has created a group of work titled "Tide" for the Dennis Anderson Gallery, Belgium. It took place on the Saint Annake Strand, on Antwerps Linkerover, where the tide rose so high that part of the work was blown across the Schelde and landed in the gallery. What's left of the work will be on view in the gallery until Jan 19. The title, "Tide", is a reference to the unstoppable flow of water around the world; it's also a play on words for the Flemish word for time, "Tijd". The work explores the difficulties an emigrant faces trying to find his place in a strange land and nature vs. civilization, ecological issues, and arts place in society. | |||
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 Now showing at the Defiance Gallery, Newtown is an exhibition in tribute to the life of sculptor, Ian McKay (1936-2007). McKay was a prominent influence in Australian sculpture, with a career spanning almost 50 years. He studied at the National Art School, Sydney and later at the St. Martin's School of Art, London after traveling to Europe in the early1960s. The exhibition, "One Small Step for Mankind," includes the work of 80 local and international artists creating over 100 6x6x6 inch miniature sculptures. Artists whose works are included within the miniature show include Abby Parkes, Emily Bullock, Keld Moseholm and Michael Le Grand. All works on display are able to be purchased. | |||
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 The exhibition HUG: Recent work by Patricia Piccinini is on view at the Frye Museum of Art in Seattle until January 2008. Continuing her hyper-realistic sculptures of customized life forms, Piccinini examines the relationships between animals, nature, science, and technology. The artist challenges the viewer to embrace the unexpected consequences found in her creations, which examine both physical and ethical responsibility while experimenting with the natural and the artificial. Piccinini received a Bachelors' of Art from both the Australian National University and the Victorian College of the Arts and has been previously featured on DailyServing. | |||
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 Richard Deacon's new exhibition at LA Louvre in Los Angeles opened on December 1st. Dead Leg, Deacon's monumental new sculpture, will span LA Louvre's first floor gallery. In collaboration with his associate Matthew Perry, Deacon made his massive new sculpture out of twisted oak and stainless steel. Dead Leg is 8 ft high, 28 ft long and 9 ft wide and, following its premiere in LA, it will travel to the Portland Museum of Art. Richard Deacon has enjoyed prominent success over the past three decades. He graduated from the Chelsea College of Art in 1978 and has since worker in sculpture, painting and drawing, dance, and literature, compiling what has become a staggeringly multifaceted portfolio. Deacon won the Turner Prize in 1987 and was also named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by France's Ministry of Culture in 1997. Deacon lives and works in London but also teaches at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He has shown in countless galleries and museums, including the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. | |||
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 "Surface Works" is a new series of paintings and wall sculptures by the artist Eliza Geddes opening this weekend. Found Gallery in Los Angeles will present Geddes' new works in her first exhibition in L. A. which will continue through the New Year. Geddes is interested in the formal qualities of painting, investigating surface, texture, balance, speed and shape as she creates both two and three dimensional work. The artist uses the manipulation of formal qualities to entice the viewer with the repetition of marks such as circles and X forms. Geddes three-dimensional works continue her formal concerns while also challenging the boundaries of painting and sculpture. A graduate of New York University and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Geddes has exhibited with 33 Bond Gallery in NYC, 440 Gallery in Brooklyn and Mulry Fine Art in West Palm Beach, Flordia.
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 Currently showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney is Julie Rrap's retrospective "Body Double". Spanning the last 25 years of the artist's career, this exhibition is an evocative exploration of the human body. With particular emphasis on the female form, Rrap's photographic, sculptural, video and installation pieces explore issues of feminism and identity. Rrap uses herself as a key figure in many of the works, creating casts of her own body, photographing herself and even utilizing her own hair and bodily fluids. Appropriation is a tool widely used by Rrap as her early works include a photomontage of herself as Christ, while others include her own naked body fused with artworks created by the 'great masters,' such as Rembrandt and Munch. Rrap currently lives and works in Sydney. Her work has been displayed on a global scale, appearing within solo exhibitions at the Galerie Eric Franck, Switzerland and Ecole des Beaux Arts, France. | |||
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 Stepping into the Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York City is a little like stumbling upon a musical shipwreck. Diana Al-Hadid has used plaster, fiberglass, wood, polystyrene, and cardboard to create a romantically ramshackled and dilapidated sculpture, "Record of a Mortal Universe," which is based on the phenomenon of a hero's collapse. Sourcing religion, architecture, and physics, Al-Hadid's pointed and varied references unfold within the work, from a grand staircase that leads to a decomposing Greek temple to an upside-down vaulted arch and melted pipe-organ pedals. A gramophone extends through a ring of decrepit temple columns and crumbling gothic buttresses, making the sculpture seem as though it has appeared, tattered and torn, from the background of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch. "Record of a Mortal Universe" also explores gravitational collapse, or the phenomenon of a massive body collapsing under its own weight. The sculpture sets up an engaging dichotomy in that the foundation's materials, cardboard and melting resin, seem tenuous and unable to support such a gigantic mass. Yet the reference to Greek architecture and ruins suggest that this is somehow a solid structure that has been around for an untold number of years. Diana Al-Hadid is a Brooklyn-based, Syrian-born artist who graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth University in 2005. She participated in the Skowhegan residency this past summer, and her work will be at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery until the 24th of November. | |||
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 Opening this evening at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City will be the second solo exhibition of new sculpture by California-based artist Liz Craft. The show includes five large-scale all white, cube-based sculptures which contain surface reliefs, cut outs and protrusions. While at first glance these works seem to be rooted in a minimalist aesthetic, Craft continues to infuse subculture iconography in to her works that references hippies, bikers and new age characteristics. The cubes double as architectural structures which house the other elements including Godzilla, palm trees, cushions, blooming vases, and floating figures. Craftsmanship is also a quality that is consistent through the artist's work as she meticulously constructs each sculpture. Craft currently lives and works in Los Angeles, and has exhibited in the 2004 Whitney Biennial and "Eden's Edge: Fifteen LA Artists" at the Hammer Museum in 2007. The artist also recently had her first monograph published by JRP Ringier/Halle fur Kunst which contains an introduction and interview by Bettina Steinbrugge, and essays by arts writer Bruce Hainley. | |||
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 Tracey Emin's first Los Angeles solo show, "You Left Me Breathing", opened at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills on November 2nd. Emin, who was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, is one of the hyped Young British Artists whose work gained notoriety in the mid 1990s. She recently represented Britain at the 2007 Venice Biennale, installing large-scale neon signs and drawings on the walls of the British Pavilion. Emin openly uses her life as her subject matter and her work vacillates between virtuosity and one-liner candor. Paintings, like "Reincarnation III" (2005), explicitly play on the expressive style of Edvard Munch while neon works, like "Very Happy Girl" (1999), are gaudy and blunt. Emin's expansive oeuvre includes sculpture, drawing, video, photography, and needlework and "You Left Me Breathing" emphasizes her ambiguous, controversial breadth. At Gagosian, Emin's confessional drawings, including "Family Suite II" (1994), hang alongside her crude, tongue-in-cheek textile assemblages and her flashy neon signs contrast her large, expressionistic paintings. The Gagosian show also features a recent series of delicate jesmonite sculptures that incorporate bronze, bundled wood, cement, and glass. | |||
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 Currently on view at David Zwirner Gallery in New York City is an exhibition of new work by English-born artist Chris Ofili titled, "Devil's Pie." This show will feature works in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing, uniting the artist's interest in the themes of birth, death, seduction, and salvation. Religious references are also found in these works as the artist repeats and reinforces his imagery through multiple manifestations. Ofili is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, and first drew international acclaim during the 1990's through exhibiting with the Saatchi Gallery in North London and the traveling exhibition Sensation (1997). Ofili's work was the cause of much controversy when the exhibition traveled to the Brooklyn Museum of Art for "The Holy Virgin Mary," a painting of a black African Mary surrounded by images of black exploitation and close-ups of female genitalia, and elephant dung. The painting resulted in a law suit between the Brooklyn Museum of Art and Mayor of NYC, Rudy Giuliani. Ofili developed as member of the Young British Artists, exhibiting with the Serpentine Gallery and wining the Turner Prize. The same year, the artist represented Britain at the Venice Biennale. In addition to David Zwirner, Ofili is represented by Victoria Miro Gallery. | |||
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 Lawrence Weiner is mounting a new body of work, "As Far As The Eye Can See", at the Whitney Museum from November 2007 through February 2008. The artist uses words to serve as the raw material for his art. Words are spoken, sung, painted, printed, stamped on coins and manhole covers, put to film, just about anywhere. The text is intended to help people understand their relationship to the objects in their world. Weiner is one of the key figures associated with the emergence and foundations of Conceptual Art and has defined art as "the relationship of human beings to objects and objects to objects in relation to human beings". Recent solo exhibitions of Weiner's work have been exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Dia Center for the Arts, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Weiner has produced various films and videos, including "Beached, Do You Believe in Water?", and "Plowman's Lunch". Weiner lives in New York and Amsterdam. | |||
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 De Jong was born in the Netherlands in 1972. He co-founded Space For Artists in Amsterdam, and in 2003, was a finalist for the Prix de Rome for sculpture. The artist has recently completed the exhibitions "Der Falsche Prophet", Peres Projects, Berlin, "Gott Mit Uns", Lever House, New York and "Medusa's First Move: The Council", Chisenhale Gallery, London. | |||
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 New York City based artist Daniel Lefcourt currently is exhibiting his first solo exhibition in Zurich with the Mitterrand and Sanz Gallery. For this show, the artist will present a group of new sculptures some of which have been designed specifically for the gallery space. Lefcourt's work is carefully positioned between sculpture and painting, creating a dialogue between real and abstracted space. The artist often calls into question that which is usually negated or denied, revealing signs of absence. For the exhibition, that artist prepared this statement about the work "I am not going to address specifics... I have no present knowledge... I have already been quite clear about this in the past... your interpretation in no way corresponded to my intention... This is the only answer I can give you... I am not at liberty to disclose... The declarations being made are outlandish and filled with error... Such a thing is pure speculation... I'm sorry you understood it that way... It's unfortunate..." Lefcourt was born in NYC and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997 and his MFA from Columbia University in 2005. Since, the artist has completed solo exhibitions at Sutton Lane in Paris (2007) and Taxter and Spengemann in NYC (2004/06) among others. | |||
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Acclaimed British sculptor, installation artist and musician Richard Wilson was born in 1953 and currently lives and works in London. The artist is one of England's best-known sculptors and has gained much notoriety for his ambitious architectural interventions and reconstructions which are often noted as architectural magic. In the video shown above, Wilson literally cut into the building, connecting the piece to a track allowing it to rotate in place. The artist often explores the relations of space to architecture and related structures, giving new form through reconfiguration and assembly thus changing the viewer's perception of the form. Wilson is scheduled to present a new exhibition in Galleria Fumagalli in Italy opening this Saturday, October 13 at 6pm. The artist studied at the London College of Printing, Hornsey College of Art and received his MFA from the Reading University in Berkshire, UK. Wilson has been nominated for the Tuner Prize twice and most notably completed the DAAD residency in Berlin in 1992. He has completed signature works for the Saatchi Gallery and the Matt's Gallery early in his career and has since been collected by museums worldwide such as Weltkunst Collection at IMMA, Dublin and the Centre of Contemporary Art, Warsaw among many others.
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 Hauser & Wirth Colnaghi in London is opening a new exhibition today for the acclaimed artist Louise Bourgeois. Bourgeois, who is currently 95 years old, is highly regarded as one of the most important artists working today. For the exhibition "LOUISE BOURGEOIS: New Work", the artist will feature a major new body of cast sculptures, gouaches and two complete portfolios of hand-colored prints. The exhibition coincides with a major retrospective of the artist's work at Tate Modern also opening this month. Bourgeois draws much of her inspiration from her childhood and from a deep examination of feminine sexuality, stating "My work is not an illustration of anything, but rather it expresses an emotional state, good or bad." The artist is known for the diverse materials that make up her work, often using multiple forms and materials to express reoccurring symbolism and themes in her work. Bourgeois was born in France; she studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and has worked in the US since 1938. Her current exhibition at the Tate will travel from 2008 and 2009 to Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, LAMoCA, Los Angeles and the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. | |||
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 Parisian artist Prune Nourry's work investigates elements of many current social and scientific issues such as genetic modification, stem cell research, fetishes and the commodification of the human form. The artist conducted a project of celebrity led fetishes with dogs and other pets as well as pet-baby substitution piece. For her latest work "Adoption Day," the artist will conduct a performance piece scheduled for today in Regents Park / Central London presented by Jaguar Shoes. For this performance the artist has created five figurative silicone sculptures that are designed to be a hypothetical genetic hybrid baby. These sculptures will each be accompanied by a nanny and will travel from different parts of London, the performance will end with a series of family photo sessions including the newly created family addition. | |||
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 Opening at P.P.O.W. in late October, Judy Fox will be showing "Snow White and the Seven Sins". Playing on the classic Disney storyline Fox uses Pride, Envy, Anger, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony and Lust as surreal objects to surround a beautiful nude adolescent girl who is seemingly unconscious. Known for her sculptures of children rendered with refinement; exploration of the child's body in life-size naturalistically-painted clay, the artist explores contemporary sociological issues by creating vulnerable, naked and exposed individuals. Fox received her Masters from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU and has received two NEA grants, and an award from the "Anonymous Was a Woman" foundation. She is a fellow of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and is a 2006 fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The P.P.O.W gallery in NYC and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris both currently represent Fox. | |||
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 Using materials such as beet juice, crushed blackberries, fabric dye, bleach, and oil paint on unprimed canvas, Patrick Hill creates ephemeral-seeming paintings and sculptures in his first New York solo show, "Forming" at Bortolami-Dayan in Chelsea. Hill sets up a range of juxtapositions in his works--the organic and synthetic, traditional and non-traditional, decaying and enduring, to create an oddly harmonious and symbiotic environment in which these materials intersect and rely on each other. As Hill explains, his work is about "personal as well as universal human concerns of life and death, fate and chance, tension and balance…and out of degeneration and rebirth come the materialization of form." Hill especially plays with the notions of permanence and impermanence in this exhibition. An unpredictable and whimsical mobile brings together components such as glass, concrete, steel and fabric, taking cues in structure and materiality from artists like Alexander Calder, Lee Bontecou, and Richard Serra. The use of unprimed canvas calls to mind the work of Helen Frankenthaller and Robert Morris, and Hill's process of layering fabric and allowing substances to soak into the canvas allows for the ability to see both the evidence of residue and the active process of decay. Patrick Hill was born in Michigan and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions with David Kordansky in LA, the Reliance in London and Shane Campbell Gallery in Chicago. Group exhibitions include: Ishtar, Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis and the upcoming show "Imagine Los Angeles," Spruth Magers Munich Projekte, Munich, Germany. | |||
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 In an upcoming exhibition opening this Thursday at the James Harris Gallery in Seattle, artist Katrina Moorhead will exhibit the work "on or about December 1981," a set of DeLorean car doors exquisitely crafted out of plywood. Moorhead explores ideas related to beauty, temporality, failure, and optimism, and through these doors is able to elevate the controversial car and production factory in Belfast to highlight its short life. In addition, the artist will also exhibit a series of drawings that also convey a sense of somberness. Born in Northern Ireland in 1971, Moorehead represented her country in the last Venice Biennale. In 2005 she received the International Artists in Residence Award at the Artpace Foundation in San Antonio, TX; she now lives and works in Houston, TX. The artist received an MFA from Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland in 1996, and has completed solo exhibitions at the Inman Gallery (2006) and Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery (2002). | |||
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 The culturally infused sculptures and paintings of artist BAST are deeply rooted in the elements of hip-hop. The artist explores the energy of graffiti and the surfaces of dilapidated and weathered signage, often depicting devious cartoon characters parading around with guns. Some of the artist's personified characters are exaggerated to humorously reflect the stereotypes associated with hip-hop culture. Bast's work is gritty, ghetto, and fit with a twisted humor. In a recent exhibition with New Image Art Gallery in Hollywood, California the artist presented a collection of "hunting monsters," which mixed Hollywood monster characters like the Wolfman and Creature from the Black Lagoon with modern urban characters like Flava Flav and Biz Markie. | |||
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 Cuban-Dominican artist Quisqueya Henriquez opened his first major museum survey exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts yesterday evening. "The World Outside: A Survey Exhibition 1991-2007," showcases the artist's sculptures, installations, drawings, photographs, videos and light/sound works created over the past two decades. In addition to the exhibition, Henriquez was featured in this month's |