Sister Gallery in Los Angeles opened a new exhibition this week by New York-based artist Adam Helms. Titled “Rising Down,” this exhibition is a continuation of the artist’s interest in photojournalism, conflict, political propaganda and extremist ideology. Helms will present two arrangements of hoods rendered in ink on mylar in a grid format, along with two large assemblages of source material that features war-related images. These visuals, though obtained from varying time periods, relate closely to publicized brutality and conflict in modern society. The artist was featured in “Greater New York 2005″ at PS1 and was a part of the three-person exhibit “Ordinary Culture: Heikes/Helms/McMillian” this past fall with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The artist is an award recipient of The Chinati Foundation, The Rema Hort Mann Foundation Visual Art Grant Award and The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. More can be read about the Helm’s work in this month’s Artforum (pages 210-211).

Austrian-based artist group Gelitin is comprised of four artists — Wolfgang Gantner, Ali Janka, Florian Reither and Tobias Urban. The artists are internationally known for their ambitious and absurd projects and performances. Pictured above is a giant 200-foot long and 20-foot high bunny sculpture, stuffed with hay in the hills of Artesina, Italy. The pink bunny was installed in 2005 and will remain in place, left to decompose until 2025. In 2005, the group exhibited arguably the world’s largest urine-based icicle during the Moscow Biennale with a work titled “Zapf de Pipi.” Viewers were asked to step into a room built off of a second-story window in the gallery and urinate into a bucket. This would freeze before hitting the ground, eventually forming the world’s first museum ice sculpture. In 2006, Gelitin exhibited “Group Therapy” with MUSEION, Museo d’arte moderna e contemporanea in Bozen, and “Hugris” with the Kling & Bang Galleri in Reykjavik. To view the video of “Rabbit” the bunny sculpture, including images from Google Earth, click here.

Korean-born, New York-based artist Sook Jin Jo creates large sculptural installations that are simultaneously concerned with the history of sculpture and the concept of meditation. Using elements of balance, color, texture and space, the artist selects and displays found objects that reflect the history of a specific place. The sum of each collected object creates a unified whole, as each one is a pivotal support for the other, literally and metaphorically. The artist was educated in Korea at the Hong-Ik University, College of Fine Art in Seoul (1985), and in New York at the Pratt Institute (1991). Since then, Sook Jin Jo has completed numerous site-specific installations, including “My Brothers Keeper” at Black and White Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y. (2006), and “All Things Work Together” at O.K. Harris Gallery in New York City (2004). The artist was also featured in Art in America (2005) and has been on the cover of Sculpture magazine.

Austin-based artist Jonathan Marshall creates large paintings and drawings that rely heavily on wit, working through color and design. These graphic images explore nature and the landscape through illustrative imagery, showing destruction through absurdity and humor. His success began shortly after his graduation from University of Texas at Austin (2003), and, in 2005 alone, Marshall received the best-in-show award for the Texas Biennial and a feature in New American Paintings. In 2006, he showed with Lawndale Art Center in Houston, plus Art Palace and Okay Mountain in Austin.

Later this month, installation artist Paola Cabal will open a new intervention with Western Exhibitions in Chicago. Cabal’s work is created on-site, working from elements inherent to the space. She “intervenes” in subtle ways, usually playing with a particular source of light, capturing moments of the constantly changing world. Using materials as diverse as spray paint, powdered ash, thread and tape, she studies and marks the progression of light through a space over time and makes a permanent record of a fleeting moment. Paola Cabal is a recipient of the “Individual Artist Award: Emerging Artist” from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation (2006) and a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2003). In the past, she has exhibited with Povlo (2005) and Blue Sky Project (2006), both in Chicago, and the Halsey Institute in Charleston, S.C. (2004).

Miki Carmi, a recent Columbia University MFA graduate (2005), has received notable attention after selling out of his first solo exhibition at Stux Gallery in New York City last year. Carmi works from old family portraits, producing compelling and innovative large-scale paintings of aged heads that float on a white ground. The paint is applied with heavy strokes, so the physical properties mimic the texture and visceral qualities of aged skin. In late 2006, the artist exhibited in a group exhibition with the Stux Gallery titled “Six Degrees of Separation” alongside Chinese artist Wei Dong. Carmi has been featured in New American Paintings: MFA Annual in 2004; and is a recipient of a Brevoort Eickmeyer Grant. In 2005, the artist’s work was noted in an article in Art Review with The New York Times.

Earlier this month, artist Jacob Hashimoto opened an exhibition of new wall-mounted works at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York City. Hashimoto’s works are positioned somewhere between sculpture and painting, each piece being comprised of numerous tiny paper and bamboo elements constructed according to Japanese kite forms. Each individual kite-form is painted and collaged with images, and together they form one unifying composition. This month, Artforum features a review of the artist’s work from an exhibition with Studio La Citta in Verona, Italy (2006). Hashimoto is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently lives and works in New York City and Verona, Italy. In 2005, the artist exhibited “Superabundant Atmosphere” with the Rice Gallery in Houston and “Skip Skitter Start Trip Vault Bounce – and other attempts at flight” with Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago. Hashimoto’s latest exhibition was reviewed in last week’s The New York Sun (Jan. 11, 2007).