For this month’s Summer Session we’re thinking about celebrity, and what better contemporary artist to embody this topic than Jeff Koons, for whom celebrity and consumerism are the hallmarks of his most famous pieces? Today we bring you Alex Bigman’s review of the Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney Museum, which ran June 27–October 19, 2014. Despite Koons’ infamous reputation for banality, Bigman reminds us[…..]

For the next three years, the estimable Underground Museum, co-founded by husband and wife Noah and Karon Davis, will bring artworks from Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) permanent collection to its unassuming storefront in the largely black and Latino working-class neighborhoods of West Adams and Crenshaw. Reciprocally, MOCA presents Noah Davis’ Imitation of Wealth, which was first exhibited at the Underground Museum, in its new[…..]

Today we continue our countdown to the New Year with a selection by regular contributor Matt Stromberg, who explains, “The Whitney’s Koons Retrospective was one of the most talked-about shows of the year. Few write-ups, however, went beyond lauding him as a populist Pop perfectionist, or lambasting him as the personification of a bloated, speculative art market. Alex Bigman’s review offers a more nuanced appraisal, thoughtfully[…..]

At the press preview for Jeff Koons: A Retrospective, more than one member of the Whitney Museum’s curatorial staff urged visitors to dispense with “preconceived notions” about Koons and embrace the exhibition as an opportunity to view the artist’s perhaps too-well-known oeuvre with fresh eyes. One of the largest retrospectives the Whitney has ever mounted, Jeff Koons sprawls across three floors in ascending chronological order,[…..]

There have been many times when I have felt uneasy looking at group shows of “Outsider Art”. There can be some crowds, and lots of things for sale, and a lot of people buying them, but mostly what can cause apprehension as a viewer is the wild range in the work. Often there is no thematic or formal thread that could tie all of these[…..]

Going to Basel during the art fair is like battling a multi-headed Hydra. It’s the biggest, potentially most daunting international art event of the year. You may not be able to do it all – but you might as well die of alcohol poisoning while trying. Indeed Basel is, like many international art fairs, biennials and events – a massive party attended by every international[…..]

Richard Patterson emerged in London at Damien Hirst’s Freeze exhibition in 1988 as one of the YBA group. After moving to New York he eventually settled in Dallas. He is represented by Timothy Taylor Gallery in London and James Cohan Gallery in New York. He is known for paintings that combine imagery culled from popular culture and art history with painstaking detail. Combining car culture,[…..]