5 Emerging Galleries to Watch at the 2024 New York Art Fairs https://ift.tt/hXex374

As May ushers in spring, New York Art Week 2024 presents an opportunity to catch more than just flowers sprouting new leaves. While the Big Apple is preparing for an influx of major gallerists, artists, and collectors alike, there are plenty of new names to be watching for, too.

Amid the bustling two weeks of fair activity, locals and guests alike are often lured by colossal fairs like Frieze and TEFAF, but the smaller fairs—Independent, Future Fair, NADA New York, and, this year, Esther—offer all-important space for emerging dealers, from brand-new galleries to those that are taking major steps into the New York limelight.

Here, we highlight five small galleries exhibiting across the New York art fairs to keep an eye on.

Patel Brown, Montréal and Toronto

NADA New York

At NADA New York, Canadian tastemaker Patel Brown will present a solo exhibition of new works from Filipino Canadian painter Marigold Santos. In these works, Santos explores the aswang, a shapeshifting figure from Filipino folklore, which she reinterprets as a metaphor for her experiences of displacement and changing identity. Her paintings—often fantastical and amalgamated portraits—explore the complexities of femininity and being part of a diaspora.

Patel Bown, which has gallery spaces in Toronto and Montreal, has rapidly ascended to a prominent position in the Canadian contemporary art scene. In Toronto, the gallery is hosting two simultaneous exhibitions: “Eroding Territory,” curated by Cecilia González Godino, which explores how artists reclaim narratives of landscape and identity through a decolonial lens, and Brendan George Ko’s “The Haunted Landscape: Chapter One,” consisting of photos from the Four Corners, the meeting point of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.

The rising gallery has also recently hosted solo presentations at Barely Fair and EXPO in Chicago, and participated in a group exhibition at the Dallas Art Fair and Plural 2024 in Montreal. Massey Klein Gallery, New York

Massey Klein Gallery, New York

Future Fair

The Lower East Side’s Massey Klein Gallery was established by the husband-and-wife team of Garrett Klein and Ryan Massey in 2018. The gallery is dedicated to uplifting the careers of mid-career and emerging artists, including several rising American painters such as Lydia Baker, Elise Ferguson, Nick McPhail, and Bethany Czarnecki. Its current exhibition, “Local Realism,” presents Los Angeles–based Ramiro Henandez’s translucent paintings, and is on view until May 11th.

For Future Fair, the gallery will debut new work by Dutch artist Martine Johanna. Johanna’s hyperrealistic paintings are characterized by dark, intense colors and surreal settings and feature semi-autobiographical women protagonists embodying independence and heroism.

Red Arrow Gallery, Nashville

Future Fair

At Future Fair, Red Arrow Gallery will present a solo booth by Nashville-based artist Karen Seapker entitled “Dawn Chorus.” Named after the early morning birdsong that they’re inspired by, Seapker’s paintings grapple with themes of uncertainty and regeneration through surrealistic paintings that combine floating symbols with a distorted perspective and jigsaw puzzle–like composition.

Red Arrow Gallery, a leading venue for contemporary art in Nashville, is known for its eclectic program of emerging and mid-career artists, nurturing the growing art community in the Tennessee capital. Founded by Katie Shaw and formerly co-owned by Sarah Beth Paul, Red Arrow originally opened in Joshua Tree in 2007 before a brief hiatus in 2012 and its relocation to Nashville in 2014. Today, Red Arrow Gallery is committed to fostering experimental art from its home in East Nashville.

THK Gallery, Cape Town

1-54 New York

Cape Town–based THK Gallery will present a group booth of works by Trevor Stuurman, Lulama Wolf, Anya Paintsil, and Driaan Claassen at 1-54 New York. This curated selection of recent works from the gallery’s represented artists highlights the vanguard of emerging African art. Among those featured, photographer Stuurman will present his new series of portraits made with chromogenic prints, “From Africa with Love,” portraying traditional symbols from across the continent, creating a futuristic vision for its residents.

THK Gallery was established in the heart of Cape Town in 2019 by German photographer Frank Schönau, who was later joined by auctioneer Linda Pyke as director. In the last five years, the gallery has transformed into a powerhouse for the local arts community, and in 2021 it opened an additional space in Cologne. The gallery is dedicated to promoting artists from Africa and its diaspora, propelling these emerging artists onto the international stage at art fairs, including 1-54, Abu Dhabi Art, Investec, and Enter Art Fair, among others.

Mama Projects, New York

Future Fair

New York–based Mama Projects will bring a selection of small, medium, and large tapestries for its solo presentation of Mia Weiner at Future Fair. In her figurative, photorealistic textiles, Weiner intricately weaves the themes of human relationships, gender, and identity in cotton, acrylic, silk, and embellishments like dye and crystal.

Founded in 2020, Mama Projects has quickly become a hub for emerging talents in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. The 1,400-square-foot gallery is currently presenting the group exhibition “Prelude,” featuring artists Katalin Kortmann-Járay, Andrei Pokrovskii, and Adriel Visoto, among others, which runs until May 9th. This exhibition is typical of the gallery’s commitment to showing buzzed-about young artists, like Paula Turmina and Angel Cotray.

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9 photographers shortlisted for Nikon Emerging Photographer Award 2024. https://ift.tt/vKtF7PM

The ninth edition of Photo London has announced the shortlisted photographers for its Nikon Emerging Photographer Award 2024. The shortlist includes Aisha Seriki, Ali Tahayori, Caroline Tompkins, Charlie Tallott, Inês d’Orey, Isabelle Young, Johnny Mae Hauser, Lise Johansson, and Sander Coers. This announcement precedes the annual photo fair, scheduled for May 16th to 19th, with a preview on May 15th at Somerset House.

The award, inaugurated in 2015, is part of a collaboration with Nikon that intends to elevate the profiles of new, young lens-based artists. “Nikon has a proud legacy spanning more than 100 years of empowering photographers to tell stories in powerful ways,” said Julian Harvie, Nikon’s marketing director for Northern Europe. “The immensity of talent among emerging photographers is breathtaking. ”

The shortlisted photographers represent a diverse geographic mix—from Nigerian artist Aisha Seriki photography influenced by the Yoruba spiritual tradition (presented at the fair by Doyle Wham) to Dutch German photographer Johnny Mae Hauser’s blurred photographs, shown by Homecoming Gallery.

Also shortlisted is Lise Johansson, who will be exhibiting work with Copenhagen-founded In The Gallery, employing digitally manipulated images of miniature scenes to create dream-like scenarios, as well as Sander Coers’s nuanced depictions of contemporary masculinity at London’s Open Doors Gallery .

In 2023, the Nikon Emerging Photographer Award was awarded to French artist Léa Habourdin won, following British photographer Max Miechowski in 2022.

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Art Brussels 2024 closes with several significant sales. https://ift.tt/4VgAYZr

The 40th edition of Art Brussels, one of the longest-running art fairs in Europe, concluded this Sunday to the satisfaction of many gallerists and collectors. The fair hosted 177 exhibitors (25 more than in 2023) from 30 countries and presented the work of approximately 800 artists.

“There was a great energy and level of engagement,” said Harlan Levey, founder of the eponymous Belgian gallery. “At the same time, I would note a strong sense of fair fatigue from the public and a changing culture within what visitors seek to gain from such events.” Attendees expressed weariness over the increase in size and frequency of art fairs, broadly.

Art Brussels 2024 occurred at the Brussels Expo, a striking Art Deco landmark built in 1933, located across from the city’s iconic Atomium sculpture. The fair attracted 26,000 visitors, including collectors, curators, and art enthusiasts from around the globe. And despite the growing fair fatigue, galleries managed to secure several significant sales with institutional and private collectors alike.

“By the close of Sunday, most of the works in the booth were sold,” said Levey. “Perhaps more importantly, we met many new people who seemed to deeply resonate with T.R. Ericsson’s work and practice. These included curators, scholars, and publishers, as well as private collectors and foundations. I found the overall quality of the fair and visitors a visible improvement from the last few editions.”

Here, we break down the reported sales at the fair.

• Almine Rech sold a Tom Wesselmann work for between €400,000–€450,000 ($429,000–$482,600); a Javier Calleja painting for between €160,000–€170,000 ($171,600–$182,300); a painting by Brian Calvin for €75,000–€80,000 ($80,400–$85,700); a painting by Roby Dwi Antono for €55,000–€60,000 ($58,900–$64,300); a painting by Jean Miotte for €25,000–€30,000 ($26,800–$32,100); a painting by Jean-Baptiste Bernadet for €30,000–€35,000 ($32,100–$37,500); two paintings by Youngju Joung for €70,000–€75,000 ($75,100–$80,400) and €30,000–€35,000 ($32,100–$37,500); a painting by Anthony Miler for €20,000–€25,000 ($21,400–$26,800); and a painting by Aurélie Gravas for €10,000–€15,000 ($10,700–$16,000).
• Galerie Greta Meert sold a large-scale work on paper by Anne Neukamp for €15,000 ($16,000); 10 to 15 works by Edith Dekyndt for €12,000–€25,000 ($12,800–$26,800) each; a work on paper from the series “Wildfire” by David Claerbout to a Swiss institutional collection for €32,000 ($34,100); a canvas by Nathalie Du Pasquier for €34,000 ($36,400); and works on canvas and marble by Pieter Vermeersch to Belgian and French collections priced between €20,000–€60,000 ($21,400–$64,300).
• Templon sold seven Jeanne Vicérial sculptures for €10,000–€36,000 each and works by Hans op de Beeck and Abdoulaye Konaté for between €50,000–€120,000 per piece.
• Galerie Lelong & Co., whose artist Marion Verboom won the Art for the City Prize, sold works by Jaume Plensa, David Nash, Pierre Alechinsky, Günther Förg, and Guy Yanai.
• Robert Grunenberg sold seven paintings by Filip Henin into private collections across Belgium.
• Keteleer Gallery sold 40 works in total, including an important work from Stephan Balkenhol and multiple pieces from Patrick Van Caeckenbergh.
• Galerie Ron Mandos sold their entire booth presentation, including a work by Koen Van den Broek.
• Richard Saltoun reported successful sales from his three-artist booth—featuring work by Myriam Bat Yosef, Carmen Dionyse, and Toyen—which won the fair’s Rediscovery Prize.
• QG Gallery sold works by Olivier Mosset and a floor sculpture by Richard Long.
• Whitehouse Gallery sold a sculpture by Warren Mulder to an important Belgian corporate collection and reported nearly selling out its works by Simona Mihaela Stoia.

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9 Must-See Shows during Frieze New York 2024 https://ift.tt/E4C5Nre

Pale Land in the North, 2024
Katherine Qiyu Su
Half Gallery

Good Times / Bad Times, 2024
Sahara Longe
Timothy Taylor

New York’s long-lingering winter has finally broken into spring, as if summoned by the city’s centennial earthquake or the total eclipse. Either way, the weather has coincided almost perfectly with Frieze New York’s arrival, and with it, a bevy of other must-attend fairs, including NADA, TEFAF, Future, Independent, and Esther—the latter a new alternative fair making its debut in Midtown.

Since last year’s edition of Frieze, New York’s gallery community has taken several major hits, including closures of downtown galleries such as JTT and Denny Gallery. Despite these rising challenges and increasing economic constraints, the city’s gallery network remains energized. These nine must-see gallery exhibitions give visitors and locals a taste of New York’s enduring local gallery scene, ranging from a monumental show by octogenarian Argentine artist Marta Minujín to an environmental benefit exhibition hosted by tastemaker Charles Moffett.

Sahara Longe, “Sugar”

Timothy Taylor

May 2–June 15

Bad Dreams (after Ferdinand Hodler), 2024
Sahara Longe
Timothy Taylor

An alum of The Artsy Vanguard 2022, Sahara Longe left the United Kingdom at age 20 to study portraiture at the Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy. There, painters were limited to using only five colors for the first two years—a constraint she credits for fostering her meticulous attention to color and detail. Longe, now 30, is presenting her second solo exhibition, “Sugar,” at Timothy Taylor, featuring nine new enigmatic paintings, echoing the haunting sensibilities of Secessionist painter Otto Friedrich and Symbolist Ferdinand Hodler.

These works attend to more personal themes than her previous works, which were defined by scenes of crowds and social interactions. Instead, she is focused on the quieter moments of individual experience, created by applying raw pigments—including vermillion, lilac, raw sienna, and ochre—to thick-grain linen. A highlight of the exhibition is Bad Dreams (after Ferdinand Hodler) (2024), an oil painting depicting a naked female figure embracing a shadowy figure in bed. This work, with loose brushstrokes and greater attention to light and shadow, indicates her move toward a more impressionistic style, where her subjects, often women, are enveloped in ethereal states.

Melissa Cody, “Power Up”

Garth Greenan Gallery

Apr. 25–June. 15

Dopamine Dream, 2023
Melissa Cody
Garth Greenan Gallery

“We’ve really had to fight a long, hard battle to be considered fine art,” said Melissa Cody, a fourth-generation Navajo weaver, in a recent interview with Artsy. Cody’s work descends from the Germantown Revival, named after the government-made wool from Pennsylvania that was historically supplied to the Navajo during the Long Walk—the mass displacement of the Indigenous tribes in 1863. This style emerged at a crossroads of traditional methods and historical circumstances as Navajo weavers integrated commercial dyes to develop bold, innovative designs. Cody will showcase 18 of these weavings, spanning 25 years of her career, at Garth Greenan Gallery.

Her piece Scaling the Caverns (2023), an 8-by-4-foot wool tapestry with bright yellow, green, and red, exemplifies the intricate geometric designs and a bold color palette typical of this style. Cody has also recently incorporated digital technology into her practice, using Jacquard looms to produce elaborate designs and dazzling color fields in works like Dopamine Dream (2023), marrying traditional weaving techniques with modern precision.

Running concurrently with her gallery exhibition, Cody’s solo show, “Melissa Cody: Webbed Skies,” is on display at MoMA PS1 until September 9th.

Jennifer Rochlin, “Paintings on Clay”

Hauser & Wirth

May 2–July 12

Jennifer Rochlin finishes her ceramic vessels with autobiographical paintings, handprints, and bite marks. Her first solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth, “Paintings on Clay,” features these large-scale, hand-built terracotta vessels that serve as three-dimensional canvases. On these unapologetically warped ceramics, Rochlin layers glazes and uses various tools to etch details into the clay, allowing her to embed a physical and emotional story onto each piece.

Shortly after graduating with an MFA in painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rochlin was hired to kickstart a high school ceramics department—a medium she’d never explored before. This unexpected turn, however, proved serendipitous as the Los Angeles–based artist developed her distinctive approach to the medium. Her bite marks and handprints add an unexpected, tactile dimension, while her painterly scenes—ranging from intimate portraits to expansive landscapes—are rendered in flowing glazes. Key works like Trans-Siberian Railway (2023) capture a fleeting cinematic memory, with figures and floral motifs spiraling around the clay.

Jay Lynn Gomez, “Under Construction”

P.P.O.W

May 3–June 15

Once a nanny for a wealthy Beverly Hills family, Jay Lynn Gomez lived alongside celebrities, often surrounded by paparazzi who would crop her and her colleagues out of their photos. This became the basis for her paintings, which examine visibility and disenfranchisement. Her exhibition “Under Construction” at P.P.O.W is her first major showcase since her move from Los Angeles to Boston.

Alongside paintings and installation work inspired by her lived experience, it includes a series of hormone box covers painted on with vivid childhood scenes as well as abstract expressions, as symbols of the turbulence and resilience of the trans community (Gomez herself recently transitioned). A key work is My Past Self Painting My Present Self (2024), which uses acrylic on hormone medication packaging to intertwine personal evolution with broader themes of identity and labor. Through these works, Gomez explores themes of visibility and invisibility among disenfranchised communities, offering a deep reflection on transformation and recognition.

Maurizio Cattelan, “Sunday”

Gagosian

Apr. 30–June 15

A jester, a prankster, enfant terrible: These monikers are often lobbed at Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan to dismiss him as nothing more than a provocateur. Yet in his first solo gallery exhibition in more than two decades at Gagosian, Cattelan confronts the contradictions of contemporary America with his characteristic blend of irony and insight. Entitled “Sunday,” the show follows in the footsteps of his notorious golden toilet, America (2016)—a representation of elite excess and socioeconomic inequality. In this show, as reported by the New York Times, Cattelan will install 64 gold-plated steel panels shot through with bullets, showing the viewer their own reflection, riddled with the aftereffects of gun violence.

Described by curator Francesco Bonami as “the most famous Italian artist since Caravaggio,” Cattelan’s ability to engage both the art world and wider audiences is evident from his recent international exhibitions, including his work at the Vatican pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale.

Marta Minujín, “Making a Presence”

kurimanzutto

Apr. 25–June 8

Mundo Erótico Fluo, 2015
Marta Minujín
kurimanzutto

At 81, Argentine conceptual artist Marta Minujín will present a series of informalist paintings and assemblages with her “Los eróticos en Technicolor” sculptures, shown together for the first time since 1963 at her first solo exhibition at kurimanzutto. Titled “Making a Presence,” the exhibition follows Minujín’s 1966 assertion that “easel painting is dead,” presenting dynamic works she creates using immersive installations, unconventional materials, and provocative performances.

This exhibition unites these two pivotal series from the ’60s: the “eróticos” sculptures focusing on Eros, the Greek god of love, and the assemblages and paintings symbolizing Thanatos, the personification of death, symbolically representing these Freudian impulses. Her “Los eróticos en Technicolor” sculptures, made from cotton fabric and foam rubber and painted with fluorescent tempera, are soft sculptures hanging from the ceiling that represent entangled organic forms. These works are juxtaposed with her chthonic, gestural paintings. “Making a Presence” revisits the radical beginnings of Minujín’s career by placing her early experiments in the context of contemporary notions of vulnerability and society as a whole.

Katherine Qiyu Su, “How Far is the Foreign Lands”

Half Gallery

Apr. 30–May 20

April in whose sharp fires our world shall burn, 2024
Katherine Qiyu Su
Half Gallery

Midnight laurel under the old moon, 2024
Katherine Qiyu Su
Half Gallery

A recent graduate of the Royal Academy in London, Katherine Qiyu Su creates kaleidoscopic abstractions that recall her hometown, Beijing—a place she hasn’t stepped foot in for more than 500 days. Her exhibition at Half Gallery, “How Far is the Foreign Lands,” curated by Stavroula Coulianidis, presents intimate reflections of her upbringing, seen through the lens of her personal nostalgia.

This series of seven paintings uses abstraction to explore her childhood memories, dissecting how personal experiences are remembered, reshaped, and sometimes distorted over time. Her chromatic abstractions are layered, each stratum representing a different distant yet integral memory. These complex, multilayered images challenge perceptions of identity, evolving from vivid recollections into abstract, organic patterns on linen.

“Not Too Late”

Charles Moffett

May 3–Jun. 7

As Frieze descends on New York, downtown tastemaker Charles Moffett is putting the planet first with its upcoming exhibition “Not Too Late,” highlighting an increasingly pertinent issue in the art world. The show will feature a survey of work from all 10 of the gallery’s represented artists—including Alec Egan, Bari Ziperstein, and Maggie Ellis—among contributions from more than 10 additional artists, including C’naan Hamburger, Esteban Ramón Pérez, and Michelle Blade.

This group exhibition is organized in collaboration with Art to Acres, an initiative dedicated to funding conservation projects that protect vital lands. For this show, proceeds from the artwork will be donated to preserving the Brazilian Amazon. This collective endeavors to change the sustainable character of the art world, transforming art appreciation into meaningful environmental change. Art to Acres founder Haley Mellin (whose first solo exhibition just opened in Berlin as part of Gallery Weekend) will also contribute work to the benefit exhibition.

Hugh Hayden, “Hughmans”

Lisson Gallery

May 2–Aug. 2

Hugh Hayden worked as an architect for about a decade before embarking on a career as a full-time sculptor. His work anthropomorphizes the world around us, transforming timber, houses, and day-to-day objects into objects that appear to be alive, adorned with sinuous branches and sharp growths. In his new exhibition, “Hughmans,” at Lisson Gallery in New York, Hayden examines the American experience through a series of works and a site-specific installation that probes the idea of mundanity by humanizing his sculptures.

The New York show follows his recent solo show with a similarly homophonic name, “Hughman” at Lisson’s Los Angeles space and features an installation of bathroom stalls that house various artworks, a reflection on privacy within public spaces. Each stall reveals a distinctive piece, including sculptures embodying Pinocchio, cast metal skillets, and garments adorned with bark, which serve as symbols of identity and assimilation.

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Courtney Willis Blair Is Guiding White Cube New York to New Heights https://ift.tt/MGf0U6y

“Often artists are surprised to learn that I don’t hold a master’s degree in art history, but in many ways, they have been my master’s education,” said Courtney Willis Blair, White Cube’s U.S. senior director. Indeed, if artists are analogous to a master’s education, perhaps the mega-gallery represents something of an institution.

Founded by Jay Jopling in 1993 amid London’s YBA-powered art world explosion (early shows featured such names as Sarah Lucas, Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin), White Cube is now among the world’s leading contemporary art galleries. Today it represents more than 50 artists and operates branches in seven locations: two spaces in London, as well as outposts in Hong Kong, Paris, West Palm Beach, Seoul, and, since October 2023, New York. The long-awaited New York space spans 8,000 square feet over three floors in a 1930s former bank building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

In many ways, Willis Blair—who took up the position last January—is an ideal fit for a gallery that has carved a formidable reputation for combining established blue-chip heavyweights with a forward-looking approach to programming and emerging artists. She joined the gallery after an influential tenure at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, where she bolstered the gallery’s institutional engagement, working on a project with the São Paulo Bienal and the Whitney Museum of American Art to propel the gallery’s artist roster into canonical levels of recognition.

Today, Willis Blair leads White Cube’s New York team, shaping its curatorial program and brand direction across the U.S. and sitting on its board of directors. She even found time to curate the gallery’s acclaimed opening show in October 2023, “Chopped & Screwed,” which represents her propensity to approach curation as a way to challenge the status quo and spark conversations on topics spanning history, politics, race, culture, and more. It featured a slate of standout works from artists including Mark Bradford, David Hammons, Julie Mehretu, Adrian Piper, Ilana Savdie, and Danh Vō, among 13 others. “It really considers this practice and methodology of sourcing, distorting, [and] experimenting that you see artists take on today as a way to subvert systems of power and also reimagine the world,” Willis Blair said of the show at the opening.

Willis Blair’s curatorial approach is framed by an openness to the unknown, driven by an ingrained curiosity and drive to learn. “Every day you sharpen your knife and hone your skills—the propositions I want to put into the world are in a constant state of change and always becoming more precise,” she said.

Willis Blair’s passion for art ignited early, and was underpinned by foundational experiences in museums during high school. Her tenure at the Amistad Foundation at the Wadsworth Atheneum—an initiative launched to correct the misrepresentation and underrepresentation of African American culture—under the guidance of then–executive director Olivia White provided her with invaluable exposure to the practices of living and working within an institutional context.

“Olivia is someone who believes in relationships and community and was always very generous with who she introduced me to and made connections with, which allowed me to establish a foundation within art,” said Willis Blair. “What I knew to be true was reinforced: that artists are always making and in discourse with one another regardless of who’s paying attention or not; some do, but these things are happening irrespective of an institutional platform.”

Her art world career formally began in 2011 at Mary Ryan Gallery, where she started as a sales associate, also cultivating an arts journalism career, where she profiled the likes of Dineo Seshee Bopape and Eddie Martinez for outlets including Forbes and Cultured. By 2015, she had scaled the ranks to the role of senior director of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, where she became renowned for championing young, rigorous artists with strong points of view. During her time, she brought on several key artists, including Jacolby Satterwhite and Gideon Appah. Her influence grew as she founded Entre Nous in 2016, an international organization of Black women who work in the art world that fosters connections and community.

One major milestone during her time at Mitchell-Innes & Nash was her work with the gallery’s represented artist Pope L., whom she helped realize his “Instigation, Aspiration, Perspiration” exhibition series, a trio of complementary shows in 2019 at the MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Public Art Fund. The series focused on a vast array of subjects, including music, literature, political history, New York history, and artists involved in durational practices: from historical movements like Fluxus to contemporaries of Pope L., such as performance artist Tehching Hsieh. For Willis Blair, this experience resonates with a predisposition to soak up as much knowledge as possible from the artist. Meanwhile, it also aligns with White Cube’s mission to “[make] the contemporary and the historic contemporary,” as the gallery’s senior director Mathieu Paris once said.

And it’s this mission brought to life that visitors can expect from White Cube New York. Willis Blair is currently staging a high-profile exhibition by Antony Gormley, who had his first show with the gallery back in 1994. The monumental site-specific show “Aerial” opens on April 30th and features Gormley’s exploration of space using massive, site-responsive sculptures that challenge and engage the viewer’s perception of their environment. It’s the latest in a series of high-profile solo exhibitions from Tracey Emin, Theaster Gates, and Richard Hunt, the latter of whom passed away only months after White Cube announced its representation.

“Both New Yorkers familiar with [Gormley’s] public art projects at Madison Square Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park and visitors flocking to the city for Frieze Week will have the opportunity to explore and interact with [his] work, including a site-specific installation in an intimate setting,” said Willis Blair of the show. “The presentation highlights recent developments in his practice and a juxtaposition between work that explores mass and scale and that which explores space and air.”

This exhibition coincides with a packed fortnight of fairs and art world activity, marking the first major international art gathering in New York since the White Cube opened its Big Apple branch. The gallery will also participate in two fairs in the city—TEFAF and Frieze—across the fortnight, making this something of a New York moment for the gallery. Down the line, a dynamic series of solo exhibitions is set to continue. Immediately after Gormley’s solo exhibition, the gallery will present work from Japanese painter Yoko Matsumoto. Later in the 2024–25 season, White Cube will present work from Ghanaian installation artist and sculptor Ibrahim Mahama and the late South Korean painter Park Seo-bo.

“This is such an exciting time,” said Willis Blair. “The gallery opened to a fantastic response a mere [six] months ago, and we couldn’t be happier with the foundation we’ve set to move into this next chapter of White Cube.”

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Haystack painting by Claude Monet, valued at $30 million, heads to auction this May. https://ift.tt/faLsrIc

A century-and-a-half after the dawn of Impressionism in 1874, Claude Monet’s Meules à Giverny (1893) will be auctioned at Sotheby’s modern evening auction on May 15th. The famed piece, notable for its iconic haystacks, is anticipated to hammer above $30 million.

“As one of his most beloved and important series, the haystacks embody Monet’s meticulous approach to painting,” said Sharon Kim, Sotheby’s deputy chairman of Impressionist and Modern art. “In revisiting scenes at different times of day and seasons, he carefully detailed the subtle changes in the landscape caused by the varying light and atmosphere to create a subtle and harmonious vision across his works, showcasing his continued experimentation with brushwork and looking ahead to his further evolution with the Nymphéas [water lilies] that would usher in an entire new era of modern art.”

Meules à Giverny is one of Monet’s last works to focus on his signature haystack motif. In recent years, these works have garnered increasing attention from the secondary market. Five years ago, his painting Meules (1890) hammered for $110 million at Sotheby’s, which set the artist’s record price and remains the highest Impressionist sale at auction.

This artwork is particularly significant due to its provenance. First brought to the United States in 1895 by the American landscape painter Dwight Blaney, Meules à Giverny was soon donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, then remained in private American collections for decades. This will be the first time the painting will be seen on the secondary market.

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Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s Surreal, Symbolic Drawings Are Finally in the Spotlight https://ift.tt/yu93oMj

El Ojo Interior, 2022
Sandra Vásquez de la Horra
KEWENIG

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra is always drawing. “I have tables everywhere,” the artist said in her sunny Berlin studio, which, true to her words, is filled with huge drawing tables. “It’s like a diary,” she said, referring to her constant scribbling. Her works on paper are scattered across the space: hanging on walls, or laid out in unfolded versions of the accordion-style leporello format she favors. Yet another table holds a wax bath that the artist uses to coat many of her works in thin, skin-like layers.

The Chilean artist has been working prolifically like this for decades—producing drawings in mostly pencil, gouache, and watercolor that combine biological motifs with themes drawn from marginalized spiritual traditions, without much notice from the international art world. Today, she’s finally reaping the benefits of her hard work. Last year, she was awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize by Berlin’s Akademie der Künste, a sign of recognition from the city she’s called home since 1995. The award includes a show at the Akademie, opening later this year. “I’ve put the seeds in for a long time…taking care of the ‘plants,’ and things happened,” said the artist of her late bloom.

The current wave of interest in Vásquez de la Horra’s work—which has also yielded a solo exhibition at Haus der Kunst in Munich, opening later this year; and her first institutional exhibition in the U.S., on view at the Denver Art Museum through July 21st—can be traced back to 2022. That year, Cecilia Alemani included the artist in the main exhibition at the 59th Venice Biennale, “The Milk of Dreams.” Vásquez de la Horra showed a selection of her surreal works on paper—some built into boxy sculptural house shapes, others folded into leporellos. It was a milestone for the artist: She felt the amount of space she was given by Alemani was a sign of the curator’s trust in her work.

This was where Raphael Fonseca, the curator of the Denver show, first discovered her practice. “[She] is a rare case of an artist that dedicated her entire career to diving into one media—drawing—and deepening her experimentation with it,” Fonseca said in an interview with Artsy. “In a historical present where our discussion on pleasure, spirituality, motherhood, ecology, and the idea of diaspora are very latent, her exhibition and research really provoke new discussions about it.”

Indeed, the themes of Vásquez de la Horra’s presentation at the Biennale were true to the ideas that have influenced her entire practice: dreams, bodies, and our intertwinement in the natural world. Inside a wooden structure built to house her work, female faces appeared in ecstatic communion with the Earth. Other figures were shown in silhouette, or even cross section, occasionally melting and merging with the landscape around them. Women, in Vazquez de la Horra’s world, are sometimes strong leaders, other times conduits to the spiritual, communing with the Earth.

The artist’s early years in Chile had a large impact on her work. Vásquez de la Horra grew up under the 17-year-long rule of Augusto Pinochet, a time during which she remembers seeing tearful protests on her way home from school. “I grew up in this. For me, it’s impossible to ignore it,” she said, though she alludes to this spirit of resistance sparingly, rather than making it an explicit focus of her practice. No pasarán los venceremos mi amor (2020), for example, obliquely references political defiance in its title (“They won’t pass we’ll defeat them my love” in English), which appears spread across the outline of a petticoated woman.

In 1995, she moved to Germany, studying with Greek Arte Povera legend Jannis Kounellis and conceptual pioneer Rosemarie Trockel in Düsseldorf, before moving to Berlin. It was also during this period that she began exploring Santería, a religious tradition with roots in Cuba and the Yoruban nations of West Africa, into which she was initiated by a priestess. With its emphasis on nature-oriented rituals and the overlap between the worlds of the living and dead, it now forms a huge part of the way she sees the world. “There is before Santería, and after Santería,” Vásquez de la Horra said of her art practice. Saludos a Olorum (“Greetings to Olorum”) (2019), a typical “after Santería” work, references the Yoruba god of the skies, and shows a nude female silhouette saluting the sun.

Religion has helped Vásquez de la Horra explore connections to her forebears, some of whom descended from the Aymara group, indigenous to the region between present-day Peru and Bolivia. Recently, efforts to remedy the historical exclusion of artists working with ideas from Indigenous cultures have been gaining traction in the art world. For artists like Vásquez de la Horra, it’s a fertile moment that builds on decades of research and understanding. “I feel like now we have the opportunity to have the dialogue. We’re awakening,” she said, nodding to the symbolism of “The Awake Volcanoes,” the title of her current exhibition in Denver.

Using the symbology prevalent in her native Chile, Vásquez de la Horra often embeds her depictions of the female body and the Earth with fertility symbols, babies, and dressed-up skulls. Through masks and costumes, the artist theatrically evokes life and birth, showing the symbiosis between the world of living and the world of the dead. Many of her works are also embalmed with wax, giving them a skin-like texture that emphasizes their macabre nature. It’s a technique she’s worked with since 1997; she has also incorporated sand into her works. “I’m always doing something experimental,” she said.

Other experiments involve bringing her paper works to life in three dimensions. Unfolding and refolding an accordion drawing, she explained the “magic” of working with leporellos: When folded, the work conceals its contents. The leporello’s navigation of visibility and invisibility means something more to Vásquez de la Hora: In it, she sees an analogy for her own career. In the end, she is grateful, it seems, for her years of planting seeds, making her piles of paper-based work out of the institutional art world’s sight. “Artists like me, we’re very invisible but there’s something good about being invisible.…You have the opportunity to experiment, to develop.”

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Generative AI artist Casey Reas is now represented by Unit. https://ift.tt/guDAeZ3

Casey Reas, a Los Angeles–based artist known for his software installations and generative AI art, is now represented by London-based gallery Unit. The artist is currently presenting his debut solo exhibition with Unit, titled “Wet and Saturated Process,” on view until May 25th.

“Casey is widely considered to be the godfather of generative art, so we’re looking forward to showcasing new artworks that explore the impact of technology on our perception and understanding of the world,” a gallery spokesperson told Artsy.

Born in Troy, Ohio in 1972, Reas studied design at the University of Cincinnati before earning his MS in Media Arts and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Inspired by the possibilities of coding and automated technology, he began creating work derived from software programs. These software works—spanning from small works on paper to massive architectural installations—pioneered the use of technology and automated computer code to create static and moving images.

His work has been exhibited worldwide at major institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Today, he works as a professor of design media arts at the University of California, Los Angeles.

At Unit, “Wet and Saturated Process” features new iterations of the artist’s signature generative software as well as prints made in collaboration with photographer Erika Weitz, which use 19th-century cyanotype techniques to highlight the tactility of digitally rendered plant life.

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8 Must-See Shows at Berlin Gallery Weekend 2024 https://ift.tt/jo9yZaY

As spring blooms with new life, so does the upcoming edition of Berlin Gallery Weekend. Set to unfold between April 26th and 28th, this year holds special significance as it celebrates two monumental milestones. Firstly, the event commemorates its 20th anniversary, and secondly, it marks the inaugural edition under the new leadership of former head of communications at Schaubühne Berlin, Antonia Ruder, who brings a wealth of experience and a fresh vision.

And there’s plenty else to be excited about from the 55 galleries involved. Gallery hoppers can expect big things this year, with Andy Warhol’s later works taking over at BASTIAN and an intriguing dialogue between the early pieces of Hanne Darboven and Rosemarie Trockel at Galerie Crone. Keep an eye out for emerging talents like the 2024 Ars Viva Prize winner and the 2024 National Gallery Prize recipient Dan Lie, who will showcase their drawings and sculptures at Barbara Wien. Plus, don’t miss the dystopian rat race in Jenkin van Zyl’s work at Hua International.

Here, we pick the eight most notable shows from this year’s Berlin Gallery Weekend.

aaajiao, “A bit, A prompt”

SETAREH, Tiergarten

Apr. 26–May 25

Seed: 3864673680, 2023
aaajiao 徐文愷
SETAREH

Seed: 3632602548, 2023
aaajiao 徐文愷
SETAREH

Engaged across various online platforms as a media artist, blogger, activist, and programmer, aaajiao makes work that isn’t just about clicking buttons, but rather offers a window into the ever-evolving landscape of the internet. Exploring topics like data processing, the blogosphere, and China’s Great Firewall, he tackles the gritty realities of our online existence, often—and unsurprisingly—casting a shadow of dystopia over his creations.

Recently, he’s homed in on the experiences of the younger generation, the digital natives swimming in the currents of cyber technology and social media. This newest work tackles the ever-expanding influence of computers, and how they are attempting to shape and restrict what we can do. In various media works, such as an anime-style video installation or vibrant silk screen prints, he traces the ways that algorithms shape our online behaviors, making us increasingly divorced from reality (think of the TikTok generation, constantly dancing to the tune of the platform’s algorithms). Moving beyond simply pointing out the issues, aaajiao uses videos, paintings, and sculptures to explore ways to break free from this system, seeking a path to disengage from the internet’s control and find tranquility away from its distractions and negativity.

Xie Nanxing, “f o r a d e c a s a”

Capitain Petzel, Mitte

Apr. 25–June 1

f o r a d e c a s a #7, 2020
Xie Nanxing
Capitain Petzel

During a stroll through Lisbon, Xie Nanxing stumbled upon a notebook, its pages a vibrant green and adorned with the crisp white lines of a football pitch. Inspired by this unexpected find, Xie was prompted to create a series of eight paintings, the collection titled “f o r a d e c a s a,” a playful nod to the Portuguese phrase for “the away game.”

In each painting, the prominence of the white markings reveals itself on the canvas with varying intensity. Take, for example, f o r a d e c a s a #1 (2020), where the lines boldly contrast against the verdant backdrop, drawing the eye with their striking presence. In contrast, f o r a d e c a s a #8 (2020), perhaps the most enigmatic piece in the series, sees the markings turn more subdued, almost imperceptible save for a daring emerald circle that dominates the composition, reminiscent of a center circle. In this piece, Xie works masterfully with the “canvas print” technique, a signature style honed over his 15-year career.

Haley Mellin, “Biodiversity and Betadiversity”

DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Mitte

Apr. 24–June 29

Northern Highlands, Guatemala, ca. 2024
Haley Mellin
DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM

In her early teens back in the mid-1990s, Haley Mellin used to wander alone in the hills around her family’s home in San Anselmo, in northern California. Armed with only a sketchbook and watercolor paints, she’d create observational works of what she saw. Fast forward to today, and Mellin has emerged as a professional artist and dedicated conservationist, and is unveiling her first solo exhibition at DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM.

Prompted by her love for preserving nature, Mellin founded the nonprofit Art for Acres, an organization that aims to protect 33 million acres of wilderness by collaborating with the arts community, in 2017. Additionally, she works with museums in Germany, aiding them in climate education and sustainability efforts.

Through the paintings and drawings in her exhibition, Mellin showcases her lifelong commitment to environmental justice and preserving diverse ecosystems. In the show, Mellin goes back to her roots with a series of observational paintings and drawings of landscapes. Inspired by her time in the field, she uses gouache and charcoal mediums due to their eco-friendly nature. Ranging from expressive to intricately detailed, these artworks stand as visual reminders of the ecosystems she tirelessly champions.

Frida Orupabo, “All is broken in the night”

Galerie Nordenhake, Kreuzberg

Apr. 27–June 29

Hearts and Diamonds, 2024
Frida Orupabo
Galerie Nordenhake

Frida Orupabo began her artistic journey on Instagram in 2013, using it as a creative outlet and personal archive. It wasn’t long before filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa spotted her unique talent, and in 2017, invited her to join an exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Since then, Orupabo has transitioned into making stunning large-scale collages that have snagged some well-deserved recognition along the way, including being featured in The Artsy Vanguard 2020, the Royal Photographic Society Honorary Fellowship in 2023, and the SPECTRUM – Internationaler Preis für Fotografie in 2025.

Now, for her second solo showcase at Galerie Nordenhake, Orupabo unveils a fresh collection of her trademark prints, collages, and sculptures. Her pieces, intricately layered to sculpt complex forms, often feature Black, predominantly female figures, serving to rebuke the shallow portrayals of Black lives in mainstream media. Drawing from her own multicultural background—the artist was born in Norway to a white Norwegian mother and a Black Nigerian father—Orupabo reshapes archival materials to challenge the lack of representation. As she puts it, creating art that gazes back at the viewer is a powerful assertion of agency, a declaration that says, “I see you,” and refuses to be reduced to mere objecthood.

Julius von Bismarck, “Zwei Wölfinnen”

Esther Schipper, Mitte

Apr. 26–June 15

If you caught Julius von Bismarck’s exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie last year, you’ll remember his delightful kinetic sculptures. One standout was his life-size mechanical giraffe, gracefully tilting and bending on its own, its inner workings playfully exposed. Developing further on this series of monumental kinetic sculptures, his “Zwei Wölfinnen” (“two she-wolfs” in German) represent two versions of the animal: One resembles a taxidermied version, while the other is inspired by the iconic classical bronze of a she-wolf from the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

These two animatronic sculptures are constantly moving, shifting, and transforming to unveil their intricate mechanisms, emulating hand-held plush-puppet toys. Although this animal is traditionally seen as a predator, here, the wolf is seen as a pitiable, sympathetic creature, reducing it to little more than a limp rag doll. These two sculptures sum up ideas at the heart of Bismarck’s work, which explores the constructed notion of nature, and most especially the conceptual division between man from his surroundings.

Von Bismarck’s work will also be on view in a solo show at alexander levy’s Moabit space, where the artist will focus on AGI (artificial general intelligence) and its impact on the separation of humans from their own environment.

Kristina Schuldt, “BORDSTEIN”

Galerie EIGEN + ART, Mitte

Apr. 26–May 25

Study, 2020
Kristina Schuldt
Galerie EIGEN + ART

Kristina Schuldt, born in Moscow in 1982, brings a vibrant and provocative flair to her contemporary paintings, capturing the intricacies of women’s lives with a nod to the early 20th-century art scene. Influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, Schuldt’s canvases pulse with bold colors and fragmented shapes, reminiscent of Fernand Léger. Mixing oil and egg tempera, she blends abstraction and figuration, infusing her depictions of female forms with a dynamic energy. From intimate moments of reflection to physical confrontations between women, her work explores a range of themes, including the impact of social media on modern existence.

Having honed her craft under the mentorship of Neo Rauch, a prominent figure in the New Leipzig School, Schuldt has carved out her own space in the art world. Her participation in the acclaimed group exhibition “Now! Painting in Germany Today” in 2019, which took place across four prestigious German museums, solidified her reputation as a rising star in contemporary art. Now, for her exhibition with EIGEN + ART, Schuldt presents new works that continue her exploration into the tumultuous nature of emotion and offer a visceral experience of chaos and order, rebellion and transformation.

“territory,” featuring Mire Lee, Liu Yujia, Gala Porras-Kim, Tan Jing, and Zhang Ruyi

Sprüth Magers, Mitte

Apr. 27–June 29

In a first for the gallery, Sprüth Magers is making history this year with an exhibition dedicated exclusively to Asian female artists. Centered around the titular theme of “territory,” the show delves into the concept of borders and boundaries, exploring how they can confine, but also, paradoxically empower at the same time. Gala Porras-Kim and Zhang Ruyi are known for making powerful visual statements through their sculptural works, and here are using erosion and deterioration to symbolize different aspects of territoriality: Porras-Kim references the use of natural processes in demolishing historical buildings to evade preservation regulations, while Zhang Ruyi interrogates the complexities of urban life during China’s rapid urbanization in the 1990s.

Tan Jing and Mire Lee take a more subtle approach, creating immersive experiences out of an unconventional mix of materials, while Liu Yujia’s videos utilize drone footage to transcend physical borders. At a moment where discussions about our national limits are more contentious than ever, this exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the physical, symbolic, and metaphorical meanings of these thresholds.

Clemens von Wedemeyer, “Social Geometry”

KOW, Mitte

Apr. 26–June 29

Clemens von Wedemeyer’s film works reflect on power structures in social relations, history, and architecture. As poet and critic Quinn Latimer aptly put it, “The filmmaker holds up architecture as a kind of socio-political mirror to the people it shelters, employs, or turns out, while deftly exploiting the advantageous atmospherics that both modernist ruins and postmodernist edifices reliably provide.”

The artist’s newest film dives into some of the big questions about how we all fit together and how societies work. Using white dots on a black background, the film creates intricate patterns to imitate connections between people and groups. As the patterns get more complex, it becomes clear that understanding human behavior isn’t just about looking at models or machines.

Wedemeyer has been exploring these ideas for 25 years, and “Social Geometry” continues that journey, exploring the nature of individuals to large groups and the sometimes confusing things they do. The work makes us think about how we’ve tried to understand society in the past and reminds us that sometimes our statistical models can miss the mark.

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