This video shows an excerpt of the performance Strange Attractors by Aki Sasamoto at the Whitney Museum of American Art on the 26th February 2010. Aki Sasamoto’s contribution to the Whitney Biennial 2010 consists of the “careful arrangement of sculpturally altered found objects and insistent repetitions of performance that change and add to the feelings of the installation; the objects themselves provide guidance for the artist’ structured improvisation. Sasamoto demonstrates and develops a kaleidoscopic worldview out of deeply personal episodes and a hypothetical mapping of the universe. In an attempt to understand and feel the mathematical concept of strange attractors in dynamical systems, she jumbles her recent obsession for doughnuts, fortune-tellers, hemorrhoids, and things detected in the world”. (Excerpt from the press release).

A full-length version is available on our HD page.

Aki Sasamoto is a New York-based, Japanese artist, who works in performance, sculpture, dance, and other media. Sasamoto completed an MFA degree in visual arts at Columbia University, and is a recipient of Visual Art Grant from Rema Hort Mann Foundation, the Toby Fund Award from the Toby Fund, and many US and Japanese scholarships. She has worked with lower lights collective, Jeffrey Schiff, Eiko & Koma, Koosil-ja Hwang, Hari Krishnan, and Yvonne Meier.

In her own work, Sasamoto is interested in everyday gestures on nothing and everything. Today’s performance/installation builds on and shifts out of yesterday’s, remembering, modifying, developing. Her works are shown both in dance and visual arts venues in New York, San Francisco, Germany, New Zealand, and Japan.

Aki Sasamoto: Strange Attractors, Whitney Biennial 2010. Performance (Excerpt), February 26, 2010, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

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Until April 3, 2010, Mike Weiss Gallery in New York presents Remote Control, a multimedia installation including sculpture, photography and drawing by artist Sofi Zezmer. It’s the artist’s third solo exhibition at Mike Weiss Gallery. Work her work, she uses fragments of manmade, mostly synthetic materials.

Sofi Zezmer constructs her works by a gradual additive process dependent on intuitive responses to the materials and objects she uses forming color-saturated assemblages. Among the elements she incorporates are objects such as drinking straws, IV drip tubing, construction netting, film, foil, packing materials, bicycle helmets, cable ties and funnels. “In fusing the elements and breaking them down, Zezmer disrupts the common meaning assigned to the items and calls into question our own familiarity with them. Zezmer’s sculptures suggest irrational Duchampian hybrids of mechanical and biological systems. They are embodiments of the complexity of life in the modern age, ruminations on the omnipresence of mass-production, space travel and biotechnology.” (Excerpt from the press release).

Sofi Zezmer lives and works in Germany. Her work has been exhibited in numerous international gallery and museum exhibitions, such as her solo exhibitions at Museum Wiesbaden, at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan and her forty two foot long hanging sculpture, Es Darf Kein Mangel Herrschen, commissioned by the NASPA Bank, Wiesbaden, Germany.

Sofi Zezmer: Remote Control / Mike Weiss Gallery, New York. Opening reception, February 27, 2010.

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Ivorypress Art + Books and PaceWildenstein currently present an exhibition that represents a decision by Claes Oldenburg to re-explore a work that he and his wife Coosje van Bruggen had made together in 1990. The show The European Desktop is comprised of a number of sculptures – a shattered desk pad, a quill, an ink pot, a blotter, and postal scales. The European Desktop is the third and final work in a series of theatrical installations that grew out of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s performance with architect Frank Gehry for the 1995 Venice Biennale, Il Corso del Coltello (The Course of the Knife). The first two works in this series were The Haunted House and From the Entropic Library.

Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen: The European Desktop / Ivorypress Art + Books, Madrid / Spain. Press Preview, February 16, 2010.

This segment has been realized with the kind support of Turespaña.

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Zurcher Studio New York presents Bbbrrriiiaaannn Bbbeeellloootttttt: The Joy of File. The centerpiece of Brian Belott’s solo show at the gallery is a huge installation containing images of all sorts: pictures cut out of children’s books and old science textbooks, found photos and paper painted by Brian Belott himself. Part of the installation are also sound (talking, music and ambient noises collected from found cassette tapes and records and some sampled off of YouTube), glass paintings and mixed media books.

Brian Belott: The Joy of File / Zürcher Studio, New York. Opening reception, February 26, 2010.

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Independent is a new addition to the bunch of art fairs running concurrently to The Armory Show. It’s characterized by the organizers as part consortium, part collective, a contemporary art fair that lies somewhere between a collective exhibition and a reexamination of the art fair model, “reflecting the changing attitudes and growing challenges for artists, galleries, curators and collectors.”

The gallery list includes Ancient & Modern (London), Isabella Bortolozzi (Berlin), Rodeo (Istanbul) Boltelang (Zürich), Winkleman Gallery (New York), Zero (Milan), to name a few. There are no art fair typical booths, but custom spaces that are curated in relation to one another. Apart from the galleries’ presentations there are artist projects by The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Aaron Young, and others, and public programs such as a book signing with Ida Applebroog, performances and discussions.

Independent New York, Opening, March 4, 2010.

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This is a first look at The Armory Show 2010. This year’s edition introduces Armory Focus, a new section that features an important art community every year. The new section is premiering with Berlin, presenting 21 galleries from Germany’s capital. In total, The Armory Show features 267 galleries from 31 countries.

The Armory Show 2010, Vernissage, March 3, 2010.

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Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection at New Museum in New York is the title of the first U.S. exhibition of the Dakis Joannou Collection from Athens, Greece. It’s also the first show curated by Jeff Koons. Skin Fruit includes over 100 works by 50 international artists spanning several generations.

With Skin Fruit, the New Museum launches The Imaginary Museum, a new exhibition series that will periodically showcase leading private collections of contemporary art from around the world. The New Museum invited artist Jeff Koons to curate the first in this series. Jeff Koons had his first museum exhibition at the New Museum in 1981. Jeff Koons and Dakis Joannou are close friends for nearly three decades. Dakis Joannou is a philanthropist, arts partron, and New Museum Trustee based in Athens, Greece. In 1983, Joannou established the DESTE Foundation of Contemporary Art. Ever since, DESTE has been organizing exhibitions and supporting projects and publications internationally.

Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection / New Museum, New York. Press preview, March 2, 2010.

PS: Photo gallery after the jump.

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Thomas Schütte: Hindsight at the Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid is the most comprehensive retrospective of the German artist’s work ever organized in Europe. It offers visitors a detailed insight into his work. The works on display span from Thomas Schütte’s early works in the late 1970s to his latest creations. The show features little-known works as well as well-known ones such as the series of sculptures entitled Frauen (Women). The exhibition has been curated by Lynne Cooke and presents installations, sculptures, watercolors, etchings, photographs, and architectural models.

Thomas Schütte: Hindsight at Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid / Spain. Opening reception, February 16, 2010.

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LIVESupport is Nari Ward’s first solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York. The new body of work on display consists of sculptures, works on paper, and video. Subject-matter is the idea of support – physical, spiritual, social and judicial. The centerpiece of LIVESupport is “Sick Smoke”, a smoke-filled ambulance covered in opaque and transparent white vinyl, allowing only traces of its signage to be visible.

On Saturday, 6 March, 2010 at 1:30 PM Lehmann Maupin Gallery will present a discussion and Q+A session with Nari Ward. Ward’s work will also be on view at Lehmann Maupin’s Armory Show Stand (Pier 94, 911), 4-7 March, 2010.

Ward’s work is currently on view through 14 March, 2010 at the Studio Museum in Harlem as part of the exhibit 30 Seconds Off an Inch. Ward’s work has been included in the 2008 Prospect.1 New Orleans biennial, 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York and in Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany in 2003.

Nari Ward: LIVESupport / Lehmann Maupin, 540 West 26th Street, New York. Opening Reception, February 25, 2010.

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With the exhibition Miquel Barceló: 1983-2009. La Solitude Organisative, CaixaForum Madrid reviews the career of the Spanish artist in a major show. Organized by “La Caixa” Social and Cultural Outreach Projects, the exhibition presents more than 180 pieces, from the huge canvasses created from 1983 onwards to his most recent works. One of the latest, the monumental cast bronze elephant sculpture Gran Elefandret (2009), welcomes the visitors on the place in front of the building.

Miquel Barceló: 1983–2009. La Solitude Organisative / CaixaForum Madrid, Spain.

This segment has been realized with the kind support of Turespaña.

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The VitraHaus is the newest addition to the architecture park that the furniture company Vitra has realized during the last decades on their company site. The premises now features architecture by Nicholas Grimshaw (who realized the first building after a blaze that destroyed the old building and conceived the master plan for the site), Zaha Hadid (Fire Station), Antonio Citterio, Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza, SANAA, Jasper Morrison, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Jean Prouvé, and Frank Gehry (Vitra Design Museum).

One of the challenges the architects faced was to realize a building that didn’t dominate the existing architecture, especially Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum. The new building is no monolithic block. Instead, it looks like ordinary residential houses with saddle roof that have been stacked on top of each other randomly. For Herzog & de Meuron the very simple house form was an obvious choice, given the fact that Vitra is a furniture company. But the fact that the “houses” are crashed into each other, creates unexpected, intersecting spaces.

This video was shot during the press preview and shows the exterior as well as the interior of the new VitraHaus and an excerpt of Jacques Herzog discussing the VitraHaus concept.

VitraHaus, Press Preview. Vitra Campus, Weil am Rhein / Germany, February 12, 2010.

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This year’s ARCOmadrid_2010, the international art fair in Madrid, Spain, presents 238 galleries from 32 different countries. It’s the 29th issue of the international fair for contemporary art in Madrid, Spain. This video provides a walkthrough of ARCOmadrid_2010 on the first of the two days for professionals. This year’s guest city is Los Angeles.

Coming soon: Interview with the director of ARCO, Lourdes Fernandez.

This segment has been realized with the kind support of Turespaña.

ARCOmadrid_2010, 29th International Contemporary Art Fair, Madrid / Spain. Professional Day, February 17, 2009.

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Related Articles:

• David Bowen: Growth Modeling Device / VIDA 12.0 International Awards / ARCO 2010
• Michael D. Linares: Oasis / ATM Contemporary | Altamira / ARCO 2010
• Interview with ARCO Director Lourdes Fernández at ARCO 2010

For his Real Time Project, Dutch designer Maarten Baas became a film director. Thanks to new technologies in video, it’s possible to produce videos of 12- or even 24 hours in length. This makes it possible to film a movie that can function as a clock. Maarten Baas created a clock collection by using the language of cinema. The passing of the time is shown by people who are shot and screened in a true interval of 12 or 24 hours. There’s the Grandfather Clock (the screen is an integrated part of a Grandfather Clock showing a film of a man, drawing the hands of a clock), the Sweepers Clock (people are making the hands of a clock by sweeping garbage all day long), the Analog Digital (the LED lights are managed by someone who either paints them to make them dark, or wipes them clean to have the red light shine through), the World Clock (people in three different countries are indicating the local time, using their daily things to be the hands of a clock.). Maarten Baas’ Real Time has been shown at Design Miami Basel 2009, Milan Salone 2009, Design Miami 2009, and the Zuiderzeemuseum. The clocks will be available on Blu Ray Disc.

From February 19, 2010, Maarten Baas has a solo show at the Stedelijk Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch.

Maarten Baas: Real Time Project, Design Miami 2009. December 1, 2009.

Click here for an interview with Designer of the Year Maarten Baas at Design Miami 2009.

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Especially for the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Tyrolean-born artist Rudolf Stingel designed an installation which transforms the character of the iconic Mies van der Rohe building. Rudolf Stingel installed a giant carpet on the floor in the gallery’s large glass hall. The pattern of the carpet dates back to an original 19th century Indian Agra rug, and has been transposed into tones of black, white and gray. Over the carpet, a huge crystal chandelier hovers in the air. In addition to the installation, four new paintings are on view on the lower floor of the New National Gallery.

Rudolf Stingel. LIVE is part of the Dornbracht Installation Projects series of events and an exhibition by the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin), made possible by the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie.

Rudolf Stingel. LIVE / Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Press Preview and Opening, February 9, 2010.

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From the press release: “The powerful, graphic pattern and sensual opulence of the carpet stands in direct contrast with the austerity and formal reduction of the architecture. Much has been made of the sacredness of van der Rohes construction, something now seen in an entirely new light with the addition of the Indian-Persian influence in dcor, with the result that the modern temple loses something of its abstract severity. It continues to be a sacred site however – one with marked oriental overtones. 

A magnificent crystal chandelier hovers in the air above the carpet, reminiscent of places of great pomp and ceremony, and simultaneously serves to anchor the installation in an inextricably European context. After all, far from being entirely foreign, Indian and Persian carpets are a part of European cultural history, found among various other kinds of orientalia in the lounges and salons of the upper middle-classes, where, in the words of Rudolf Stingel himself, they can be seen as the expression of a tempered yearning for the other.”

The American International Fine Art Fair AIFAF in Palm Beach features international dealers representing all disciplines of fine art: classic Modernist and early Contemporary Art, antiquities, and jewelry. More than 80 galleries from over 13 countries are participating in the 14th edition of the fair. Impressions from the Vernissage preview party.

American International Fine Art Fair Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, USA. Vernissage, February 2, 2010.

PS: Special thanks to James Andrew!

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Related Articles:

• Interview with David Lester at AIFAF 2010
• American International Fine Art Fair Palm Beach 2010 / Highlights

In April 2009 Design Miami and Fendi startet the Craft Punk project that built upon the Design Miami’s Design Performance program, which was intended to showcase “design in action” and to allow Design Miami visitors to get insight into the process underlying the creation of experimental design. For Design Miami 2009, the design fair presented a collaboration between tech-designer Moritz Waldemeyer and pop group Ok Go. Moritz Waldemeyer customized Gibson guitars with laser lights and Fendi materials. When played, the guitars’ lasers interact with a video wall and leave traces that illustrate the music in real time. The guitars become like musical paintbrushes. Ok Go performed during Design Miami 2009, after the show the guitars have been given to Ok Go to use on their tour.

Widely recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting designers of his generation, Moritz Waldemeyer, aged 34, was born in East Germany. He moved to London thirteen years ago, where he has trained as an engineer at Kings College and completed his Masters degree in 2001. Since then, Waldemeyer has collaborated with many of the world’s top architects and fashion designers including Ron Arad, Zaha Hadid and Hussein Chalayan. His work fuses technology, art, fashion and design.

Gaining wide popularity with their award- winning video featuring an elaborately choreographed routine on treadmills, Ok Go is a guitar-based rock band originally from Chicago and now residing in Los Angeles. The band is composed of Damian Kulash (lead vocals and guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and backing vocals), Dan Konopka (drums and percussion), and Andy Ross (keyboards, guitar and backing vocals). Ok Go is set to release their third studio album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky in January 2010.

Moritz Waldemeyer & Ok Go Design Performance at Design Miami 2009. Miami / USA, December 1, 2009.

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For her solo exhibition at the gallery Eigen + Art in Berlin, Swiss artist Annelies Štrba extracts 111 Madonnas from their initially religious context, presents them as tiny pigment prints on canvas, and arranges them like mosaics side by side on the wall.

“Thereby the holly Madonna is no more the sacrificed mother giving birth to Jesus, but a transformation of her. Annelies Štrba took away her uniqueness, placed the prints like mosaics side by side and gave them a new aura. Facing the viewer as a mighty unity, he believes to be close to them. Nevertheless, he realises the impossibility of a true physical nearness to the pretty faces almost painfully by the reason that the conditional intensity of colour and light is destructed.” (excerpt from the press release). In addition to the 111 Madonnas, Annelies Štrba presents large-scale formats, parts from the cycle “Nyima”.

Annelies Štrba: icons / Galerie Eigen + Art Berlin. Opening reception, January 21, 2010.

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Silberkuppe is an independent space for contemporary art and culture located in Berlin. The gallery was founded by Dominic Eichler und Michel Ziegler. Since their inaugural opening in Spring 2008, Silberkuppe has initiated presentations, exhibitions, talks, screenings, music and performances. At the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, Switzerland, they present a selection of new, site-oriented productions from a diverse group of artists, titled “Old Ideas”. The show presents performative, sculptural and installative works by Phyllida Barlow, Dirk Bell, Gerry Bibby, Janette Laverrière, Shahryar Nashat und Josephine Pryde. Throughout the course of the exhibition, Silberkuppe will host a variety of social evenings and events.

From the press release: Phyllida Barlow (*1944, lives and works in London) usurps the architectural structure of the museum with her unique language of abstraction in a site specific installation “Hide”. Similarly, the artist Gerry Bibby (*1977, lives and works in Berlin) presents a landscape of spatial “citations” which were cast in concrete in his Berlin studio. With his new signage and sound work, Dirk Bell (*1969, lives and works in Berlin and London) taps the micro reverberations of light and sound emanated as a by-product of the built edifices of commerce. A new work from the Swiss artist Shahryar Nashat (*1975, lives and works in Berlin) directly involves the collection of the Kunstmuseum. Two sculptures by the Swiss artist Karl Geiser (1898 -1957) become the protagonists of Nashat’s specially produced film shot in the museum’s storage facilities. A reproduction of a two-part seating arrangement (1966) from the Swiss designer Janette Laverriére (*1909, lives and works in Paris) together with two eye- shaped coffee tables (1990) bearing the name “Black Eye”, represents the more discursive aspects of Silberkuppe agenda. Josephine Pryde (*1967, lives and works in Berlin and London) is showing new photographic works that transgress into a more sculptural medium.
In May 2009, Silberkuppe organised a two week programme with 17 international artists in the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden as part of the ‘7 x 14’ exhibition series. More recently, Silberkuppe was invited by the Hayward Gallery in London to stage a project centered around the history of project-based independent and collective cultural production in a reunified Berlin. While continuing an active programme in their Berlin space, in 2010 Silberkuppe will also be mounting projects with the Kunsthall Bergen in Norway and Open Space at the Art Cologne.

Silberkuppe: Old Ideas, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel. Opening reception, January 15, 2010.

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Nicolas Krupp Contemporary Art Gallery in Basel currently shows new works by Swiss artist Davide Cascio. Davide Cascio’s work features elements of art, architecture and design. At Nicolas Krupp he presents a series of collages and two sculptures.

Davide Cascio was born in 1976 in Lugano, Switzerland, where he lives and works. From 1992 to 1996 he studied at the Centro Scolastico Industrie Artistiche in Lugano, from 1996 to 2000 at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, Italy, and 1998 at the School of Fine Arts in Athens. He participated in group shows such as “Rooms look back / Insert III” at Kunsthalle Basel, had residencies in Cairo and Rome, and received several prices and awards such as the Swiss Art Award 2007 and 2008. Currently he has a residency in Paris at Le Pavillon, laboratoire de Creation du Palais de Tokyo.

Davide Cascio at Nicolas Krupp Contemporary Art, Basel / Switzerland. Opening, January 8, 2010.

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Until mid-March 2010 Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany shows the first major retrospective of Franz West (born 1947 in Vienna) in Europe. The Austrian sculptor is considered as one of the most influential artists of our times.

On display are over 40 works dating from 1972 to the present, which in some cases the artist has grouped together in themed constellations. The title Autotheater (Auto-Theatre) points to the performative, interactive dimension of his work. According to Franz West his Passstücke (Adaptives) “are sculptures as it were that one can pick up and use to gesticulate however one sees fit”. West has also extended this dialogue with the viewer to include his furniture sculptures, which he has produced since the mid-eighties. Since the nineties he has worked increasingly with others artists, such as for instance Michelangelo Pistoletto (Spiegel in Kabine mit Passstücken = Mirror in Cubicle with Adaptives) and Heimo Zobernig (Auto Sex).

The exhibition has been conceived in close collaboration with the artist and presents his works in new combinations and in new contexts.

Franz West’s ties with Cologne go back many years. In 1981 Museum Ludwig’s director Kasper König showed West’s Adapatives for the first time in the exhibition Westkunst. In 1998 the Gesellschaft für moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig awarded Franz West the Wolfgang Hahn Prize and purchased his Kantine for the museum. As early as in 2001 the museum arranged for a Franz West installation to be exhibited on a short-term basis as part of the “Museum of our Wishes” – Kasper König’s first exhibition at Museum Ludwig. This was followed in 2006 by the museum purchasing the work Plural (2006). Thus, Franz West ‘s retrospective “Auto-Theatre” constitutes a logical progression in the museum’s enduring interest in this artist.

The loans come both from the artist’s studio and internationally renowned museums and private collections, including the Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, the Generali Foundation, Mumok Wien, the Essl Collection, Kunstsammlung NRW, Centre Pompidou, the Grässlin Collection, Anton and Annick Herbert.

The exhibition will move on in May 2010 to Madre in Napels and in September 2010 to Kunsthaus Graz.

Franz West: Autotheater / Retrospective at Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Exhibition walkthrough, January 6, 2009.

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