This video provides you with a walk through Frieze New York Art Fair 2013, the second edition of the fair on Randall’s Island.

Frieze New York art fair 2013, Randall’s Island, New York, May 10, 2013. Video by Shimon Azulay.

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Pulse is another art fair that chose to run concurrently to Frieze New York instead of Armory Show. Among the galleries participating in the fair at the Metropolitan Pavilion are Ethan Cohen (New York), Stefan Roepke (Cologne), Tokyo Gallery + BATP (Tokyo), z2o Galleria Sara Zanin (Rome). This video provides you with a walkthrough of the fair.

Pulse New York, The Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, May 9, 2013. Video by Shimon Azulay.

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Out now: VernissageTV PDF-magazine No. 24, May 2013.

In this issue we look back at selected exhibitions, such as Markus Müller’s solo show at Nicolas Krupp in Basel, Ohad Meromi at Gallery Diet in Miami, Keith Farquhar at New Jerseyy in Basel, Sverre Bjertnes’ collaborative exhibition at White Columns New York, and Jon Kessler’s immersive installation at the Swiss Institute in New York.
For Magazine No. 24 we have also produced exclusive “video portraits” of nine of Jean Tinguely’s kinetic works that will be accessible only for a limited time. These video portraits are accompanying the photo series shot on the occasion of Tinguely@Tinguely, the large-scale retrospective at Museum Tinguely in Basel.
Another exclusive contribution is The Garden of Unearthly Delights, Los Angeles-based light and space artist Susan Kaiser Vogel’s presentation of artist Mollie McKinley, including a conversation between Susan Kaiser Vogel and Mollie McKinley.
Finally, there are three architecture related photo series: We have a look at Herzog & de Meuron’s new halls for Messe Basel, Hilario Candela’s abandoned Miami Marine Stadium, and Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay.

Click image or this link to download the magazine (55 MB) or hit the jump to view the magazine in Issuu Reader, and get the links to the related videos.

All issues are available in our Magazine section.

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Related Articles:

• Herzog & de Meuron Architects: Messe Basel New Hall
• Jon Kessler: The Web / Swiss Institute Contemporary Art New York
• Natalie Kovacs Curates “In Conversation” With Lita Albuquerque and Mollie McKinley at Spring/Break Art Show 2013
• Markus Müller at Nicolas Krupp Contemporary Art, Basel
• Ohad Meromi: The Working Day / Gallery Diet, Miami
• Keith Farquhar: Abstract Printings at New Jerseyy, Basel
• Tinguely@Tinguely. A New Look at Jean Tinguely's Work. Retrospective at Museum Tinguely, Basel

In Chicago, Queer Thoughts Gallery presents And Then, the first solo presentation in America by Japan-based artist Kaoru Arima. Arima was born in 1969 in Aichi, Japan. The artist has exhibited extensively in Japan at venues including Misako and Rosen (Tokyo), and was included in the group exhibition The Age of Micropop: The Next Generation of Japanese Artists at The Art Tower Mito (Mito). Arima has shown internationally with Galerie Dennis Kimmerich (Düsseldorf), in group shows at Galerie Catherine Bastide (Brussels), Bortolami (New York), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh) and Shane Campbell Gallery, Lincoln Park (Chicago).

For the solo show And Then, Kaoru Arima presents new paintings on canvas and works on paper. For Arima, the works represent a formal development from his continued series of drawings on whited-out newspapers.

Kaoru Arima: And Then. Solo exhibition at Queer Thoughts Gallery, Chicago. Opening reception, May 3, 2013. Video by Francisco Cordero-Oceguera.

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Kapoor in Berlin is the first comprehensive exhibition of Anish Kapoor in Berlin. The Indian-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor is known for his spectacular sculptures and installations, such as the Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago. For his exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau he uses the whole ground floor of the building, including the atrium. In this video, Anish Kapoor talks about the concept of the show and specific works, such as the huge kinetic installation in the atrium of the Martin-Gropius-Bau.

Kapoor in Berlin. Anish Kapoor solo exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (Germany). Interview with Anish Kapoor. Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2013. Video by Frantisek Zachoval.

PS: For more videos on Anish Kapoor, visit our archive.

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Kapoor in Berlin is currently the most comprehensive exhibition of one of the world’s most important contemporary artist. At the Martin-Gropius-Bau art lovers can see more than 70 works from the 1980s to the present. The exhibition mainly presents works that have been shown in major exhibitions such as Documenta and La Biennale di Venezia. For Kapoor in Berlin, the artist has produced a new version of his work Descent into Limbo (1992),which was one of the highlights of documenta IX. The viewer can also see Kapoor’s gleaming high-grade steel mirrors. The central installation of the show is the piece Symphony for a Beloved Sun.

In this interview, Anish Kapoor explains how he worked with the exhibition space with its specific architectural style and its own history. He talks about the importance of the original installation of the Leviathan, which was created for the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011, and the monumental installation in the atrium of the Martin-Gropius-Bau: Symphony for a Beloved Sun.



Selected solo exhibitions of Anish Kapoor include: ‘Objects’, Seoul: Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (2012); ‘Anish Kapoor: Flashback’, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2011); ‘Monumenta’, Grand Palais, Paris (2011); ‘Anish Kapoor’, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan (2011); ‘Anish Kapoor: Delhi / Mumbai’, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi and Mehboob Studios, Mumbai (2010); ‘Turning the World Upside Down’, Kensington Gardens, London (2010); ‘Anish Kapoor’, Museo Guggenheim de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo, Bilbao (2010); ‘Anish Kapoor’, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, MIMA, Middlesbrough (2010); ‘Turning the World Upside Down’, Kensington Gardens, London (2010); ‘Anish Kapoor: Shooting into the Corner’, MAK Museum, Vienna (2010); ‘Drawings’, Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2009); ‘Memory’ Guggenheim, New York (2009); ‘Place/No Place: Anish Kapoor in Architecture’, Royal Institute of British Architects, London (2008); ‘Anish Kapoor’, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2007); ‘Anish Kapoor, Sky Mirror’ Rockefeller Centre, New York (2006); ‘Anish Kapoor Japanese Mirrors’, Scai The Bathhouse, Tokyo (2005); ‘My Red Homeland’, KUB, Kunsthaus Bregenz (2003); ‘Marsyas’, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2002-03); Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (1993); Mala Galerija, Moderna Galerija Ljubljana, Museum of Modern Art, Slovenia (1994); ‘Anish Kapoor, XLIV Biennale di Venezia’, British Pavilion, Venice (1990).

The Eternal Internet Brotherhood is a cooperative camp between artists, curators and writers. The 1st Eternal Internet Brotherhood took place on Anafi, an island located on the edge of the Cyclades, used in ancient times as an “interface” for mythological adventures. The 2nd Eternal Internet Brotherhood took place in April 2013 in Xilitla, Mexico. Among the participants were Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ceci Moss, Angelo Plessas, Jacinto Astiazarán, among others (a complete list of participants is available after the break).

Organizer Angelo Plessas describes the Eternal Internet Brotherhood as an experiment and a situation: “During the Eternal Internet Brothehood we all stay and work closely in a common mental and/or physical environment, and we organically create new concepts swarmed by data, dreams, feelings, knowledge, visions and sounds.”

The Eternal Internet Brotherhood 2013 was organized and curated by Angelo Plessas and Mirko de Lisi (assistant curator). Jacinto Astiazarán compiled in situ footage of the weeklong event with other participants’ online contributions, which consisted of audio recordings, texts, 3D models and website projects to create this video for VernissageTV.

The Eternal Internet Brotherhood, April 14-20, 2013, Xilitla, Mexico. Video by Jacinto Astiazarán.

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The Eternal Internet Brotherhood 2013 participants:

Andreas Angelidakis (GR/NO), Ben Aqua (USA), Apache (USA), Jacinto Astiazarán (MX), Harry Burke (UK), Mike Calvert (USA), Cibelle Cavalli Bastos (BR/UK), Vincent Charlebois (CA), Tyler Coburn (USA), Gerardo Contreras (MX), Birch Cooper (USA), Rhys Coren – Bubblebyte.org (UK), Petra Cortright (USA), Jesse Darling (UK), Theodore Darst (USA), Zachary Davis (USA), Brian Droitcour (USA), Cecile B Evans (UK), Joe Hamilton (AUS), Marc Horowitz (USA), Attilia Fattori Franchini- Bubblebyte.org (IT/UK), Rozsa Farkas – Arcadia_Missa (UK), Manuel Fernandez (ES), Paul Flannery (UK), Marina Fokidis (GR), Emilio Gomariz (ES), Brian Khek (USA), Anastasios Logothetis (SE/GR), Miltos Manetas(GR/IT), Michael Manning (USA), Jaime Martinez (MX), Theo Michael (GR/GB), Ceci Moss (USA), Brenna Murphy (USA), Junk jet (Asli Serbest/Mona Mahall) (TR/DE), Hans Ulrich Obrist (CH), Eva Papamargariti (GR), Yuri Pattison (UK), Angelo Plessas (GR/IT), Rafael Rozendaal (NL), Nicolas Sassoon (USA), Hugo Scibetta (FR), Pascual Sisto (USA), Jasper Spicero (USA), Zak Stone (USA), Priscilla Tea (IT), Johannes Thumfart (DE), Panos Tsagaris (GR/USA), Mai Ueda (JP), Lance Wakeling (USA), Krist Wood (USA).

After its premiere at the Barbican Centre in London in October 2012, Random International’s Rain Room is now installed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Follow us inside: it’s raining, but you won’t get wet (promised).

Random International’s immersive environment Rain Room is a major component of the MoMA PS1 exhibition EXPO 1: New York. The installation is presented in the lot directly adjacent to The Museum of Modern Art. Simply put, Rain Room is a field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected. Thus, Rain Room offers visitors the experience of controlling the rain. “The work invites visitors to explore the roles that science, technology, and human ingenuity can play in stabilizing our environment. Using digital technology, Rain Room creates a carefully choreographed downpour, simultaneously encouraging people to become performers on an unexpected stage and creating an intimate atmosphere of contemplation.” Watch also our video covering the presentation of Rain Room at The Curve, Barbican Center and our interview with the founders of Random International, Stuart Wood, Florian Ortkrass and Hannes Koch.

Random International’s Rain Room turned out to be a lot of fun for the visitors, but it’s also a very complex installation. It consists of injection moulded tiles, solenoid valves, pressure regulators, 3D tracking cameras, wooden frames, steel beams, a hydraulic management system, and a grated floor. The system is controlled by custom software.

Random International are known for their digital-based contemporary art. The London-based studio creates artworks and installations that explore behaviour and interaction.

rAndom International: Rain Room. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. May 10, 2013. Video by Shimon Azulay.

For more videos featuring Random International click here!

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Random International was founded in 2005 by Stuart Wood, Florian Ortkrass and Hannes Koch. They first met when they were students at the Royal College of Art in London. The studio is based in a converted warehouse in Chelsea, London. Random International have exhibited at art fairs, museums and biennials with works and installations such as Pixelroller, Temporary Graffiti, Audience, Study For A Mirror, Swarm Light, Self Portrait, Temporary Light Printing Machine, and Rain Room. The presentation of Rain Room at The Museum of Modern Art is the U.S. premiere of this environment. The piece debuted at Barbican Centre, London, in October 2012.

Photo set:

Shirin Neshat’s solo show The Book of Kings at Faurschou Foundation in Beijing, China features a new body of photography works and a video installation by the internationally acclaimed Iranian artist. The project is inspired by the 60.000 verse epic poem, Shahnameh (Book of Kings), by the 11th century Islamic conquest of Persia. Interweaving history, poetry, music, philosophy and politics, the series is set against the backdrop of the recent Arab Spring, and the Iranian Green Movement, which brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets across Iran in June 2009 in protest against corrupt power. As Shahnameh cast the Islamic conquest of Persia as a tragedy, so The Book of Kings commemorates the countless masses of unknown citizens who courageously sacrificed themselves in the name of justice across the Middle East and Arab World.

Shirin Neshat: The Book of Kings / Faurschou Foundation, Beijing. April 13, 2013. Video by Diana Coca.

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Werner Aisslinger is a multiple award-winning product designer and co-founder of the Berlin Design Festival DMY. For his current exhibition at Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, he transformed the venue into a “Home of the Future”. Home of the Future is Werner Aisslinger’s first institutional survey exhibition in Germany. The show presents his central theme of material transfer in the form of numerous pieces of furniture and objects. On display, among other things, are modular construction kits, such as stowage spaces and shelves, the renowned Loftcube installation of 2007 in the sculpture garden at Haus am Waldsee, as well as energy storage and renewable furniture, Aisslinger‘s most recent ventures.

Werner Aisslinger: Home of the Future at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin. Interviews with Katja Blomberg (Director, Haus am Waldsee) and Werner Aisslinger. Berlin, Germany, April 21, 2013. Video by Frantisek Zachoval.

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Werner Aisslinger was born in 1964 in Nördlingen, Germany. He studied Design at the University of Arts (Hochschule der Künste) in Berlin. He freelanced at Jasper Morrison and Ron Arad in London, and founded Studio Aisslinger in 1993. During his career, he received numerous prestigious awards. His work is part of permanent collections of international museums such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the French Fonds National d´Art Contemporain in Paris, the Museum Neue Sammlung in Munich, and the Vitra Design Museum in Weil, Germany. His company has offices in Berlin and Singapore. Werner Aisslinger lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

One of his most spectacular works is the so-called LoftCube, a mobile house that can be relocated to a new place by helicopter, similar to Matti Suuronen’s famous Futuro. But Werner Aisslinger’s approach is based on the use of the latest technologies, materials and techniques, rather than on futuristic looks. His “Juli chair” was the first item of furniture to use a new type of foam called “polyurethane integral foam” and became the first German chair design to be selected as a permanent exhibit at the MoMA in New York since 1964.

“Nowadays, future is not about spaceship design, it’s more about systems, about special ideas, which have an impact on your daily life.”

One of the ideas is the concept of upcycling and tuning: prolonging life cycles of products. Another is, also with sustainability in mind, the plantation of products:

“My future vision is that products are planted, that there’s plantations of products, it’s not industrial production any more: You buy some seed in a shop, one is a chair, one is table, the other is whatever, lamp, and then you kind of plant your own products.”

Other projects Werner Aisslinger presents in his exhibition are focusing on urban farming and aquaponics. The retrospective runs until June 9, 2013.

The second exhibition that opened at Museum Ludwig in Cologne (Germany) in time for Art Cologne 2013 was a solo show of Phil Collins, titled In every dream home a heartache. The exhibition that runs parallel to Andrea Fraser’s retrospective features videos and installations that deal with popular culture.

Phil Collins: In every dream home a heartache / Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Opening reception, April 17, 2013.

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Press text:

Having grown up in the North of England in the 70s and 80s, Phil Collins has always had a passionate interest in music, television and popular culture. In his films, photographs and live events, he investigates the relationship between the camera and its subjects, and the affective potential of various recording media in their everyday context. Collins’ practice is focused on close engagement with people and communities, which over the years have included, amongst others, disco-dancing Palestinians, fans of The Smiths over three continents, and teachers of Marxism-Leninism in the former DDR. The projects are often announced through newspaper ads and poster campaigns, or take the form of castings and press conferences, so as to provide a wide-reaching platform for encounters predicated on high emotional stakes. Throughout, Collins’ work reflects his commitment to myriad forms of experience across the social spectrum, and his belief in the power of intimacy and desire within the public sphere.

For his exhibition at the Museum Ludwig, Collins and his production initiative Shady Lane Productions have realised my heart’s in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand’s in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught, a new work in collaboration with guests of GULLIVER, a survival station for the homeless located in the centre of Cologne. There, Collins installed a phone booth with a free line that anyone could use for unlimited international calls on the agreement that the conversations were anonymously recorded. The selected material was then posted to a group of international musicians, serving as the starting point for original new songs presented in the exhibition as 7″ vinyl records in specially designed listening booths which overlook the city’s central station. The project includes contributions by legendary figures such as David Sylvian, Scritti Politti, Lætitia Sadier and Damon & Naomi, the trailblazing experimental and indie acts (Demdike Stare, Planningtorock, Maria Minerva, Heroin In Tahiti, Pye Corner Audio, Peaking Lights), local heroes across different generations (Elektronische Musik aus: Köln, Pluramon, Cologne Tape), and a special guest turn from the original German superstar Julia Hummer.

my heart’s in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand’s in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught is a headfirst dive into a city, tuning in to its many unheard stories and facets of its life that are routinely overlooked. Collins is interested in the lyrical and epic potential of the human voice, specifically in relation to a declining landline technology. He looks at the emotional relationship we have with the telephone when it functions as a measure of our social existence. The project brings back into focus the almost forgotten aspects of a telephone conversation: its physicality and romance; its ceremonial and performative nature; its ability to create and counter distance, and to conjure up the poetry of the spoken word – turn of phrase, the longing for someone or somewhere. Structuring it as an opportunity for a bargain, Collins isolates and dramatises the moment of communication as an intimate and ambivalent encounter.

Other works in the exhibition are spawns of the same unholy alliance between pop and politics. They both feature original soundtracks by Welsh musician Gruff Rhys and North Wales surf band Y Niwl. This Unfortunate Thing Between Us (2011) is an installation based on TUTBU.TV, an alternative shopping channel performed and broadcast live on German national television. Hosted by a cast of actors and porn workers (Julia Hummer, Susanne Sachsse, Sharon Smith, Judy Minx, Pau Pappel, Matthias Matschke, Trystan Pütter, Niels Bormann, Christian Kärgel, Marcel Schlutt), TUTBU.TV sold real life experiences in place of mass-produced commodities, offering a tantalising glimpse into what could be the future of consumer television. Conceived on the other side of the world in Malaysia, the short film the meaning of style (2011) is a tropical fantasy featuring a cast of anti-fascist skinheads and exotic butterflies, which provides the frame for a poetic meditation on the relationship between British colonial history and youth subcultures in South-East Asia.

Phil Collins would like to thank all the collaborators and artists who have contributed to this exhibition and who remain a constant and insistent inspiration.

Curator: Anna Brohm

After four successful years in Paris, France, Cutlog art fair launches its first New York edition. The fair runs from May 10-13, 2013. Cutlog New York focuses on showing cutting-edge and established galleries that promote the work of contemporary artists. The fair features 45 galleries and curators that present art, installations, performances, talks, and projections. As part of the outdoor projections program that runs from 8pm – Midnight, Cutlog presents New York Close Up Is Now with simultaneous screeings of Art21′s New York Close Up, Noah Becker’s New York Is Now, and VernissageTV’s Around the World in one go.

Cutlog New York is located in a former public school in Manhattan’s Lower East Side (107 Suffolk Street). In this video, we attend the preview of the fair on May 9, 2013. Video by Shimon Azulay.

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In this video we look back at Art Beijing 艺术北京 2013, the 8th edition of the art fair in Beijing, China. Around 150 art galleries and institutions, mostly from Beijing, participated in Art Beijing 2013. The fair features both a contemporary and classic art section. Among the participating galleries this year were Chinese and international galleries such as ShanghART, Tang Contemporary, Continua, Beijing Commune, Chambers Fine Art, Halcyon Gallery, and Asia Art Center. According to the organizers, more than a third of the galleries have attended Art Beijing for the first time.

Art Beijing 艺术北京 Art Fair 2013, Agricultural Exhibition Center, Beijing, China. Video by Diana Coca.

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Ideas City is a four-day, biennial festival of conferences, workshops, and an streetfest in New York. Ideas City was founded by the New Museum in 2011. It’s a major collaborative initiative between hundreds of arts, education, and community organizations. Ideas City explores the future of cities around the globe with a focus on arts and culture. The 2013′s theme was Untapped Capital, focusing on resources that are under-recognized or underutilized in our cities. In this video, we attend the Ideas City StreetFest on 4th May, 2013 and have a look at what ideas artists, architects, poets, technologists, and other creative people have to shape their city.

Ideas City StreetFest, New Museum, New York. May 4, 2013. Video by Shimon Azulay.

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Stefan Müller presents new paintings in his solo exhibition titled Allerliebste Tante Polly at Koelnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, Germany. The abstract paintings are mounted on a white fence-like wall, referencing the fence in Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The exhibition runs until June 30, 2013.

Stefan Müller: Allerliebste Tante Polly / Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (Germany). Opening reception, April 17, 2013.

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Tracey Emin: I Followed You To The Sun is a solo show and two-part exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York that features over 100 works of art. The show includes series of new bronze sculptures, paintings, drawings, embroideries, and a short film.

A series of seven bronze sculptures is the centerpiece of Tracey Emin’s newest exhibition. The artist created the sculptures over the past year at the Long Island foundry used by Louise Bourgeois, with whom Emin had collaborated before her death in 2010. Each bronze is engraved with the artist’s poetic confessions. Like ancient sarcophagi, are adorned with tiny animal figurines and hand-sculpted human figures.

Tracey Emin: I Followed You To The Sun, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York. Opening reception, May 2, 2013. Video by Shimon Azulay.

PS: Watch our coverage of Tracey Emin’s big retrospective at Kunstmuseum Bern, Tracey Emin – 20 Years.

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Press text:

Lehmann Maupin is honored to present Tracey Emin’s fifth solo show in New York from 2 May to 22 June 2013. Tracey Emin: I Followed You To The Sun is a two-part exhibition featuring over 100 works of art, including a series of new bronze sculptures, paintings and drawings, embroideries, and a short film. Lehmann Maupin has published a special artist monograph on the occasion of the exhibition. The gallery will host a book signing with the artist at 201 Chrystie Street on Wednesday, 1 May from 5 to 7 PM. The following evening, on Thursday, 2 May, Tracey Emin will be present for opening receptions at 540 West 26th Street and 201 Chrystie Street from 6 to 8 PM.

Regarded as one of the world’s most significant contemporary artists, Tracey Emin is internationally recognized for her blunt and revealing style, which elicits a broad range of emotions from shock to empathy to self-reflection. Drawing on personal experiences, Emin often reveals emotional situations with brutal honesty and poetic humor in a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, embroidery, neon, installation, sculpture, and film. This sprawling, two-part exhibition covers all aspects of Emin’s creative output and continues to reveal her most intimate internal narratives.

The centerpiece of Emin’s newest exhibition is a series of seven bronze sculptures that she created over the past year at the Long Island foundry used by Louise Bourgeois, with whom Emin had collaborated before her death in 2010. Each bronze is engraved with the artist’s poetic confessions, and like ancient sarcophagi, are adorned with tiny animal figurines and hand-sculpted human figures.

At 201 Chrystie Street the focus is on a very personal collection of gouache on paper drawings entitled Lonely Chair drawings, which are the primary subject of the accompanying exhibition catalogue. In this series of self-portraits, Emin depicts a solitary female figure in her signature gestural style. The images are drawn from photographs Emin took of herself in France and convey poignant emotions of longing and sadness.

The show will also feature a short film entitled “Love Never Wanted Me.” The film follows a wild fox on the grounds of a secluded estate as Emin narrates a haunting account of the pain associated with fleeting love, saying at one point, “The broken heart is a lonely world and this is the love that I know.”

In December 2013, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, will present the first solo museum exhibition devoted to Emin’s work in the United States. Curated by Bonnie Clearwater, the Museum’s Executive Director, Angel Without You will focus solely on Emin’s use of neon, a medium that she began utilizing in 1997. Since then, Emin’s illuminated confessions rendered in her personal handwriting have become widely regarded for their poignancy and the universality of her message. This past February, Emin debuted her first public project in New York’s Times Square, as part of Midnight Moment organized by s[edition], the Times Square Advertising Coalition, and Times Square Arts. Each night from 11:57 PM to Midnight, six of her most iconic neon messages were screened on the Times Square Jumbotrons in a silent and moving tribute to love.

Tracey Emin (b. 1963, London) was raised in the seaside town of Margate on the English coast. After leaving school at an early age, Emin enrolled at the Maidstone College of Art, Kent, to study printmaking. She continued her studies at the prestigious Royal College of Arts, London, where she earned a Master’s degree in painting. In 1999, Lehmann Maupin presented Tracey Emin’s first solo exhibition in the United States, Every Part of Me’s Bleeding. Following this critically acclaimed exhibition, Emin exhibited her infamous installation “My Bed” at the Tate Gallery, for which she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize. In 2007, she was chosen to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale, becoming the second female artist to ever do so. That same year, Emin was made a Royal Academician and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art, a Doctor of Letters from the University of Kent and a Doctor of Philosophy from London Metropolitan University. In January 2013, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Emin a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts.

In recent years, Emin has been the subject of a number of retrospective museum exhibitions around the world, including a major solo show at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina, which encompassed a collection of her early films (2012); She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea, a solo exhibition at Turner Contemporary in her hometown of Margate (2012); and Tracey Emin: 20 Years, the artist’s first retrospective which originated at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2008), before traveling to the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga (2008) and the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland (2009).

Emin’s work can be found in many of the world’s most prestigious public collections, including the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; British Museum, London; Camden Arts Center, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Denver Art Museum; Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow; Hara Museum, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Portrait Gallery, London; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Saatchi Collection, London; San Francisco Museum of Art; Tate Gallery, London; and Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis.

The artist lives and works in London, England.

The Hunter and the Factory at Fundación / Colección Jumex in Mexico City that brings together works by Doug Aitken, Miguel Calderón, Maurizio Cattelan, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Sam Durant, Olafur Eliasson, Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Rodney Graham, Jonathan Hernández & Alberto Baraya, Roman Ondák, Damián Ortega, Fernando Ortega, Ugo Rondinone, Anri Sala, Wolfgang Tillmans, Danh Vo, among others. The Hunter and the Factory, curated by Magalí Arriola and Juan Gaitán, “is an exhibition comprising a selection of artworks from La Colección Jumex that combined with other artistic proposals generates an allegorical environment pertaining to the relations that arise between urban spaces and nature, as well as the problems that these generate. In addition to broadly engaging with subjects such as the dystopian character of the contemporary city, the consequences of industrialization, or the lack of cultural and public spaces, this group of artworks also leads us to explore and question the role that an institution, such as Fundación/Colección Jumex, can potentially play in its immediate surrounding, in this case, Ecatepec.”

The Hunter and the Factory at Fundación / Colección Jumex in Mexico City, April 11, 2013. Video by Diago García Sotomoro.

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Coinciding with Art Cologne 2013, Museum Ludwig in Cologne (Germany) opened two exhibitions: A solo show of Phil Collins, and a retrospective of Andrea Fraser. The Los Angeles-based artist Andrea Fraser (b. 1965; Billings, Montana) received the Wolfgang Hahn Prize for 2013, awarded annually by the Museum Ludwig’s Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst. The prize honors contemporary artists whose oeuvre is internationally recognized. Andrea Fraser is seen to have made a vital contribution to current issues in contemporary art. Fraser has produced a wide-ranging ouvre of performances, videos and texts.

After Fraser’s last survey exhibition in Europe in 2003 at the Hamburger Kunstverein, this large presentation at the Museum Ludwig aims to investigate the artist’s new critical direction. The show presents Fraser’s early works, along with her new alignment in recent works. Over and beyond this, the exhibition focuses on Andrea Fraser as a performance artist. She will give the first European performance of her latest full-length piece, Men on the Line, which she premiered in 2012 in Los Angeles. Two slightly older performances have also been staged during the opening by Fraser herself, while May I Help You from 1991 will be performed for the visitors during the exhibition by specially instructed actors.

Andrea Fraser: Wolfgang Hahn Prize 2013 / Retrospective at Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Opening reception and award ceremony, April 20, 2013.

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With the Wolfgang Hahn Prize COLOGNE, the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst pays tribute to the work of contemporary artists and purchases a work for Museum Ludwig. The acquisition prize is in memory of Wolfgang Hahn (1924 – 1987), head conservator at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum / Museum Ludwig and a far-sighted Cologne collector. An ongoing line of development in the artist’s creative output and international recognition within professional circles are two of the requirements for the prize, along with the stipulation that the artist’s oeuvre is not yet adequately represented in Museum Ludwig but important for the continuance of the collection. The budget for the prize amounts to a maximum of 100,000 euros per annum. Since 1994, the Wolfgang Hahn Prize COLOGNE has been awarded to: James Lee Byars (1994), Lawrence Weiner (1995), Günther Förg (1996), Cindy Sherman (1997), Franz West (1998), Pipilotti Rist (1999), Hubert Kiecol (2000), Raymond Pettibon (2001), Isa Genzken (2002), Niele Toroni (2003), Rosemarie Trockel (2004), Richard Artschwager (2005), Mike Kelley (2006), Peter Doig (2008), Christopher Wool (2009), and Fischli/Weiss (2010).

For Gallery Weekend Berlin 2013, artist Alicja Kwade transforms the church space of St. Agnes in Berlin into a sound- and light-installation that is based on the Foucault pendulum. The Foucault pendulum is named after the French physicist Léon Foucault. It’s a simple device conceived to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth in an easy-to-see experiment. Alicja Kwade placed this experiment in the exhibition space and instead of using the original lead bob she hung a light bulb. Thus, the dark space is illuminated by only one light source and each swing is amplified by a sound system. In this video we attend the opening reception of the exhibition on April 26, 2013.

Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Haus Esters, (2013); Skulpturenpark Köln, (2013); Kunsthal 44 Møen, Dänemark, (2012); ZKM Karlsruhe, (2011); Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg, (2011); Kunstverein Bremerhaven, Bremerhaven, (2011); Probleme massereicher Körper, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, (2010); Ereignishorizont, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, (2010); Broken away from Common Standpoints, Museion at Peep-Hole, Milan, (2010); Grenzfälle fundamentaler Theorien, Johann König, Berlin, (2009); Vom äußersten Rand der Bedingung, Galerie Christina Wilson, Copenhagen, (2009); Von Explosionen zu Ikonen, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, (2008).

Alicja Kwade: Nach Osten / Galerie Johann König at St. Agnes, Berlin (Germany). April 26, 2013. Video by Frantisek Zachoval.

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Press release:

Presented by Johann König, Berlin, Alicja Kwade turns the monumental church space of ST. AGNES into a vast light and sound installation based on the principle of the Foucault Pendulum.

On March 31st 1851, French physicist J.B. Léon Foucault suspended a metal bob with a long wire from the dome of the Pantheon in Paris, and let it swing in the air. His aim was to make the crowd of onlookers visualize that the Earth actually spins. His experiment combines subtle simplicity and extremely complex forces. Indeed, if a heavy mass is free to swing in a vertical plane, its plane of oscillation remains fixed. Yet, rocking back and forth, the trajectory of the bob in the Pantheon seemed to be modified, the bob drew very slowly a circle on the floor. What was the explanation? While a pendulum has a stable plane of oscillation, something else is moving: the floor. The whole Pantheon was moving, Paris was rotating (and still does), and so do we: the Earth rotates! Thanks to the Foucault pendulum, we do not need to stare at the stars any longer to realize this, we can “visually feel” that the world revolves around its axis. This famous experiment revealed concretely for the first time a complex phenomenon driving us at any time.

Whoever knows Alicja Kwade will not be surprised to hear that such a device caught her attention a long time ago. Amongst a few other obsessions, Alicja Kwade is captivated by scientific problems and visual experiments. By manipulating objects, processes and concepts, she embraces physics questions and translates them into artistic issues in different ways.

For this installation, one could say that Alicja Kwade considered the Foucault pendulum as a “found item”, similar to elements in her sculptures, and she transformed it to create a new experiment, based on the historical one. We are also in a former high-ceilinged church, and there is a pendulum too. But at first glance, one can barely see what it is. A light bulb is swinging from a wire instead of the heavy ball. It is the only source of light in the church; its hypnotizing shadow dances on the walls, following the swing. This is a multisensory experiment: a microphone is fixed on this bulb, and the amplified unsettling sound of the friction reverberates in the darkness of the church. After a few minutes, one can observe some movement, the more obvious one being the circle that the bulb describes on the floor. But again, following the principle of the Foucault pendulum, the axis of oscillation of the bulb remains stable; it is the floor that is moving, and it reveals the Earth’s rotation.

By dramatizing the historical experiment and replacing the bob by a light bulb, Alicja Kwade literally highlights the striking observations of Foucault. She also brings them to a different level, in her own universe. One could see in this strange device a contemporary echo of vanity: the light (a classical symbol for life, knowledge, energy, ideas) going back and forth, the pendulum echoing the repeatability of things, while incredibly powerful forces are governing us. The destabilizing atmosphere created by the sound and the light reminds us that it is still vain to try to understand those forces. Some mysteries have no answer, “the world itself does not care, it just turns” says the artist. In this statement, we find one of Alicja Kwade’s obsessions[1]: everything from atoms to the universe is spinning around something, “like us circling around these questions”, she adds.

Last but decisive observation: the title of the installation, “Nach Osten“ (Facing East), comes from a specificity of this version of the Foucault pendulum. The bulb is too light to work as a proper “bob” and to interact with the inertial forces as in the original experience. This is the reason why the swinging movement here is electronically powered to turn against the direction of Earth’s rotation and precisely counterbalance the natural movement. The longer you remain in the space, the more you perceive the device’s permanent fight to maintain its equilibrium.

[1] see also “In Circles”, Alicja Kwade’s last solo show at Johann Koenig Gallery, February 18 – March 17, 2012

Alicja Kwade (*1979, Katowice, Polen) lives and works in Berlin.
Solo exhibitions (selection): Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Haus Esters, Germany (2013); Skulpturenpark Köln, Cologne (2013); Kunsthal 44 Møen, Denmark (2012); ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany (2011); Oldenburger Kunstverein, Germany (2011); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany (2010); Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany (2010); Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2008).
Group exhibitions (selection): Palazzo Strozzi Fondazione, Florence, Italy (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany (2012, 2010); CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2012); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2012); Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2012); Kunstverein Hannover, Germany (2012, 2010); Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany (2010).
In 2010 Alicja Kwade received the Robert Jacobsen Prize and in 2008 the Piepenbrock Prize for Sculpture (2008).

Human Nature by Swiss-born, New York-based artist Ugo Rondinone is a public art exhibition at the Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan that was unveiled by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg last week. Human Nature consists of nine huge stone figures that are standing like ancient sentries along the full length of Rockefeller Plaza. The figures were assembled at Rockefeller Center over the course of several days. They range in height from 16 to 20 feet and weigh up to 30,000 pounds each. To created the figures, Ugo Rondinone used massive bluestone slabs. The stones were rough-cut into blocks and stacked on top of each other. The installation recalls a modern Stonehenge.

Ugo Rondinone was born in Brunnen, Switzerland, in 1962. He was master student under Ernst Caramelle at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst (University of Applied Arts) in Vienna from 1985 until 1990. Since the late 1990s he lives in New York. Since 1985 Ugo Rondinone’s work has been included in numerous international solo and group exhibitions.

The new Public Art Fund exhibition opened on April 23 and is on view until June 7, 2013.

Ugo Rondinone: Human Nature. Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, April 22, 2013. Video by Shimon Azulay.

PS: More videos on Ugo Rondinone:

• Ugo Rondinone: The Night of Lead at Aargauer Kunsthaus (Retrospective)
• Ugo Rondinone: Kiss Now Kill Later / Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich
• The Third Mind, Carte blanche à Ugo Rondinone / Palais de Tokyo, Paris (curated by Ugo Rondinone)

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Johnen Galerie participated in Gallery Weekend Berlin 2013 with a solo show with works by German conceptual artist Hans-Peter Feldmann. The exhibition Kunstausstellung represents the methodology the artist has developed within the last years. The show includes two installations: Dreigruppen (Trianda); mostly forgotten or unknown artists, mainly paintings from the 19th and early 20th century. Feldmann arranges three images of different traditional subject-matters and techniques. Each viewer may perceive and interpret these constellations in his or her own way. Thus images of clearly defined theme and content are integrated in a network of open and complex relationships. Furthermore the exhibition includes works where the author actually remixes portraits, scenes with small interventions: red noses, crossed eyes and black eyes add a strikingly modern and humorous accent to the dusty and solemn images.

In this video, gallery owner Jörg Johnen introduces us to Hans-Peter Feldmann’s and oeuvre and the artist’s current exhibition.

Hans-Peter Feldmann was born in Düsseldorf in 1941. His works have been shown in numerous exhibitions, lately at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2013), Serpentine Gallery, London (2012), Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York (2011), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2010), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2010) and Konsthall Malmö (2010). He lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Hans-Peter Feldmann: Kunstausstellung at Johnen Galerie Berlin (Germany). Interview with Jörg Johnen, April 26, 2013. Video by Frantisek Zachoval.

PS: Watch Hans-Peter Feldmann’s solo presentation within the framework of the exhibition The Endless Renaissance at Bass Museum in Miami Beach.

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