George Condo: Mental States / New Museum, New York

“George Condo: Mental States” at the New Museum is an exhibition, which the artist calls a “conceptual survey” of his work. The show presents paintings and sculptures that George Condo created over the past thirty years. “Mental States” is divided into four sections each of which examines a particular theme or genre central to his work. Most of George Condo’s work has been portraiture, not of living individuals, but of invented characters.

George Condo was born in New Hampshire in 1957. He studied art history and music theory at the University of Massachusetts in Lovell. His first solo exhibition was in Los Angeles in 1983. Since then, he has exhibited extensively in both the U.S. and in Europe.

George Condo: Mental States. New Museum, New York. March 3, 2011

William Leavitt: Theater Objects at MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles

With “William Leavitt: Theater Objects” the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles presents the first solo museum exhibition of the work of Los Angeles-based artist William Leavitt. The retrospective at MOCA Grand Avenue surveys William Leavitt’s 40-year career and includes paintings, photographs, works on paper, performances, and installations from the late 1960s to the present. The works in the individual galleries are arranged around key mixed-media installations: Forest Sound (1970), Red Velvet Flame (1974), California Patio (1972), Manta Ray (1981), Planetarium Projector (1987), Warp Engines (2009), and Cutaway View (2008).

William Leavitt was born in Washington, D.C., in 1941. He is considered as an important figure among the first generation of Conceptual artists – including Bas Jan Ader, Michael Asher, John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman, Allen Ruppersberg, Edward Ruscha, and William Wegman – that emerged in Los Angeles during the late 1960s and 1970s.

“A key figure associated with the emergence and foundations of conceptual art in Los Angeles during the late 1960s and 1970s, Leavitt is primarily concerned with narrative and its forms. His works employ fragments of popular and vernacular culture and modernist architecture to produce narratives that are simultaneously disjunctive and achingly familiar. The culture and atmosphere of Los Angeles has played a significant role in Leavitt’s ongoing interest in ‘the theater of the ordinary’ and the play between illusion and reality, nature and artifice that characterizes the city.”

William Leavitt: Theater Objects at The Museum of Contemporary Art MOCAGrand Avenue, Los Angeles. Media Preview, March 11, 2011.

Group Show "Banquet of the Black Jackal" at The Luckman Gallery, Cal State Los Angeles

BANQUET OF THE BLACK JACKAL
January 22 - March 19, 2011

What happens when mankind ends? How will history, cultural objects, and relationships between the elements be remembered or reinterpreted? The artists in this exhibition tackle the notion of history--be it personal, cultural or philosophic--in their multimedia installations. The questions at play in this exhibition are informed by the writings of Hegelian philosopher Alexandre Kojève and contemporary science fiction.

Participating artists: Liz Craft, Eduardo Consuegra, Matthew Greene, Shio Kusaka, Adam D. Miller, Ruby Neri, Devon Oder, and Amanda Ross-Ho. 

The Luckman Fine Arts Complex
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032-8116

http://www.luckmanarts.org/gallery/

Open Monday - Thursday, Saturday 12 - 5 pm (Closed Fridays and Sundays)

Tara Donovan: Untitled (Mylar), 2011 at The Pace Gallery, New York

Currently, The Pace Gallery in New York has two exhibitions with works by Tara Donovan: Drawings (Pins) at their space at 25th Street, and Untitled (Mylar), 2011 at 22nd Street.

Tara Donovan’s Untitled (Mylar), 2011 is a large-scale installation for which she uses sheets of Mylar. The Mylar sheets with their metallic surfaces are bent into blooming balls and arranged into organic structures of varying heights. The installation relates to Untitled (Mylar) 2010, a work that was part of her 2010 exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Tara Donovan is known for her landscape-like installations made from common everyday materials such as pencils, cut electrical cable, and plastic cups. (See also VernissageTV’s original coverage of her installation Untitled (Plastic Cups) in 2006 and the re-edited version in HD as part of our VernissageTV Classics r3 series.

Tara Donovan: Drawings (Pins) runs until March 19, 2011, Untitled (Mylar) until April 9, 2011. From March 16 through June 6, 2011, Tara Donovan will take part in Artist File 2011: The NACT Annual Show of Contemporary Art at the National Arts Center Tokyo with two large-scale installations.

Tara Donovan lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Tara Donovan: Untitled (Mylar), 2011 at The Pace Gallery, New York. Opening reception, March 3, 2011.

Group Show "Black Swan" at Regan Projects, West Hollywood, California

BLACK SWAN: An exhibition inspired by the film curated by Dominic Sidhu
February 25th – April 16, 2011
Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, February 25th, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Regan Projects recently opened a group exhibition inspired by the Academy Award(c) nominated film "Black Swan." Curated by Dominic Sdhu, "Black Swan" explores the gothic and dark underbelly of creativity. The show includes works by Matthew Barney, Walead Beshty, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Katharina Fritsch, Douglas Gordon, Dan Graham, Wade Guyton, Pierre Huyghe, Sergej Jensen, Anish Kapoor, Karen Kilimnik, Rachel Kneebone, Glenn Ligon, Nick Mauss, Richard Phillips, Richard Prince, Ugo Rondinone, Wolfgang Tillmans, Banks Violette, and Christopher Wool.

Dominic Sidhu curated a series of contemporary artworks that appear within the sets of the film Black Swan. In the film, the artworks exist in a subliminal character state and underscore the protagonist's transformation from woman to swan. For the exhibition, Sidhu interrogates metaphysical interpretations of the myth of Swan Lake: with the white swan seen as purity, entrapment, transition, mortality, and prologue; and the black swan as instinct, sexuality, deception, transparency, and escape. A meditation on apparition versus reality, the exhibition explores the psychological broken mirror between the white swan and the black swan through a primarily black, white, and silver palette. Inflected with themes of redemption, abjection, and alterity, the philosophical underpinnings of the exhibition explore the uncomfortable space between presumed opposites. In the spirit of the Ballet Russes, the exhibition deconstructs the conceptual implications of the fable in a contemporary exegesis. 

Dominic Sidhu is an independent curator and creative director focused on media as a platform for curatorial practice. He has curated and consulted on editorial, motion, and special projects with artists Jeff Koons, Karen Kilimnik, Richard Phillips, Pierre Huyghe, Douglas Gordon, and filmmakers Gus Van Sant, Harmony Korine. He has contributed to publications including Vogue, T Magazine, Visionaire, V Magazine, and VMAN. Sidhu lives and works in New York and Los Angeles.

Regan Projects

633 NORTH ALMONT DRIVE
LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA 90069
TEL 310 276 5424
FAX 310 276 7430

www.reganprojects.com