Ocula Report Havana Biennial 2019: Constructing the Possible 17 Apr 2019 : Federica Bueti for Ocula I first visited Havana in November 2016, a few days after Fidel Castro died, and just under a year before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba in September 2017. Since then, much has changed, including the hand-painted signs that punctuate the journey from the airport to the city centre, which today do not celebrate the revolution so much as the 'Unidad y...
Ocula Conversation Andrew Stahl and Guo Xiaohui The exhibition Beyond Boundaries at Somerset House in London (12 March–2 April 2019) marked the historic contributions of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on the occasion of their 100th and 150th anniversaries, respectively. Spread across several rooms of Somerset House's...
Ocula Report The National 2019: New Australian Art 13 Apr 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The National 2019: New Australian Art features work by 70 contemporary Australia-based artists split across three venues: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) (29 March–21 July 2019), as curated by Isobel Parker Philip, curator of photographs at AGNSW; Daniel Mudie Cunningham,...
Sprüth Magers has expanded from its roots in the Rhineland to become an international gallery dedicated to exhibiting the very best in groundbreaking modern and contemporary art. With galleries located in Berlin Mitte, London’s Mayfair and the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles – as well as an office in Cologne and an outpost in Hong Kong – Sprüth Magers retains close ties with the studios and communities of the German and American artists who form the core of its roster.
The gallery emerged amid an extraordinary outburst in contemporary art that took place in Cologne in the early 1980s. Its first iteration as Monika Sprüth Gallery opened in 1983 with an exhibition of paintings by Andreas Schulze and was soon followed by exhibitions of Rosemarie Trockel and Peter Fischli David Weiss. Over the next few years George Condo, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman all showed at the gallery and have continued to do so for the last thirty years. In 1992 a second gallery opened in Cologne under the name of Philomene Magers. Early exhibitions included Ad Reinhardt’s Black Paintings, Robert Morris’s felt pieces and John Baldessari’s photographs and text paintings from the 1960s. The two galleries merged into a single entity in 1998 and in 2000 the Munich space opened with Ed Ruscha’s exhibition Gunpowder and Stains.
In 2003 Sprüth Magers Lee opened in London with an exhibition of works by Donald Judd. In 2007 Sprüth Magers relocated to Grafton Street, Mayfair; on show was a selection of new photographs by Andreas Gursky. In 2008 the gallery established its flagship space in a former dancehall in Berlin Mitte – not far from the city’s Museum Island. The gallery debuted with Thomas Scheibitz and George Condo.
The latest chapter in the gallery’s history came to fruition in February 2016, with the launch of its space in Los Angeles. Located on Wilshire Boulevard, just across the road from LACMA, it is housed in a two-storey building designed in the late 1960s by legendary West Coast architects William L. Pereira & Associates. It was originally created as part of a complex completed in 1971 that includes the tallest building of the Miracle Mile district, a plaza and reflection pool. The 14,000 square foot space was remodeled as a gallery by the London-based architect Andreas Lechthaler and Berlin-based architect Botho von Senger und Etterlin. The interior features vintage furniture by female California-based designers.
Known for its rigorously curatorial approach to its program and for a deep and enduring devotion to the artists it represents, the gallery has, over the past three decades, fostered close and collaborative relationships with museums and curators worldwide. Meanwhile it continues its tradition of commissioning new scholarship and creating innovative books and publications.
Sprüth Magers now works with over 60 artists and estates. While continuing to work with mid-career artists such as Thomas Demand and Sterling Ruby, the gallery regularly broadens its program with up-and-coming younger artists such as Cyprien Gaillard, David Ostrowski, Michail Pirgelis, Analia Saban, Alexandre Singh and Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch. The program is rounded off with important and influential senior artists such as Reinhard Mucha, Frank Stella, the late Richard Artschwager, Hanne Darboven, Bernd & Hilla Becher and the Estates of Keith Arnatt and Craig Kauffman.
Jon RafmanDream Journal 2016-2017, 2017 Video installation, single channel video, 6 loungers, polyurethane, acrylic, wood, subwoofers, 49 mins 17 secs
John BaldessariKAY’S HOTEL ROOM STU It sounds great. What’s the title and the next line?, 2017 Varnished inkjet print on canvas with acrylic paint
Rosemarie TrockelUntitled, 1987 Iron, electric burners, enamel paint, plaster, with patina
Barbara KrugerCuando ellos hacen negocios hacen historia (When they do business they make history), 1986 Gelatin silver print
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Hong Kong 2019 31 March 2019 'Art Basel reinforces its ongoing commitment to showcasing exceptional art from Asia and the Asia Pacific, with over half of the participating galleries having exhibition spaces in the region. The main sector of the show features 196 of the world's leading galleries presenting the highest quality of painting, sculpture, drawings, installation,...
Ocula Photolog Frieze Los Angeles 15 February 2019 'Frieze Los Angeles largely focuses on contemporary art and celebrates the exceptionally dynamic culture of Los Angeles and its global contributions to the visual arts. Frieze Los Angeles joins Frieze New York, Frieze London and Frieze Masters at the forefront of the international art fair calendar, celebrating Los Angeles' position as a global...
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Miami Beach 2018 6 December 2018 'This year, over 200 of the world's leading international Modern and contemporary art galleries display artworks by over 4,000 artists, including paintings, sculptures, installations, photography, film, video, and digital art.' –Art Basel in Miami Beach (6–9 December 2018).
Ocula Photolog West Bund Art & Design 2018 9 November 2018 'With a strong selection of returning exhibitors, the 2018 edition welcomes 87 galleries in the Galleries section, among which 39 are participating for the first time.'– West Bund Art & Design (8–11 November 2018).
Related Press Jenny Holzer’s piercing beacons of truth light up Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Wallpaper* : 29 March 2019 Jenny Holzer was 26 when she arrived in New York. The freshman art student at the Whitney Museum had grown up in Gallipolis, Ohio, a sleepy town in America's Midwest, and had spent her early twenties jumping from place to place in search of her artistic identity. She started out as an abstract expressionist. Then she tried to capture the human form...
Related Press The Surprising Tale of One of Frank Stella’s Black Paintings Ted Loos : 17 February 2019 At 82, the artist Frank Stella has done it all and isn't terribly concerned what anyone thinks. He is matter-of-fact and unguarded, secure on his perch in the pantheon after two solo retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art. He can — and did — wear white house-slippers to an interview and photo shoot. Deal with it.Mr. Stella became...
Related Press Richard Artschwager: Primary Sources and Self-Portraits and the American Southwest The Brooklyn Rail : 13 February 2019 While critics have argued that Richard Artschwager was an artist whose works alternated between Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art, there was little doubt he possessed his own singularity removed from the fray. Whether he chose to work with bewildering banal subject matter or media references to sex and violence, Artschwager maintained the...
Related Press Julie Mehretu makes her mark at Kettle’s Yard Apollo : 13 February 2019 Julie Mehretu has never shied away from making art on a monumental scale. In 2016–17, the Ethiopian-American artist relocated her studio to an abandoned church in Harlem to complete the enormous paintings that comprised her commission for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, HOWL, eon (I, II) (2017).
Related Video & Audio Sterling Ruby in conversation with Anders Kold Xavier Hufkens : 6 November 2018 Ruby's DRFTRS and WIDW series are two ever-evolving bodies of work that bear witness to the artist's intense relationship with materials and his interest in issues such as sociocultural evolution, popular culture, and violence.
Related Video & Audio George Condo The Artist at Work Louisiana Channel : 14 December 2017 The mind of American artist George Condo has been referred to as a place where 'Picasso meets Looney Tunes.' Watch him at work in his New York-studio where he draws and paints his take on a 19th-century painting by Manet.
Related Video & Audio George Condo Interview: The Way I Think Louisiana Channel : 2 November 2017 'I kind of draw like you’re walking through the forest, where you don’t really know where you’re going, and you just start from some point and randomly travel through the paper until you get to a place where you finally reach your destination.' Condo studied music theory at college, but soon realised that it was too formal and rigid for him, and...
Related Video & Audio Getting there: Ed Ruscha Juxtapoz Magazine : 24 July 2016 First published on Nowness: Ed Ruscha took Matthew Donaldson on a Los Angeles ride through memory lane, from the artist’s Culver City studio—that started life as one of Howard Hughes’ aircraft parts factories—to Silverlake and around Echo Park where the filmmaker lived as a child. “Almost more than...
