“Brooklyn-based artist KAWS straddles the line between fine art and popular culture in his large-scale sculptures and brightly colored paintings, thoughtfully playing with imagery associated with consumer products and global brands.

ALONG THE WAY, KAWS’s colossal eighteen-foot-high wood sculpture, greets visitors in our Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion and Lobby. Portraying a pair of gigantic figures with their heads lowered and with one arm around each other in a gentle embrace, the sculpture alludes to familiar childhood toys and cartoon characters while at the same time transforming their identities with a radical shift in scale, presenting them as monumental cultural presences.”

“This reinstallation of the Palermo galleries centers on Times of the Day I–VI (1974–76), a six-part series comprising 24 individual paintings, which the artist began two years after relocating to New York City and taking up painting on aluminum panels. The paintings were executed on square panels divided into three horizontal bands painted with vibrant and saturated colors. The chromatic juxtapositions, organized in a sequence ranging from bright to opaque hues, allude to the shift of light as the day progresses from sunrise to noon and from sunset to dusk.”

“Socrates Sculpture Park is pleased to present the latest major project by New York City-based artist Agnes Denes, who adds life to the city’s skyline with a curving pyramid on the park’s East River waterfront in Long Island City, Queens. Titled The Living Pyramid, Denes’s new large-scale, site-specific earthwork spans 30 feet at its four-sided base and ascend 30 feet high, created from several tons of soil and planted grasses…As tens of thousands of seeds sprout into grasses and wildflowers, The Living Pyramid will continue to grow and evolve, with full assembly and completion this June.”

Another Sol LeWitt piece, this time at MoMA PS1:

“In an attempt to explore the history of Sol LeWitt’s public projects and to record his long-lasting relationship with MoMA PS1, the artist created Crayola Square, a Crayola crayon wall drawing originally created in 1971 at an event organized by MoMA PS1 founder and director Alanna Heiss. It was the inaugural exhibition for The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, known today as MoMA PS1.

Sol LeWitt’s Crayola Square is located on cinderblock in the Basement Boiler Room.”

“Through this exhibition, we look at the work of thirty queer artists, each with active studio practices, mostly based here in New York. Many of them know each other, but some don’t. They have all had a relationship with social media as a means to connect with other artists and people who may be interested in their work. Some have discovered that social media can be successful for them – others have found that it doesn’t work.”

“Eviner uses repetitive, hypnotically shifting scenes to explore contemporary feminism at the crossroads of the East and West, as well as broader historical narratives and notions of the body and performance. Eviner’s goal for Runaway Girls is to explore the dreams, stories, and fears of girls who have either chosen to run away or were forced to leave their communities, living on the edge of society in Turkey and beyond.”

” “The Great Ephemeral” responds to the speculative nature of the global market, both by exploring its intangible, even emotional, aspects and by offering clear-eyed commentary on its inequalities…The works on view reflect an “ephemeral existence” in which our material circumstances, both in art and life, can feel precarious, abstract, and out of control. The artists featured in the exhibition react to this condition using various forms of protest: some responses are incisive, while others counter the market’s contradictions with equal measures of irrationality and play.”

There’s even a chance to participate with the exhibit:

“For “The Great Ephemeral,” artist Heman Chong invites Museum visitors to memorize a short story he has written in response to the exhibition’s themes of speculation. Please email thegreatephemeral@newmuseum.org to make an appointment. Visitors will be taught the story by New Museum staff. Appointments are available during Museum hours: Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.”

Be warned – further research revealed the process can take 3 hours!

In addtion to the enamels, furniture and paintings, the Frick also has a huge collection of objects from the Qing Dynasty. Excited to see them in person!

Vice did an article on the new exhibit at the Guggenheim – here’s an excerpt:

“Storylines uses the late 1990s and 2000s as a point of departure. It was a time when young artists started turning away from abstraction as a form of realizing the complications of identity. These artists, like Matthew Barney, Zanele Muholi, and Ryan McGinley, who are all a part of the show, sought to inject themselves and notions of identity that they believed in into their work.”

We’ll be visiting the Whitney’s new location on Thursday, 6/25. I can’t wait to check out the outdoor gallery on the fifth floor.

“Mary Heilmann’s site specific installation Sunset inaugurates the fifth-floor outdoor gallery with sculptural chairs and pink wall elements that play off the geometries of the building. The video Swan Song (1982), shown here for the first time, documents the destruction of the previous West Side Highway and includes footage of the Hudson River as well as the neighborhood surrounding the Whitney’s new home.”