exhibitions

The Hammer Museum (of art), which is not to be confused with the Hammer Museum (of hammers), is introducing an $100,000 award as part of its “Made in L.A. 2012” biennial, opening June 2 across three venues: the Hammer, LAXART, and the Department of Cultural Affairs’ Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park. Funded by art-loving philanthropists Jarl and Pamela Mohn, the Mohn Prize will be awarded to one of the 60 artists from the exhibition and will be accompanied by the publication of a book on the winner’s work. The twist? A jury including MoMA’s Doryun Chong and Rita Gonzalez of LACMA will select the five finalists, but after that, it’s up to the people. The winner will be chosen by visitors to the exhibition through online voting. Would-be voters can register during their visit (photo ID will be required, so there’s no monkey business) before declaring their top pick using a highly secure digital platform.

A year after leaving the world-was-his-oyster east coast for the harsh-light-of-constant-sunshine that is Los Angeles, LA MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch finally had a hit on his hands last year with the opening of “Art in the Streets,” an exhibition, as the name implies, all about street art. There was controversy, crowds, constant press, and even arrests. Chase that with a possibly-exploitative benefit hosted by Marina Abramovic, and it was official: Deitch had arrived. For those of you who weren’t able to make it out to LA for the spectacle that was this show, director Alex Stapleton has put together this great documentary about the exhibition, Outside In: The Story of Art in the Streets. So here’s what you’ll be looking at for the next 30 minutes:

Among the buzziest booths at this year’s Armory Show is that of Sean Kelly, which features work by the likes of Marina Abramović, James Casebere, Alec Soth, and Kehinde Wiley. The New York gallery is also spotlighting three recent additions to its stable of artists: Idris Khan, Nathan Mabry, and Peter Liversidge (on Tuesday, Sean Kelly announced its representation of Terence Koh). Just around the corner from Khan’s mini-museum of clouds trapped in lucite is “Wooden Mail Objects” (2011), a shelf of rulers, protractors, and chalkboard erasers that London-based Liversidge mailed to Kelly, sans envelopes, over the course of three months. Beside the stamp-covered objects is the artist’s deadpan installation proposal, written on his trusty manual typewriter. Liversidge is also represented by what he describes as a text piece: a hand-held embosser placed on a white podium. It, too, is accompanied by a framed noticed. “Whoever reads this proposal is invited to take a one-dollar note from their pocket, wallet, or purse. In their other hand they should take up the embosser and place the note within it’s [sic] jaws,” he explains. “Then apply pressure and emboss the note with the text piece concealed within.” Pull out your dollar to reveal the imprint of a single word: free. No word as to how much this work sold for.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg addresses members of the press at the 24th annual Art Show as artist Sarah Sze looks on. (Photo: UnBeige)

It’s Armory Arts Week in New York, with a dozen art fairs opening today and tomorrow throughout the city. According to the number crunchers at the office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, all the art action—during what is typically a slow time for tourism—will draw approximately 80,000 visitors and generate $55 million in economic activity. Looming largest on the ever-growing fair landscape are, of course, the Armory Show, which opens to the public tomorrow over on Piers 92 and 94, and the the Art Dealers Association of America’s Art Show, which kicked off yesterday at the Park Avenue Armory with a gala preview. Confused yet? Not to worry, Bloomberg has a handy mnemonic device that will help you keep your Armories straight. “Get this—write it down! The Art Show hangs in the Armory on Park, and the Armory Show is parked in a hangar on the river,” he said gleefully at a press conference held yesterday. “You have to work very hard to get that right, but we did it.” Bloomberg credited his speechwriter with the wordsmithing. “I’m so proud of this,” he added later, before repeating the catchy sentence. The mayor addressed members of the press standing before the booth of Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, which is featuring the intricate assemblages of New York-based Sarah Sze. Bloomberg invited Sze, whose work is also currently on view at Asia Society, to join him at the podium. “Sarah is going to exhibit at the Venice Biennale next year. Anybody wanna go?” he asked the crowd. “Yeah, me too.”

Last spring, when the Smithsonian‘s American Art Museum both announced their The Art of Video Games exhibition and asked for crowd sourced submissions for what to include, it brought down their servers for a while as they were inundated with traffic. That was clearly an early sign that this might be a slightly popular show. Now, almost a year later, it’s nearly time to see just how swarmed the museum will be. The exhibition opens on Friday, March 16th, kicking off with a three day festival (pdf) celebrating the launch. Games will be available to play, 8-bit musicians will be on hand to perform, films like Tron and The King of Kong will be screened (the cast of the latter will even be on hand for a meet and greet on Sunday), and a number of panels with industry legends will be sprinkled throughout (the ones with Hideo Kojima and Nolan Bushnell are apparently already sold out). For those outside of DC, or who haven’t been able to get tickets quickly enough, the museum will also be webcasting the events throughout the weekend. We’re no psychics, but we have a sense that this might be a fairly popular show, all the way out through when it wraps up in September. Here’s a description of what the exhibition will look like:

Visitors to the exhibition are greeted by excerpts from selected games projected 12 feet high, accompanied by a chipmusic soundtrack by 8 Bit Weapon and ComputeHer, including “The Art of Video Games Anthem” recorded by 8 Bit Weapon specifically for the exhibition. These multimedia elements convey the excitement and complexity of the featured video games. An interior gallery includes a series of short videos showing the range of emotional responses players have while interacting with games. Excerpts from interviews with 20 influential figures in the gaming world also are presented in the galleries.

(Photos: Brian Forrest for Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)

The life and work of Mike Kelley are celebrated in two tribute exhibitions. Born in Detroit and based in Los Angeles, the artist—and musician, critic, curator, and art historian—was found dead in his California home in late January. He was 58. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles wasted no time in mounting “A Tribute to Mike Kelley,” on view through April 2. The show presents 23 of Kelley’s works alongside those of artists such as Douglas Huebler, William Leavitt, and Marnie Weber (works donated to MOCA by Kelley).

“Mike Kelley had an immense impact on the art and artists of Los Angeles,” said Paul Schimmel, MOCA’s chief curator, in a statement issued by the museum earlier this month. “He was an intellectual force of nature, a real catalyst for a whole generation of artists.” Meanwhile, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has prepared “Mike Kelley: Homage,” which opens tomorrow at the university’s Kresge Art Center. The special exhibition features three of Kelley’s video works, including his multimedia magnum opus “Day is Done” (2005-2006). Kelley’s work is also included in the Whitney Biennial, which kicks off tomorrow (and you still have a few hours to explain why you should be allowed to dance in it).

Elsa Schiaparelli in a 1932 portrait by George Hoyningen-Huené and Miuccia Prada, photographed by Guido Harari in 1999. (Photos: Hoyningen-Huené/Vogue/Condé Nast Archive and Guido Harari/Contrasto/Redux)

It’s Fashion Week in Milan, and between yesterday’s pattern-happy Prada collection and this evening’s Goth glam Versace looks, the Metropolitan Museum of Art took over the Sala delle Cariatidi in the Palazzo Reale for a press luncheon to announce details about the upcoming Costume Institute exhibition, “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations.” Museum president Emily K. Rafferty, curators Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, and Anna Wintour were joined by Miuccia Prada (in a fresh-from-the-runway coat) and Stefano Boeri, who holds the enviable post of Milan Commissioner of Culture, Fashion, and Design, for a look at some of the Schiaparelli and Prada objects that will be featured in the exhibition, which opens on May 10 following the usual megabash (this year underwritten by Amazon).

“Juxtaposing the work of Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada allows us to explore how the past enlightens the present and how the present enlivens the past,” said Koda. The show will feature not only dueling iconic ensembles but also imagined conversations between the two designers in videos directed by Baz Luhrmann, creative consultant to the exhibition. “The connection of the historic to the modern highlights the affinities as well as the variances between two women who constantly subverted contemporary notions of taste, beauty, and glamour,” said Bolton.
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(Photo: Gregory Holm)

The art world calendars have aligned just so (just like the Mayans predicted they would!), and 2012 brings us both the New Museum Triennial and the Whitney Biennial. The former is in full swing, and the latter opens next Thursday, featuring the work of artists including the late Mike Kelley, Jutta Koether, K8 Hardy, deadpan documentary master Frederick Wiseman, and Liz Deschenes, whose large photograms will “address the architecture” of the Whitney’s Breuer building. You may have not made the shortlists of Biennial curators Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders, but as Hannah Montana once told us, “If things don’t turn out the way you planned / Figure something else out / Don’t stay down, try again!” Translation: get in the Biennial on the coattails of participating artist Michael Clark. The Whitney Museum and Michael Clark Company are seeking volunteers (read: unpaid enthusiasts with a good deal of free time and no formal dance training) to work on a piece of “mass choreographic action” and perform as part of Clark’s latest work for the 2012 Biennial. This project follows Clark’s hugely successful commission for Tate Modern, which also involved a large group of untrained volunteers. Go here for full details, indicate your interest by March 1, and then stock up on leotards!

With Dallas awash in Shepard Fairey murals, it’s time to get ready for the next stop on your Southern U.S. street art tour! Atlanta’s High Museum of Art is now putting the finishing touches on its major KAWS exhibition. Opening next Saturday, February 18, “KAWS: Down Time” will be the beloved Brooklyn artist (né Brian Donnelly)’s largest show of new work to date and offers visitors the opportunity to watch him paint a 22-foot-high, site-specific mural in the lobby. A jazzy 24-foot-long triptych will invigorate the museum’s atrium. Meanwhile, curator Michael Rooks has marshaled an impressive gallery installation highlighted by a grid of 27 tondo paintings, like the 2011 Sponge Bob-meets-a giant flower pillow canvas that in November set a new world auction record of $188,500 for the artist at Takashi Murakami‘s “New Day: Artists for Japan” charity sale at Christie’s. The auction took place just days before the High installed KAWS’s monumental 2010 sculpture “Companion” (pictured) on its piazza. “KAWS has created a new order of American Pop,” says Rooks, who joined the High in 2010 from New York’s Haunch of Venison gallery. “His work is uncannily familiar but foreign at the same time, like in a dream, and it unites the often distant worlds of fine art and youth culture.”