For Big Time, Sperling has adapted his signature vocabulary of forms to the expansive architecture of Perrotin New York’s third-floor gallery. Swirling forms entwine; shapes—regular and organic—eclipse each other in what he calls “composites” or clusters of shaped canvases, as “squiggles” writhe and overtake entire walls.
"I carry an iPhone or a high-definition digital camera with me and take photographs of the scenery of the city, alleyways, shops, trash on the roadside and use them as materials. I put together elements found in the ordinary scenery that I routinely come across and construct them into paintings."
CONCERT: BILLIE EILISH BY TAKASHI MURAKAMI AT THE RELEASE PARTY FOR GARAGE MAGAZINE
NEW YORK
February 5, 2019
Laurent Grasso publicly unveiled a new visual enigma in one of the high places of knowledge. In the context of the building of a new auditorium by architect Marc Barani for the Institut de France, located on the Quai de Conti, the artist imagined a nocturnal work composed of a set of onyx sculptures which form a constellation of illuminated points. Created from a selection of signs and geometric shapes, those ten elements punctuate a course beginning from the rue Mazarine and ending in the courtyard located in front of the auditorium, casting a strange atmosphere over the exterior spaces of the Palais de l’Institut: one that instigates daydreaming. Conceived for this hub of academic work, these sculptures were inspired by art history and the science of symbols, as well as the historical building of the Institut and the visual world of the artist.
For the National Museum of Qatar, in dialogue with Jean Nouvel’s architecture, Jean-Michel Othoniel created a monumental installation of 114 fountain sculptures. ALFA covers the entire surface of the gigantic lagoon, which measures 8,800 square meters, and is by far the biggest of all the monumental projects Othoniel has ever created, five times larger than his artwork permanently installed at Versailles in 2015.
The lagoon is located between the National Museum of Qatar and the Persian Gulf, at the entrance of the city of Doha. This unique location gives amazing visibility to this public artwork from the Corniche, the museum, and the sea.
The 114 sculptures arise like majestic black reeds along the 900-meter-long shores of the lagoon designed by Jean Nouvel. Walking around the lagoon, the viewer will discover, from various angles, silhouettes reflected on the water that evoke the beauty of Arabic calligraphy. At moments the sculptures are transformed into fountains, launching arabesques of water toward the sky, hugging the curves of the museum’s architecture, echoing the shape of desert roses.
For this exhibition, which brings together fifteen minimalistic, enigmatic sculptures made of glass or metal bricks, the artist has systematized the use of a module that entered his work in 2009, after a journey to India. On the road from Delhi to Firozabad, a city with an age-old glassmaking tradition, he was struck by the stacks of bricks accumulated in the hope of building a house and by the countless altars covered in offerings and multicolored necklaces. Since then, he has called on the knowledge of Indian glassblowers to blow blue, amber, yellow, and gray glass bricks.
The exhibition focuses on LeWitt’s seminal wall drawings and includes sixteen ink-wash works initially conceived in the 1980s and 1990s, including a monumental, immersive wall drawing spanning four walls. This marks the first exhibition of LeWitt’s wall drawings in mainland China.
KIDS WORKSHOP AROUND SOL LEWITT EXHIBITION
SHANGHAI
MARCH 2019
Displayed in separate rooms, the immersive installations conceived for this exhibition both literally and figuratively pull the viewers in different directions, further triggering rather antagonistic reactions. Espace à pénétrer avec trame et miroir courbe is a substantial variation on Le Parc’s original contribution to the GRAV’s 1963 labyrinth. It consists of two large semi-cylindrical structures made of curved mirrored walls, inside and outside of which visitors can freely circulate. A dynamic pattern of black-and-white stripes completes the work: it covers the entire room from floor to ceiling, along with four panels hanging at body level near the center, where they are subjected to the public’s erratic movement. Bringing to mind the traditional house of mirrors at carnivals, this maze-like installation prompts a resolutely playful experience among the audience.
