This weekend, a large-scale project on Italy’s Lake Iseo connected two islands to each other and to the mainland. The project is not a bridge, tunnel, or other infrastructure, but a temporary art installation by the conceptual and environmental artist Christo.
Each summer since 2008, the Château de Versailles presents a contemporary monographic exhibition by a guest artist. For the ninth edition in 2016, Ólafur Elíasson has installed a series of site-specific works – three in the gardens and six inside the palace – to produce new perceptions of the iconic site.
In Paris, the iconic pyramid that serves as the main entrance to the Musée du Louvre seems to have temporarily disappeared. The illusion is the result of an anamorphic installation by the street artist JR.
At Dawson Cole Fine Art in Palm Desert, an exhibition of realist paintings by Tom Betts opens on April 1. The exhibition, Fire Light, brings together eight new works from a series of the same title.
Yoko Ono: Lumière de L’aube opens this week at the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Lyon. The exhibition follows One Woman Show at MoMA in New York, and is Yoko Ono’s first retrospective in France.
At the Winter Palace in Vienna, a selection of works by Ólafur Elíasson forms a site-specific exhibition titled Baroque Baroque. More than a dozen works, created during the last twenty years, are installed within the architecture of the 18th century palace. The contrast of Elíasson’s contemporary works inside grand Baroque staterooms alters perceptions of space and history for an experience that supersedes both.
Yuan Goang-Ming 袁廣鳴, Landscape of Energy, 2014; single-channel video, 7:30, edition of 5; image via La Biennale de Lyon
La Biennale de Lyon was launched in 1991 and has become one of the largest contemporary art events in the world, with greater attendance and broader representation than Manifesta and the Whitney Biennal. For its 13th edition in 2015, the Biennale de Lyon brings together 60 artists from 28 countries to explore the theme of La Vie Moderne. Continue reading “La Biennale de Lyon, La Vie Moderne”
From June 9 through November 1, the Château de Versailles presents an exhibition of sculptural works by Anish Kapoor. It is the eighth exhibition of contemporary works at Versailles since 2008, and coincides with the tercentenary of the death of Louis XIV.
Björk, dress from Biophilia, 2011; dress by Iris van Herpen; installation view at MoMA, 2015; photo by Timothy A. Clary / Getty Images
From March 8 through June 7, the Museum of Modern Art presents a mid-career retrospective of work by Björk. The eponymous exhibition examines the Icelandic singer’s career with a custom-built pavilion and a specially developed augmented audio guide for an immersive visitor experience. Continue reading “Björk at MoMA”
Anila Quayyum Agha, Intersections (installation view, Grand Rapids Art Museum), 2014; image courtesy of Anila Quayyum Agha
In Michigan’s Grand Rapids Art Museum, Anila Quayyum Agha’s Intersections is installed after being named the winner of ArtPrize 2014. The installation consists of a light source inside a laser-cut wooden cube, casting shadows that evoke Islamic sacred spaces.
The Fondation Louis Vuitton, in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris; photo courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton
On October 27, the new museum building for the Fondation Louis Vuitton will open in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. It was designed by the Los Angeles-based starchitect Frank Gehry with the patronage of the French businessman Bernard Arnault.
Ólafur Elíasson, Riverbed, 2014; installation view, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, 2014; photo by Anders Sune Berg
In Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Ólafur Elíasson has transformed the museum’s South Wing into a rocky river landscape with a site-specific installation combining nature, architecture, and art.
This summer, André Le Nôtre’s 17th-century Water Theater grove at Versailles has been restored by the landscape designer Louis Benech with contemporary sculptures by Jean-Michel Othoniel – the first new permanent artworks added the garden in over 300 years.
Richard Serra, East-West/West-East, image via Qatar Museums Authority
This spring, coinciding with his first major exhibition in the Middle East, American sculptor Richard Serra launched a public art commission in Qatar entitled East-West/West-East. Serra’s large-scale assemblies of sheet metal are famously minimal and massive, and this site-specific work in Qatar is absolutely monolithic.
It’s mid-June, our email and Twitter feeds are exploding, and all the private jets are gone. It’s Art Basel. What do you need to know about the world’s most significant contemporary art event?