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Elizabeth Peyton. Michelle and Sasha Obama
Listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic
National Convention, 2008.

Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton is the first survey of Elizabeth Peyton’s work in an American institution. The survey will include more than 100 works made over the past fifteen years.

Peyton’s oeuvre can be read in chapters, each of which feature portraits of friends, family, personal heroes, fleeting passions, and will offer a visual biography of the artist, and at the same time create a snapshot of the popular culture of the past decade.

From her earliest portraits of musicians like Kurt Cobain, Liam Gallagher, and Jarvis Cocker to more recent paintings featuring friends and figures from the worlds of art, fashion, cinema, and politics including Rirkrit Tiravanija, Matthew Barney, Marc Jacobs, and her recent Michelle Obama painting, which was added to the show November 5th. Peyton is best known for paintings that depict historical figures and celebrities that reflects the cultural climate of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. Steeped in history, her work aspires to bridge the gap between art and life.

New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
212.219.1222
www.newmuseum.org

Pedro Meyer. Devouring Saturn, 2006

The UCR/California Museum of Photography presents the Heresies Project, by Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer. This retrospective opened simultaneously in nearly 60 museums around the world. Heresies will be a major breakthrough in the way photographic work is exhibited.

Pedro Meyer is recognized widely both for his provocative and powerful images and his pioneering work in the digital imaging era. Meyer’s photographs consistently question the limits of truth, fiction and reality. With the advent of digital technologies in the early 90’s, Meyer evolved from a documentary photographer, who created “straight photography” to a digital documentary maker, who combines elements of different photographs to arrive at a digital rather than a “decisive moment.” His famous statement that every photograph, either digitally manipulated or not, is both truth and fiction, caused him to be seen as a Heretic in the orthodox world of documentary photography, thus the title Heresies.

For Heresies, UCR/CMP will show 25 recent “painted” photographs, constructed by Meyer using both digital photographic and digital painterly tools. In much of Meyer’s earlier work the “fiction” was hidden behind the superb realism of the print; in these more recent images, Meyer shows his hand. The power of Meyer’s most recent work derives from his recuperation of photographic veracity within painterly rather than photographic space. It provides us with a new and dynamic revision to the classic Pictorialism of the Photo Secessionists.

University of California Riverside
3824 Main Street
Riverside, Ca 92501
951-827-4787
www.cmp.ucr.edu

Nickolas Muray. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr and Joan Crawford, 1929
© Condé Nast Publications Inc./Courtesy Condé Nast Archive.

The first major exhibition to bring together the magazine’s historic archive of rare vintage prints with its contemporary photographs. The exhibition explores the ways in which photography and celebrity have interacted and changed, with portraits from the magazine’s early period (1913–1936) displayed in conjunction with works from the contemporary Vanity Fair (1983–present). The Los Angeles presentation, which is sponsored by Burberry, will be the only U.S. stop on the exhibition’s international tour.

Photographers to be represented include Cecil Beaton, Harry Benson, Julian Broad, Imogen Cunningham, Annie Leibovitz, Man Ray, Mary Ellen Mark, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Edward Steichen, Mario Testino, and Bruce Weber.

Curators: Terence Pepper, curator of photographs, National Portrait Gallery, and David Friend, editor of creative development, Vanity Fair. Curator at LACMA: Charlotte Cotton, photography.

A collaboration between Vanity Fair and the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Los Angeles County Museum
5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90036
323-857-6000
www.lacma.org

Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets) (detail), Jim Dine, 2008

The first contemporary art project at the Getty Villa, this installation presents new sculpture and poetry by Jim Dine inspired by ancient objects in the Museum’s collection.

Since emerging in the early 1960s as part of the Pop Art movement, Jim Dine (born 1935) has become one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American art. While best known for his expressive depictions of the heart symbol and commonplace modern objects such as tools and a man’s bathrobe, Dine has always had a deep fascination with Greek and Roman antiquities. In media as diverse as drawing, sculpture, printmaking, and painting, he has reached across the centuries to engage classical artists, re-creating their work and making it his own.

The installation is accompanied by a 10-minute film charting Dine’s creative process.
Watch the documentary.

The Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90049–1679
(310) 440-7300
www.getty.edu

Julio Cesar Morales. Interrupted Passage (still), 2008

The Orange County Museum of Art’s 2008 California Biennial continues the four-decade long history of presenting new developments in contemporary art showcasing works by some of the state’s most exciting and innovative emerging artists.

The only exhibition of its kind in California, the Biennial provides support and exposure for talented young artists working in one of the world’s great creative centers. The exhibition presents large-scale installations, sculpture, paintings, photographs, film and video art that reflect today’s eclectic communities, cultures, and artistic trends. The Biennial continues the museum’s four-decade history of presenting new developments in art and supporting artists on the verge of international recognition.

The exhibition is presented at both the Newport Beach and South Coast Plaza locations. This year’s biennial is guest-curated by Lauri Firstenberg, founder, director, and curator of LAXART in Los Angeles.

Orange County Museum of Art
850 San Clemente Drive
Newport Beach, California 92660
www.ocma.net

Martin Kippenberger. Self-Portrait, 1980

Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective assembles key selections and bodies of work from 1977 to 1997—including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, installations, multiples, photographs, posters, announcement cards, and books—in order to fully represent the artist’s exceptional and cohesive oeuvre.

This is his first American retrospective and offers new insights into the accomplishments and complexities of the artist’s remarkable practice. Included among the many series and bodies of work represented will be selections from the following: the renowned self-portraits that Kippenberger produced throughout his career in all media; the Lieber Maler, male mir (Dear Painter, Paint for Me) painting series of the early 1980s; the Die I.N.P. Bilder (Is Not Embarrassing Pictures), Preis Bilder (Prize Pictures), and No Problem painting series of the 1980s (including the 1986 work The Problem Perspective. You are not the problem, it’s the problem maker in your head, which serves as the title of the exhibition); a reunion of key works from his breakthrough 1987 exhibition of sculpture Peter. Die russische Stellung (Peter. The Russian Position); the “drunken” lanterns and other important sculptures of the late 1980s and 1990s; and the two later series Das Floss der Medusa (The Raft of Medusa) and Jacqueline: The Paintings Pablo Couldn’t Paint Anymore.

The exhibition will also prominently feature numerous examples of the Hotel drawings and other works on paper; photographic works; and selections from the artist’s prolific production of printed matter, including books, editions, multiples, and large-scale presentations of his exhibition posters and announcement cards—all of which are central to Kippenberger’s oeuvre.

Mocca Grand Avenue
250 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012
www.moca.org

Nimue Yang, Wounded, Oil on panel, 16″ x 12″

Like most shows at Limner, this one has an eclectic bent. The works range in style from traditional oil painting on canvas to digital photo-manipulation and and video. Susan Kaprov’s digital manipulation pictured above is an example of the edgy work, the screaming baby head is bulging outward and twisting like a taffy balloon. The open mouth scream is also seen in several other pieces in the show, such as in Jeremy Leichman’s Collared, a painted Terracotta sculpture of a business man, his neck stretched out by a stack of collars like an African Kayan woman or a Burmese Pa Dong Karen, but in this case the collars are not for beautification, but strangulation. Russ Orlando, version of the gaping portrait is made of wood veneer, with varying shades of wood used to model the face and background. On the more traditional side is a sensitive portrait of Lucien Freudby Kingston artist Thom Grady painted in Encaustic on panel; and a starkly colored portrait Geoffrey Beadle of Erie, PA.

This Show of Heads shows the many ways in which the head can be used as a means of self-expression. All the artists in the show have used the portrait formula to express their individuality. The character of the artists are revealed in the works, in some we see the comic, in others anxiety, gayety or shock. In Nimue Yang’s Oil on panel, Wounded, a mouth growing out of the neck of a medieval princess attempts to speak…

Reception, Saturday, Nov. 1, 4-6pm

Limner Gallery,
123 Warren Street,
Hudson, New York
Phone: 518-828-2343
Web: www.slowart.com/limner/index.htm

Heagle employs varied subjects in these works including portraits of women, landscapes, and images of animals and birds, most prominently vultures, which have come to symbolize elements of consumer culture and aspects of the current economic mood. Snakes also inhabit Heagle’s narratives as traditional symbols of evil or temptation.  Heagle’s subjects also reflect the individual’s inner turmoil and the negotiation of personhood within a broad social context.

In many of these works, Heagle explores the artist’s role within the complex framework of modern morality and the realities of modern life.  In The End of Abundance (2008), two vultures pick through a huge pile of rubbish and discarded goods. Within the pile-up there is a bucket of brushes referencing the artist’s studio. Other props of the studio appear in the paintings including brushes and blobs of paint on a palette.

Through this body of work Heagle also examines the underlying eroticism found in images of death.  As Georges Bataille has argued, sexuality and death are indivisibly intertwined and we have seen artists throughout European history employ this idea in their work.  Painters such as Goya and Soutine have utilized the depictions of dead animals as symbols of life and death, highlighting the erotic undertones of the imagery.  In She’ll Get Hers Heagle continues to explore the twists of erotic imagery and both its sublimation and numerous permutations in our time.

Karen Heagle was born in Tomah, Wisconsin in 1967. She was educated at the University of Wisconsin and received her MFA at the Pratt Institute.  Recent group shows include The Guys We Would Fuck, curated by Nayland Blake, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York; No New Tale to Tell, 31 Grand, Brooklyn; Men, curated by Ellen Altfest, I-20 Gallery; You Have to be Almost Gifted to Do What I Do, curated by Oliver Newton and Steven Stewart, Alexander and Bonin, New York; and Panic Room, the Deste Foundation of the Arts, Athens.  Her works are in many collections, including the Judith Rothschild Contemporary Drawing Collection at the Museum of Modern Art.  She lives and works in Brooklyn.

I-20 Gallery,
557 West 23rd Street,
New York, NY 10011
Phone:  212-645-1100
Web: www.i-20.com

© Natalia Skobeeva

The intricate statues of Easter Island are photographed with Polaroid instant film; film of London is buried in coffee; and expired film is used to reveal unpredictable results.

Other projects include photographing the life of London’s Central St Martin’s building using pinhole cameras with exposure times of up to 40 minutes.

Another sees models photographed in cyanotype, a 19th century printing process that gives a cyan-blue tint.

Natalia Shobeeva said: “This, my first solo show, brings together different aspects of my research into alternative techniques, some of which are  unique and will be exhibited here for the first time.

“I am looking forward to seeing how each piece will interact with the viewer – I hope to surprise every viewer at least once.”

Viewfinder director and curator Louise Forrester said: “I’m delighted to be exhibiting Natalia Skobeeva’s work – her photographic experiments are  unpredictable but always striking.

“It’s wonderful to see handcrafted prints in this increasingly digital environment. I hope that visitors will be intrigued and inspired by this work.”

Viewfinder Photography Gallery
Linear House
Peyton Place
London
SE10 8RS
Phone: 020 8858 835
Web: www.viewfinder.org.uk/

Families and children can learn about the history and traditions of Dia de los Muertos culture by participating. in a variety of themed activities. Throughout the course of the afternoon children can take part in an interactive history lesson and learn how and why bakers make special Pan de Muerto for the holiday- and taste it too! Visitors can also make a variety of arts and crafts, inspired by the colorful sugar skulls and paper flowers used on Day of the Dead altars. Also, older youth may enjoy practicing their poetry with a Calavera writing workshop to practice the tradition of tombstone poem writing. All participants can get in the spirit of the event with a candy filled piñata and free face painting inspired by typical calavera costumes.

This year the Museo is proud to present a specially designed altar dedicated to dead lovers, inspired, in part, by the work of local artist Rebecca de Leon Almazan.  The altar will be designed by Henry DeLeon, under guidance of Dr. Ellen Riojas Clark.  San Antonio legend, Vikki Carr, will also be performing a special rendition of “Boda Negras”, the classic ranchera balad, which inspired the theme for the event. Don’t miss this amazing celebration for the entire family!

Alameda National Center for Latino Arts & Culture
101 S. Santa Rosa
San Antonio, Texas 78207
Phone: 210 299 4300
Web: www.thealameda.org