Pablo Picasso: Picasso: Mosqueteros at Gagosian’s Chelsea Gallery, NY

Bust (1970) by Pablo Picasso, via Gagosian Gallery

Gagosian’s Chelsea Gallery in New York is currently featuring an exhibit titled, Picasso: Mosqueteros,. The exhibit focuses on paintings created by Picasso during the last years of his life. The exhibit is considered a survey of Picasso’s late life as it examines his thought process from 1962 to his last productive year, 1972. The exhibit was made possible due to backing from Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Museo Picasso, The Museum of Modern Art, and a number of other private collections. The exhibit will come to a close on June 6th, 2009. For more information visit, www.gagosian.com

Piero Manzoni Retrospective at Gagosian Gallery

‘Merda d’Artista’ by Piero Manzoni

Andres Serrano declared himself the champion of fecal art in 2008. However, his play on human excrement is not very groundbreaking when you consider the 90 cans of ‘Merda di’Artista’ by Piero Manzoni. Manzoni ‘produced’ the contents of the cans in 1961. Manzoni priced the cans based on the weight of gold. The artist died a few years later-- a few months short of 30 years of age. Since that time the individual cans have sold for as much as $80,000. The Gagosian Gallery is currently holding the first major United States retrospective of Manzoni’s work. While Manzoni is best known for his canned feces the retrospective shows that there was more to Manzoni than 90 cans crap.

The exhibit at Gagosian ranks Manzoni as one of the first major artist critics of the art world-- art world criticism via means of creation. His radical brand of conceptualism took jabs at the art dealers and collectors who supported him. At heart Piero Manzoni was a critic of the commercialization of the art world-- one could say that he loathed it. The irony being that art collectors still pay larges sums of money for his visual criticism today.

Links of Interest:
Manzoni: A Retrospective [Gagosian]
Piero Manzoni: A Retrospective [Time Out NY]
To Bump Off Art as He Knew It [NY Times]
Italian Conceptualist Piero Manzoni: More Than the Guy Who Canned HisCaca [Village Voice]

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Richard Serra at Gagosian Gallery London

Artist Richard Serra poses for photographers during the unveiling of his new exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in London October 3, 2008 via Reuters

Richard Serra is exhibiting in London for the first time since Weight and Measure at Tate Gallery in 1992. The two concurrent exhibitions at the Gagosian Galleries on Davies Street and Britannia Street in London. The Davies Street gallery houses new works by Serra on paper. The Britannia Street exhibit, titled ‘Sculpture’, involves three new large-scale steel installations and four smaller wall hanging pieces. The Serra sculptures at the current Gagosian exhibit weigh over 300 tons and can be viewed at the gallery until December 20, 2008. Born in 1939, Richard Serra is considered to be one of the most significant artists of his generation.

Link of Interest:

Richard Serra: Sculpture [Gagosian Gallery]