Daniel Arsham navigates in a space where architecture and art merge, often playing upon existing structures to create unexpected yet organic sculptures. And his latest exhibition, “The Fall, The Ball, and The Wall,” showcases the Brooklyn-based artist’s diverse, innovative practice and his ongoing interest in challenging expectations of accepted reality.

Arsham presents three bodies of work for the new show–his first solo exhibition in L.A.: His structural interventions continue to defy the notion of architectural rigidity, causing walls to drip and corners to meet in knots. These are accompanied by a new series of work on canvas that depicts realistic buildings neighbored by text that rises tall as skyscrapers, spelling out words such as “oops” and “okay.” And finally, the show features a large-scale, hanging mass of tinted spheres–based on the pixels of a hyper-magnified photo of a cloud formation–from the set of Merce Cunningham’s final performances.

The exhibition is on view January 20 through February 16, 2012 at OHWOW.

In May of last year, the New York arts community was shocked and saddened by the death of thirty-five-year-old designer Tobias Wong. Blurring the lines between conceptual art and design, Wong’s work questioned the value system of objects and pretensions of designers with humor and wit. Now, in honor of his life and work, nine NYC-based designers have come together to create Brokenoff Brokenoff, an exhibition of new works that reconsider and reinterpret Mr. Wong’s design legacy, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and humor. (Gallery slideshow below.)

Wong was a talented designer and provocateur, as well as a master of clever expropriation (take, for example, This Is Not A Lamp, his Phillipe Starck Bubble-Club-chair-turned-lamp, or his gold-plated McDonald’s coffee stirrers). He was also a dear friend to the nine Brokenoff Brokenoff participating designers, who include Todd Bracher, Dror Benshetrit, Brad Ascalon, Stephen Burks, Joe Doucet, Josee Lepage, Frederick McSwain, Marc Thorpe, and David Weeks.

Reflecting on his friendship with Wong, Todd Bracher says, “My relationship with Tobi was very subtle and unspoken. I’d known him for many years through his work and personally only for about a year before his death. In that year, I felt as though my exchanges with him were sort of out of body-from mind to mind, without sounding odd-meaning we just simply ‘got’ each other. He was a sincere person whose wit and spirit cut through everything, and if you were a like person the bind became instant and strong. He has been and will continue to be greatly missed.”

Bracher’s exhibition piece, called Secondhand Romance, was inspired by Wong’s glass candlestick and smoking mitten. “The concept is a revisited candlestick where instead the hero is the cigarette,” Bracher says. “It is about taking pleasure and finding intimacy in something some see as disgusting and others see as wonderful. The idea is as Tobi had defined in his work, crossing boundaries. Saying that cigarettes too are wonderful, beautiful and sexy. They are not to be seen as wholly negative, and in some ways, even worshiped, indulging in its odor and pattern of waffling smoke.”

Describing his piece, Dror Benshetrit says: “I met Tobi while I was working on one of my first products, the Vase of Phases. The project appealed to Tobi and he approached me about including it in the Terminal 5 show at JFK. I was excited about the opportunity, especially because I appreciated his work and his vision. I admired him as a designer, artist, and thinker. In this tribute to Tobi, the vase is a symbol for our first encounter, and plays homage to Tobi’s life as a phase.”

Various Projects and Bondtoo, a new creative space in Manhattan, were close collaborators and friends of Wong’s as well, and realized his The Times of New York Candle with a limited-edition run of 1000. Describing the history behind the piece, Josee Lepage says that Wong “thought of himself, more than anything, as an observer. One of his last concepts was The Times of New York Candle. Wong saw the candle as both a tribute to the iconic newspaper and as a nostalgic commentary on printed media. To capture the olfactory essence of black ink on newsprint, a candle scent has been developed that would include guaiacwood, cedar, musk, spice and floral hints, with a powdery note and velvet nuance.”

Other pieces include Frederick McSwain’s Die, a portrait of his friend made of 13,138 die (one for every day of Wong’s life), which references Wong’s early installation work and the concepts of uncertainty and risk taking so integral to his work, and Marc Thorpe’s Call Me or Copy Me, a version of Wong’s personal business card, which Thorpe transformed from plastic to gold. According to Thorpe: “I was introduced to Tobias Wong in 2001. He handed me his plastic stencil business card and said, ‘Call me or copy me.’ The business card was the essence of his design intention: to subvert the value of objects, challenge the definition of status and question originality.”

BrokenOff BrokenOff runs through tomorrow at:

Gallery R’Pure
3 East 19th Street
New York City

For more information, visit brokenoffbrokenoff.com.

Images courtesy of Gallery R’Pure, Todd Bracher, and Dror Benshetrit.

Now Showing: The Museum of the City of New York, the Laurie M Tisch Illumination Fund, and Aperture Foundation present Moveable Feast: Fresh Produce and the NYC Green Carts Program.

Five emerging artists – LaToya Ruby Frazier, Thomas Holton, Gabriele Stabile, Will Steacy, and Shen Wei – have been commissioned to document the ongoing Green Cart Initiative, which has placed 1000 mobile food carts offering fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the five boroughs. Reflecting on the impact these carts have on individuals and their surrounding communities – many of which have otherwise limited access to fresh produce – the artists photographed the carts themselves, the vendors, customers, and the contrasting commercial/ food landscapes around the carts, contemplating everything from interpersonal relationships to urban culture to the health issues related to food deserts.

And while push carts are a historic urban icon – as demonstrated in the exhibition’s inclusion of some fantastic historical photographs by artists like Berenice Abbott – the show documents the Green Cart Program’s attempt to address the very modern civic issue of unequal access to nutritional foods.

Moveable Feast: Fresh Produce and the NYC Green Carts Program is organized by Sean Corcoran, Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Museum of the City of New York, and Denise Wolff from Aperture Foundation.

Moveable Feast runs through July 10th at the Museum of the City of New York.

*above: Gabriele Stabile, Untitled (From the series: Street Smart), 2009, courtesy of the Artist and Aperture Foundation. Gabriele Stabile documented the daily routines of several vendors, including their interactions with customers into whose homes he was invited, and where he was able to document food preparation and meal time – and the impact of fresh produce on individual.

*above: Gabriele Stabile, Untitled (From the series: Street Smart), 2009, courtesy of the Artist and Aperture Foundation

*above: Berenice Abbott, Hot Dog Stand, April 8, 1936, Collection of the Museum of the City of New York

*above: Thomas Holton, 8th Avenue Traffic, 2010, courtesy of the Artist and Aperture Foundation. Thomas Holton followed a group of vendors – new generation Bengali immigrants – who have found jobs in the program, and who balance their lives here with the needs of their families abroad.

*above: Thomas Holton, Hussain and Two Roommates, 2009, courtesy of the Artist and Aperture Foundation

*above: Thomas Holton, Mohammed and Hussain with a Roommate, 2010, courtesy of the Artist and Aperture Foundation

*above: Alta Ruth Hahn , Pretzel Woman, Hester Street, ca. 1935, Collection of the Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Dr. Robert Drapkin

*above: Will Steacy, Empty Grocery Store on Block Lined with Vacant Buildings, Looking South from Fulton Street & Garvey Avenue, Brooklyn, 2009, courtesy of Artist and Aperture Foundation. Will Steacy depicted the urban landscapes surrounding the Green Carts—the streets, sidewalks, and buildings, the fast food restaurants, bodegas, and markets—revealing without shying away from the reality of challenging living conditions.

*above: Will Steacy, Neighborhood Residents in Front of Tony’s, Looking West from Knickerbocker Avenue & Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, 2010, courtesy of Artist and Aperture Foundation

*above: Will Steacy, Empty Vegetable Stand on Valentines Day, Looking East from 3rd Avenue & 110th Street, New York, 2010, courtesy of Artist and Aperture Foundation

*above: Byron Company, Street Vendors, Hester Street, 1898, Collection of the Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Percy Byron

*Images courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

The future of a major collection of Polaroid photographs has been secured by Vienna’s WestLicht Museum of Photography. The Museum and its owner – Peter Coeln – have announced the purchase of the International Polaroid Collection, as well as plans to share it with the public in an exhibition running June through August 2011 at the Museum.

The acquisition ensures the continued existence of the collection, which was at risk of being broken up for sale at auction after being placed on the market by liquidators dealing with the Polaroid company. The collection-which, since 1990, had been housed at the Swiss Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne-consists of 4.400 artworks from 800 artists, including the likes of Peter Beard, Robert Mapplethorpe, Minor White, Ansel Adams, Sally Mann, and Andy Warhol. It was compiled by the company between 1970 and 1990.

Physicist and Polaroid founder Edwin Herbert Land invented the instant film process in the late 1940s, and from the beginning invited famous artists to experiment with the material. Prior to its insolvency, the company had two major collections – one based in Europe and the other in the U.S. Rarities from the American collection were sold at auction by Sotheby’s in New York in 2010.

The WestLicht has also joined forces with the Impossible Project, which saved the last existing Polaroid film factory in Enchede, Netherlands, and is developing new film material for traditional Polaroid cameras. In the spirit of Polaroid’s collaborative history, Impossible also invites artists to work with the new film. Some of the resulting works will be included in the June exhibition.

Check out images from the International Polaroid Collection, courtesy of the WestLicht Museum, below. For more information on the collection, visit the WestLicht Museum site.

*above: Mary Ellen Mark 1990, 9,5 x 7,5 cm (3 3/4 x 3 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Robert Mapplethorpe 1979, 11,5 x 9 cm (4 1/2 x 8 1/2 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Yousuf Karsh, Marshall McLuhan, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 1974, 33 x 25 cm (13 x 10 1/4 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Marina Abramović & Ulay 1990, 72 x 56 cm (28 x 22 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Peter Beard 1987, 70,5 x 55 cm (27 3/4 x 22 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Lucien Clergue, Le Cerf Volant, Bretagne 1984, 42 x 40 cm (16 3/4 x 16 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: William Wegman 1987, 76 x 55 cm (30 x 22 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Oliviero Toscani, Andy Warhol 1975, 7,5 x 9,5 cm (3 x 3 3/4 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*above: Sally Mann, Composition II 1985, 64 x 56 cm (25 1/4 x 22 in.) /WestLicht Collection

*above: Ansel Adams, Yosemite Falls & Flowers 1979, 8 x 8 cm (3 1/4 x 3 1/4 in.) / WestLicht Collection

*All images courtesy of the WestLicht Museum.

Now showing: Artist Sandra Eula Lee‘s “Two Waters (Seeds in a Wild Garden)” exhibition at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Inspired by her research on urban plant landscapes, Lee’s new show explores the “defiant gardens” that emerge in rapidly industrializing areas through drawings, photographs, and installation.

Lee finds many of her materials in the neighborhoods she lives in and around. In “MountainMountain,” for example, the rocks are construction rubble that went to sea and washed ashore everyday in Xiamen, China, where she was an Artist-in-Residence for three months. According to Lee, “Chunks of asphalt, concrete and bricks with bits of tile and ceramic were weathered by the ocean and washed ashore as rounded stones. It was a beautiful process I couldn’t ignore.” And “Seeds in a wild garden” was made from rubble Lee collected from a local construction site, including broken rebar, bricks, work gloves, gnarled wire, and bent nails, painted to match the colors of the neighborhood gardens surrounding it.

We had the opportunity to speak with Ms. Lee about her new work and show.

above: “Seeds in a wild garden,” 2010. Materials collected from construction sites in Korea, paint in colors of local gardens

In your own words, what was the inspiration for the show?
Two years ago, I traveled to Korea for a residency at IASK Goyang through the National Museum of Contemporary Art. What began as a search into Korea’s wartime history evolved into a wider interest in the landscape and how it has been reconstructed over time. Driving to see the country’s landscape, the mountains, and surrounding waters outside the cities left a great impression on me, as did the constant sight of construction.

During my time in China I was greatly affected by the gardens in the water towns of Suzhou, and later by the mountains and surrounding waters of Xiamen that related to the landscape I experienced in Korea. Over time I began to consider the garden’s relationship with the landscape~ how the garden is essentially an expression of people’s philosophy or attitude with their surroundings. Both gardens and landscape are constructions, and both are ephemeral, or cyclical, in nature. This thread shaped the travel and work I did this past year in Korea and China, considering a variety of garden structures and altered landscapes.

How did the BBG’s offerings shape the work in the exhibition?
At the BBG I started with Japanese garden traditions, spending time in the Garden and meeting with the curators of the Starr Bonsai Collection and the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, who kindly offered their time. And with the librarian’s help, I’m mining the archives and reading books that approach the garden as a container for ideas and identity. This is my interest in bringing my artwork to the BBG audience, to highlight alternate forms of garden-making and question some of the cultural assumptions that are attached.

How much of the work was made pre- and post- your residency at BBG?
The BBG continues to shape the work in the exhibition~ by that I mean new works will be added to the show during the course of my residency, which continues until the exhibition closes on June 5.

Some of the works were created during my time in Asia, though they were re-shaped and re-contextualized for the BBG. Other works were made during my residency at BBG, which began over a month ago, and are an extension of my study with access to the resources there. The “Two Waters” project continues to grow and has taken a unique turn at BBG. Come May, I will add a new series of drawings to the exhibition. By keeping the show alive with new works, I think viewers can have greater participation with my process as Artist-in-Residence.

What does the phrase “Two Waters” reference exactly?
I can say there are many references for “Two waters” that fit the work. Because of that I chose the title and enjoyed how it connects thoughts on boundaries, reflection, and spaces of contemplation.

Describe your thoughts on the concept of defiant gardens in the midst of rapidly industrializing societies.
The term comes from a incredible book, “Defiant Gardens” by Kenneth Helphand that I read when I began my residency at BBG. In it, Helphand proposes that the power of a garden can be strongest when it exists in inhospitable conditions. This incongruity highlights the humanity that gardens can represent. Focusing mostly on gardens made during wartime, Helphand’s book really resonated with me and opened my eyes, creating further connections with the work I started with in Korea. Images in the exhibition include documentation of various gardens created amongst the construction sites and historical landscape in Korea and China. And “Seeds in a wild garden” is created from rubble I collected from a local construction site in Goyang, painted in colors of the neighborhood gardens. I think the idea of a defiant garden is something that we can really relate to when living in an urban center.

How do you see man-made gardens and landscapes in the grander scheme of nature?
And spontaneous (non-man-made) gardens/landscapes ?
I see they are a part of each other and exist with each other. Man-made gardens are an expression, ephemeral in nature and need care to survive. Spontaneous gardens on the other hand grow for survival and adapt to natural cycles for survival. I think there’s a lot of grey area in between with constant negotiation of territories.

above: “MountainMountain,” 2010, Glass, sea-weathered construction rubble, acrylic sheets, spray paint

above: “Pursuing the horizon” (series), 2011, Potted street garden, China; Potted plants, street sale, China; Potted roof garden, China; Potted plants and laundry, China. Photographs, wood panel, spray paint

above: “Pursuing the horizon” (series), 2011,Bonsai plant, China; Soswaewon garden pond, Korea; Couple’s garden, China; BBG pond, U.S. Photographs, wood panel, spray paint

above: “Two waters (Seeds in a wild garden), Exhibition view,” Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2011

*All images copyright and courtesy the artist.

“Two Waters” runs through June 5th at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden:
1000 Washington Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11225
(718) 623-7200

For one week only, Joy of Living – a charity project created by design author Max Fraser – brings together over 100 leading UK designers to support Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres, which empower people to live with and beyond cancer through a network of unique cancer caring centers designed by superstar architects like Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry. Each participating designer has been charged with creating a new artwork that expresses the Joy of Living sentiment, starting with a simple sheet of A4 graph paper. The signed works are on display at London’s Somerset House through March 21st, with the goal of raising £50,000 for Maggie’s.

Each artwork (check out a few designs below) is priced at £250, and the name of the piece’s designer will not be revealed until after purchase, making sure that supporters buy a piece to which they have a sincere emotional response. In addition to the artwork, each designer has supplied a short text on the inspiration for their work. Participating designers include Terence Conran, Tom Dixon, Barber Osgerby, Sebastian Bergne, Tomoko Azumi, Martino Gamper, Stuart Haygarth, Max Lamb, and Troika, among many others.

Joy of Living is a personal project by Max Fraser and is backed by his brand, LONDON DESIGN GUIDE. Explaining the inspiration behind the event, Fraser says, “After a very personal, emotional journey as I supported my mother through her 6-year battle with cancer, I vowed to contribute in some way to mankind’s fight against this disease. Maggie’s recognizes that building an atmosphere of calm and celebrating a good quality of life are immensely beneficial to patients, and I know that my mother would have benefited so positively from its services. Charity founder Maggie Keswick Jencks once said, “Above all what matters is not to lose the joy of living in the fear of dying,” and this statement has inspired the design challenge and Joy of Living project.”

To see all the designs, visit londondesignguide.com/joyofliving. Donations can be made online at justgiving.com/joyofliving.

Now showing: Rodarte: States of Matter at MOCA LA.

Celebrating the art of fashion, MOCA’s newest exhibition presents recent fashion and costume design pieces by Kate and Laura Mulleavy, the sister-dream-team behind the house of Rodarte. Portraying Rodarte’s experimental, daring, and often conceptual garments as charged, sculptural objects, States of Matter features creations from Rodarte’s Spring 2010, Fall 2010, and Fall 2008 runway collections, as well as original ballet costumes designed by the Mulleavy sisters for the recent hit, Black Swan.

This is the Mulleavy’s first solo exhibition on the west coast, and follows last year’s hit installation at New York’s Cooper-Hewitt: Quicktake: Rodarte. The MOCA show was curated by MOCA Associate Curator Rebecca Morse and designed by Alexandre de Betak, and is presented by Swarovski.

Kate and Laura Mulleavy received their bachelor’s degrees in liberal arts from UC Berkeley in 2001. Following their graduations, they returned to their home in Pasadena and launched Rodarte – without any formal fashion training – in 2005. Since then, they’ve launched a dozen instinctively designed, eclectically inspired collections (motivated by everything from Japanese horror films to California Condors) and won multiple awards, including the CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2009.

Rodarte: States of Matter runs through June 5, 2011 at MOCA, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

*images by Autumn de Wilde, courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Now showing at New York’s Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery: Walls, Diaries, and Paintings, a solo exhibition of Brooklyn-based artist José Parlá‘s latest work. Featuring fifteen new paintings (see below!), the show traces Parlá‘s ongoing exploration and documentation of the world’s cities and cultures – mirroring the colors and textures of alleyways and neighborhoods from Istanbul to Tokyo, from Havana to New York.

Parlá’s paintings – with their vibrant strokes, crumbling signs, and fragmented words – are revelations, proof of the history of these neighborhoods, multi-layered markers of the passage of time and the evolution of a place’s identity.

Born and raised in Miami, Mr. Parlá’s practice began in the graffiti culture of the 1980s, and has since grown to reflect his identification with the work of artists such as Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly. He attended Savannah College of Art and Design, and now lives and works in Brooklyn.

In coordination with the exhibition, Hatje Cantz is publishing a new monograph – also called Walls, Diaries, and Paintings – which is available for pre-order now at Amazon.

Walls, Diaries, and Paintings runs through April 16th at:
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
505 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
www.brycewolkowitz.com

*above: Your History

*above: The Struggle Continues

*above: If I was Water

*above: Order, Pattern, Organization, Form and Relationship

*above: Victory

*above: the artist, José Parlá

*Images courtesy of Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery

New York’s Bruce Silverstein Gallery presents Shinichi Maruyama: Gardens. For his latest project, Maruyama has created a conceptual series of twelve images inspired by the mental and physical endurance necessary to create a Japanese Zen garden. Drawing a line between himself and the monks who maintain Zen gardens in Japan, Maruyama has created surreal compositions by repeatedly throwing tempera paint into the air and then photographing and combining the frozen moments for beautifully balanced, otherworldly and physically powerful images (see below).

According to the artist: “It is said that a Zen garden represents in a three dimensional space the spirits of high priests who have achieved enlightenment. The Zen garden is the expression of boundless cosmic beauty in a physical environment, created through intense human concentration, labor and repeated action.”

Maruyama was born in Nagano Japan, and has lived and worked in New York since 2003.

Gardens runs through April 2 at Bruce Silverstein Gallery:
535 W. 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

above: Garden #3

above: Garden #8

above: Garden #12

above: Garden #1

above: Garden #6

*images courtesy of Bruce Silverstein Gallery

Now showing at New York’s HASTED KRAEUTLER Gallery: Albert Watson.

Hasted Kraeutler presents famed photographer Albert Watson‘s first major gallery exhibition in the United States. Spanning nearly forty years of Watson’s career, the show is expansive, covering everything from HItchcock with Goose, (according to Watson, “the first famous person that I shot…”) to the surreal images from Watson’s Vegas series.

As James Crump wrote in Albert Watson (Phaidon, 2007), “although Watson’s subjects may seem disparate at first, on closer inspection they plot an artistic trajectory held tightly together by a thread of perfectionism, casting objects, bodies, fashion into finely honed symbols of desire, ennui and dreamlike immersion.”

Albert Watson has created an exclusive edition of Platinum prints of some of his most iconic photographs (including Hitchcock with Goose, 1973, Christy Turlington, 1990, and Kate Moss (back), Marrakesh, Morocco, 1993), especially for this exhibition. The exhibition also coincides with the release of two new limited-edition books and archival pigment prints of 500 copies, Strip Search: Las Vegas and UFO: Unified Fashion Objectives (PQ Blackwell in association with Abrams, 2010).

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Albert Watson studied film and television at the Royal College of Art in London before he moved to the U.S. to launch a career in photography in 1970. Last year, readers of Photo District News named Albert Watson one of the twenty most influential photographers, demonstrating that he is a “photographer’s photographer,” and has had a huge impact on his peers and photographers of future generations. Watson has received many honors, including a Lucie Award for lifetime achievement in photography, a Grammy Award for the cover of the Mason Profitt album, Come and Gone (1975), and three ANDY Awards for creativity in advertising. On September 9, 2010, the Royal Photographic Society awarded Albert Watson their Centenary Medal, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the art and science of photography.

The exhibition runs through December 4th at:
Hasted Kraeutler
537 West 24th Street,
New York, NY 10011
hastedkraeutler.com

above: Alan Shepard’s Lunar Suit, Apollo 14, NASA, 1990. Chromogenic print. 96 x 72 inches. Edition of 5. Courtesy Albert Watson/ Hasted Kraeutler.

above: Alfred Hitchcock, Los Angeles, 1973. Platinum print. 30 x 22 inches. Edition of 3. Courtesy Albert Watson/ Hasted Kraeutler.

above: Monkey with Gun, New York City, 1992. Platinum print. 30 x 22 inches. Edition of 3. Courtesy Albert Watson/ Hasted Kraeutler.

above: Mick Jagger, Los Angeles, 1992. Chromogenic print. 96 x 72 inches. Edition of 5. Courtesy Albert Watson/ Hasted Kraeutler.

above: Road to Nowhere, Las Vegas, 2001. Chromogenic print. 70 x 112 inches. Edition of 5. Courtesy Albert Watson/ Hasted Kraeutler.