Bruce Nauman. “Untitled (Helman Gallery Parallelogram),” 1971. © 2012 Bruce Nauman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS London.

In this week’s roundup, Roni Horn wins the Joan Miro International Prize, Alfredo Jaar focuses on human rights, James Turrell and Jenny Holzer explore the nature of light, and more.

• Roni Horn has been named winner of the fourth Joan Miro International Prize 2013, one of the most prestigious art awards in the world. Horn will receive the award in a ceremony to be held January 30 in Barcelona, according to the Miro Foundation. In addition to receiving the award, Horn will be featured at an exposition to be held in the summer of 2014 at the Miro Foundation in Barcelona and, later, at the CaixaForum Madrid.

• Rashid Johnson is included a group show at Galerie Guido W. Baudach (Berlin). Heinzmann Johnson Zipp juxtaposes Johnson’s and two other artists’ paintings that represent the continuation of various impulses drawn from modernism. The gallery highlights each artist as a solitary figure with his own unique, autonomous and incisive voice. The exhibition closes March 2.

• Josiah McElheny: Towards a Light Club is on view at the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH). The exhibition features works by Josiah McElheny that explore the history of modernist utopias in a series of kaleidoscopic projections, narrative films, stunning illuminated sculptures, and humorous performances. The show runs until April 7.

• Alfredo Jaar:The Politics of Images is on view at the Ryerson Image Center (Toronto). In his works Alfredo Jaar displays covers of news magazines to analyze the lack of visibility and the visual clichés about Africa disseminated in Western culture. The artist’s most recent project on the genocide in Rwanda acts as an epilogue to The Rwanda Project, 1994-2000, a series of twenty-five artworks developed to critique the world’s indifference and inaction to this mass murder. The show closes April 14.

• James Turrell and Jenny Holzer will present their work at the Hayward Gallery (London). Light Show explores the nature of light, bringing together sculptures and installations that use light in a variety of ways. The exhibition runs January 30–April 28.

• Bruce Nauman‘s latest show will soon be at Hauser & Wirth London. Bruce Nauman / mindfuck features a rigorous selection of works from throughout Nauman’s career, with a particular emphasis on his iconic neon sculptures and installations. The work is on view from January 30–March 9.

• Hiroshi Sugimoto‘s Revolution is at the Museum Brandhorst (Munich). The exhibition presents nocturnal seascapes in large format, which captured the cycle of the moon during a longer period of time. This large-sized and extensive group of fifteen works, with which the artist has been working for a long time, will be shown to the public in Munich for the first time. This work is on view through February 10.

• Robert Adams‘ retrospective is on view at the Reina Sofia (Madrid). Robert Adams: The Place We Live, a Retrospective Selection of Photographs features nearly 300 black and white photos taken between 1964 and 2008 that depict empty highways, solitary buildings, tree stumps, half-built suburban developments, and telephone polls. The show closes May 20.

• William Kentridge‘s upcoming show, Poems I Used to Know, will be on view at the Volte Gallery (Mumbai). The show comprises large drawings done in Indian ink on pieced-together book pages, a film installation, a series of flip book films, sculptures, etchings, photogravures, and a large tapestry. The exhibition will run from February 6–March 20.

Alfredo Jaar. “The Geometry of Conscience,” (2010). Courtesy of the artist and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights.

In this week’s roundup, Alfredo Jaar reconnects the dots of a collective memory, Cindy Sherman presents early work, El Anatsui showcases his pot of wisdom, and more.

• Alfredo Jaar created a memorial for the victims of the 17 years long Pinochet military rule and dictatorship. The Geometry of Conscience is installed in a plaza next to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (Santiago, Chile). The installation offers an intimate opportunity for Chileans to unearth history and reconnect the dots of a still half-buried collective memory. Located underground, the exhibit is a silent three minute experience that can only be shared by ten people at once.

• Cindy Sherman: Early Works will be unveiled at the Gucci Museo (Florence, Italy). Following her graduation in 1976 Cindy Sherman, together with a group of artists, created works and organized numerous exhibitions. The show includes three bodies of work, Murder Mystery (1976), Bus Riders (1976) and Doll Clothes (1975), from these early years. The exhibition runs from January 10 until June 9, 2013.

• El Anatsui‘s third solo exhibition in a NYC gallery is on view at the Jack Shainman Gallery. Pot of Wisdom showcases the artist’s continued use of found metals and copper wire. This body of work explores new formal approaches to color, composition and line. The show closes January 19, 2013.

• El Anatsui‘s first solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum will feature over 30 works in metal and wood that transform appropriated objects into site-specific sculptures. Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui includes twelve recent monumental wall and floor sculptures, widely considered to represent the apex of the artist’s career. The exhibition will run February 8 – August 4, 2013.

• Bruce Nauman, Mark Bradford, and Jenny Holzer present works as part of the Tenth Anniversary Acquisitions exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Texas). Kingdom Day (2010) by Bradford consists of four 10-by-10-foot canvases, as an homage to the Kingdom Day Parade in Los Angeles. Studio Mix (2010), a new video and sound installation by Nauman, is inspired by a set of finger exercises that the composer Béla Bartók wrote for children learning the piano. Holzer’s signature, kinesthetic light-emitting diode (LED) signs deliver texts in ‘Ando blue.’ These works are on view through August 18, 2013.

Judy Pfaff. “Humming in 5 Parts,” 2012. Photo courtesy of the artist and Ameringer McEnery Yohe.

In this week’s roundup Eleanor Antin reads from her memoir, Judy Pfaff presents her work, Cai Guo-Qiang to appear at the NY Public Library, Rashid Johnson explores new typologies and more.

• Eleanor Antin will be “taking over” Art21′s Twitter account on Friday, October 26 at 2:00 p.m. EST. Through posts of 140 characters or less, the artist will ”read” stanzas of a story from her memoir, Conversations with Stalin, before embarking on four New York-based performances (see below). The artist encourages audience participation throughout, and will respond to questions submitted by audience members following the live Twitter “reading.” The event will take place from 2:00–3:00 p.m. EST on Twitter. Follow along with@Art21 and the hashtag #AntinCWS, ask questions, and see what else Eleanor Antin has to say.

• Eleanor Antin will also present a four-part series of readings from Conversations with Stalin, about growing up in Cold War–era New York in a dysfunctional family of first-generation Jewish immigrants. Readings will take place at these locations: October 28, 2:30pm, The Jewish Museum; October 30, 7pm, Columbia University School of the Arts; November 1, 7pm, Brooklyn Museum; and November 2, 6:30pm, Whitney Museum of American Art.

• Judy Pfaff is showing her work at Ameringer McEnery Yohe (NYC). This exhibition highlights the artist’s use of steel, glass, florescent lights, found objects, root systems of trees, paper and other materials. Her work is “ordered in the way that nature is ordered, without boundaries.” This show is on view through November 10.

• Cai Guo-Qiang will participate in a discussion and book signing for Cai Guo-Qiang: Ladder to the Sky at the New York Public Library. The book features a rich sampling of Cai’s diverse oeuvre, from never-before-published early works to new works commissioned for a major exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art. This event will take place October 30, 6pm–8pm. This event is free and open to the public.

• Rashid Johnson presents new work at the David Kordansky Gallery (Los Angeles). Coup d’état, Johnson’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, features new works in a variety of materials, in which wood, mirrored tile and wax are used as grounds for a series of mark-making strategies; as well as a series of floor-based works that use rugs as supports for further gestures. Among these are several works that represent new typologies for the artist. The show closes November 10.

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Walton Ford. "The Rolling Stones, Grrr!," 2012. Image courtesy rollingstones.com.

In this week’s roundup Cai Guo-Qiang is a 2012 prize laureate, Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman are honored, Laurie Anderson performs in Albuquerque, several artist celebrate Warhol, Walton Ford designs the Stones’ album cover and more.

• Cai Guo-Qiang won the Praemium Imperiale, an international arts prize patronized by Japan’s ruling dynasty, worth 15 million yen ($192,600). This is a global arts prize awarded annually by the Japan Art Association.

• Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman will be honored at the Hammer Museum’s 10th anniversary Gala in the Garden, which will include a performance by singer Katy Perry. Actor Steve Martin will present the tribute to Sherman and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will make the presentation for Kruger. This year’s Gala is set for October 6.

• Carrie Mae Weems is having her first comprehensive retrospective, which opened at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, TN). Carrie Mae Weems: Three Decades of Photography and Video includes some 225 photographs, videos and installations, from her earliest, never-before-published ’70s documentary photographs to brand-new pieces. It will travel to the Portland Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts and the Guggenheim Museum. The Frist show is on view through January 13.

• Kalup Linzy celebrated Andy Warhol at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC). Linzy performed as Kaye (who the artist refers to as the “Romantic Loner”) in a video and live performance that comprised this weekend’s Warhol Cabaret. The event was part of the kickoff for the museum’s new exhibition Regarding Warhol which also features work by Ai Weiwei, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Vija Celmins, Alfredo Jaar, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Allan McCollum, Bruce Nauman, Catherine Opie, Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto and many more. The exhibition runs through December 31.

• Walton Ford joins a list that has included Andy Warhol, Guy Peellaert and Peter Corriston by designing the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary album. For the cover of The Rolling Stones, GRRR!, the compilation album due out in November, Ford recontextualised John Pasche’s iconic lips-and-lolling-tongue logo.

• Laurie Anderson is a featured speaker at the Inter-society for Electronic Arts (ISEA2012) conference in Albuquerque, NM. For A Conversation with Laurie Anderson & Tom Leeser Anderson will speak with Leeser, co-leader for The Cosmos: Radical Cosmologies theme. This event takes place on September 24.

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Brad Kayal. "Job Creators,” from “Occuprint 2012.” Color screenprint, 18 x 12 in. Published by Occuprint.org, edition of 100. Image courtesy Booklyn Artists Alliance, Brooklyn.

High political season is underway with a particular sense of urgency this year, and it seems that nearly every aspect of American culture has joined in the debate.  In keeping with a historical trend that began during the Enlightenment, prints are playing a role in today’s political arguments as a means of disseminating the views of artists and rallying the people.  Recent releases of note are the Occuprint Portfolio 2012 and Artists for Obama 2012.  Both are fundraisers to support their eponymous causes: the former was issued earlier this year through the Booklyn Artists Alliance–the latter debuted last night at Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles and will also be presented in its New York gallery in Chelsea later this month.

While these two print portfolios are both political in their aims, other similarities are few.  The facture and content of Occuprint, as may be anticipated, reflects the values and concerns of the grass-roots Occupy Movement that spawned it.  Issued in an edition of 100 with a net fundraising goal of approximately $30,000, the thirty screenprints it contains were selected from the thousands of submissions that have been posted for free download on the Occuprint.org website.  Since last fall, these have been sent in by relatively unknown designers from all over the world in support of the various political aims that have sprung from the Occupy Movement, including We are the 99%, the ballooning costs of higher education, the subprime mortgage crisis, as well as May Day.   The portfolio’s production was supported by pre-publication sales to twenty public institutions, including a number of top universities, and proceeds benefit the activities of Occuprint.org, a non-profit affinity group that operates independently of the Occupy Movement.

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Kerry James Marshall. "If They Come," 2012. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

In this week’s roundup Bruce Nauman explores the phenomenon of the face in video art, Laylah Ali questions society’s conventions in her notes, Rashid Johnson examines black identity, Andrea Zittel addresses visual and functional objects, and more.

• Bruce Nauman‘s work is on view in Faces: The Phenomenon of Face in Videoart at Galerie Rudolfinum (Prague). The exhibition presents 18 works, which are split approximately fifty-fifty between those featuring the creator and ones that turn the camera on others. The show traces video’s development from early experiments by the medium’s pioneers to performance and installation. This show runs through September 19.

• Laylah Ali: Note Drawings is on view at the Walter J. Manninen Center for the Arts, Endicott College (Beverly, MA). In this exhibition Laylah Ali uses text and images, i.e. her notes that include random thoughts, overheard conversations, and snippets from newspapers and radio. Ambiguous characters dressed in masks, wigs, and costumes confuse rather than clarify sexual and racial identities. This exhibition closes October 12.

• Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks is on view at the Miami Art Museum. Rashid Johnson explores the complexities and contradictions of black identity in a practice that is rooted in his individual experience. Incorporating commonplace objects from his childhood in a process he describes as “hijacking the domestic,” the artist transforms everyday materials such as wood into conceptually loaded and visually compelling works. The exhibition closes November 4.

• Vija Celmins, Elizabeth Murray and several others are featured in Contemporary Prints by American Women: A Selection from the Gift of Martha and Jim Sweeny at the Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, FL). The show includes more than 60 prints by American women artists, made after 1950, which have recently become part of the Museum’s collection. The exhibition closes February 2, 2013.

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Bruce Nauman. Partial installation view of "One Hundred Fish Fountain," 2005. Courtesy the artist and Donald Young Gallery, Chicago.

In this week’s roundup, a chance to see Bruce Nauman’s famous fountain, Andrea Zittel is honored, Kerry James Marshall discusses the black aesthetic, and more.

• Bruce Nauman’s One Hundred Fish Fountain will soon be on view at the Gagosian Gallery (NYC). This sculpture, one of the largest artworks the artist has ever made, is a functional fountain comprised of 97 bronze casts of fish that are suspended throughout the air that noisily shoot water out of their mouths into a large basin below, occasionally coming to a complete halt. Robert Ryman‘s A Painting in Four Parts will also be on view at the Gagosian. Both shows will run July 30 – August 24.

• James Turrell’s Trace Elements: Light Into Space will be presented by the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, in conjunction with an exhibition, Places Apart. Turrell’s sculpture is said to “exude such visual magnetism that viewers may believe they’ve died and gone to heaven.” The Fine Arts Center’s large second-floor El Pomar Gallery underwent a massive transformation to accommodate this work. The exhibition will be on display through September 30.

• Andrea Zittel has been awarded the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts 2012. The international jury is paying tribute to Zittel as a “leading artist at mid-career, who is both influential and somewhat under-recognized.” She was selected primarily for her experimental and innovative work that has extended the dialogue of contemporary art and ideas.

• William Wegman: Hello Nature is now on view at Bowdoin College Museum of Art (Brunswick, Maine). The show displays more than 100 works, including photographs, videos, paintings and drawings, from the artist’s personal collection. Also, the show includes examples of works not usually associated with William Wegman – i.e. paintings that insert postcards into a larger landscape, illustrations from nature books and collages. The show runs through October 21.

• Kerry James Marshall‘s recent interview appeared in the July/August issue of Art+Auction magazine. He discusses the black arts movement of the 1970s when African-American artists whose works were politically charged were largely marginalized, leading to what is now referred to as “post-black” art. A video clip of this interview is online.

• Allora & Calzadilla‘s work will be featured by Kaldor Public Art (Australia). Stop, Repair, Prepare will be performed on the hour, every hour, like the chiming of a clock. Commencing at 11am daily with final performances at 8pm Monday–Thursday, and 5pm Friday–Saturday. This performance will be on view in the Cowen Gallery at Melbourne’s State Library of Victoria from November 16–December 6.

• Richard Serra will present the Jeff Koons-designed “balloon bunnies” for the 2012 National Arts Awards that will be given to Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, Pop artist James Rosenquist, actor Brian Stokes Mitchell, musician Josh Groban, and philanthropist Lin Arison. The honorees will receive their awards amidst a special installation of works by Julie Mehretu. This event takes place October 15.

• Last Sunday’s New York Times featured an article about Alison Klayman’s documentary film on Ai Wei Wei. Klayman’s film, titled  Ai Wei Wei: Never Sorry, opened in New York last Friday. You can read the online version of the article on the New York Times’s website here.

William Kentridge. Pages from notebooks for "The Refusal of Time," 2012. Image courtesy the artist. Photo by Hatje Cantz.

In this week’s roundup William Kentridge discusses science, John Baldessari talks technology, Cindy Sherman and Bruce Nauman are honored, and more.

• William Kentridge and American science historian Peter Galison introduced The Refusal of Time, a work Kentridge created for dOCUMENTA (13). This work is, in part, the result of an extended series of discussions between Kentridge and Galison about the history of the control of world time, relativity, black holes, and string theory.

• John Baldessari is the subject of a new short film by Todd Coles, one in a series of shorts presented by Nowness in which an artist is asked a question about technology.

• Carrie Mae Weems‘ multimedia collaboration with Geri Allen, Slow Fade To Black, for CELEBRATE BROOKLYN! in Prospect Park has been posted online:

• Cindy Sherman and Bruce Nauman have been elected as new National Academicians. Elected annually by the National Academy, artists are recognized for their contribution to American art and architecture. For the first time, nominees include artists working in video, photography and installation, reflecting recently revised member designations of visual artist and architect.

• Barbara Kruger is coming to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. D.C. Her new installation scheduled to open August 20 will be based on the words, Belief + Doubt. This work will be visible from two floors, filling the entire lower lobby area, also covering the sides and undersides of the escalators. Visitors will walk on the artist’s words, be surrounded by walls of the words, and ride on escalators covered with them.

• Hiroshi Sugimoto‘s photographs will be juxtaposed with late paintings by Mark Rothko as part of a Pace art gallery installation in the west wing of the Royal Academy’s Burlington Gardens building in London. Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes, will open just before the Frieze art fair in October and will feature Rothko’s late black and grey paintings and Sugimoto’s photographs of the horizon line where sea meets sky.

• Ann Hamilton and Cindy Sherman are among several artists whose works will be presented in a major fall exhibition. Behold, America! Art of the United States from Three San Diego Museums is a collaborative effort that includes Frontiers, opening September 16 at the Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego), with an installation by Hamilton. The San Diego Museum of Art’s exhibition, Figures, opens November 10 and focuses on American portraiture, including those by Sherman. The exhibition will be on view at all three institutions through February 10, 2013.

Last week we introduced Dillon Paul and Angela Larsen. In this week’s installment of Art21 Educators introductions, we’d like to introduce you to Marni Kotak and Hugo Rojas!

Marni and Hugo are both full-time Spanish teachers for the Urban Assembly High School of Media Studies here in New York City. They are also members of the Media Department, which includes all of the arts. In addition, Marni also teaches a literary course for English Language Learners and is a performance artist herself. Although Marni and Hugo have integrated art into their curricula in the past, they are both interested in helping their students to further develop their cross-cultural understandings and gain a stronger sense of self-awareness through the use of contemporary art in their classrooms.

Marni defines contemporary art as “work that is being created by artists now or in the recent past and responds to current social, political, economic, identity, sexual and other relevant issues.” She admits that up until recently, she was mostly working from a Regents-driven Spanish curriculum. Her goal now is to get to a point where contemporary art is a fluid part of her curriculum. This upcoming school year, Marni plans to expand upon a project originally inspired by the work of Frida Kahlo to develop a unit around the issue of identity. She wants to incorporate contemporary artists such as Bruce Nauman, William Wegman, Kerry James Marshall, Louis Bourgeois and Maya Lin—as well as other important Latin American artists who deal with identity, such as Coco Fusco, Pepón Osorio and the late Ana Mendieta.

Hugo’s curriculum is based on developing the four major language skills – listening, reading, writing and speaking. Students work on different projects through which they learn and develop these skills, while creating visual art to demonstrate evidence of that learning and to share the processes involved. Hugo has found this method of incorporating the visual arts into the curriculum to be particularly successful in engaging his students and enhancing their learning. In one such example, Hugo developed a project inspired by “Acentos Perdidos,” artist Pablo Zulaica’s campaign to fix the incorrect use of accent marks in public signs in Mexico City. Through this project his students learned the rules and proper uses of accent marks (Palabras Agudas, graves, esdrújulas y sobreesdrújulas). Then, they took what they had learned on a field trip to Spanish Harlem to fix the incorrect use of accent marks on the public signs in that area.  (View a video of this project here.) In another example, Hugo created a project for his class using the zoetrope, which was inspired by a visit to the Museum of the Moving Image, to teach about verb conjugations in Spanish. (View a video of this project here.)

We are looking forward to meeting Marni and Hugo and the rest of the Art21 Educators here in New York City in just a few short weeks!

*This post was written with Dana Helwick, Art21 Educators Intern.

Alfredo Jaar. "An Aesthetics of Resistance," 1992. Image courtesy the artist and Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst.

In this week’s roundup, simultaneous exhibitions by Alfredo Jaar and Jeff Koons, a Martha Colburn talk, Josiah McElheny explores the cosmos, Elizabeth Murray in an iPad app for kids and more.

• Alfredo Jaar‘s art is at the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (Berlin) and subdivided into six groups of works, simultaneously at three institutions. Alfredo Jaar: The way it is. An Aesthetics of Resistance offers a retrospective survey of Jaar’s production spanning nearly four decades. It gives insights into the political themes of the works by the artist and elucidates critical methods of archiving, research and intervention employed by him. The exhibition runs through August 19.

• Martha Colburn will participate in two events at Electronic Arts Intermix (NYC) on Tuesday, June 26. Colburn will screen and speak about a selection of recent films that explore war, conquest, faith, and history as well as early and rarely seen found-film and animation experiments, music video projects, performance documents, and a 2011 animated PSA on fracture mining (fracking) in New York State.

• Bruce Nauman‘s Days had its UK premiere at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. This is a sound installation consisting of a continuous stream of seven voices reciting the days of the week in random order. Fourteen flat panel speakers are set up with one voice emanating from each pair as the visitor passes between them. The work invokes both the banality and the profundity of the passing of each day and invites reflection on how we measure, differentiate and commemorate time. The show closes September 16.

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