Raymond Pettibon. “No Title (Safe he called…),” 2010. Courtesy the artist, the High Line and David Zwirner, New York/London.

In this week’s roundup Raymond Pettibon quotes rapper Notorious B.I.G., William Kentridge shows experimental prints in the UK, Ai Weiwei pitches 1,000 tents in Germany, Paul McCarthy has multiple exhibitions in New York City, and more:

• Raymond Pettibon produced a billboard-sized version of his 2010 drawing No Title (Safe he called…) for the High Line (New York, NY). In the drawing Brooklyn Dodgers legend Jackie Robinson is depicted stealing home base. Surrounding texts include “Where Brooklyn At?,” referencing a legendary freestyle by late rapper Notorious B.I.G., and below that, “Moses: Out!,” a play on baseball terminology, but also an allusion to master builder Robert Moses who was largely responsible for the Dodgers’ relocation from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. The billboard is on view through July 1.

• William Kentridge has a new show opening at QUAD (Derby, UK). A Universal Archive: William Kentridge as Printmaker includes 100 prints in different media, made between 1988 and the present, focusing on experimental and serial works. Central to the show is Portage (2000), an accordion-folded multi-paneled book. The exhibition will run June 15 – August 18.

• A Place Apart: Colorado and the American West, Photographs by Robert Adams is on display at Colorado College’s I.D.E.A. Space (Colorado Springs, CO). The show features Adams’ photographs that celebrate the beauty of the American West, and acknowledge the relentless absorption and transformation of nature by human development. The exhibition runs through June 15.

• Ai Weiwei is creating a major participatory installation for EMSCHERKUNST.2013 (Ruhr, Germany). Ai Weiwei and 1.000 Tents presents visitors with the opportunity to rent one of a thousand tents for an overnight stay at designated locations along the Emscher River. At the end of the exhibition the tents will be placed in a public lottery. 1.000 Tents is open to the public June 22 – October 6.

• Weiwei was commissioned to create the striking red cover of TIME magazine’s recent issue, “The World According to China.” The imagery (which accompanies Hannah Beech’s feature story “How China Views the World“) represents the country’s prosperity and questions its future. Watch an interview with the artist below.

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Lari Pittman, Untitled #11, 2003. Matte oil, aerosol lacquer, and Cel-Vinyl on gessoed canvas, 76 x 102 inches. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Thomas Dane Gallery, London © Lari Pittman.

In this week’s roundup Lari Pittman arrives in the Midwest, Alfredo Jaar revisits Venice Biennale, Kalup Linzy casts Michael Stipe, David Altmejd explores paradise, Marina Abramovic appears in an opera about her life, and more.

• Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology is on view at the Contemporary Art Museum (St. Louis). The exhibition includes 30 large-scale paintings and a 24-part works on paper series from Lari Pittman. Most of the works are from the mid-2000s to the present, as well as earlier works dating back to 1985 that have been borrowed from museums and private collections from across the U.S. The show closes August 11.

• Alfredo Jaar has a site-specific installation, Venezia, Venezia, on view at the Pavilion of Chile, Venice Biennale (Italy). It invites viewers to question the role of the Venice Biennale in a worldwide culture that has perhaps outgrown it. The exhibition runs through November 24.

• Mika Tajima is in a group show at Galeria Quadrado Azul (Porto, Portugal). Artists at Art Brussels includes artists who participated in the April 2013 international contemporary art fair Art Brussels. The show closes July 31.

• David Altmejd and other artists reflect on the art historical significance of a Garden of Eden and the contemporary social significance of a paradise at Middelheim Museum (Antwerp). My Little Paradise (Mijn kleine paradijs) is located in the former Hortiflora flower garden that was the source of inspiration for the exhibition theme. The artists’ works represent the theme of a small, personal paradise. The show is on view through September 15.

• Conversations wit de Churen X: One Life to Heal, a new video by Kalup Linzy, revisits characters that have appeared in his past films including All My Churen (2003). Michael Stipe and Leo Fitzpatrick appear alongside Linzy in the latest installment of the fictional Braswell family saga.

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Kerry James Marshall. “Garden of Delights,” 2013 (detail). Mixed media. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

In this week’s roundup Kerry James Marshall presents new and iconic work, Matthew Barney discusses his works on paper, El Anatsui will adorn the façade of Burlington House, Mariah Robertson is at MoMA, and more.

• Kerry James Marshall‘s new site specific installation opens this week at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (MO). The CAM scheduled this project to coincide with the June opening of the Saint Louis Art Museum’s new East Building expansion, where Marshall’s iconic work Watts 1963 (1995) will be on view. CAM’s installation closes July 7.

• Lari Pittman‘s first American solo museum exhibition in more than 15 years is on view at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. Lari Pittman: A Decorated Chronology will feature a selection of paintings and works on paper from the last 20 years and will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog. The show is on view through August 11.

• Matthew Barney will join Paul Holdengräber at The New York Public Library for a public discussion about Barney’s career and work, including Subliming Vessel: The Drawings of Matthew Barney, which is now on view at The Morgan Library & Museum (New York, NY). Matthew Barney in Conversation takes place May 21 at 7pm. Purchase tickets here.

• James Turrell: A Retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA) explores nearly fifty years of James Turrell‘s career. The exhibition, on view through April 6, includes early geometric light projections, prints and drawings, installations exploring sensory deprivation and seemingly unmodulated fields of colored light, and recent two-dimensional work with holograms.

• El Anatsui will adorn the façade of Burlington House with TSIATSIA—searching for connection, one of the largest wall hanging sculptures he has ever created. This display will coincide with the 245th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (London, UK). The intricate, shimmering, metallic wall sculpture was created from aluminum bottle tops, printing plates and roofing sheets, amongst other materials. The work will be on view June 10–August 18.

• Barbara Kruger‘s work is in a group exhibition at Lehmann Maupin (New York, NY). Writings Without Borders features works by artists from different countries and origins, with their own approach to writing and the universal themes that relate to it. It highlights a wide variety of artistic styles, ranging from painting, drawing, photography, embroidery, and neon. The show closes July 20.

• Mariah Robertson‘s work is included in a group show at the The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY). XL: 19 New Acquisitions in Photography features a selection of major works by 19 contemporary artists, made between 1960 and the present, which have been acquired by the Department of Photography within the past five years. These works are on view at MoMA for the first time. The exhibition closes January 6, 2014.

• Erin Shirreff will present work at Art Basel Hong Kong. This work coincides with Erin Shirreff: Day is Long at Lisa Cooley (New York, NY) that draws together the mediums of photography, sculpture, and video to explore how the body responds to moments that are largely imagined, and the uncertainty at the root of knowing something that has transpired in a time or place other than our own. Art Basel Hong Kong takes place May 23–26. Day is Long closes June 16.

Cao Fei. “House of Treasures,” 2013. Photo by Laurent Fievet.

In this week’s roundup Cao Fei celebrates abundance, Julie Mehretu has two concurrent solo shows, Raymond Pettibon and Judy Pfaff are honored, several artists’ works help recall the year 1993, and much more.

• Cao Fei installed a giant inflatable pig sculpture on the Promenade at West Kowloon (Hong Kong). House of Treasures is meant to be light-hearted while exploring the roots of its projected aura of fun. The work is on view through June 9.

• Julie Mehretu‘s work will be on view at the Marian Goodman Gallery (NYC). Liminal Squared includes a series of new paintings and a suite of five new etchings. According to the gallery, “The works were created over the past three years in New York in the aftermath of events of the Arab Spring which were the point of departure for the monumentally scaled Mogamma (In Four Parts), 2012, recently presented at Documenta (13), 2012, Kassel.” The exhibition will be open to the public May 11 – June 22.

• Julie Mehretu also has her first major solo exhibition in London, at the White Cube Bermondsey. Liminal Squared will include more new paintings, “some of which will be presented within a specially constructed environment designed by David Adjaye in close collaboration with the artist,” the gallery said in a press release. This will run concurrently with the show at the Marian Goodman Gallery. It is on view through July 7.

• Tim Hawkinson is presenting new work at the Pace Gallery (NYC). The self-titled Tim Hawkinson draws inspiration from the artist’s own garden and its sculptures focus on the interplay of movement, gravity, and environment. The exhibition runs through June 29.

• El Anatsui, among others, will be in Abu Dhabi as part of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi’s Talking Art Series of discussions and workshops. The events will take place May 6 – 8.

• Janine Antoni, Ida Applebroog, Matthew Barney, Ann Hamilton, Mike Kelley, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Paul McCarthy, Gabriel Orozco, Pepón Osorio, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Andrea Zittel, among others are featured in a group show at the New Museum (NYC). NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star is “conceived as a time capsule, an experiment in collective memory that attempts to capture a specific moment at the intersection of art, pop culture, and politics.” The work is on view through May 26.

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Jessica Stockholder. “Story of Angle #3,” 2013. Graphite and colored pencil on paper. 11 x 14 in. Courtesy the artist and Barbara Edwards Contemporary.

In this week’s roundup Jessica Stockholder explores drawing in multiple dimensions, Richard Serra presents early experiments with nontraditional materials, James Turrell delves into light, and much more.

• Jessica Stockholder has a solo exhibition at Barbara Edwards Contemporary (Toronto, Ontario). Jessica Stockholder explores the realm of two-dimensional composition and three-dimensional space, through the layering of color, found object and text. In the drawings included in this exhibition, the artist develops her own hieroglyph as a way of reading images. The show runs through June 8.

• Mika Rottenberg‘s new exhibition Sneeze to Squeeze features a series of works that together reveal an imaginative world full of surreal scenarios and claustrophobic settings. The exhibition is view at at Magasin 3 (Stockholm, Sweden) through June 2.

• Mike Kelley: Eternity is a Long Time is on view at HangarBicocca (Milan, Italy). The exhibition features Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #1 (A Domestic Scene) and Runway for Interactive DJ Event, two installations that constitute a fundamental turning point in Kelley‘s research, and the dawn of what was to be the late artists’s most prolific creative period. The show closes August 9.

• I, YOU, WE is at the Whitney Museum of Art (New York, NY) with works by Catherine Opie, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others. The exhibition, drawn from the museum’s collection of works made in the eighties and early nineties, is on view through September 1.

• Richard Serra: Early Work is up at David Zwirner (New York, NY). Dating from 1966 to 1971, the works on view, drawn from museum and private collections, represent the beginning of Serra‘s experiments with nontraditional materials, such as vulcanized rubber, neon, lead, and steel. Also featured is a program of the artist’s films from the same period. The exhibition runs through June 15.

• Laurie Anderson’s From the Air is at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (Ann Arbor, MI). The installation consists of a clay sculpture with projected video that features a miniature version of Laurie Anderson telling a story, seated with her dog, Lolabelle. The exhibition builds from Lolabelle’s realization during a walk to the beach that she is prey for a group of turkey vultures. The work is on view through August 11.

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Ai Weiwei. “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn,” 1995. Photo by Melina Mara for the Washington Post. Courtesy the artist and the Newseum.

In this week’s roundup, Ai Weiwei’s work is part of the celebration of the U.S. Presidential Inauguration, Trenton Doyle Hancock wins the Greenfield Prize, several artists participate in group shows and lectures, and much more.

• Ai Weiwei‘s work was projected on the facade of the Newseum (Washington, D.C.) during Presidential Inauguration weekend. The outdoor installation included Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn and quotations about freedom.

• Trenton Doyle Hancock has won the 2013 Greenfield Prize from the Hermitage Artist Retreat. The Greenfield Prize rotates among theater, visual art, and music disciplines. Hancock will have two years to produce a work of art to be exhibited at the Ringling Museum of Art (Sarasota, FL).

• Robert Ryman is in a group show at the Wade Wilson Gallery (Houston, TX). The Illusion of the Precise is an exploration of the conversation between the language of line and the language of space, and the emotive and aesthetic responses the dialogue elicits. The exhibition brings a curated selection of works from each artist to explore their breadth of possibility. The show closes February 2.

• Pierre Huyghe‘s work is part of a group show at the Istanbul Modern (Turkey). Modernity? Perspectives from France and Turkey looks into the phenomenon of modernity and the confrontation of artists with the modernity project, which is still valid today. The exhibition runs through May 16.

• William Wegman: The Traveler will be at the Westport Arts Center (Westport, CT). The exhibition will feature a collection of postcard paintings, drawings, Polaroids, and video, illustrating William Wegman’s work with found images. Works date from the mid-1980s to the present with new paintings on view for the first time. This show continues through March 24. An opening reception will be held on January 25 at 6:30 pm; it is free and open to the public.

• Shana Moulton, Charles Atlas, Diana Al-Hadid, and Carrie Mae Weems will lecture as part of the Spring 2013 School of Art Lecture Series at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburg, PA). Moulton will speak on February 5, Atlas on February 12, Al-Hadid on February 26, and Weems on March 26. All lectures will take place at 5pm in the CMU Kresge Theater.

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Image: newspaper.li

Anyone who knows me often asks about how I coordinate three jobs. I teach two high school classes and serve as department chair in my school district, work as Art21’s education advisor, and teach a class at NYU in the department of Art and Art Professions. This semester I was thrown a little curveball and asked to teach a completely different class at NYU- School Arts: Issues in Pedagogy and Curriculum (Secondary). The course, an intense fourteen weeks where graduate students explore current questions and topics in secondary art education, also has a component where each student takes part in teaching a Saturday course for high school students. This Saturday program, called Visionary Studios (a title I happen to love), asks New York City high school students to sign up for nine weeks of classes around a chosen theme. So, instead of signing up for extra-curricular classes with titles like “Mixed-Media” or “Ceramics” or “Painting”, students this fall are asked to choose from “The Changing City”, “Under Pressure”, “Transformation” or “Soundscapes”. Instead of offering classes that are media-centric, classes are thematic where teenagers can explore the theme through a variety of approaches over nine weeks. Students in the graduate course not only explore current issues in art education and teaching for social justice, but they also plan units of study and individual lessons for these Saturday classes, as well as team-teach every Saturday morning.

It’s a lot of work.

This Saturday is the first session with our high school students and I am excited for the possibilities that exist within the curricula that has been developed so far. Big, and sometimes challenging questions are driving the themes, such as:

• How can art be transformative?
• What role(s) does pressure play in our environment?
• How does sound shape our daily experience?
• What makes a city?

Artists already being considered to inspire students include Ai Wei Wei, Allora and Calzadilla, Cindy Sherman, Do-Ho Suh, El Anatsui, Eleanor Antin, Kerry James Marshall, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Mark Bradford, Mike Kelley and Yinka Shonibare, to name just a few.

Going into the first session this weekend, my student teachers will obviously be thinking about how to get off to a good start. After all, these high school students are coming from all over the city to attend classes on Saturday mornings. One doesn’t need a roadmap to realize that you better have some good stuff to share, otherwise you will be left with dwindling enrollment. Students will simply stop coming if the course isn’t exciting and engaging.

So what does getting off to a good start look and sound like in a situation like this (or, for that matter, in most courses)? It involves students coming in, being warmly welcomed and getting to know who is teaching. It involves students getting to know their classmates a bit and why they have chosen to be there. It involves sharing interests and broad goals for the course. It involves talking about which directions the theme can take. Most importantly it involves building community and trust from the start. Once that gets rolling, students can begin to feel comfortable creating quality work that will address the theme.

I am also excited for the start to our Saturday sessions because the student teachers will be developing curriculum with the students vs. having each and every lesson planned out ahead of time. Student teachers will be asking different kinds of questions to explore how these high school students want to investigate the four themes vs. being told how the themes will be approached. They will even be asked to help form the supply lists for each of the courses instead of having a “set” of supplies to work with from the start.

Wish us luck. More to come.

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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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.