The David Roberts Art Foundation recently opened a new space in Mornington Crescent, north of its central London holdings. Accommodating visiting artists’ residencies, as well as more ephemeral and peripatetic events of an informal, discursive, experimental and outwardly pedagogical nature, the space reconceptualizes itself as “a production centre” rather than a more formal or traditional exhibition space. An ambitious new program corresponds to this updated vision, framed by the eloquent title “A House of Leaves,” taken from the unconventional form and structures of Mark Danielewski’s novel (2000), which distorts temporal and narrative conventions with jumbled footnotes, multiple narrators and an uneven typographic layout. Correspondingly, a series of performances and happenings by Nina Beier, Chosil Kil, Alvin Lucier, Eddie Peake and Steve Reich constituted this exhibition’s prelude. Three sizeable group exhibitions curated by DRAF Director, Vincent Honoré mark the first, second and third ‘movement’, inspired by key pieces from the collection by Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter and Pierre Huyghe. The series ends with a selection of semi-permanent works and interventions that explore the volume of the architectural space, including those by John Cage, Marie Lund, Roman Ondák, Manuela Ribadeneira and Lawrence Weiner. (Isobel Harbison)

VI, VII (pronounced “Sixes and Sevens”) is Oslo’s newest gallery, promoting Norwegian artists internationally and international artists in Norway for the first time. Founded by writer, curator and editor Esperanza Rosales, who recently moved from Brussels, where she was Director of dépendance gallery, VI VII will initially represent eight artists, including London-based sculptor Eloise Hawser, Norwegian filmmaker Lars Laumann, Berlin-based artist David Lieske and American collaborators, or conspirators, Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff. The majority of these artists seem to reflect Rosales’ playful and experimental approach, with works structured loosely around autobiographical events or cast from the curious ephemera collected from personal experience. The first exhibition, “I’m Already a Has-Been,” saw American artist, writer, musician and publisher James Hoff present two groups of paintings based around language and abstraction “as a culture-bound illness.” One set of bold minimal paintings formulated abstraction as a cultural malady, which circulates like language; the second set was based on drawings found at stationary stores, where customers tested pens on communal notepads, expressing collective pathos and making formal allusion to Freudian analysis and Dadaist practice of automatic writing. Fitting for the gambling reference in its name, we anticipate good things here—chance encounters and fortuitous surprises. (Isobel Harbison)

JRP|Ringier is releasing a new retrospective monograph on Turin-based Arte Povera artist Piero Gilardi (b.1942). Gilardi’s works from the late 1960s and early 1970s generated much interest, especially his large, hyper-realistic sculptures of polyurethane foam, “Nature Carpets,” designed to generate a new kind of awareness and experience of nature for the viewer. Despite some critical acclaim, the artist decided stop making art in 1972. He went on to spend the next ten years travelling extensively (staying for significant periods in both Nicaragua and Kenya, as well as on native Mohawk reserves in upstate New York) and publishing his accounts in a number of magazines, including Flash Art. During this time, he also began to organize events drawing awareness to particular political and ecological issues of the time, events that encompassed street theatre, factory protests as well as other campaigns and social initiatives. Ten years after his departure from art-making, Gilardi returned, expanding on the “Carpets” series and making other forms of sculpture, interactive installation and landscape design. In these, he again intended to draw attention to pressing ecological and environmental issues. The publication will focus on these shifts and will coincide with a major retrospective survey of his works in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Nottingham Contemporary and Castello di Rivoli in Turin. (Isobel Harbison)

The Whitney Museum’s retrospective of American artist Richard Artschwager, the first since 1988, includes approximately 150 works surveying his sculpture, painting, and drawing. After working for several years as a furniture seller and designer, Artschwager began exhibiting abstract expressionist paintings in New York in the late 1950s. Several key furniture commissions around 1960 led him to explore the latent spirituality of the sculptural object. He created his first painting-object combination in 1962 using celotex and, later, formica on wood. From then on, his works have become iconic, incorporating the symbolism of architectural motifs, domestic and bourgeois interiors, and punctuation marks. Creating minimal forms with synthetic materials, geometric shapes and specific colours, Artschwager proposed a new development from Modernism that has made a significant impression on a younger generation of artists. More recently, he has returned to painting the grainy charcoal landscapes he rendered in the early 1950s. Peter Plagen of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote that, ”the works pry open your jaws of taste a little more than you’re used to… semi-pleasantly bothering me ever since I walked out of the gallery.” A semi-pleasant bothering seems nevertheless appealing. (Isobel Harbison)

Tensta Konsthall is the first Swedish institution to host an exhibition of artist Marie-Louise Ekman’s (née De Geer Bergenstråhle) early work, made between 1969–89. The surreal and absurd depictions of a woman’s creative and domestic life traverse a variety of media, from cartoonish graphic design and painting to textile appliqués and blown glass objects. A strong connection to the history of theatre is evident in her own acting as well as her mise-en-scene. In 1969, she played herself in Öyvind Fahlström’s film Du gamla du fria (Provocation); in 1975 she scripted and played herself in Hallo baby, directed by Johan Bergenstråhle. The exhibition also provides a framework for three other artists whose practices exemplify the D.I.Y spirit of the period in which they worked. On show are prints by Sister Corita of Kent, a nun based in California, who superimposed onto bright commercial graphics excerpts from Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, the Beatles and Daniel Berrigan, distilling bold new spiritual messages. Works by Mladen Stilin- ovic, an artist, poet, and experimental filmmaker based in Zagreb, are also featured, including his collage, books and banners, as well as documentation of the “exhibition actions” performed in public spaces in the 1970s. Finally, included in the exhibition are works by Martha Wilson, who founded Franklin Furnace in New York and performed in Disband and Guerilla Girls.

Until January 13th at Tensta Konsthall.