German artist Hans Haacke poses next to his artwork entitled Helmsboro Country, on the opening day of his retrospective exhibition, ‘Castles in the Air’, at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, Spain. Hans Haacke (Cologne, 1936) is considered a pioneer of what has come to be known as institutional critique, a branch of conceptual art that emerged at the end of the 1960s. He received his training and resides in the United States. His art moves from pure conceptualism at the beginning of his career towards a more critical discourse in later years. Haacke’s pieces question the mechanisms and functions of cultural, political and economic institutions, which serve as active tools in the construction and transmission of identitary and ideological values that bolster the discourse and the expansion of globalisation. He constructs systems of relations using literal elements taken from daily life, the critical meanings of which become apparent upon the symbolic collision that occurs when they are juxtaposed. The underlying intention is to reveal, more than to denounce, the relationship that exists between art and social behavior. Castles in the Air is on view at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid until July 23, 2012 Santa Isabel, 52 28012

With a priest’s face suggestively covered in semen, actress Rosy DePalm biting down on a rosary, and naked nuns, Bruce LaBruce’s new show at LaFresh Gallery in Madrid is inciting immense fury among Catholics and conservatives who are calling the exhibition of 50 photographs blasphemous and depraved. See photos from the show and protesters after the jump. [SEE MORE....]

Selections from the book – email correspondence between Gabe Nevins and Harmony Korine

Nick Haymes first met Gabe Nevins on an editorial assignment in the summer of 2007. Gabe had just wrapped up his lead role in Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, in which he had played a teenage skateboarder who accidentally kills a security guard. Gabe had never acted prior to starring in the film; he had heard about Van Sant’s casting call from a skateboard store and initially auditioned as an extra. Meeting the teenager, Haymes recalls: “Initially, Gabe was fairly shy, but it quickly transpired that he had seen some of my skateboarding images online and an instant friendship was struck. When the assignment was over, I approached Gabe about the possibility of working on more photographs as there was something entirely captivating about him and his energy.” A new volume, published by Damiani Editore, tracks the highs and lows of Gabe’s teen years, from stardom to emotional breakdown and homelessness. On Wednesday, March 1st, from 6.00 to 8.00 pm, Haymes will be signing the volume at Dashwood Books in NYC.

One of the most incredible new pop artists Matthew Henri holding up two of his silkscreened paintings from a new series. Photography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

You’d think by the look of things that artist Maxwell Snow’s outlook on life is decidedly grim, but amidst the decay and the funereal macabre lies a deep curiosity about what it means to really be alive. His artistic oeuvre is a documentation of sorts of life’s constant and cruel reminder of its strange impermanence, from the grim-reaperesque portraits of hooded KKK members, to his stark black and white imagery of skulls, crosses, coffins, and girls tied to railway tracks, to a headstone in a recent series that reads, “Wish you were here.” However, Snow, who is based in New York City, seems fastidiously intentional about his philosophies on life and death. There is a sense that Snow subscribes to the notion that the soul lives forever and the body is like a some sort of racing motorcycle and we’re all blowing down the highway at 120 miles an hour and we might as well crash into the wall at full speed in a heap of burning metal than at a slow meaningless sputter. Snow’s new series 100 Headless Women, which will be on view this March at the Kathleen Cullen gallery in New York, explores this notion further by turning the gallery walls into a mausoleum with a selection of ghostly mugshots, black and white photographs of statues of saints who were doused in acid to obscure their features, and a series of portraits of nude women with their faces blackened out with a whip of etching ink in order “[to wrap them] in a cloak of anonymity to seal their singular identities….[so] the viewer is asked to focus on the collection group and devise a story within.” I got a chance to ask Maxwell Snow a few questions about death, life, the afterlife, his inspirations, and a run down on what his new show is all about. Read interview after the jump and see selections from the new series. [SEE MORE....]

Fresh off the silkscreen press – an incredible new series by artist Matthew Henri.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles presents A Tribute to Mike Kelley, an exhibition dedicated to the work and legacy of Mike Kelley, who took his own life earlier this month, on view at MOCA Grand Avenue from February 18 to April 2, 2012.

Chris Heads, UNTITLED 11, 2011

The Art of Elysium, which bridges philanthropy with contemporary art, will be holding an auction, in partnership with Christies, on February 23 entitled Pieces of Heaven, featuring an amazing array of artists from Andy Warhol to Pas Un Autre’s very own Adarsha Benjamin. February 23, Smashbox Studios, 1011 N. Fuller Avenue Hollywood, California 90046

German artist and archivist of visual culture Hans-Peter Feldmann will be exhibiting at the Serpentine Gallery in London from April 11 to June 3.