Over the weekend, Corey Helford Gallery opened Ohio-based Melissa Forman’s first solo exhibition “The Keepers of Creation.” Specializing in female portraits, Forman offers 16 new works at the Culver City Gallery. She notes, ““Each painting in this series represents a different aspect of the natural world and the importance of respecting and protecting it. Nothing is taken for granted in the world of the Protectors and the goddesses, wildlife, and natural world have developed a truly symbiotic relationship.”

The work remains on view through December 8, 2010.

Corey Helford Gallery
8522 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, CA  90232

Paintings and studio shots follow.

Open today though January 15, 2011, Takashi Murakami’s solo showing at Gagosian Rome includes two epic versions of Dragon in Clouds.

Gagosian Rome
Via Francesco Crispi 16
00187 Rome
39.06.4208.6498

More looks at the installation after the jump.

Scott Richards Contemporary Art in San Francisco has something to satisfy all art loves with a sugar addition. Sweet Tooth, a group show, opened last week and highlights artists who portray the subject of candy and desert. The general premise follows the question – why have so many artists chosen to follow this subject matter?

Sweet Tooth runs to December 31, 2010.

Scott Richards Contemporary Art
251 Post Street Suite 425 (between Grant and Stockton)
San Francisco, CA 94108

Highlights and full press release after the jump.

Miami’s Wynwood District has been the South Florida city’s hub of arts and design for some time now. With Art Basel on the horizon, the area has also been designated as a “Wynwood Mural Museum.” With Primary Flight leading the charge, a host of who’s who street artist are busy decorating local wall space.

Martha Cooper – ace as she is – had the scoop.

A full look at those involved (remember we already shared Ron English’s new Wynwood mural) after the jump.

Paul Kasmin Gallery presents a rare opportunity with their exhibition, X-Rated, featuring the work of William N. Copley. Born in 1919 (-1996), Copley – who chose the moniker CPLY – first showed these works in 1974 at the now defunct Huntington Hartford Museum at Columbus Circle. The paintings included were produced between 1972 and 1974. They depict the seedy side of old 42nd street, the libidinous and joyful.

The paintings represent a shift in Copley’s work, a move toward more humorous narrative.

X-Rated remains on view through December 11, 2010.

Paul Kasmin Gallery
293 Tenth Ave.
New York, NY 10001

Photography by Jacob Breinholt. Full look at X-Rated after the jump.

Greg “Craola” Simkins Storyteller exhibition opens tonight in Los Angeles at Gallery 1988. The work will hang through November 23, 2010.

Full flier after the jump.

Last night, Perry Rubenstein Gallery opened the Brooklyn-based artist collaborative Faile’s latest exhibition, Bedtime Stories.

Following on the heels of two major projects—the interactive arcade of Deluxx Fluxx and the haunting, allegorical suite, Lost in Glimmering Shadows—Bedtime Stories is a return to fundamentals that pushes questions of form and process to the forefront. Each of the twelve works’ compositions are assembled from numerous painted wooden blocks and they emerge as unified paintings. They reveal FAILE’s relentless assimilation and refinement of the vast visual vocabularies of both the urban environment and their own decade-long practice. The grids of these paintings are at once modular and fixed, tactile and graphic. On their surfaces, iconoclastic characters fluidly intermingle with adroit deconstructions of commodity culture. The re-combinations of carefully constructed texts and images provide a glimpse into FAILE’s rigorous and organic process, and draw attention to painting’s inherent materiality.

Jacob Breinholt was on hand and his photographs recap the show, which runs through December 23, 2010.

Perry Rubenstein Gallery
527 West 23 Street
New York, NY 10011

Brooklyn-based Tara McPherson’s latest works are now on view at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, in an exhibition entitled “The Bunny in the Moon.” McPherson’s first foray into “soft sculpture” makes up a portion of the showing, her second at the gallery. Throughout, she interprets mythology from different cultures.

The exhibition runs through November 20, 2010.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10011

A full look, with photographs by Jacob Breinholt, after the jump.

Iranian painter Nicky Nodjoumi hung his second solo showing at Priska C. Juschka last week. He tackles contemporary Iranian politics in both new drawings and paintings. Inspired by protest culture, Nodjoumi’s work pulls from protest art, poster, and new channels of social media.

Without offering specifics as to time and place, Nodjoumi invites viewers to engage in layered discourse about injustice. On view through December 30, 2010.

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
547 West 27th Street
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10001

A full review of Invitation to Change Your Metaphor follows. Photography by Jacob Breinholt.

Dave White, famed for his large scale sneaker paintings, is currently in New York preparing a mural at AOL headquarters. White is one of 40 artists tapped for the AOL Artists initiative, each providing new inspiration and brand identity for the pioneering internet firm. Entitled “Rodeo Rider,” White’s work is specifically part of the “Americana-American West” series. Ironic, given his origins, but nonetheless well conceived.

More images follow, with thanks to Freshness.