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Some of the things I make are obviously built for audience interaction—Eleven Heavy Things, the sculptures for the Venice Biennale, are objects that literally have holes for people to fit their bodies into and pose with. Similarly, my Web site Learning To Love You More (with Harrell Fletcher) gives assignments to the public.
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| Venezuelan artist Patricia Cazorla creates “diaries” or personal collections of portraits of women who have a significance to her, whether because of their bold characters or because of their simple beauty.Cazorla depicts the emotions, sensibilities, and personalities of her subjects through vivid colors, strong brush strokes, and collages of images taken from the media, although her favorite media is oil paint. |  | |
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I have been making pretty straight city scenes from my head for the past couple of years. I like to believe they are similar to what the Internet looks like, with all the individualistic people existing invisibly, unable to observe each other over at the colliding room town, with no walls, piled in more than one direction, compartmentalized.
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As any cynic will tell you, a utopia is not only a perfect world, but it is also a purely imaginary one. And looking to the word’s etymology, there’s some truth to this contention: “Utopia” comes from the Greek ou, “not” and topos, “place,” and so beneath the term’s idealism, there is an underlying pathos—the perfect world is ultimately a place that does not, and cannot, exist except in dreams.
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I first came across Nava Lubelski’s work in 2007, during open studios
at CUE Art Foundation while she was a resident artist there. Her
delicate and sinuous abstractions beckoned me from across the room. It
was only up close that I realized they were not just made of paint, nor
were they merely drawn. The intricate networking line-work that is her
signature was, in fact, achieved through thread embroidery. This
technique proves especially compelling in the service of the themes of
her most recent solo show at LMAKprojects.
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| An abundance of conceptually informed exhibitions opened in New York in the space of three days at the end of October 2008, buoying the spirits in the wake of collapsing world economies. Consider that art is a language, intentions and materials, techniques, historical referents, among its parameters. The relational aesthetics, demonstrated by a core group of the 90s at the Guggenheim, are not a new concept but an agreeable show of younger artists’ work. Recall Beuys’ Free International University, the Green Party, and Social Sculpture, an assertion of the individual’s social existence as a malleable form of potentially creative political structuring.
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| The project called “C.L.U.E. (color location ultimate experience),”
installed in the museum’s Shaft Project Space, comprises the following:
a series of looped videos on monitors in the closet-size gallery, with
a driving instrumental sound track playing softly and piles of
rainbow-dyed clothing stashed here and there; a projection, on a wall
outside the museum, of a related video accompanied by similar music on
headphones, beginning daily at dusk and visible through a window in the
stairwell beside the gallery; and intermittent performances by the
choreographic duo in the videos. The dancers are robbinschilds (Sonya Robbins and Layla Childs). |
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Guido van der Werve's videos, currently on show at the Hayward Gallery, are the kind of thing art writers describe as 'hilarious', although they're only hilarious in an art way, meaning that any laughs that do come are snorty expulsions easy to mistake for symptoms of the cold that everyone seems to have at the moment. I think van der Werve knows his work is only funny in a limited way, the sort of intentionally weak gags coming soon to a Christmas cracker near you.
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| José Parlá’s first New York solo exhibition is on the fourth floor of an old Soho loft building; a manually operated freight elevator takes you up to a space that has been cleared of its usual offering of furniture to make room for his paintings, works on paper and ceramics. Parlá began his career writing on the streets of Miami, with the
occasional jaunt up to New York City to join in what was going on in
the boroughs at the height of the graffiti movement. “Soho, Manhattan,
Circa 1981,” a four-by-six-foot canvas painted in 2008, acknowledges
the “old school” writers Parlá was too young to truly be part of, yet
from whom he nevertheless learned volumes as he watched their forays
into the commercial art world of the 80s.
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It’s become a cliché to describe statement-making jewelry as “wearable
art,” but no other term quite captures the personal adornments made by Alexander Calder.
His earrings, necklaces and bracelets were mini-mobiles that dangled
from the wrists, necks and earlobes of sophisticates like Peggy
Guggenheim and Jeanne Moreau. The Whitney Museum’s
current Calder show features room after room of his playful wire
sculptures but none of the 1,800 pieces of jewelry he made over the
course of his career. Fortunately about 90 of these pieces are being
given their own exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, the first museum
show to focus on Calder’s jewelry. (The New York Times, December, 11, 2008.)
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| Cinema Remixed and Reloaded: Black Women Artists and the Moving Image Since 1970 at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art feels like walking into a labyrinthine David Lynch film. Like Inland Empire or Lost Highway, womblike rooms and shadowed hallways open like Chinese boxes to reveal hidden secrets. Spelman's imaginative installation employs darkness, deep blue walls and a string of small viewing rooms, which provide a refreshing break from the usual white walls and antiseptic spaces where video work often appears. Those choices show the rewards of striving for an ambiance in some ways more "cinematic" than "art world."
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In one of her many meditations on the taking of pictures, Susan Sontag
wrote that “all photographs aspire to the condition of being memorable
— that is, unforgettable.” Annie Leibovitz,
Sontag’s lover before her death in 2004, says she doesn’t really “have
a single favorite photograph” among those she’s taken; it’s her body of
work, its “accumulation,” that gives her the most satisfaction. And yet
“Annie Leibovitz at Work,” the latest of her books, makes a viewer
realize how many of Leibovitz’s pictures have managed, individually, to
fulfill the egoistic aspiration Sontag ascribed to all photographs. (The New York Times, December 12, 2008.)
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Together Forever, a group show of four female artists on view at Broadway Gallery this past September, should be lauded for its unique approach to representations of identity and the relationship between the self and the other, as well as for its compelling presentation of four diverse and distinctive female voices that in concert harmonized in exciting ways. Curated by Christine Kennedy, the exhibition featured the works of Alice Lang, Gertrud Alfredsson, Leah Beabout, and Marjorie van Cura.
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Arhan Virdi finds out what the deal is at the autumn 2008 Affordable Art Fair in London. We are used to hearing about the Damien Hirsts of this world whose works sell for millions to a very exclusive club, but what we don’t hear about is our flourishing end of the art market which is supporting thousands of British artists, sustaining many young galleries and providing the opportunity for tens of thousands of people to have original art in their homes. --Will Ramsay, founder of the Affordable Art Fair.
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Yes, it is famous, annually anticipated, and thousands flock to see it, but I'm not sure the Frieze Art Fair, held in London's Regents Park, this September 2008, was worth all the hype and international coverage… Art fairs are, simply, showcases for anyone who wants to get involved with art in some active way, with the theme depending on the art displayed, and on the organizers. Frieze showcases international, contemporary art from burgeoning, young artists that continue to re-interpret its boundaries, to vested paragons of talent whose creative works are still as relevant today.
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“The future is the obsolete in reverse.”—Vladimir Nabokov
Following on the heels of the failed Manifesta 6, in Nicosia, Cypress, cancelled due to political disagreements between curators and local organizers, this year’s Manifesta 7 spans four cities of an entire region. This is a first in the history of this nomadic European biennial of contemporary art, which is usually hosted by individual cities. The level of ambition here—six official venues, two art museums, three curatorial teams, over 200 artists, and dozens of parallel events—may seem like a bit of an overcompensation for a missed year, but ultimately is commendable.
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| A painter passionately committed to exploring the inherent properties, color and plasticity of her medium, Irene Neal’s ardor for paint is evident in her remarkable solo at the Huitai Art Centre, in Tianjin, China. The exhibition will showcase Neal’s free-form abstracts—incredibly fluid, vibrant, and intensely colorful works on canvas and wood until the end of the month. Neal, a prolific artist whose consistent studio practice has lead her to become a master of her technique, has refined and developed a methodology of pouring paint into a unique, innovative and internationally acclaimed art form.
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The Hardcore Art Contemporary Space in Miami presented the work of Grimanesa Amorós in the exhibition You Cannot Feel it…I Wish You Could. This multimedia exhibition was a combination of sculpture, lighting and music composed by the nine-time Grammy nominated musician, Meshell Ndegeocello. Eleven handmade paper sculptures cast from the artist’s pregnant body explore the interplay between human biology and society. Central to this work is the image/concept of male pregnancy. Amorós creates a provocative body of work that challenges conventional perceptions of human biology. In a world where the roles of male and female are consistently evolving, the artist addresses the physical lines between genders by creating a new human form that implicates both the male and the female.
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Tal R’s exhibit Adieu Interessant was featured at the Contemporary Fine Arts Gallery in Berlin as part of the German capital’s citywide gallery weekend this past May. The Israeli-born Danish artist displayed ten large-format collages on two floors of the David Chipperfield designed space. The canvases in Adieu Interessant resembled abstract compositions from afar, two-dimensional images that staged a three-dimensional effect by presenting focused lines that collapsed into a central point. Close up, however, the detailed magazine images emerged: strings of thread, a young Britney Spears in Sketchers sneakers, women in variously faded pornographic poses. The crinkled foil and the sequins collected along the edge of each frame served as tangible pop-art debris.
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| Change is much more painful than progress, yet infinitely more rewarding. Imagine if Guston decided to continue with his muted abstractions? Imagine if he succumbed to the pressure of expectation from dealers and collectors? Then I imagine he would exist as a marginal abstract expressionist who rode the wave of America’s first great art movement. Luckily for us, change prevailed, and he knew there was little time left to get the new work out into the world. One of the most notable drawing in the show is of the clock Untitled. The short hand is pointed at seven while the long hand sits idly at 12. His anxiety of time running out is omnipresent throughout his late work, but this drawing of the clock specifically signifies the meaning of how much time he thought was left for him.
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| The inspired group exhibition Lure, recently on display at the Broadway
Gallery, was timely commentary on contemporary ideas of the “other.”
Featuring the works of Jane McAdam Freud, Béatrice Englert, Ko Bhamra,
ARVEE, Freddy Flores Knistoff, Michel Beaucage, Sandro Bisonni, Monika
Iatrou, and Destroy Be. Skillfully curated by Basak Malone the work
within Lure not only explored societies fascination with the concept of
the “other”, but more specifically various interpretations, which are
reflected in the dichotomy of ideas that each artist bought to the show. |
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In the photography world, the Aperture Foundation holds a singular
place. Founded in 1952, Aperture originally started as a quarterly
creative photography journal. As time went on Aperture became a
non-profit organization and expanded its scope to include lecture
forums, limited edition prints and portfolios, gallery exhibitions,
book publishing, and more. The avowed purpose of Aperture has always
been to promote the advancement of high quality photography, and it
fulfills its charter well; the Foundation’s longevity, growth, and
reputation speak literally volumes.
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| When the atom was split in the early 20th century, it changed the way humans intellectually perceived the world. The indivisible element upon which we understood the universe was shattered into infinitesimal oblivion. Painting radically shifted away from depictions of narrative and landscape to a Cubist fracturing of perception. Pioneered by Cézanne, Modernist painting did not subscribe to abstraction as a means to an end. Rather, reality itself became abstracted. |
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A recent group show at The Broadway Gallery NYC in Soho brings together a diverse group of artists from around the world. The exhibition, which features Carmen Delaco, Piero Golia, Ioanna Voskou, Michel Blouin, Peter Mueller, and Ingrid Stiehler, explores ludic expressions, as seen from both figurative and abstract perspectives. Exploiting the psychological tension between figuration and formal abstraction, these works transgress boundaries of the expected, laying bare their own processes and revealing results that surprise and delight the senses.
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