ArtSeen
JILL MOSER New Paintings and prints
By Michael StrausJill Moser’s second show at Lennon Weinberg represents an expansion and development of the “compression and release” style that is something of her signature.
In Conversation
High Plains Curators-IN CONVERSATION: Brendt Berger with Jim Long
By Jim LongI’ve recently been thinking a lot about the Museum of Friends (MOF), located in the former coal mining town of 4,000 in Walsenburg, Colorado.
Railing Opinion: Right on Time
By David Levi StraussThe current (Summer 2010) issue of Aperture magazine contains a curious article written by Andy Grundberg, former photography critic for the New York Times and now Associate Dean and Chair of Photography at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C.
Artbooks in Review: TYPE A
By Maxwell HellerTwelve years ago, New York artists Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin of Type A began examining masculinity through the lens of their individual experiences. But changes in the city’s cultural landscape following 9/11 and the economic crisis have broadened their work’s purview, bringing unexpected political implications to past installations and infusing new projects with cutting social commentary.
A Bright Future and a Dark History
By Shane McAdamsIn a recent essay titled “D.I.Y. Culture” in the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman argued that the fluid exchange of information inaugurated by the age of globalization isn’t homogenizing world cultures as many expected it would, but rather tribalizing them.
Vilhelm Hammershøi
By Anthony RudolfNo one could accuse Hammershøi of being upbeat. And yet the light seen coming through the windows in certain interiors is the equivalent of a smile. And the doors are usually open.
Tracks: Expanding Utopia
By Sharon L. ButlerIn the recent spate of articles about Bushwick’s innovative DIY arts projects and spaces, artists almost invariably cite Austin Thomas as a key early influence. Thomas opened Pocket Utopia—her groundbreaking salon, international residency program, and exhibition space in the neighborhood—in 2007, while the art market was still safely and unadventurously ensconced in the airtight studio/gallery bubble.
Carmen Herrera at Frederico Sève
By Joan WaltemathThe story of Carmen Herrera’s life and work has been spreading. The talented and once undiscovered 95-year-old geometric abstractionist had a mini-retrospective in England with a handsome catalogue and a New York Times review last year that brought her story to the fore.
EDWARD KIENHOLZ Roxys
By Kara L. RooneyIn 1962, self-taught art world dissenter Edward Kienholz shocked the L.A. art community with the exhibition of his first walk-through tableau, “Roxys.” Exactly 48 years later, this gallery sized installation, meticulously reconstructed and visible through the aperture of two panoramic windows at David Zwirner, has lost none of its staying power.
PENELOPE UMBRICO As Is
By Patricia MilderIt would be easy to dismiss the overly explicit art historical references in Penelope Umbrico’s work as defensive; the actual material is composed of images pulled from Craigslist and eBay, so intellectual weight needs to come from somewhere, right? But that would be a knee-jerk reaction to press release language—“Judd-like” for example—that’s no worse than average.
Dorothea Tanning: Early Designs for the Stage
By Valery OisteanuDorothea Tanning, the last surviving vintage American surrealist, is too-often remembered as the widow of avant-god Max Ernst, but she’s so much more. On August 25, she will officially become a centenarian, her laser-like wit and unmatched talent still very much in evidence.
KATHY BUTTERLY Pantyhose and Morandi
By John YauKathy Butterly is an American original whose closest forbearer is George Ohr (1857-1918), “The Mad Potter of Biloxi.” The formal traits she shares with Ohr include a penchant for crumpled shapes, twisted and pinched openings, and making (as Ohr was understandably proud to point out) “no two alike.”
JASPER JOHNS Ink on Plastic
By John YauIn 1961, while living on Edisto Beach, off the coast of South Carolina, Jasper Johns bought sheets of plastic from an art and drafting supply store in Charleston.
Miroslav Tichý
By John YauBetween the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, in Kyjov, a small city about 160 miles from Prague, a dirty, unkempt man wandered the streets daily, carrying contraptions that resembled cameras. His neighbors, depending on their level of faith in the communist ideal of civic progress, considered him either a harmless old coot or a stain on society.
EVA AND FRANCO MATTES AKA 0100101110101101.ORG Reality is Overrated
By Cora FisherOnce upon a time, when web space was still considered vacuous and alien, avatar meant something very different from the cat-eyed, loping creatures of James Cameron’s imagination. But oh, haven’t we evolved.
Feeling what no longer is
By Sophie LandresMemory, like the memory of Kata Mejía’s brother, murdered by FARC paramilitary guerillas, restores nothing. Emotionally feral and disoriented, it re-imagines the past, which only serves to distort it further.
ACT II: RIPE FOR REDISCOVERY
By James KalmMy, how things have changed. After arriving in the center of the art world to study and spend a couple of years compiling a portfolio, I began the daunting task of visiting galleries and trying to get dealers interested in what I was doing. Responses ranged from, “How long have you been in New York?
SIGNS OF SEX WITHIN A SEXLESS (PHANTASMAGORICAL) VOID
By Robert C. MorganThe most gripping urban sci-fi center I have visited in recent years would have to be Shanghai. During a recent third jaunt to this hot-tempered, digitally propelled architectural Mecca, I understood that nothing stays the same.
HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON The Modern Century
By David St.-LascauxResister Camus on the streets of Paris in 1944. Gandhi’s ashes on a train. China in transition, 1948-1958. The military in Iran in 1950. A non-judgmental camera, maybe, but a trenchant triggerman.
