EMIL LUKAS with Harry Philbrick

Art

On the occasion of Emil Lukas’s fourth exhibition at Sperone Westwater, the Rail’s new editor-at-large Harry Philbrick met the artist at the gallery talk about this recent body of work, which includes his landmark bubble wrap paintings, larvae paintings, thread paintings, and the enigmatic stack structures that evoke the artist’s archeological index of broad interests in what lies between art, science, alchemy, as well as other materials and matters.

INCONVERSATION

KEVIN BEASLEY with Yasaman Alipour

Art

Kevin Beasley has gained a reputation for his playful sculptures and activated sound-installations where everyday objects and dismissed voices are turned into signifiers to reflect on culture, politics, and history. A view of a landscape is a project that started in graduate school, and now, after many productive years, it is brought to the public at the Whitney Museum. Separated into three rooms—a running cotton gin motor encapsulated, an immersive sound-room dedicated to its forgotten voice, and three sculptural reliefs in the hallway that narrate Beasley’s journey—the exhibition becomes an occasion to reflect on the artist’s unique practice and his deep concerns: political, historic, and ever-so personal.

INCONVERSATION

IAN CHENG with Osman Can Yerebakan

Art

Since earning his MFA from Columbia University in 2009, Cheng has been investigating ways to infuse humanity into the machine, not shying away from the possibilities embedded in chaos, in defiance of pristine and consequential order technology and science manifest. After debuting at Serpentine Galleries early last year, BOB continues Cheng’s utilization of simulation to challenge narrative constructs of art, a path he embarked on with his Emissaries saga, composed of intertwined and infinite narrative possibilities within live simulation, which will be a part of the upcoming Sharjah Biennial 14 in March.

INCONVERSATION

CHARLES STEIN with Raymond Foye

Art

Poet Charles Stein teaches art writing at the MFA program of the School of Visual Arts, New York. His work comprises a complexly integrated field of poems, philosophy, art theory, mathematics, translations from ancient Greek, drawings, photographs, lectures, conversations and music performances. Born in 1944 in New York City, he is the author of fourteen books of poetry. He holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Connecticut at Storrs.

INCONVERSATION

JULIE MEHRETU with Allie Biswas

Art

Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa in 1970 to an Ethiopian father and an American mother. She grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, and now lives in New York. The following conversation took place over the course of a day in London, in October of last year, when an exhibition of Mehretu’s paintings was on display at White Cube.

FROMTHE
PUBLISHER&ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Dear Friends and Readers,

by Phong Bui

What have we learned from the horrendous political situation in our society, where noise is a weapon to slay our focus and deceive our reason? What have we learned from technological “progress,” and its consuming production and exploitation?

GUESTCRITIC

Downturn New York

by Daniel S. Palmer

New York City is a place of perpetual change, but perhaps this has its limits. I’ve only lived here for about twelve years, but the past two or three have felt particularly different and especially precarious for the arts and for artist communities. Accordingly, this feels like the perfect moment and venue to bring together a group of New Yorkers to reflect on the changes that have happened to this city in recent years, and to discuss how they have impacted the creative sector.

CRITICSPAGE

Loose Spaces by Wilson Sherwin

Internet Bulldozing: Gentrification and The Rise of Cyberharassment, BRUJAS Calls for Coalition, Again! by Arianna Gil, approved by BRUJAS

Finding Up by Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh

No Condition Is Permanent by Lisa Cooley

In Search of a Darkroom by Remy Amezcua

Endangered Species: An Artist’s Loft by John Newman

The Lover’s War by Siyona Ravi

ARTSEEN

Ella Kruglyanskaya: Fenix by Alex A. Jones

Raha Raissnia: Galvanization by Benjamin Clifford

Imagined Communities: Photographs by Mila Teshaieva by Vivian Li