Mao Zedong once said that revolution is not a dinner party. Less famously, he said it is not embroidery, either. Interestingly, however, some female contemporary Chinese artists have chosen to work with thread and textiles—and embroidery—in experimental, maybe even revolutionary ways. From Lin Tianmiao’s overt exploration of sexuality, fecundity, and the aging and decay of the body, to Yin Xiuzhen’s use of the embodied memories[…..]

Nicola Hicks’ recent sculptural tableaux, depicting humans, animals, and frightful crossbreeds of towering stature, exemplify art’s ability to produce rich, nonverbal worlds. Though the works on view at Flowers Gallery are classified merely as plaster (to be cast in bronze upon purchase), they in fact begin with wire skeletons that the British artist then stuffs with a mélange of straw and dirt before coating. This[…..]

One imagines that Geoffrey Farmer must go through millions of X-Acto knives a year. The Vancouver-based artist is known for his cutouts of images culled from books, magazines, and other printed material, which have been exhibited at Documenta(13) and at the Tate. In his new work Boneyard (2013), currently on view at Mercer Union, Farmer adapts his signature technique—excising  any traces of context through the[…..]

Critical distance can be an ambitious aspiration for an artist, particularly if her practice strives to directly engage complex economic, environmental, or social-justice issues. How can traditionally partisan discourses be avoided? Can a political viewpoint be communicated without merely contributing to a staunchly divisive cultural dialogue that is easy to tune out? There is no one strategy or formula for this challenge. Coco Fusco’s recent[…..]

This week, our intrepid Help Desk columnist is on the road, so we bring you some advice from 2012 that still applies to many people: how to navigate the shoals of internships, especially in terms of taking credit for ideas and labor. Help Desk is an arts-advice column that demystifies practices for artists, writers, curators, collectors, patrons, and the general public. Submit your questions anonymously here.[…..]

Shotgun Reviews are an open forum where we invite the international art community to contribute timely, short-format responses to an exhibition or event. If you are interested in submitting a Shotgun Review, please click this link for more information. In this Shotgun Review, Callie Humphrey reviews U.S. Department of Illegal Superheroes (ICE DISH) by Neil Rivas (a.k.a. Clavo) at Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, California. Galería de la Raza is currently[…..]

Today from our partners at Art Practical we bring you an essay on the New York-based LTTR, who describe themselves as “a feminist genderqueer artist collective with a flexible project-oriented practice.” As author Julia Bryan-Wilson notes, “…LTTR rallies people together with ardent enthusiasm.” This article was originally published on December 4, 2013. “It is our promiscuity that will save us,” AIDS activist and art theorist Douglas Crimp asserted in 1987, a[…..]