Think 1990s YBA and what artworks come to mind? A pickled shark, a bawdy story tent, a head made of frozen blood… and a photo of Sarah Lucas looking defiant with a limp cigarette in her mouth. Or better yet, her bent, worn mattress with anthropomorphically inserted fruit and veg with metal bucket. Mostly, her pieces distill the human body down to a sexualised and/or[…..]
It would be easy to come to Li Songsong’s show at Pace London with certain assumptions, projections, and ideas about the last ten years of contemporary painting from China. Assumptions informed by how galleries have vulgarly packaged Chinese contemporary art as a struggle for freer (market) expression. Projections on what it means for an artist to make a painting in post-Deng Xiaoping‘s China. Ideas built[…..]
It’s nearly impossible to talk about a show of Sturtevant’s work and have it understood. Like a book, you have to start at the beginning. The key to Sturtevant is context. In 1964’s New York City, Elaine Sturtevant sent shock waves through the art world when she started making replicas of the work of her contemporaries. For this, she received a tremendous amount of crap. The[…..]
