Flip through any Mike Kelley catalog and you’re likely to find a plethora of images that show the artist to be a maker of videos, installations, and objects that betray what critic Jerry Saltz once described as “clusterfuck aesthetics“. So it may be a surprise to view the relatively straightforward Arenas at Skarstedt Gallery, comprised of seven out of the eleven works from the original[…..]
Foreclosed is the kind of show that makes it seem advantageous for artists to also be craftsmen. In contrast to the parallel movements of “post-skill art” on one hand and “sloppy craft” on the other, Alison Elizabeth Taylor‘s marquetry pieces at James Cohan Gallery are constructed with incredible skill. And—when materials connect meaningfully with imagery—they are outstanding examples of art that satisfyingly integrates workmanship and[…..]
Is it true belief’s unyielding determination that redeems and protects? This question lies at the heart of Brent Green‘s solo exhibition Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then at Andrew Edlin Gallery. The issue of belief occupies both Green and the man whose work provided the inspiration for the project. The story goes like this: a man named Leonard Wood once built a house entirely by hand[…..]
As a painter of political ideas—and, often, the grotesque and cruel—Luc Tuymans is a historian of images that appear banal but reveal sinister workings: colored blobs are actually disembodied eyeballs; a bare room with flattened perspective is the site of uncountable murders; a limp cloth turns out to be the emblem of a growing nationalist movement. His first U.S. retrospective, a mid-career survey now at[…..]
As part of their 75th Anniversary celebration, SFMOMA commissioned British artist Ewan Gibbs to make a series of “urban portraits” of San Francisco based on snapshots the artist took last year. Addressing the delicate, pixellated, hand-rendered portraits, SFMOMA curator Henry Urbach said, “…they hover between photography and drawing, between the documented and the half remembered.” The 18 drawings that comprise Gibbs’ first solo museum exhibition[…..]
In William Gibson‘s 1986 novel Count Zero, an abandoned but sentient AI robot composes art objects from detritus found in space. Despite being built by a computer from discards and rubbish, these objects have a deeply human gravity—both a grace and a yearning for grace—and are highly prized. It is precisely this evocative use of materials and imagery that Isa Genzken gives us in[…..]
Inspired by movies, pop culture, fashion, and Bernini, Storm Tharp has been exhibiting his ink and gouache paintings in Portland, Oregon and Geneva, Switzerland for years. His work will be included in the 2010 biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. DailyServing’s Bean Gilsdorf recently spoke with the artist about his inclusion in the Whitney Biennial, the idea of identity[…..]
