Thomas Houseago’s towering figures are monuments that tackle monumentality. The gargantuan Red Man that greets me when I walk into David Kordansky Gallery seems at first threatening; it is bigger than I am, more creature than human, and monstrous in many senses of the word. It reminds me, at first glance, of a crudely crafted god, a fetishistic relic passed down from an ancient civilization,[…..]
The current exhibition at Chinatown’s Mihai Nicodim Gallery, previously Kontainer Gallery, explores the precarious political consequences of human desires. Curated by Jane Neal, The Punishment of Lust and Luxury’s featured artists include Cyprien Gaillard, Adrian Ghenie, Ciprian Muresan and Martin Skauen, all of whom respond, whether directly or indirectly, to the socially conscious paintings of 19th Century Italian artist Giovanni Segantini. Segantini, who depicted bad[…..]
Marianne Mueller‘s first US solo exhibition opens on January 24th at Kim Light Gallery. The London-based Swiss artist works primarily in photography and her show at Kim Light will consist of intentional clusters of images. These images–of bodies, objects, or structure–interact with each other in a multitude of ways, nomadically equalizing a diverse array of suggested places and experiences. Called Dream-US-09, this exhibition overlaps with[…..]
A new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago chronicles something unexpected and sentimental: the relationship between artists and animals. Ranging from Caravaggio to Pablo Picasso and Pierre Bonnard, the exhibition traces the roles pets have played in the progression of Western art. Held in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, The Beauty and the Beast features books from the Museum’s collection that explore animals’ presence[…..]
To Illustrate and Multiply: An Open Book, currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Pacific Design Center, surveys artists books from the 20th Century to the present. The exhibition’s title comes from a book by artist Raymond Pettibon and an impressive span of artists are included, among them are illusionist and perceptual artist Olafur Eliasson, parodic sculptor Lara Schnitger, Belgian artist and musician[…..]
Guido van der Werve‘s current exhibition, Everything is Going to be Alright, is on view in the Hayward Project Space at the Southbank Centre in London. The exhibition includes ‘Nummer Acht’ (2007), a strikingly romantic video in which van der Werve walks ahead of an ice breaker ship, and ‘Nummer Zes’, another video with a memorable premise: a Steinway grand piano is lifted by crane[…..]
“You could lie on the floor and be completely losing yourself, time-wise and space-wise,” says curator Klaus Biesenbach of Pipilotti Rist‘s new video installation in the Museum of Modern Art‘s atrium. The installation, called Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), was commissioned by MoMA and has been in the works for two years. Pour Your Body Out, which officially opened to the public on[…..]
