Steve McQueen’s newly commissioned work, Giardini, represents Great Britain at this year’s Venice Biennale. Giardini takes its name and subject matter from the main venue of the Biennale, the Giardini di Castello, on two separate, highly horizontal film screens placed seamlessly side by side. The images on each screen in turn interact with one another, offering different vantage points of the same imagery. Each screen[…..]
Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Guests represents Poland at this year’s 53rd Venice Biennale. Wodiczko’s video projection installation is at once an aesthetic and a political work. While much contemporary art addresses social and political issues, it is an exceptional achievement for an artist to convey such commentary through powerful aesthetic means as Wodiczko manages to do in this work. Guests is realized by the projection of large-scale[…..]
The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh is currently showing, Buried, a solo exhibition featuring new and recent video and photographic work by artist Willie Doherty in conjunction with the release of a new publication by the same name. Doherty, who was born and raised in Derry, Northern Ireland, addresses his homeland’s struggle to come to terms with its haunting past of violence and loss. His work[…..]
The October Gallery in London is currently showing the work of Chinese artist Huang Xu. Huang Xu’s Fragment series features plastic shopping bags in a haunting, yet aesthetically pleasing way by pairing the bags against a contrasting black background. The aesthetic nature of the Fragment series is countered by the scientific precision of the image’s creation. The artist documents plastic bags with a 3-D scanner,[…..]
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s The Murder of Crows is currently at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum fur Gegenwart (Museum for Contemporary Art). This mixed media sound installation is set within the Museum’s historic hall, which was once part of a 19th century train station terminal. The gallery visitor enters this hall by passing through heavy red curtains to encounter a bold cacophony of sound.[…..]
Jonathan Owen’s current solo exhibition at the Doggerfisher Gallery features new works by the artist. Throughout the show, Owen alters everyday images through acute attention to detail. Owen’s largest piece, Untitled, was painstakingly constructed by Owen of foam board, wood, and paint. Its pattern, inspired by the chip found on European credit cards, epitomizes the artist’s preoccupation with motif pulled from everyday existence. This work[…..]
The Ingleby Gallery‘s current exhibition, Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing, centers a selection of contemporary art around what the gallery asserts to be the theme of transformation. Francis Alys‘ Paradox of Praxis I (Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing) headlines the exhibition. The video documents Alys pushing a large block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it melts and ultimately disappears.[…..]
