Continuing our Best of 2013 series, Nandita Raghuram writes, “This thought-provoking article, rich with colorful images, provides a concise examination of the multi-faceted video by Jonathan Ehrenberg. The vivid descriptions usher the reader into the macabre world of the video, while the thoughtful visual analysis justly captures Ehrenberg’s interwoven themes. Rather than sidestepping the ambiguity inherent to the piece, the author embraces its jarring nature,[…..]

Here at Daily Serving we count down the days to the New Year by presenting you with our best writing from the outgoing year. Today’s review was selected by writer and Regional Editor Marilyn Goh, who says, “I came to know about Ghent-based artist Berlinde De Bruyckere through Thea’s pitch of Cripplewood-Kreupelhout at the 55th Venice Biennale. Months later, the unsettling images of Bruyckere’s works[…..]

Despite its universal connotations, Secret Citadel, a mixed-media installation and video projection by Canadian artist Graeme Patterson, explores the nuances of male bonding and friendship from an intensely personal perspective. The narrative of the exhibition, currently on view at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, unfolds in four parts featuring two distinct characters—a bison dressed in blue and a cougar dressed in orange—at seemingly disparate stages[…..]

Still working in feverish catharsis at the age of 82, Yayoi Kusama is Japan’s most famous living artist. Yet in the United States she has only recently received a slice of the recognition that her expansive body of work and visionary approach deserve. Following a critically acclaimed retrospective at the Whitney last year, Kusama was picked up by David Zwirner in early 2013. For her[…..]

In Dante’s Inferno Italian artist Valentina Vannicola merges staged photography with socially engaged practice, resulting in a rich body of work reminiscent of the postdramatic theater of Romeo Castellucci and the Societas Rafaello Sanzio. Using non-professional performers from her hometown of Tolfa, north of Rome, Vannicola has constructed absurdist scenes recreating Dante’s journey through the strata of hell. While the outcome could easily have been[…..]

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[…..]

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. All submissions become the property of Daily Serving. Help Desk is co-sponsored by KQED.org. As an artist, what can I do to make studio visits (with critics, curators, etc.) really, really great? I often feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.[…..]