In his 1971 essay “The Function of the Studio,” conceptual artist Daniel Buren defined the artist’s studio as a metadiscourse of “frames, envelopes, and limits” imposed upon the working artist in the age of advanced capitalism.[1] Claiming that this privileged space had become nothing more than an “ossified custom”—a “commercial depot” for curators and dealers to ship works out into the world (and thus detach[…..]
#nationalism #institutions #power #access #globalization #protest #labor #capital The 56th Venice Biennale, “All the World’s Futures,” has been hailed as the “political” Biennale both by its curator Okwui Enwezor and by the international art press. That designation has come in for significant criticism from some who feel that contemporary art either can not or should not address political concerns, given the commodity status of art objects[…..]
Shotgun Reviews are an open forum where we invite the international art community to contribute timely, short-format responses to an exhibition or event. If you are interested in submitting a Shotgun Review, please click this link for more information. For the next five Sundays, our Shotgun Reviews will come from the finalists for the Daily Serving/Kadist Art Foundation Writing Fellowship in Mexico City. In today’s edition, author Leslie Moody[…..]
Today from our partners at Art Practical, we bring you a review of Eleanor Oakes’ solo exhibition at Tyler Wood Gallery in San Francisco. Author Anton Stuebner notes: “In aestheticizing the random distortions effected onto this film stock, Oakes shows how time marks material substances with a distinctive presence.” This article was originally published on May 14, 2015. Our bodies leave behind innumerable traces: dead skin, soil,[…..]
For artist Jered Sprecher, painting is a medium for conveying the tensions between the abstract and the concrete. His works are balanced between the painterly and the conceptual; in the catalog for his 2014 exhibition Stacking Stones at Gallery 16 in San Francisco, Sprecher wrote: “When I work I want to create paintings that surprise, paintings that can hold competing ideas but not contain them.”[…..]
Wael Shawky’s gorgeous cinematography, sets, and marionettes fuse a child-like play with the horrors and complications of war and history.
Tom LaDuke’s paintings are messy, exuberant, indulgent affairs, cramming multiple techniques and representational modes onto each canvas. These range from total abstraction to meticulous rendering, as paint is smeared, dripped, and airbrushed across the surface, built up into textured accretions, and covered in glitter. Trompe l’oeil competes with pure paint for authenticity. The result is a frenetic, often garish exploration of representation and perception, offering[…..]
