At 11 p.m. on a Friday night in Paris, I took advantage of the late hours at the Palais de Tokyo. Before entering the Julio Le Parc exhibit, I overheard a conversation that seems to exemplify a standing problem of contemporary art. A visitor answered his phone while looking at a conceptual piece and jokingly described it. It went something like this: “I’m looking at[…..]
Seoul-based duo Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI)–Young-Hae Chang and Marc Voge–recently served as artists in residence at the Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco, and the resulting project is on view through May 12. The duo is presenting a project titled, Pacific Limn, which consists of a three-channel video that intertwines three narratives that focus on the United States, China, and Japan, respectively. The artists have used[…..]
#Hashtags provides a platform for longer reconsiderations of artworks and art practices outside of the review format and in new contexts. In the prelude to his book The Triumph of Anti-Art, Thomas McEvilley held up the Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, founder of the School of Cynics, as a prototypical conceptual and performance artist who strove to break down the barriers separating philosophy and life.[…..]
I am watching the film Haywire by Soderbergh and the quality of compressed expressions reminds me of the current exhibition Envy, by Matias Faldbakken up now at Galerie Neu in Berlin. On a first viewing of Faldbakken’s work I was put off by the intellectual deference of the nearly empty showroom–the cool distancing which is so often currency for cultural glamour. Let’s hope I am mistaken about the[…..]
Jazz great Miles Davis once said, “Music exists in the spaces between the notes.” Language provokes us to name and describe empty spaces—like those that exist at the intersection of thought and memory. In Blanking Out, Will Rogan’s exhibition at Altman Siegel Gallery, a combination of sculptures and two-dimensional works reveals that the negative spaces are as important as the objects that create them. In[…..]
Raul Bussot was 5 years old when his family decided to escape Cuba, so he doesn’t remember the details very well. He remembers his father and two friends assembling a raft in a mangrove forest under the cover of darkness. He remembers pushing the raft to the beach while keeping an eye out for the Cuban Coast Guard. He remembers huddling together for warmth out[…..]
As a part of our ongoing partnership with Art Practical, today we bring you a review by Matt Sussman of the exhibition The Modern Monster at Queens Nail’s Gallery in San Francisco. “What kind of monster are you?” is the chorus from a single by the ’90s pop-punk group Slant 6.1 The question accuses the listener of being something other than human. However, the singer-guitarist Christina Billotte’s flat[…..]
