L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley A mile and a half from where I live, close to downtown, there’s a strange treasure: a traditional white church with a tall steeple and prayer garden complete with a Jesus sculpture right next door. It looks like a place Anne of Green Gables might have gone to pray, except that the[…..]
We are all cyborgs… as Donna Haraway proclaimed in her 1991 manifesto. The fusion of man and machine in popular culture, scientific exploration and artistic production in the late 20th century, was loaded with fear, alongside great aspirations, of genetic engineering, technological advances and mechanisms of control. However, the anxiety of the future that was expressed in 1990s art with the exploration of digital interfaces[…..]
Along with nine, hand-selected participants, artist Desirée Holman has spent the last two years developing a series of avatars. The resulting project, Heterotopias, 2011, a video and supporting drawings on view now at the Berkeley Art Museum, refers to corporeal reality’s relationship to virtual reality, the physical process by which the digitally rendered avatar is formed, and the ironic stasis of the body whilst the[…..]
Lynn Hershman Leeson is historic. Some of the most exciting moments of her recent documentary on feminist art, !W.A.R., or !Women Art Revolution, 2010, were shot on her own living room couch. She and her alter-ego, Roberta Breitmore, are synonymous with an era of women’s art to which all artists (especially—but not exclusively—women) owe a great debt. But we are no longer in the seventies. […..]
It is rare to see Marina Abramović without a mask. Not a physical barrier – as we know well, she often performs without a stitch of clothing or a smear of make-up. This covering is an emotional sheath – a rigid facade upheld throughout her work and her career even at the most vulnerable of moments. So it was beguiling to find here, under layers[…..]
Today’s article is brought to us from our friends at Flavorwire, where Caroline Stanley discusses the greatest disappearing act, the art of Liu Bolin. Beijing-based artist Liu Bolin is the master of blending in with the world around him — no matter what the environment. Which is ironic, considering as he explained to The Daily Mail last year, “The inspiration behind my work was a[…..]
