Reviews

Paul Graham: The Present

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The Pace Gallery and Pace/MacGill Gallery debut Paul Graham: The Present with a striking selection of sixteen diptychs and two triptychs. This series concludes a trilogy with the series a shimmer of possibility (2004–2006) and American Night (1998–2002), both of which showed in numerous institutions and galleries internationally. Alongside the exhibition of The Present, Graham has published a 114-page monograph with London-based MACK, which will[…..]

Unnatural Communities

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One of the most informative moments in SPACES, the latest exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, is a timeline of the birth of the St. Claude art scene handwritten in black charcoal pencil on the wall. Born out of the reinvigoration of community action in post-Katrina New Orleans, bolstered by the adrenaline shot of Prospect.1, hard working artist collectives popped up across the city[…..]

High Performance

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L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley Do you remember track star Gail Devers, with her absurdly long nails? I noticed her for the first time in Atlanta, on television during the 1996 Olympics, where she one her third gold. Then, her nails were painted gold to match the medal she had yet to win. Eight years later, in[…..]

The 2012 Whitney Biennial: A Rehabilitated Production

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The beginning of March sees New York erupt in an art world flurry with the 75th Whitney Biennial igniting the itinerary for the next couple months of art fairs, large-scale exhibitions, auctions, and not least of all, the parties that accompany such events. Presented by Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders, who formed a fortuitous curatorial duo, the 2012 Biennial shone brighter than the previous Biennial[…..]

Weaving, Not Cloth: Mark Bradford

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The difficulty in viewing photographs of artwork is that the camera flattens the object in its focus, relinquishing subtleties in order to capture a whole. Because his oeuvre is very subtle indeed, Mark Bradford’s work requires a viewer’s presence to be fully appreciated. Very little of the slender lines of collage, delicate papers built up in thin layers or washes of paint almost completely sanded[…..]

EWX: Material Matters at the Courtauld Institute of Art

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    There is a specific joy that flares when a familiar space is reanimated by art—whether it’s public sculpture appearing at a junction travelled through often, like the new fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, or something as quiet as a different postcard image on an office bulletin board—it’s a little visual jolt for a view that’s become tired. When I first arrived at the[…..]

You Killed Me First: the Cinema of Transgression at Kunst-Werke

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You Killed me First (1985), one of Richard Kern’s longer films starring David Wojnarowicz and Lung Leg, could be read as a clear teenage allegory of the Cinema of Transgression itself.  A girl (Lung leg) bristles at the religious directives of her parents, asserting her right to personhood outside demure hairstyles and turkey dinners, constructing voodoo dolls and entertaining other manners of dark drawing in[…..]