Thomas Hirschhorn’s show at the South London Gallery is a precarious, postapocalyptic mess. Collapsing floors are propped up with broken posts, and adjoining walls are held together by packing tape, which creates a foreboding sense that the installation could come down on the viewers at any moment. Yet the actual threat of fabricated precariousness is quite different than the threat posed to the viewer who[…..]
Mona Hatoum’s solo exhibition, currently on view at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, is made entirely of newly gifted works from philanthropist and political activist Barbara Lee. The Barbara Lee Family Foundation is focused on advancing female representation in politics. Lee is a major supporter of Hilary Clinton, in addition to being a collector who has shifted her focus exclusively to female artists. At the[…..]
As President Obama visits New Orleans this week on the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we bring you a look back at last year’s Prospect.3 New Orleans. Tori Bush contextualizes her review of the rocky history of this biennial in a city “suspended in time in space.” This article was originally published on November 11, 2014. Honoré de Balzac wrote: “Ideas are a complete[…..]
This month marks the opening of the first major Australian solo exhibition of Pierre Huyghe’s work at the TarraWarra Museum of Art, so today we revisit this review by Alex Bigman, who assesses the humor and mythology of Huyghe’s retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This article was originally published on January 21, 2015. There is a scene in Pierre Huyghe’s shadowy, dreamlike film The Host and[…..]
Today we continue our Summer Reading series with an essay on art criticism and poetry from our friends at Temporary Art Review. Author Steven Cottingham throws down a challenge: “How can art criticism be so close to art but fail to reflect any of its spirit? […] Maybe there is a future where art criticism is no longer a supplementary, reactionary activity. Maybe it can become revolutionary.”[…..]
Today we kick off our annual Summer Reading series, in which our writers and editors select their favorite recent articles on contemporary art from around the web. First up is an excerpt from Matt Sussman’s “Nothing That Meets the Eye: Notes on Clones,” originally published on SFMOMA’s Open Space on June 3, 2015. In this essay, Sussman considers the culture of reproduction and copies within the[…..]
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. In this Shotgun Review, Carla Fernández reviews the group show Vic at Insitu Berlin. The group show Vic at Insitu Berlin presents a fictional persona whose effect on viewers oscillates between[…..]
