Chun Kwang Young’s Assemblage at Art Plural Gallery is a series of three-dimensional sculptural works wrapped with Korean mulberry paper and assembled within the two-dimensional frame of a canvas. Taking the ubiquitous use of the mulberry paper in Korea—also known as hanji—as a material point of reference, the Assemblage series explores a desolate landscape of depressions, protrusions and coloured spots, all of which seem to reference abstract painting’s visual language of prioritising[…..]

A distressed pair of white porcelain shoes with red soles and a cast golden index finger seductively beckon you upon first entering Elizabeth Zvonar’s exhibition Banal Baroque at Daniel Faria Gallery in Toronto. The heels of the shoes are warped, the feet inside almost brainy in texture. Sawed off abruptly at the base of the ankle, the feet, shoes, and the vibrant red soles are[…..]

There is no doubt that “the relevance of physical books in our culture is diminishing” according to curator Karen Ann Meyers. Rebound, presented by the College of Charleston‘s Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, shows five artists who use books to create sculpture. Books provide a mass of free material for these artists. Encyclopedia sets were once functional objects from a different time and culture. These discarded[…..]

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation. —Guy Dubord, Society of the Spectacle, 1967 The Bay Area is the social media capital of the world; with headquarters for Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it is no surprise that everywhere you go, people are[…..]

When you enter your local supermarket, the door will most likely slide open automatically, welcoming you as it senses your presence. There’s nothing remarkable about that, you’re accustomed to the simple technology of motion sensors. What is remarkable is that technological fixtures such as motion sensors have become so ubiquitous that we scarcely notice them anymore. They are a part of your daily routine, a[…..]

Last year, Theaster Gates and a team of collaborators took over a run-down building in Kassel, Germany called Huguenot House, renovating the space for performances and creative interventions as part of 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, the artist’s contribution to dOCUMENTA (13). It was a fitting gesture considering the restorative origins of the first dOCUMENTA in 1955, which reintroduced modern art to Germany after years[…..]

Mixed media—that creative collision of materials rarefied and commonplace, refined and raw—is, one might say, something of a given in the contemporary art world. The Hirshhorn’s Over, Under, Next: Experiments in Mixed Media, 1913-Present is a fascinating and provocative overview of this now-ubiquitous, once-incendiary mode of art making. Such an illuminating look back prompts one to see the present anew, and considered in the light[…..]