Initially I suspected the title of the 18th Biennale of Sydney, the trendily lower case ‘all our relations’, might be one of those curatorial conceits that work better as an intellectual device in the abstract than in the physical reality of the exhibition. I was wrong. Joint artistic directors Catherine de Zegher and Gerald McMaster have successfully created a coherent and evocative series of narratives[…..]
Going to Basel during the art fair is like battling a multi-headed Hydra. It’s the biggest, potentially most daunting international art event of the year. You may not be able to do it all – but you might as well die of alcohol poisoning while trying. Indeed Basel is, like many international art fairs, biennials and events – a massive party attended by every international[…..]
In Beau Lotto’s 2009 TED Talk, he takes the audience through a small series of examples and visual exercises to illustrate the gap between reality and perception. Colors are created through layers of shaded panes, films, shadows, and the positioning of objects. Scientifically speaking, the mind collects and stores these visual images, creating patterns so that images in the physical world are readily discerned: a[…..]
This past Sunday, under the beating hot Los Angeles sun, LACMA finally held its inauguration ceremony for “Levitated Mass,” the 340-ton piece of California granite which traveled for 11 days at 8 miles an hour through Southern California, eventually to be placed across a 456-foot long trench in the northwest quadrant of LACMA’s campus. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was there (his speech was mediocre). County supervisor[…..]
Order and control are nothing but illusions. Underlying even the most structured of appearances, randomness and chance are at the helm, and it is these concepts that prevail in the workings of London-based artist Alexis Harding. Throughout Harding’s work, structures are shown to fail, grids collapse, and hard-edged systems give way to entropy. What began in his practice as an act of figurative negation, evolved[…..]
The current exhibition at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco is my favorite kind of museum show. Phantoms of Asia combines the old, new, profound, weird, classic and kitsch in a lineup of artists that exemplifies the infinite connections between past and present. The 150 works cover such a broad range of media and time that it is hard to not be impressed by[…..]
MoMA PS1 is an art institution reputable for its exhibitions and events that inspire an unparalleled contemporary dialogue in both the United States and internationally. It’s building – a recovered and repurposed public schoolhouse – alone commands a stamp of novelty. The exterior recalls an architectural era that predates the now ubiquitous rolling glass façades with its sumptuous terra cotta bricks and ornate eaves. It’s interior has[…..]
