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[…..]

U-Ram Choe’s animatronic organisms are at once ultramodern and quaintly aesthetic, evoking the antiquated futurism of Jules Verne. Entering the darkened space of the John Curtin Gallery, visitors encounter a fictional ecosystem populated by cybernetic life. Didactic panels convey the data collected by the mysterious U.R.A.M. (United Research of Anima Machines), stating that these mechanical creatures live symbiotically within the urban environment, feeding off human[…..]

T Rooms, an exhibition by Matthew Darbyshire is on show at Tramway, Glasgow and runs till 11 March 2012. In previous exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2008) and Herald St, London (2010), Darbyshire has created works critiquing homogenization and non-specificity in design and architecture, provoking questions on the strategies and value of urban regeneration. These ideas are extended in the installation that[…..]

There is always someone who is offended by every biennial. They are inherently two-headed beasts, with the introspective head judging the strengths and weaknesses of a portion of the art world, while the extroverted head optimistically presents a narrative, declaring why the included artists are notable. For this year’s DeCordova Biennial, curators Dina Deitsch and Abigail Ross Goodman followed tradition by programming a regional Biennial[…..]

L.A. Expanded: Notes from the West Coast A weekly column by Catherine Wagley A grad school classmate of mine, one of the more resourceful people I’ve met, had a studio that looked like a carpenter’s shop. Though not clean per se, it was functional and organized, with shelving units and a storage loft above a small couch. When he got stuck or couldn’t decide why[…..]

Olaf Brzeski’s work spans many different media, but his practice is unified by a central sense of iconic situations having gone awry. For Brzeski, the hunter becomes the hunted, the superhero-savior is hideously deformed, the stately bust is bloated and misshapen. Brzeski’s work has been included in solo and group shows throughout Poland and in Prague, Copenhagen, Budapest, and Lille. We met up in Tarnow,[…..]

An exhibition of two adjoining shows by Slavs and Tatars and Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan is on at Kiosk, Ghent till 22 January 2012, featuring works that deal with interpretations and associations surrounding historically significant events. Friendship of Nations: Polish-Shi’ite Showbiz by Slavs and Tatars presents a re-imagination of an Iranian Polish Solidarity. Even to an eye unfamiliar with Iranian and Polish[…..]