Empathy may not be one of the first words people associate with modern documentary photography, but Ireland-born photographer Tom Wood has it in spades. Wood, who currently resides in North Wales, lived for twenty-five years in Merseyside, a seaside county in North West England, and photographed local residents in portraits that are relatable, real, and fundamentally sympathetic toward their subjects. Though he is often compared[…..]

Today we continue our week-long series, Summer of Utopia, through the work of artists Rosa Casado and Mike Brookes. Spanish performance artist, Rosa Casado and British visual artist, Mike Brookes initiated a long-term collaboration in 2000 focusing on performative engagements in social spaces,  informed by seminal works addressing utopian ideals of social equality,  self-organization and ecological sustainability. In Paradise 2 – the incessant sound of[…..]

While the act of mapping conveys authority – giving credence to that which it records – mapping cannot remain entirely static and must be revised to represent changes in power structures.  In efforts to better understand or better represent the world, many contemporary artists eschew two-dimensional map-making in favor of addressing the ways in which traditional maps are transgressed by global complexities. Whose Map is[…..]

The Serpentine Gallery in London presents Nairy Bagrhamian and Phyllida Barlow.  The exhibition features new and recent work by two contemporary artists exhibited together for the first time.  The Serpentine Gallery suggests Baghramian and Barlow represent ‘two positions on sculpture in the 21st century’.  The pairing of the two artists offers new insight into their respective sculptural practices. Baghramian and Barlow’s work is displayed separately,[…..]

Artist Francis Upritchard’s work titled “Save Yourself” seems to be a constructed reference to b-grade movies, in which the artist has unearthed an ancient tomb below the gallery that contains a mummified figure. However scary this scenario would seem, the mummy is constructed with rags and a glass eye and vibrates, powered by an electric cord visible on the floor. Upritchard derives many of her[…..]

British artist Ian Dawson produces large-scale sculptures out of a variety of materials. The artist has used colorful industrial plastic containers that are modeled into exotic forms through heat manipulation in several new works. Through this process, the object is stripped of its original use and begins to exist in a position between painting and sculpture. Other projects include large sheets of screen-printed paper that[…..]

Internationally renowned British sculptor Antony Gormley is currently exhibiting his “Critical Mass” installation with the Museo d’Arte Donna Regina in Naples, Italy. In this work, the artist cast more than 60 figures in a variety of poses and then placed the casts in a large group on the gallery floor. Gormley’s work investigates the body and makes reference to internal and external space. The artist[…..]