It’s nearly impossible to talk about a show of Sturtevant’s work and have it understood. Like a book, you have to start at the beginning. The key to Sturtevant is context. In 1964’s New York City, Elaine Sturtevant sent shock waves through the art world when she started making replicas of the work of her contemporaries. For this, she received a tremendous amount of crap. The[…..]
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[…..]
What sort of cold-blooded beast is this? Measuring ten meters long and towering overhead, a muscled, thick mass covered in iridescent black feathers swirls around itself and then dives into itself. Snaking out of the wall as if from a hell-like sewer, Gyre twists with the writhing energy of a sex-drunk lover. Seductive and nightmarish, intricately beautiful and somehow dangerous, the massive sculpture captures the[…..]
Wafts of ginger and cilantro from the nearby Vietnamese eateries swirls around the propelling bus exhaust as I walk through London’s funky Shoreditch on an overcast day. Though I (embarrassingly) have not yet visited before, the unexpected island of pristine glass of the Flower’s Gallery is not hard to miss among the rickety cheap shoe shops and tabacs littered with half-shredded ice cream posters. A[…..]
It’s autumn in London – the sun-dappled days at Hyde Park become distant memories as my brief trip back to California enters my rear view. The temperature drops, the leopard-print bikini begins its hibernation, and I stock up on Wolford tights again. The droves of art world professionals have returned from their envy-inducing Facebook check-ins in Saint-Tropez and Positano to the sudden realisation that Frieze week is[…..]
Yoko says…make a wish Yoko says…cut Yoko says…step on the painting Yoko says…smile What ever Yoko says, one must do. It’s an irresistible game. A walk through Yoko Ono’s exhibition, ‘To the Light…’ at the Serpentine Gallery in the heart of London’s Hyde Park, is very much an extension of the park itself. Play and wander and, moreover, do what Yoko says. Simple and surreal,[…..]
The state of the environment – activated by observation, exploration and intervention – is the common subject taken up by eighteen photographers included in the current exhibition at Flower East. The show’s framework is intentionally broad, stretching the term ‘environment’ to encompass both urban and rural landscapes and surveying ecological, anthropological, political, architectural and aesthetic concerns. The wide berth also allows Chris Littlewood, the gallery’s[…..]
