Category: Artists
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Protected: A heap of broken images
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Villem Flusser on Artistic Freedom
With his statements in Towards a Philosophy of Photography, Vilém Flusser opened a new understanding of photography, and gave the term a new meaning. While he describes the photograph as a “flyer-like image distributed by the apparatus,” the Photographer for Flusser was a critic; a gadfly: “a person who attempts to place within the image,…
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Democracy’s Doppelganger
Abraham Lincoln once confessed to friends of seeing his double on the night of his first election. He was resting on his couch when he happened to turn in the direction of a mirror and saw two faces. Next to him, was his pale and ghostly doppelganger looking at him. He sprung up from…
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Poems in the shape of paintings
With a history of cultural iconoclasm, the Arab region has become a fertile ground for abstract art. Yet Arab artists remain marginal in the global conversation of modern abstraction. An ambitious project initiated by the Barjeel Art Foundation seeks to issue a long overdue corrective. Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, slated to…
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122 Rue du temple, 1968
122 Rue du temple, 1968 Jacques Villeglé torn-and-pasted printed paper on canvas 62 5/8 x 82 3/4″ (159.2 x 210.3 cm) Museum of Modern Art The words of French crime novelist Leo Malet comes to mind every time I encounter a work by Jacques Villegle: “The collage of the future will be done without scissors,…
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Throw Away Day
A new documentary on the life and work of abstract expressionism’s invisible man, Clyfford Still and the quest to reclaim one of his paintings in an auction at the Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Sale A few minutes after four and the day slipped into darkness, signalling stagehands at the Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale to finalize…
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A Tale of Two Modernisms
Modernism was first conceived by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío (1867–1916) who first published the term modernismo in his essay in the Chilean Revista de arte y cultural. He discussed how author Ricardo Contreas was using “absolute modernism in expression through his synthetic style”. This might as well describe most of the works in “Sur Moderno”,…
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Documents of Dissent
„Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden”“Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for dissenters.” ― Rosa Luxemburg The artistic practice of Minerva Cuevas invests on the motif of dissent against the powers that be. She has collected material on public resistance in Mexico City for over a decade. From the recordings of marches, gatherings, and…
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Defacement painting as memorial
The Guggenheim exhibition has achieved for Basquiat’s Defacement (1983) a level of relevance achieved by few paintings: a memorial to violence with potency to comment on our current social crisis. Picasso’s Guernica and Goya’s Third of May 1808 belong to a rare class of paintings that have the ability to draw emotions even from people…
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The show everyone loves to hate
Short review of the Whitney Biennale The Whitney Biennale is a show everyone loves to hate. A general discontent directed towards important exhibitions hangs over any appreciation of individual works. As in, what else can art do to change the world? In a show where most visitors spend less than a minute on average to…
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Lucas Arruda at David Zwirner
Lucas Arruda grapples with what its means to paint through tradition in his first solo exhibition in New York, ‘Deserto-Modelo’ Lucas Arruda, 36, mentioned in an interview with a Sao Paolo newspaper that his paintings are inspired by myths and tales. This maybe understood in the context of a pedestrian comparison to Mark Rothko or…
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North Atlantic White
A color walk piece inspired by William Burroughs. Originally written for Emmanuel Iduma’s class on narrative criticism. One similarity that struck me with Burroughs and a Filipino painter named Juan Luna is that they both killed their wives. In Luna it was the heat of passion and jealousy but for Burroughs it was the blur…
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Short descriptions of two New York exhibitions
1. Marta Minujín, The Neon Tunnel, from La Menesunda Reloaded, 1965. New Museum 2019. 95 words. The vista to the tunnel is covered by tinted Plexiglas with the lower part cut out to the shape of a human figure. Only one person at a time can enter the tunnel measuring two spans. Decked with a fragile tangle…
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Laura Owens at the Whitney Museum
There are manifold levels in the work of the American artist Laura Owens. For more than twenty years, the 47-year-old has been experimenting with the genre of painting, always with a claim to explore what is visually and creatively possible, to transcend the boundaries of the known, both in form and in content. Laura Owens…
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Krzysztof Wodiczko “Guests”
The Polish pavilion – actually a windowless cube – is surprisingly transparent this year. Floor-to-ceiling windows with rounded arches open the view to the outside. Through the slightly milky panes, the visitor standing in the dark of the exhibition space can observe people doing different activities. Some are chatting, others are busy cleaning the windows,…
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In the mood for love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)
Hong Kong 1962: Ambitious newspaper editor Chow (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and shy secretary Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) are among the many immigrants who have fled to the British crown colony after the conquest of Shanghai by the Chinese Communists. Although both are married and receive a regular salary, they can afford only a subleased room…
Geronimo Cristobal 