ArtSeen
Jules de Balincourt Unknowing Man’s Nature
By John YauJules de Balincourt has a grab bag of tools at his disposal. They are his means to an end. He tapes, stencils, incises, applies oil, enamel, and spray paint to wooden panels.
Judy Rifka Nostos
By Cassandra NeyeneschSince her days at the forefront of postmodern painting in the 80’s, Judy Rifka’s oeuvre has been admirably restless.
The Art of the Burning Man
By Valery OisteanuEven before arriving at this year’s Burning Man Festival, I knew that my main interest would be the art of the “Burners.”
Take Me Back to Constantinople Land:
By Robert C. MorganThis September was the opening of the Tenth International Istanbul Biennial, and the twentieth anniversary of its inception. It was also my fifth invitation to Istanbul, which afforded the opportunity to compare and contrast with others I had seen.
Chuck Webster Devotional Pictures
By Craig OlsonChuck Webster’s most recent thicket of images triggers a response from somewhere between the senses, a place where the eye’s ear is activated through optically tympanic vibrations.
Zhang Huan Altered States
By Ellen Pearlmann 1994, the pinnacle of China’s post-Tiananmen “Shock Art” phase, Zhang Huan lathered his nude body in honey and fish oil and sat down on a roughhewn latrine seat in a public bathroom in Beijing’s East Village art colony, offering himself up as a tasty lunch to hoards of swarming flies and insects.
Chris Marker Staring Back
By Litia PertaI look in the dictionary for the etymology of the word ‘stare,’ and am directed to “See stareblind” (‘stare’ having apparently originated there).
Ingrid Calame Constellations
By John YauIn his book Revisioning Psychology, James Hillman wrote: “We sail against the imagination whenever we ask an image for its meaning—requiring that images be translated into concepts.”
Laura Newman, Claire Seidl, Cordy Ryman Project Space: Judith Page
By Stephanie BuhmannThough not conceived as a thematic show, Laura Newman, Claire Seidl and Cordy Ryman have plenty in common. Most importantly, they share a concern for architectural space; while realized in different media and under the spell of different aesthetics, these individual accounts are told in the same language.
Larry Clark Los Angeles 2003-2006
By Cassandra NeyeneschSince his 1995 movie Kids, Larry Clark has slid around the photographic line between document and exploitation, and to this reviewer there is something greasy and repugnant about this artist’s gaze.
Olafur Eliasson Take Your Time
By Tessa DeCarloIf you’re thinking about a visit to San Francisco in the next few months, SFMOMA’s exhibition of some two dozen projects by Olafur Eliasson—by turns beautiful, ominous, soothing, funny, and wondrous—is a good reason to book a flight.
Andrew Ohanesian and Tescia Seufferlein Blind Spot
By Hrag VartanianFor those who oppose the Iraq War, its unfolding tragedy has colonized a repository of dark motivations and actions that represent the nadir of American ideals, a shadow realm of places like Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and Manhattan’s Pier 57 (used to house RNC 2004 protesters) that scares the shit out of us.
Marcel Broodthaers Décor, A Conquest by Marcel Broodthaers
By Geoffrey Cruickshank-HagenbuckleA one-second film composed of 24 hand-lettered frames bearing versions of the artist’s signature M.B. shown at 24 frames per second.
Robert Whitman Turning
By Shane McAdamsRobert Whitman is part of a bygone generation of artists who sought to cleanse art of the commodification and commercialization that befell the art world in the heyday of Abstract Expressionism.
Llyn Foulkes
By Nora GriffinThe cartoon-serious urgency of titles such as “I Got a Job to Do” and “You Would Not Listen When I Told You,” are a welcome invitation into the world of a radically fresh 73-year-old painter, who is not as well-known as he should be on the East Coast.
Kohei Yoshiyuki
By Jeremy SiglerIn his “Theatre of Cruelty” manifesto, Antonin Artaud spoke of his desire for theater to be brutal, passionate, and to express a “convulsive conception of life”—an “extreme condensation of scenic elements.”
Tom Russotti Aesthletics: Straightjacket Softball
By Warren FryAs clouds gathered in the evening sky over McCarren Park in Williamsburg, the United Sugar Refiners Health and Temperance Society’s last at bat versus the Hipsters of the North Side Fitness Center proved one for the (as yet non-existent) Straightjacket Softball record books.
Brooklyn Dispatches: Call it Merde (and They Will Eat It): Ruminations on Crap
By James KalmBe forewarned: those of you with delicate sensibilities please forego this essay; those choosing to read on, please step lightly and roll up your pant cuffs.
Letter from LONDON
By Sherman SamKenneth Martin (1905-84) and his wife Mary Martin (1907-69) were English Constructivist artists of the Fifties, but to restrict the scope and influence of their work to this period would be a mistake.
Words Fail Me
By Lynn CrawfordThe Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which occupies a former car dealership in the city’s midtown, that measures 21,000 square feet, opened in October 2006. Initially MOCAD seemed to be a determined, yet fragile, experiment, but now, one year later, the space has proved to be solidly successful.
Sylvia Plimack Mangold
By John YauSylvia Plimack Mangold’s primary formal preoccupation is the unyielding pressure of space against the painting’s surface.
Merce Cunningham Drawings and Videos
By Claudia La RoccoThere is always the question, when looking at a minor body of work produced by someone who has mastered another form: Would this captivate, if made by an unknown artist?
Gordon Moore
By Ben La RoccoIn his new show at Betty Cuningham, Gordon Moore proves that he is dedicated to evolving as a painter without abandoning the path he has determined for himself.
Willem de Kooning The Last Beginning
By Ben La RoccoA body of work spanning de Kooning’s career from the early ’40s through the late ’80s is on display at Gagosian’s 21st Street gallery in an exhibition entitled Willem de Kooning: The Last Beginning.
Artists Retreat
By Sharon L. ButlerWith the economy slowing down, hedge funds getting shaky, and investors seeking refuge, the art market seems certain to contract in a big way.
Hysterical Blindness: Critical Mess and the Limits of Vision
By Thomas MicchelliIn the December 2006/January 2007 issue of The Brooklyn Rail, Irving Sandler published his “Call to Art Critics,” which posed some pointed questions and landed a few well-aimed kidney punches.
Purgatory Lost: MASS MoCA Trashes Democracy
By Thomas MicchelliThe Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art announced on September 25th that “it has begun removing materials gathered for Training Ground for Democracy and will not permit the public to enter the planned installation which was cancelled on May 21, 2007.”
Letter from VENEZIA
By Lucio PozziLet me explain. There are two polarities in town. The Biennale proper is an affair conducted with dignity by the American curator Robert Storr, a painter and curator of notable sensibility.
Up River: Points of Interest on the Hudson from the Battery to Troy
By Anne ByrdOne of the most continuous experiences a New Yorker can have of a natural feature of the landscape is on a train going up the Hudson to Albany-Rensselaer, the station closest to the Center for Land Use Interpretation’s east-coast outpost in Troy.
