Vivian Li
Tangled Hierarchy 2
By Vivian LiTangled Hierarchy 2 aspires to transcend linear narratives of cause and effect or hierarchical roles.
Ai Weiwei: Cao / Humanity
By Vivian LiAlthough this grouping of cast objects demonstrates the artist’s long-standing fascination with materials and reproduction, a room full of them can feel like monuments—anonymous and easy to dismiss. But maybe that is the point, to look closely past surface meanings.
Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Grey Collection
By Vivian LiModernisms focuses on the period of the 1960s and 1970s when Grey traveled and assembled her collection of approximately 700 works from the Middle East and Asia (114 of which are on view), after which she established the Grey Art Gallery at New York University.
Imagined Communities: Photographs by Mila Teshaieva
By Vivian LiThough her first East Coast solo exhibition is formally promoted as featuring three of her recent photographic series that explore the complexities of national identities and memories in former USSR territories, the brilliance of photographer Mila Teshaieva's show lies not in the expansive and consciously composed photographs alone but in their total installation.
Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now
By Vivian LiNation-themed contemporary art exhibitions can be problematic, especially now when so many artists work in the context of globalization. Nonetheless, national exhibitions still retain enough public appeal to justify their continued existence. In this context, Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now is surprisingly thoughtful, in part because it does not hew too closely to mere geographical parameters.
Liu Xiaodong: Borders
By Vivian LiKnown for his massive paintings of people around the world living at the edge of contemporary society, the neo-realist painter Liu Xiaodong was commissioned by the Dallas Contemporary to create a series of paintings on the US-Mexico border.
CHRISTOPHER KNOWLES:
In a Word
By Vivian Li
Though Brooklyn-based artist Christopher Knowles is renowned for his mathematical, oftentimes compulsive, use of language, his large retrospective show Christopher Knowles: In a Word is a revelation of how equally intense and curious he is throughout the breadth of his artmaking.
MARK DION:
Misadventures of a 21st-Century Naturalist
By Vivian Li
Rather than an outright duel between fact and fiction, Dion demonstrates that the judgment more at stake has always been between truth and value and how we balance the two.
The Sun Teaches Us That History Is Not Everything
By Vivian LiWhen you enter The Sun Teaches Us That History Is Not Everything, one of the first works you might overlook amongst the other more colorful installations is a large suspended orb slowly spinning in the center of the room.
