Charlene K. Lau
Charlene K. Lau is an art historian, critic, and curator who has held fellowships at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Parsons School of Design, The New School and Performa Biennial. Her writing has been published in Artforum, Atlantic.com, the Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art, Frieze, Fashion Theory and Journal of Curatorial Studies, among others.
Ian Cheng Emissaries
By Charlene K. LauRecently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, Ian Cheng’s epic “live simulation” trilogy, Emissary (2015 – 17) is installed in its entirety for the first time at both MoMA PS1 and live-streamed on Twitch, a social video platform for gamers.
Refiguring Binaries
By Charlene K. LauBilled as an exhibition, Refiguring Binaries offers a looping selection of 18 screen-based works by ten non-male-identifying artists, who engage with digital technologies as old as animation and GIFs, and as new as the latest developments in virtual and augmented reality.
Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art 1905-2016
By Charlene K. LauComprising the work of over forty artists and filmmakers, curator Chrissie Iles’s massive undertaking speaks comprehensively to the expanded field of cultural production, where the cinematic moves beyond its disciplinary boundaries and unites art with lived experience.
Hannah Black and Juliana Huxtable: Penumbra
By Charlene K. LauAs the audience filed into the space, sounds of nature—squeaking, mooing—filled the air. Once we were seated, Black and Huxtable entered the room in taupe suits, acting as prosecutor and defense attorney, respectively.
FIVE.
By Charlene K. LauFocusing on the moving image, the show is an antidote to viewing room fatigue and ill-begotten exhibitions made virtual. More importantly, it presents the vicissitudes of contemporary Black life in a world rife with racial injustice, while responding to the disproportionate impact of the virus on historically racialized, marginalized, and underserved communities.
2 Lizards
By Charlene K. LauIn a time now regularly described as “challenging” or “unprecedented,” it’s tricky to find balance between the uplifting, or even saccharine—phrases like “We’re all in this together” come to mind—and the downright horrifying. Director and editor Orian Barki and artist Meriem Bennani’s animated Instagram series 2 Lizards locates the middle while speaking to the volley of emotions activated by COVID-19.
Berna Reale: While you laugh / Enquanto Você Ri
By Charlene K. LauBrazilian performance artist Berna Reale’s first exhibition in New York features a series of photographs and videos centered around her creation of non-binary character “Bi.”
Kandis Williams: A Line
By Charlene K. LauTaking performance as form and content, Williams interjects Black bodies into the canon of live art, extending multitudinous lineages: classical ballet, modern dance, performance art, and theater. This tidy show of performance on video, Xerox collages, and sculpture (all 2021) plays out like an experiment in choreography...
