Performance Art as Revisionist History
by Lee Foley on October 4th, 2011
Detroit Disassembled @ Queens Museum of Art
by Gabriella Radujko on September 28th, 2011
Andrew Moore’s must see photographs in Detroit Disassembled at the Queens Museum of Art capture the ruinous state of Detroit after the collapse of the automotive industry. The colors are lush, the light, ecclesiastical; and Moore captures the intensity prescribed by Frederick H. Evans who urged photographers to “wait till the building make you feel intensely”.
To-dos @ the Morgan Library
by Gabriella Radujko on September 10th, 2011
It is hard to believe that the 1913 New York Armory Show took place less than 100 years ago. The seminal show drew laughs for its paintings and denunciations for their degeneracy, while the medium of photography, facilitated by Alfred Stieglitz, was inaugurated as a new art form, acceptable only as measured by proximity to the extreme paintings and sculptures on exhibit.
It is Picasso’s list of suggested artists for inclusion in the show, dated 1912, that makes a case for the subtleties that make this Morgan sleeper, “To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art”, a must-see for anyone interested in art history or contemporary art or both. Through curatorial acumen, its 80 lists simultaneously remind us how different yet familiar at the same time the world is today from the one reflected in the exhibit.
Set for an Altered State
by Aaron Harbour on August 30th, 2011
My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.’- Kodos, Treehouse of Horror VII
East Coast Debut: “Tales of the Waria”
by Cielo Lutino on August 11th, 2011
I know very little about Islam, not much more about Indonesia, and absolutely nothing about being transgendered. These shortcomings didn’t prevent me from relating to Tales of the Waria, however, Kathy Huang’s documentary about four transgendered women in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population. Filmed in the cinematic coastal region of South Sulawesi, this sumptuously shot narrative follows four waria — a mash-up of wanita, which means woman, and pria, which means man — in their respective quests for love.
Beautiful Vagabonds @ Yancey Richardson Gallery
by Gabriella Radujko on August 9th, 2011
Yancey Richardson Gallery signaled appreciation for the naturalist John Burroughs by naming the summer group show Beautiful Vagabonds, the writer’s poetic keywords for birds. Few works exemplified a naturalist’s approach to photography, however, demonstrating fitting curatorial restraint for a subject-based show intent on catholicity. Among them Sustenance #114 by Neeta Madahar, Policeman by Jitka Hanzlová, American Goldfinches by Paula McCartney, and Terry Evans’ Field Museum, Drawer of Eastern Meadowlarks, works corresponding to what one would see in a natural history museum.
Glutton for Video Art at Ramis Barquet
by Amanda Schmitt on August 2nd, 2011
If you find yourself trekking under the hot sun and making the gallery rounds in Chelsea on a 98°F day in the middle of July, then you are surely a glutton for punishment. However, thanks to the cool respite of air conditioning in Ramis Barquet Gallery, one can comfortably experience another sort of “Glutton for Punishment,” as this annual group video exhibition is aptly titled. Rather than a traditional video screening with a seated, theater arrangement, curator Nicholas Kilner presents each of the five videos separately, realizing a unique exhibition format and creating an immersive video experience. As the press release perfectly describes, “each of the works included uses video as a platform to explore the body in all its physicality and its subjectivity to innocent and aggressive desire.”