Mar 262025
 

Jennie C. Jones, “Fluid Red Tone (in the break)”, 2022, Architectural felt, acoustic panel, and acrylic on canvas (left) and Steve Wolfe, “Untitled (Bookends)”, 1990, Bronze, lacquer (bottom right)

Unrecorded Betsi-Nzaman artist, Fang peoples Male Reliquary Guardian Figure (Eyema Byeri), 19th Century Wood, metal, pigment (center sculpture), Andy Warhol, “Close Cover Before Striking”, 1962 Acrylic and collage on linen, (right) and Judy Linn “James Joyce on 23rd st.”, early 1970s, Archival pigment print (on window)

Ronny Quevedo, “body and soul (Reflection Eternal)”, 2022, Pattern paper, gold leaf, and metal leaf on muslin (left) and Christian Marclay and Steve Wolfe, “La Voix Humaine”, 1991, Wood console, oil and screenprint on aluminum (right)

Larry Wolhandler, “Bust of James Baldwin”, 1975, Bronze, and Rudolf Stingel, “Untitled”, 2016, Electroformed copper, plated nickel, stainless steel frame (right)

Medardo Rosso, “Rieuse”, 1890, Wax on plaster, and picture of Joan Didion

Ellen Gallagher “DeLuxe”, 2004–2005 Grid of 60 photogravure, etching, aquatint and drypoints with lithography, screenprint, embossing, tattoo-machine engraving; some with additions of plasticine, watercolor, pomade and toy eyeballs

Writer Hilton Als has brought together a wonderful collection of works exploring art and language for The Writing’s on the Wall: Language and Silence in the Visual Arts at Hill Art Foundation.  Quotes from several authors are included alongside the art, adding another dimension to the show.

From the gallery-

This group exhibition presents artists whose work explores the relationships between communication and language. In the curatorial text, Als explains: “for this exhibition, I wanted to show what silence looked like—at least to me—and what words looked like to artists.”

“Writing and erasure have been important sources of inspiration for many of the artists in my family’s collection, including Christopher Wool, Rudolf Stingel, Vija Celmins, and Cy Twombly,” says J. Tomilson Hill, President of the Hill Art Foundation. “Hilton Als has identified a fascinating motif and introduced important loans to illustrate the rich history of these lines of inquiry into the present day.”

In his accompanying essay, Poetics of Silence, Als probes the power of visual art to skirt the written or spoken word. The works included convey “the sense we have when language isn’t working,” evoke “EKGs of rhythm followed by silence, or surrounded by it,” reveal “painting as language’s subtext,” illustrate “what we mean to say as opposed to what gets said,” and “find beauty in the tools that one uses to erase words—and then to make new ones.” He reflects on his own entry into the art world as an art history student at Columbia in the 1980s, and his efforts as a writer and curator to create a democratic “language of perception” that transcends traditional connoisseurship.

The Writing’s on the Wall encompasses a range of mediums, from video installation to printed zine. Artists in the exhibition include Ina Archer, Kevin Beasley, Jared Buckhiester, Vija Celmins, Sarah Charlesworth, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Fang: Betsi-Nzaman, Ellen Gallagher, Joel Gibb and Paul P., Rachel Harrison, Ray Johnson, G.B. Jones and Paul P., Jennie C. Jones, Christopher Knowles, Willem de Kooning, Sherrie Levine, Judy Linn, Christian Marclay, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Claes Oldenburg, Ronny Quevedo, Irving Penn, Umar Rashid, Medardo Rosso, David Salle, Rudolf Stingel, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Steve Wolfe, Larry Wolhandler, and Christopher Wool.

Als’ essay provides not only more information on the show and the art included, but also his own experience of learning about and experiencing art.

Below is a brief excerpt but it is well worth it to read the essay in its entirety.

Part of the experience I hope to evoke here draws a line between language, which is to say active contemplation, and being, which requires nothing more than your presence first and language second (or third). You know what being is. It happens to you all the time. You may be in a museum, or a public park, or sitting dully in your house, with “nothing” on your mind, and then there you are—a kind of walking phenomenology, language-free, but not feeling. In fact, you are suffused with feeling. Your feet are on the ground, and your body, released from the chatter of the everyday, is porous to the surrounding world with its various silences—a world where everything and nothing speaks to you. The clouds; some pictures on a white wall; a beautiful, hitherto-unknown sculpture reaching for eternity; that blank wall standing between you and the wonders of a garden that manages to grow right here in the middle of Manhattan—they all became part of your being, the self that is always on the verge of discovery, if only you can listen to its silences.

Silence says so much, if you listen. (From Marianne Moore’s 1924 poem “Silence”: “The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.”) And since I have been a writer all my life, it’s a relief not to think in words sometimes, and to look at pictures, which do not so much deny verbalization but are without language, only the experience of here and now. Sometimes being simply means that we are somewhere, and we are porous to contemplation. When we think about visual culture or production, words aren’t the first things that come to mind. What does is the thing itself. And for this exhibition, I wanted to show what silence looked like—at least to me—and what words looked like to artists. The struggle to speak, to say, to reveal language or an attempt at language—communication—in a visual medium that has a complicated relationship to speech.

Als’ website includes his older writing ,but you can read more of his recent essays and reviews on The New Yorker’s website and he frequently posts on Instagram.

This exhibition closes 3/29/25.

Mar 192025
 

Currently at Ross + Kramer is En Iwamura’s Mask, an exhibition of his recent ceramic sculptures. The works combine his exploration of masks with the playfulness of children’s toys.

From the press release-

This latest body of work references the cultural and symbolic significance of the mask. As a child growing up in Osaka, the artist recalls being enamored by the global mask display at the city’s National Museum of Ethnology, showcasing masks from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In creating these works, Iwamura drew from the deep sense of mystery that he felt upon viewing the museum’s collection and his curiosity about their origins and variety. While recognizing the historical significance of the mask as a tool for religious, artistic, or ritualistic expression, this body of work reflects on their importance in our contemporary, post-pandemic world.

A driving force behind this collection of work is a reconnection to child-like senses of curiosity, wonderment, and creativity. In addition to Iwamura’s Mask series, the exhibition includes works from the artist’s “Neo Jomon: Stacking Neighbor” series. This series was born from observing his son getting to know the world through play. Much like stacked toys, these ceramic sculptures consist of two parts that fit together in dynamic ways to create a whole. This body of work, with its diverse array of shapes, colors, and expressions, retains the distinct vibrancy of glaze, softness of form, and coarseness of texture for which the artist is best known. To achieve these intricate surfaces, the artist allows his hand-built forms to air dry slightly before drawing various tools across the surface of the clay. The resulting rake-like patterns recall Buddhist Zen gardens as well as the cord-marked pottery that characterizes Jōmon culture (10,500 BCE to 300 BCE). While serving as a meditation on parenthood, this series is also an encouragement to reunite with one’s inner child.

This exhibition closes 3/22/25.

Mar 172025
 

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by former New York magazine editor Adam Moss is a fascinating look at the creative processes of several famous artists. Each artist discusses specific works and gives the reader an inside look at how they came about.

The 43 artists included are visual artists, writers, musicians, editors, designers, and many other creative categories. Moss is also an artist and you can see that in his desire to both inform the reader, and to learn for himself, what makes these individuals tick.

Many of the names will be familiar, but these behind the scenes looks are incredibly enlightening. These discussions often also inspired, for me, a deeper dive. I found myself watching videos of Twyla Tharp‘s choreography, reading Guy Talese’s essay and Sheila Heti’s book, listening to Moses Sumney, watching Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and so on, as I progressed through the book.

While some artists will appeal more than others depending on your interests, all of them had something interesting and valuable to say. This book was one of my favorites of 2024.

 

Feb 212025
 

Hillary Mushkin, “Groundwater”, 2024, Four-channel video installation, wall drawing, sound and “The River and the Grid”, 2024 Artist’s book: ink, watercolor, graphite, and glue on paper

Woven work by Sarah Rosalena

“Source”, 2023 by Lez Batz (Sandra de la Loza and Jess Gudiel)- Mixed media installation including seventy felt bat masks, baleen whale cardboard puppet, graphic mural and single- channel video

Currently on view at the Armory Center for the Arts is From Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments. For the exhibition, part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, the artists use a variety of materials, cultural practices, and traditions to explore aspects of our changing environment.

From the gallery-

What can seeds tell us about the future? Seeds and the plants that grow from them have provided us with food, clothing, shelter, and medicine for millennia. For just as long, humans have used sciences, technologies, myths, and art to peer into an imagined future. As we stare out toward our own future, one threatened by climate change and complicated by social unrest, the From the Ground Up: Nurturing Diversity in Hostile Environments exhibition looks to the seed—such as those seeds that lie at the bottom of the forest floor waiting for the cyclical fire season that promotes new growth and diversity to sprout—for inspiration and guidance on how to navigate current and coming hostile environments.

From the Ground Up presents works by 16 contemporary artists and artist teams who explore diverse technologies, histories of contested spaces, and traditional understandings of nature as they imagine alternative, sustainable futures. Organized for the Armory by curator Irene Georgia Tsatsos, the exhibition bridges familiar distinctions between art and science while exploring practices and traditions that predate contemporary understandings of those disciplines. In this exhibition, artworks, knowledge traditions, and histories converge in space and across time.

Artists in the exhibition- Charmaine Bee, Nikesha Breeze, Carl Cheng, Olivia Chumacero, Beatriz Cortez, Mercedes Dorame, Aroussiak Gabrielian, iris yirei hu, Lez Batz (Sandra de la Loza and Jess Gudiel), Malaqatel Ija, Semillas Viajeras, Seed Travels, Hillary Mushkin, Vick Quezada, Sarah Rosalena, Enid Baxter Ryce, Cielo Saucedo, Marcus Zúñiga

Below are a few additional selections and information on the work from the gallery-

Nikesha Breeze, “Stages of Tectonic Blackness: Blackdom”, 2021, Dual-channel video with sound

Nikesha Breeze (they/them) is a direct descendant of Blackdom, a homesteading community founded by thirteen African Americans near Roswell, New Mexico in 1903 that existed until about 1930. This video portrays a site-specific, collaborative dance ritual that honors the landscape and grieves the transgressions against Black and Indigenous communities at Blackdom.

Enid Baxter Ryce, “Shed (Mapping the Devil’s Half Acre)”, 2024, Mixed media, including hand-printed silk, dried plants, hand-printed cotton, antique tobacco sticks, cherry wood, cedar wood, glass, botanical inks, papers, crates

Enid Baxter Ryce with Luis Camara, “Devil’s Half Acre Tarot”, 2024, Hand-processed botanical pigments on paper

Dried plants such as indigo and woad, handmade books and maps, tarot cards and runes, and glass jars of plant-based pigments are among many tools of early scientific exploration and pre-scientific divination. Enid Baxter Ryce (she/her) has assembled these elements of medieval science into a contemporary witch’s office, adorned with fabrics painted with inks and dyes made from plants she grew from seed.

Aroussiak Gabrielian, “Future Kin”, 2024, Soil, video, sound, ceramics

In Future Kin, Aroussiak Gabriellian (she/her) connects a composting ritual to the life cycles of humans, the biome in our digestive tracts, and the bacterial, fungal, and animal life that emerges from decomposing organic matter. Undulating hands gently caress composted soil, suggesting human engagement, empathy, and awareness of ecological interconnectedness.

iris yirei hu, “mud song dream sequence”, 2024, Video and rammed earth; animation by Shoop Rozario

iris virei hu (she/her) uses diverse media to share her journeys with all living beings, whom she understands to be inextricably linked. Her practice is rooted in “collaborative optimism,” in which trauma can inform healing, solidarity, creativity, and liberating futures for folks who are Indigenous, Black, and people of color.

Olivia Chumacero, “Dispersing Time”, 2024, Plant pigments, ink, organic acrylic, burlap, muslin, manzanita branches, feathers, Cahuilla acorn harvest song

Indigenous cosmology recognizes trees as human relatives. Olivia Chumacero (Rarámuri, she/her) offers a portrait of an oak downed by wind and rain, yet alive with a lush canopy and deep roots. She compares the tree’s resilience to that of Indigenous peoples, whose lines of existence have been disrupted yet not destroyed. Following this exhibition, the piece – which is an offering to seeds – will be buried in the Sequoyah National Forest.

This exhibition closes Sunday, 2/23/25. The gallery is open Fridays 2-6 PM Saturdays and Sundays 1-5 PM.

Feb 202025
 

Large painting on the right- Bettina Brendel, “Particles or Waves?”, 1969, acrylic on canvas

Center sculpture by Claire Falkenstein- “Point as a Set #10, c.1962, copper

Palm Springs Art Museum is currently showing Particles and Waves: Southern California Abstraction and Science, 1945-1990 a selection of abstract work created by Southern California artists influenced by that era’s scientific ideas and breakthroughs. These explorations are divided into sections focused on optical science, mathematics, color in motion, and space age abstraction. The exhibition also includes several experimental films created during this period.

From the museum-

Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, scientists at institutions near Los Angeles including Mount Wilson Observatory, the California Institute for Technology, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, generated groundbreaking experimental research in astronomy and particle physics. During and after World War II, the region remained at the forefront of scientific inquiry in theoretical physics and its applications within aerospace engineering, industrial manufacturing, and communications technologies. Between 1945 and 1990, many artists in Los Angeles produced visually abstract artworks while closely engaging with scientific ideas, mathematical theories, and materials or processes derived from physics and engineering.

The exhibition unites several generations of artists working in diverse materials and styles to examine how subfields of scientific investigation inspired a range of non-figurative artworks by practitioners concerned with light, energy, motion, and time. By drawing interdisciplinary connections between the work of early abstractionists and contemporary practitioners, the exhibition considers abstract artwork from Southern California in a new way.

Below are a few selections along with information from the museum.

Claire Falkenstein, “Orbit the Earth”, 1963, Oil and metallic paint on nine canvas panels

Claire Falkenstein, “Orbit the Earth”, 1963, Oil and metallic paint on nine canvas panels

Through both abstract paintings and sculptures, Falkenstein explored subjects inspired by astrophysics. In Orbit the Earth, she conveys a sense of motion through patterns of curved points in metallic paint and sweeping lines that reveal traces of the painting’s black background. The artist referred to her small gestural marks as “moving points” and explored how arrangements of these painted forms could express types of motion and energy in the universe. In her hanging sculpture Sun represents a dynamic celestial form that shifts in appearance as viewers move around the work. The sculpture’s open, webbed structure creates a continuum between the work and its surrounding space, parallelling interconnections between the Sun and other cosmic phenomena in the solar system.

Helen Lundeberg, “Untitled (Sectioned Planet)”, 1969, Acrylic on canvas

Eva Slater, “Galaxy”, 1954, Oil on panel

Oskar W. Fischinger, “Space Abstraction No.3”, 1966, Oil on canvas

Oskar W. Fischinger, “Multi wave”, 1948, Oil on canvas

Hilaire Hiler, “Parabolic Orange to Leaf Green”, 1942, Oil on board

Dr. Frank J. Malina, “Mitosis”, 1974, Painted wood, painted plexiglas, metal, fluorescent tubes, motor

Inspired by the idea of enlivening artwork with electricity, Malina developed a range of kinetic paintings like Mitosis beginning in 1956. This work exemplifies the artist’s Lumidyne system of works where illuminated colors shift through cycles generated by an encased motor, rotating components, and electric light sources. A founder of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1936 and a preeminent American specialist in rocketry, Malina turned to creating artwork in the early 1950s after relocating to France.

DeWain Valentine, “Vertical Section”, 1979, Laminated glass

DeWain Valentine, “Vertical Section”, 1979, Laminated glass (detail)

Bettina Brendel, “Prisms”, 1982, Acrylic on canvas

Miriam Schapiro, “Computer Series #3”, 1969, Acrylic on canvas

Bettina Brendel “A Numbered Universe”, 1966, Oil on canvas

In A Numbered Universe, Brendel painted the symbols of binary code within a grid drawn onto the canvas in pencil. The work’s composition is both structured and slightly irregular. The hand painted notations and off-kilter composition humanize the abstract technological language of computer code.

Lee Mullican, “Computer Joy”, 1987, TGA file 512 x 428 pixels

In Computer Joy, repeated and overlaid sections of lines and geometric forms produce an all-over field of pixelated patterns.
While teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1986, Mullican explored the artistic posibilities of new computer imaging technologies. The ability to readily duplicate digital shapes using the computer complemented his long-standing practice of applying repeated striations of pigment into patterned arrangements in paintings like Source from 1981.

Lee Mullican, “Source”, 1981, Oil on canvas

Lee Mullican, “Source”, 1981, Oil on canvas (detail)

James Turrell, “Afrum (White)”, 1966, projected light

In Afrum (White), a modified projector casts a rectangle of white light onto the corner of the otherwise darkened gallery, creating the illusion of a floating three-dimensional cube. The crisply defined area of light changes in appearance depending on how viewers move in the space. Through his precise manipulation of light within specific spatial environments, James Turrell creates opportunities for viewers to engage with nuanced processes of perceptual experience.

Man Ray, “Shakespearean Equation: King Lear”, 1948, Oil on canvas

While living in Hollywood in the late 1940s, Man Ray produced his Shakespearean Equations, a series of paintings depicting mathematical models that reference plays by William Shakespeare. King Lear highlights the aesthetic qualities of a particular form known in algebraic geometry as a Kummer surface with eight real double points. For the artist, the drips of paint on the mathematical form recalled the tears shed by King Lear after learning that his favorite daughter was killed, layering human emotion onto the geometric shape.

This exhibition, part of The Getty’s PST ART programming, closes Sunday, 2/24/25.

Feb 062025
 

Detail from “Chromatic Landscapes” by Lisa Marie Patzer

Along with its exhibitions and programming, The Delaware Contemporary houses several artist studios. Several times a year the artists open their doors to the public. The images included in this post are from the December 2024 event.

The first images are from new media digital media artist Lisa Marie Patzer’s Chromatic Landscapes series.

From her website about the work-

Employing digital chroma-based processes, Patzer sorted, separated, and reconfigured images derived from more than one thousand 35mm slides. Originally captured by photographer Ben Kabakow during the mid-1950’s, the slides reflect his view of life in New York City and international travel. Lisa Marie Patzer’s treatment of this large archive emphasizes the role nostalgia and personal association play when interpreting another’s visual anthology. The result is a colorful set of vignettes and landscapes that are abstracted from the original context inviting the viewer in for playful association.

Below are selections from some of the other artists studios and from the walls surrounding them and their bios and quotes from the museum’s website.

Still life paintings by Jenna Lucente

Jenna Lucente is an artist and educator currently living in Delaware. She recently completed a public art commission that includes 28 glass windows for the above-ground Arthur Kill train station in Staten Island, New York. Commissioning agency: MTA Art and Design; glass fabrication by Franz Mayer of Munich.

Work by Ruth Ansel

Ruth Ansel creates paintings using egg tempera. “My egg tempera paintings are meditations in pigment and brushstroke.”

Sculptures by Jennifer Borders

Jennifer Borders is a visual artist whose sculpture and drawing is installation-based and often participatory. She uses history, personal family stories, and current events to prompt viewers into inquiry.

Painting by Caroline Chen

Caroline Chen paints primarily with oil on canvas. “Painting is personal. The slow act of seeing takes time and hands and grace. I’m striving to express simple truths before me, to paint the emotion as well as the subject itself.”

Work by Caroline Coolidge Brown

Woodblocks by Caroline Coolidge Brown

Caroline Coolidge Brown is a mixed-media printmaker and visual journaler who collects inspiration from her travels far and near. Her playful work combines traditional printmaking processes (etching, monotype, lino and wood block) with collage and paint. “Mixed media printmaking allows me to push expected boundaries of “what is a print?” or “what is a painting?” For me, it’s all about the layers – of color, shape and meaning.”

Paintings by John Breakey

John Breakey– “The familiar space above the horizon line provides conditions that empower my vision. The powerful brevity of Minimalism and the lasting voices of the Abstract Expressionists motivate me to treat the pure instance of looking out not as an act of passive observance but as a call to action.”

Paintings by Lauren E. Peters

Lauren E. Peters– Through self-portraits based on staged photographs, Peters explores the multifaceted nature of identity.

Work by Diane Hulse

Diane Hulse is an abstract, mixed media artist whose work includes painting, drawing, and objects. With a background in science and the fine arts, she explores internal and external landscapes, as found in the psychological terrain of self and the beauty of our embattled Earth. Intensely curious about almost everything, she studies nature, architecture, poetry, spiritualism, and psychology. Just as curiosity is a pillar of her art, so is imagination. A pink ocean or a monster perched on a beach ball are not farfetched for her. In fact, Hulse often pretends that she can miniaturize herself and walk through her paintings. She agrees with Picasso, who said that it is essential for artists to keep alive the child inside of all of us.

Tomorrow, 2/7/25, the studios will be open to the public as part of the monthly Art Loop Wilmington event. The museum will extend its hours to 8pm and there will be musical guests, food trucks, and a cash bar.

 

 

Jan 162025
 

Charles Ray “Family Romance”, 1993, and Ashley Bickerton “F.O.B.:Tied (White)”, 1993/2018

Charles Ray “Family Romance”, 1993

Maurizio Cattelan “WE”, 2010

Tishan Hsu, “mammal-screen-green-2”, 2024

Work by Josh Kline

“Untitled”, 2008-9, and “Two Breasts”, 1990, by Robert Gober

Mike Kelley, “Brown Star”, 1991 (left) and “The Judge”, 2018, by Jana Euler (painting on right)

Wanghechi Mutu, “One Cut”, 2018, (center sculpture); photographs by Cindy Sherman, 2010/2023

“Pep Talk”, 2024, by Cajsa von Zeipel and Jamian Juliano-Villani, “Women”, 2024, (painting on right)

Post Human, the current group exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch’s Los Angeles location, continues an artistic investigation of humanity that began with the 1992 exhibition of the same name. Some of the over forty artists (and even some of the works) were in the previous iteration, but now their work is placed alongside others made more recently. Seeing them together offers viewers a chance to  contemplate the shifts and continuations in culture, technology, and what it means to be human.

From the gallery-

“Post Human was virtually a manifesto trumpeting a new art for a new breed of human,” wrote the art historian and curator Robert Rosenblum discussing the impact of the exhibition in the October 2004 issue of Artforum.

In 1992, Post Human, curated by Jeffrey Deitch, brought together the work of thirty-six young artists interested in technological advancement, social and aesthetic pluralism, and new frontiers of body and identity transformation. Through their art, these artists were exploring the same questioning of traditional notions of gender, sexuality and self-identity that was—and still is—taking place in the world at large. Capturing a developing social and scientific phenomenon, Post Human theorized a new approach to the construction of the self and interpretation of what defines being human. The exhibition set the agenda for the 1990s, and its influence on artists and philosophers led to a new field of academic study.

In her book Posthuman Feminism (2022), the philosopher and feminist theoretician Rosi Braidotti credits Deitch for capturing “the avant-garde spirit of the age by foregrounding the role of technology in blurring binary boundaries between subjects and objects, humans and non-humans.” She adds, “Post Human showed also that art assumed a much more central role as it merged with science, computerization and biotechnology in further re-shaping the human form and perfecting a flair for the artificial.”

The catalogue of the 1992 exhibition, with its visual essay and innovative design by the late Dan Friedman, also proved lasting relevance. Deitch’s influential essay predicted many of the scientific and sociological shifts that have since shaped our cultural and social environment, even the pandemic.

More than thirty years later, Post Human at Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, revisits the theme of the exhibition, bringing the discourse into the present. The show includes several of the key figures who participated in the 1992 exhibition in dialogue with some of the most interesting artists continuing the exploration of these themes today. In keeping with the social and technological trends that inspired it, the interest in figuration of the original artists and the younger generations presented in the show is conceptual rather than formal.

Much of the then-new figurative work was descriptive of the “real” world but cannot, in fact, be called “realistic” in the conventional sense. That is because so much of the “real” world the artists were reacting to had become artificial. With the concept of the real disintegrating through an acceptance of the multiplicity of reality models and the embrace of artificiality, Realism as it was once known was no longer possible. This new figurative art may have actually marked the end of Realism rather than its revival.

Fully integrated into our pop psychology, the term “posthuman” is now used in everyday conversations and has come to primarily identify with the trope of the cyborg. This exhibition, like the 1992 show, however, examines multiple declinations and aspects of the postmodern construction of personality and the engineering and transcendence of the human body. The artists in the exhibition embrace notions of plurality, metamorphosis and multi-beingness. Cyber-futuristic, surgically improved, commodified, stereotyped, and politicized, the “cultured body” lends itself to reflect on a variety of concerns that define our age.

Several works in the exhibition will embrace the biometrical aestheticization of the human body to address the decay paranoia, the social conflict over genetic engineering and the use of biotechnologies, and the conversation around the limits of “natural” life.” Artists have long engaged with the threats of biometric surveillance, the possibility of virtual reality overtaking our physical one, the accelerating real-time consumption of experience, and the automation of the workforce. As AI’s ability to fulfill our creative and specialized needs has reached mass fruition, artists are confronting the impact of what was once considered speculative science fiction, an everyday reality.

Post Human was first presented at FAE, Musée D’art Contemporain, Pully/Lausanne (June 14–September 13, 1992) and traveled to Castello di Rivoli—Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli/Turin (October 1–November 22, 1992), Deste Foundation, House of Cyprus, Athens (December 3, 1992–February 14, 1993), Deichtorhallen Hamburg (March 12–May 9, 1993), Israel Museum, Jerusalem (June 23–October 10, 1993). A number of the works shown in 1992-1993 are now in international museum collections. Matthew Barney’s REPRESSIA (decline) (1991) is now in the collection of LACMA, where it was on view in 2023. Posthumanism has since been the subject of countless books, movies and high-profile exhibitions.

Artists in the exhibition: Isabelle Albuquerque, 
Matthew Barney
, Ivana Bašić
, Frank Benson, 
Ashley Bickerton, 
Maurizio Cattelan
, Chris Cunningham
, John Currin, 
Alex Da Corte, 
Olivia Erlanger
, Jana Euler
, Rachel Feinstein, 
Urs Fischer, 
Pippa Garner
, Robert Gober
, Hugh Hayden, 
Damien Hirst
, Tishan Hsu, 
Pierre Huyghe, 
Anne Imhof
, Alex Israel, 
Arthur Jafa, 
Jamian Juliano-Villani
, Mike Kelley, 
Josh Kline, 
Jeff Koons
, Paul McCarthy
, Sam McKinniss, 
Mariko Mori
, Takashi Murakami
, Wangechi Mutu
, Cady Noland, 
Charles Ray
, Cindy Sherman, 
Kiki Smith
, Hajime Sorayama, 
Anna Uddenberg, 
Cajsa von Zeipel
, Jeff Wall
, Jordan Wolfson, and 
Anicka Yi

This show closes Saturday, 1/18/25.

Dec 202024
 

Chau Nguyen, “Bài Học Về Phong Cảnh / Landscape Didactics”, 2022, sand painting

Zalika Azim, “Blood Memories (or a going to ground)”, 2023, video

Azza El Siddique, “Vessels”, 2019, ceramic, rust

Suneil Sanzgiri, “Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken)”, 2023, video

Currently on view at The Delaware Contemporary is we are what we lose, an exhibition featuring artists Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen. Through sculpture, dance, video and photography, these artists investigate issues of loss through what gets left behind.

From the museum-

“The real phenomenon of loss is both the inventory of what no longer exists and the impossible measure of what survives.” —Canisia Lubrin

What does the fugitive offer to sites of ruins? Is it a hum, a murmur, a cry, a shadow, a haunting, a poem, a memory, a scene, a loved one, a vessel, a movement, a gathering?

Fugitivity routes and unroutes our understanding of topographic terrains created through the unfolding of displacement, relocation, and exile. In the wake of migratory catastrophes, ruins are the aftermath of loss and devastation, leaving behind vestigial remnants and residuals. Reaching for traces, illegibility, and livability, the fugitive attempts to depict and texture multiple lifeworlds within ruins marked in loss and devastation. Gesturing towards the specter, how might placing what happens within sites of ruins —the permeable, usable, corporeal, and inhabitable—at the heart of our critiques and interventions enliven our imaginative possibilities?

Ruins present a set of spatial, material, visual, and psychic dimensions of un/being and becoming, as well as modes of fugitive resistance and expression. Tending to the juxtaposition of being unplaced, we are what we lose focuses on the provoking void that ruins leave behind and expresses spatial, narrative, and material practices actively and painstakingly situated in the hold of the catastrophes as means of reworlding and unworlding towards livable possibilities.

Partaking in worlding decomposition, Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen present visual, narrative, and sonic performances that desire and action towards the otherly present meaning and aliveness by uncomposing time and working with the permeability of the artistic mediums. By engaging with the barely perceptible imaginations, unplaced yearnings, and tactile and vulnerable terrains, the artists orient toward spectral terrains that suture, resist, and refuse the knowability of the fugitive. Viewers will reflect on the histories of ruins haunting our contemporary sites and their capacity to mutate to make complicated ways of knowing, feeling, and seeing the world.

More information on Suneil Sanzgiri’s video installation, pictured above, from his website

How do we live through and narrate moments of revolution and revolt, and how do we understand these experiences across time and distance? Using imaging technologies to meditate on what it means to witness from afar, Suneil Sanzgiri explores the complexities of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and diasporic identity. His work is inspired by his family’s legacy of resistance in Goa, India, an area under Portuguese occupation for over 450 years until its independence in 1961. Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), the artist’s newest two-channel video installation, combines archival footage, animation, interviews, and a script written by poet Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The film tells the stories of the mutual struggle in India and Africa against Portuguese colonialism, highlighting the solidarity that developed between the two continents during the 1960s and 1970s.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

Nov 152024
 

78th Street Studios, located in Cleveland, is the largest art and design complex in Northeast Ohio. The building is home to several art galleries, artist studios, performance spaces, and businesses, and is a great place to see local art.

Tonight, 11/15, the complex and several of its creative spaces will be open from 5-9pm for its monthly Third Friday event.

Below are some selections from April of this year.

Work by Mark Yasenchack and paintings by Jenniffer Omaitz

“Love Triangle” by Jenniffer Omaitz

Gallery 202 has a variety of work from local artists for sale and also hosts exhibitions. Above is work from Jennifer Omaitz’s exhibition Where Love Lives and mixed media work by Mark Yasenchack.

Sculptures and installations can be found throughout the building like the light sculpture pictured above by Dana L. Depew.

Rebecca Cross’ installation Rock Cloud, was part of her exhibition Mapping the Sensorial at HEDGE Gallery. The gallery focuses on promoting contemporary artists from Northeast Ohio.

Susan Snipes’ work, pictured above was part of a group exhibition at Understory.

You can also see artists at work in their studios. Above is work by Jessica Mia Vito.

Dawn Tekler encaustic wax paintings like the one pictured above, are on view in her studio.

The painting above is by Laurel Herbold, located outside her studio.

Walking through the halls you can also find artwork hanging outside several of the spaces- like the two paintings below.

David King, “Snow Day”, Oil on aluminum

Scott McIntire, “The Birds”, Enamel on canvas

Nov 152024
 

Sculptures by Emily Sudd

Sculptures by Kyung Boon Oh

Photography by Kate Turning

Pictured above are some selections from Plateaus: Art That Resonates, a multisensory group exhibition at Art Share L.A. exploring the dualities of life that artists bring into their work.

From the gallery-

Art Share L.A. is pleased to present Plateaus: Art that Resonates a multidisciplinary and multisensory immersive art exhibition that explores dualities: art and craft, death and life, grief and love, and activity and stillness. These contrasts exist with an interdependent bond, reminding us that bonds are intrinsic and often intertwined partners. In multiple materials, processes, and scales, monument-like creations are revealed through thoughtful burnishing of passion.  The exhibition curated by Stacie B. London features seven visual artists: Amanda Maciel Antunes, Kyong Boon Oh, Hadley Holiday, Soojung Park, Emily Sudd, Kate Turning, and Cheyann Washington, along with additional contributions of ikebana by members of Sogestu Los Angeles, music by Rocco DeLuca, perfume by Lesli Wood (La Curie Eau de Parfume), and seating by Hunter Knight. Through a shared refinement of intentional experimentation with their mediums – acrylic panels, clay, glass, ink, photography, scent, sound, stone, thread, tree stumps, and wire– these artistic achievements reveal work that is brave, meditative, resilient, and vulnerable.

Our five senses inform our experiences and knowledge and assist us in ordering the world. In Plateaus: Art that Resonates the traditional forms of visual art of painting, photography, and sculpture are broadened to include aural art — via music and sound — and olfactory art. These multisensory and immersive pieces enhance the experience of viewing visual art and introduce additional dualities: sight with smell, smell with hearing, and hearing with sight. The expanded human experiences in an art gallery switch the expected experiences and invite the possibility of a familiar experience in a new way, or a breakthrough!

Breakthroughs often occur after long periods of what often seems like stagnation, or a plateau. It’s instinctual to want growth to be a continual upward trend, but instead it’s usually a series of long, flat periods (plateaus) of work with few visible results. Seemingly out of nowhere the plateau makes space for a breakthrough of creativity or growth—an intermittent moment when everything comes together. Instead of focusing on the result, it’s good to get comfortable in the plateau.

The artists and artisans of Plateaus: Art that Resonates use a broad range of approaches and techniques towards creative creations that are examples of how to grapple dualities, navigate the plateaus of life, and share breakthroughs that transmute our awareness of mortality into loving engagements with life and it’s contradictions and opposing perspectives that inspire and infuse life with meaning, immediacy, awareness, and appreciation.

Below are two of the ikebana created by members of Sogetsu Los Angeles.

This exhibition closes this Saturday (11/16) with a closing reception from 6-9pm.