CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary A small, one-room structure built from salvaged wood filled the center of the gallery at TRUCK. Apparently an office, it contained a desk, a recycling bin, a fake plant, and a clock, whose minute and hour hands never moved. The desk was neatly arranged with papers and files, just like any regular office desk.
Michio Fukuoka
OSAKA, JAPAN National Museum of Art, Osaka In a conformist society of sophisticated stylization, the Japanese sculptor Michio Fukuoka stands out as an outcast. A “Sculptor Who No Longer Sculpts,” as he’s identified by this retrospective, he questions logical frames of mind and, with his keen intuition, is quick to defy them.
Gray Areas: A conversation with Jennifer Wen Ma
Multi-disciplinary artist Jennifer Wen Ma has been busier than usual as she takes the critically acclaimed opera Paradise Interrupted (2015-ongoing) on the road. Her visually stunning installation, enhanced by interactive digitalized technology designed by Guillermo Acevedo, sets the stage for an intriguing score by prominent Chinese composer Huang Ruo, who deftly blends traditional Kun opera
Jeanne Silverthorne
NEW YORK MARC STRAUS Gallery For nearly three decades, Jeanne Silverthorne has treated the artist’s studio and all it encompasses as her subject. The work that gets made there, the furniture and tools, the person who makes the work (herself), and the workings of the artist’s body are all represented, along with memories, dreams, and discarded ideas.
“New Installations: 40th Year”
PITTSBURGH Mattress Factory The Mattress Factory has been commissioning new installations since 1977. Over those four decades, an estimated 800 artists from around the world, including Janine Antoni, Vito Acconci, Ann Hamilton, Yayoi Kusama, Tony Oursler, Kiki Smith, Bill Woodrow, and noted regional artists Kim Beck, Joe Mannino, Kathleen Montgomery, Thaddeus Mosley, and Diane Samuels, have constructed unique works.
Loaded Histories/Real Experiences: A Conversation with Kevin Beasley
A multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes sculpture, installation, sound, and performance, Kevin Beasley caught the attention of the art world with I Want My Spot Back (shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 2012), a work that remixed 1990s rap acappellas.
Abigail DeVille: Everyday Processions
Fashioned from rubbish and recycled materials, Abigail DeVille’s sculptures refuse their role as art objects. Instead, her assemblages of repurposed items revel in excess and the casual circumstance of the everyday. Recognizing the potential of cast-off things to tell stories and enunciate other histories, DeVille proposes an alternative, social purpose for sculpture (often combined with
Difficult Connections: A Conversation with Ursula Johnson
Ursula Johnson’s hybrid work blends sculpture, performance, and activism. A member of the Eskasoni Mi’kmaw First Nation on Cape Breton Island (Unama’ki in Mi’kmaw) in Nova Scotia, she grew up speaking the Mi’kmaw language. Johnson spent her early working life as an activist and participated in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United
Jeffrey Schiff
BOSTON Rafius Fane Gallery “DisInterRuptions,” Jeffrey Schiff’s recent exhibition, included a selection of floor sculptures (many from the “Carpet Rubble” series), three-dimensional studies, and photo-based wall reliefs from the “Inter rup tions” series. The “Carpet Rubble” works feature chunks of concrete debris re-surfaced with pieces of Oriental rugs.
Social Skins and Other Constructs: A Conversation with Wilmer Wilson IV
Cross-disciplinary artist Wilmer Wilson IV focuses on the body, how gestures and everyday materials activate it, and how images of the body are transformed through context and enter the social realm. By exploring applied skins and the circulation of images, he resists the production of simplified icons without abandoning corporeal realities.
