Mel Chin refuses to be pinned down, hemmed in, or otherwise restricted from pursuing whatever concept fires his imagination—in whatever medium seems appropriate. The Houston-born artist began his career making sculptures based on research into ancient cultures, social issues, and geopolitical subterfuges.
Being the Void: A Conversation with Antony Gormley
Antony Gormley understands the human body as a place of memory and transformation. Most of his early works are based on the process of casting his own body, which functions as subject, tool, and material. His more recent works deal with the body in abstracted or indirect ways and are concerned with the human condition.
The Beauty of Thinking: A Conversation with Giuseppe Panza
For Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, it’s all about pleasure—receiving and sharing spiritual pleasure, the kind that begins in the mind and takes its inspiration from the play of light and the passage of time. Over the last 50 years, the industrialist and real estate investor has amassed one of the world’s premier collections of
Sculpture that Declares the Space Around it: John Atkin
Sculpture as metaphor has recently been encroaching on the territory of the late Modernist anti-aesthetic of the literal, that of the Minimalist cube. Yet sculpture requires a context, and that context exceeds the presence of the work.
Orgy in the Sky: Rebecca Ripple
Los Angeles-based Rebecca Ripple first intrigued me with word works that seemed to hollow out a place for the human body in banal furnishings. thigh/blind (2001), for instance, spells out “thigh” by cutting the word, letter by letter, into aluminum blinds; in another piece, “elbo” is sewn into a Home Depot rug.
Acts of Finding: A Conversation with Ann Hamilton
Acts of reading have multiple dimensions yet leave no material trace: this is the subject of human carriage, Ann Hamilton’s recent installation circumnavigating the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, which was on view last year. Pulleys, guillotined books, a silk-sheathed bell that rang as it raced down the building’s iconic spiral, and a Reader who
Extreme Precision: A Conversation with Margaret Evangeline
Margaret Evangeline has long experimented with aesthetically resistant materials, making work that deepens the immediacy of a moment. She is perhaps best known for her use of gunshot and mirror-polished stainless steel. In recent videos, she experiments with sounds and actions collected while shooting the steel panels of a commissioned sculpture.
The Space In Between: A Conversation with Kader Attia
Sculpture as metaphor has recently been encroaching on the territory of the late Modernist anti-aesthetic of the literal, that of the Minimalist cube. Yet sculpture requires a context, and that context exceeds the presence of the work.
Anish Kapoor at the Guggenheim: The Dimensions of Memory
Anish Kapoor’s Memory is a new kind of monument—a 24-ton, Cor-ten steel, site-specific work that poses phenomenological questions about inner space, mind, and being. Designed for both the New York and Berlin Guggenheims, it debuted in Berlin in November 2008 as the first Deutsche Bank commission.
Transcending the Object: Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor is widely known for works that enter into a deep spiritual engagement with the viewer. He revels in the spectacular, creating visually overwhelming, attention-commanding sculpture. During his recent retrospective at London’s Royal Academy of Art, viewers entering the courtyard confronted a towering column of highly reflective spheres that prompted immediate surprise.
