Context determines meaning. When artworks are placed in unusual situations and combined in unexpected ways, new patterns emerge from the juxtaposition. Contrasts of type, size, shape, material, composition, motif, texture, color, content, and meaning restructure information and introduce new dialogues.
Vincenzo Vela: The Politics of the Figure
Every day thousands of people pass by one of the most historically and aesthetically significant monuments of 19th-century sculpture without any knowledge of its existence. Even among art-interested people, few if any have heard of Vincenzo Vela, the artist responsible for Victims of Labor, this curiously invisible monument, which stands at the southern entrance to
Rune Olsen: Revising Natural and Sculptural History
Rune Olsen’s beautifully composed, often shocking, masking tape-covered sculptures are some of the most visually seductive and physically intriguing figurative works being produced today. His three-dimensional tableaux, representing man and beast in various positions of sexual dominance and compliance, interweave personal narrative with mind-expanding revelations about natural science.
Robert Arneson in the ’60s
The early sculpture of Robert Arneson was the very essence of Funk, a term disdained by most of the artists. But the maker of these irreverent, sarcastic ceramics was indeed the King of Funk. Funk has been compared to Dada, but Dada assaulted traditional art by attacking hypocritical bourgeois values, whereas Funk was not engaged
Making Everything: A Conversation with Ai Weiwei
In 2007, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei brought 1,001 of his compatriots to Documenta for a city-wide performance called Fairytale, and Template, a 39-foot-tall structure made of doors and windows salvaged from houses destroyed during China’s recent building boom, was a highlight of Skulptur Projekte Münster – despite its collapse in a violent storm at the
Carlo Borer: Peculiar Geometries
Carlo Borer’s recent steel sculptures stand in the landscape, or in exhibition spaces, like messengers from another reality. Their strangeness is not overbearing, but the longer you look at them the more you surmise that their forms stubbornly deny comparison.
John Grade: Lived History in Sculpture
Northwest artist John Grade first made a name for himself with small, finely executed drawings and mid-size sculptures that subtly evoked the aesthetics and workings of organic matter. His current sculptural work and large-scale installations tend to reference phenomena from different geographical locations and point to a continued interest in the natural world.
Lynda Benglis: Material Personae
Lynda Benglis’s recent sculptures consistently direct the viewer to their material qualities. However, it is the narratives that develop in relation to the materials and shapes that are stressed in her works. As one moves from their commanding physical power to the richness of their metaphoric and emotional associations, their playful intelligence becomes more evident.
Tom Joyce: The Iron Iceberg
When the Twin Towers fell, Tom Joyce was in New York for an exhibition of his work at the Museum of Arts and Design. Several months later, a friend sent him a vial of ash from the site.
Miami: Sculpture in the Pleasure Dome
In December, as crowds pour into town for Art Basel/Miami Beach, Miami will once again become the darling of the international art set. Art Basel puts Miami in a brilliant spotlight, but there are other major players contributing to the city’s reputation.
