Hüseyin Alptekin promised to explain his enigmatic works to me, including Don’t Complain, the installation he produced as Turkey’s representative to the 2007 Venice Biennale. We began to correspond (he was pleased by my attempts at a Foucauldian archaeology of his work), and we seemed about to uncover the quintessential stratum that would explain all the
Richard Hunt: Voyage Through Modernism
Richard Hunt was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center in 2009. For a full list of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, click here. Richard Hunt’s sculptural journey began in the 1950s with his startling achievements as a prodigy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Liza Lou: Fragile Security
“I moved to South Africa in order to find another way of working, one which can make a substantial difference to other people’s lives,” Liza Lou says. Her recent barbed-wire-topped cages and disintegrating prayer rug reliefs have glistening glass surfaces that draw attention to borders and skin.
The Labyrinth in the Tower: A Conversation with Diana Al-Hadid
Syrian-born Diana Al-Hadid lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her first New York solo exhibition, “Reverse Collider,” takes its title from sources that range from Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s historical vision of The Tower of Babel (1563) to the futuristic-looking Large Hadron Collider or particle accelerator at CERN, in Geneva, which seeks to find “the god
Brave New Art: The Sculpture of Anselm Reyle
Anselm Reyle has enjoyed one of the swiftest art scene careers in recent years. His works are in famous private collections, appear in the best galleries, achieve record prices at auctions, and feature in important exhibitions like the critically acclaimed “Unmonumental” at the New Museum in New York.
More Famous than John Dillinger: A Conversation with Robert Indiana
Robert Indiana didn’t invent love, but he did make the word synonymous with the pot-smoking, love-making, anti-war counterculture of the ’60s, which morphed into the museum-going, art-buying public of the ’80s. Today, Indiana’s LOVE sculpture—in English, Hebrew, and other languages, in varied scales, and in finishes from burnished Cor-ten steel to mirrored, polished stainless steel to bright
Rock Star On Tour: Damien Hirst’s Skull at the Rijksmuseum
For just over a month (November 1–December 15, 2008), Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum acquired a new art chapel, an almost pitch-black, 30-square-meter room housing Damien Hirst’s spotlighted skull, For the Love of God (2007). I entered the space after taking part in what was almost a procession.
Josh Garber: Intuitive Strategies
The relationship between artists and their work is always peculiar: it inhabits a territory formed of equal parts magic act, charades, and the ventriloquism of influence. Josh Garber’s sources and end points are firmly located within this three-part territory.
Cris Bruch: Beyond the Street
A rejection of politicized subject matter in favor of abstract, autonomous, and independent-object sculpture is the key to unlocking the art of Seattle-based sculptor Cris Bruch. In 1991, Bruch made a clean break with his performance-based installations and object-conglomerations addressing social issues.
Humor, Sex, and Philosophy: A Conversation with Rachel Feinstein
Rachel Feinstein’s quirky humor and aesthetic playfulness made her recent show at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York a great change of pace. Humor is often the most direct way to confront the artist’s favorite issues, which include sex and religion.
