Artists, like other professionals, sometimes hit key turning points in the development of their work. Such is the case right now for Mischa Kuball, who has built an impressive practice by “generating a certain awareness about streams of interaction in terms of a psychological dimension in urban space and structure.”
Berlin: Sculpture in a Resurrected City
As glossy travel stories and trend-spotters have amply reported, Berlin is the current cool city, alert with youthful vim and optimism and self-defined as “poor but sexy.” Like Paris in the 1950s, New York in the 1980s, London in the 1990s, and Brooklyn last week, Berlin is arguably today’s key creative city.
Life Raft in the Desert: Shawn Patrick Landis’s Rendezvous with Double Negative
Certain works of art are made in anticipation of a future response, as a provocation or, on a deeper level, as a kind of vocation, an inspired calling or a summoning to give voice, as in a future meeting of minds.
I Want to Believe: A Conversation with Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang’s work confronts propaganda, both Eastern and Western, head-on. Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard (re-created for his retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York as New York’s Rent Collection Courtyard) won the Golden Lion Award at the 1999 Venice Biennale.
Mingling Identities: A Conversation with Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami’s status as an international art star is enhanced by his reputation for marketing complex concepts that are, in some ways, disguised as “eye candy.” His vision, his processes, and the way in which his work resonates with viewers all contribute to his popularity.
Eliminating Subject and Object: A Conversation with Susan York
Susan York and I began our day at Dia:Beacon last fall with a guided tour of Michael Heizer’s sunken sculptures. She examined the way the pieces were set into the floor and questioned the guides about how they were installed.
Oliver Jackson: The Order of Making
As a sculptor, Oliver Jackson is almost free of what we typically call “style.” His work frustrates attempts to establish an overall order based on appearance alone. In many instances, his production begins from a specific mode of resistance, and as these change, so does the work.
Thomas Schütte: Model Figures
Model for a Hotel, recently installed in London’s Trafalgar Square, and a major exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds have generated significant interest in Thomas Schütte, one of Germany’s pre-eminent artists. Meeting him after the official launch of Model for a Hotel, I found him exhausted by his four-year commitment to the project, clearly finding
Balancing Families in Stone: A Conversation with Boaz Vaadia
A sculptor who grew up on a farm, Boaz Vaadia is inspired by the nature around him. Vaadia says, “I work with nature as an equal partner. The strongest thing I address is that primal connection of man to earth.
Contemporary Still Life: A Conversation with Ricky Swallow
There’s nothing expedient about Ricky Swallow’s work. For his wood carvings, he uses Japanese tools that require continual sharpening as he “gains information by removing material” from large pieces of jelutong, the Malay hardwood he favors.
