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
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
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.
Double Consciousness: A Conversation with Jefferson Pinder
In a career that has evolved from the performing arts to performance art, Jefferson Pinder consistently probes themes of racial identity through live performance, video, and sculpture. Key works such as Ben-Hur, Afro- Cosmonaut/Alien (White Noise), Overture (Star of Ethiopia), and Dark Matter meld historical legacy with current events, adopting references from W.E.B.
Under Construction: A Conversation with Hemall Bhuta
Hemali Bhuta’s journey into the world of installation has been fascinating. Her multi-disciplinary work focuses on the notion of in-between space, which she considers a plane where the limitations of dimensionality do not apply. By attempting to translate one medium or form into another, she questions the authority that determines the nature of a space.
Animating Sculpture: A Conversation with Graeme Patterson
Graeme Patterson makes multi-disciplinary sculptural installations, often with the end game of stop-motion animation in mind. His work is rarely still, fusing robotics, video, sound, objects, and performance into immersive environments that address dislocation, alienation, nostalgia, identity, and, recently, the fraught relationship of humans, our artifacts (physical and cultural), and the natural world.
Forms of Proliferation: A Conversation with Sofi Zezmer
Sofi Zezmer’s early biomorphic abstractions, made predominantly of plastic and occasionally loaded with hues integral to her unorthodox materials, burst into my line of vision toward the beginning of the new millennium. Though playful, her constructions touch on the intersection of science and technology while being imbued with the pulse of life, their forms continuing
Another Kind of Cell: A Conversation with Kendall Buster
Kendall Buster makes large-scale sculptures out of repeated modular units. Much of her work blurs the line between architecture and sculpture by playing on the notion of scale: while some sculptures are large enough to walk into, others put viewers in a position of power by offering a birds-eye view.
