Jason Ellis, a sculptor of English and German parentage who moved to Ireland in the early 1990s, is a stone carver of considerable accomplishment. As a guitar player, he likens the process of carving stone to that of playing pop music: every now and then, something new seems to “just happen,” defying a limited, rule-bound
Walking the Edges: A Conversation with Claudia Fontes
Claudia Fontes, who represented Argentina at the 2017 Venice Biennale, has been living in Brighton, England, for the last 12 years. She studied art at the National School of Fine Arts Prilidiano Pueyrredón in Buenos Aires and art history at the University of Buenos Aires.
To Cut Your Own Flesh: A Conversation with Johan Creten
If art is a reflection of an artist’s psyche, then Belgian-born, Paris-based Johan Creten reveals a soul enamored by corrosive beauty. His colorfully glazed, edgy ceramic works appear to be slowly hemorrhaging, riddled with imperfections that almost defy the static nature of objects in space.
Scott Hocking: Turning Things Upside Down
On the morning of September 6, 1881, Boston residents awoke to a dense yellow fog that trapped the city in an unnatural twilight. The effect was so ominous that the Boston Globe reported people interpreting it as evidence of a widely repeated prediction that the world would end that year.
In Progress: Kiefer and Rodin
Late in his career, Auguste Rodin constructed strange assemblages by affixing plaster fragments of his figural sculptures onto antique terra-cotta pots from his collection, creating hybrid forms with little artistic precedent. As Rodin scholar Bénédicte Garnier has written, “The true revolution lay in this mix of objects from the past with works in progress.”
Crossing Thresholds: A Conversation with Tallur L.N.
An artist of complex oppositions and striking balances, divisions and unities, Tallur L.N. spends half the year in India and half in South Korea, maintaining independent studio practices in both countries. He studied partly in Northern England for a Masters, and he exhibits partly in New York and partly in Mumbai.
Sliding Into the Unknown: A Conversation with Saint Clair Cemin
Saint Clair Cemin’s work ranges across numerous genres, all pervaded by his unique sensibility and spirit. From 40-foot-tall monuments in locations worldwide down to softball-size objects in stone, metal, wood, and syn- thetics, his sculptures delight, amuse, and mesmerize.
Gray Areas: A conversation with Jennifer Wen Ma
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
