Since the 1980s, Austrian artist Erwin Wurm has worked to expand traditional notions of sculpture. Through his “one-minute sculptures,” which document conceptual performances in films and photographs, he invites viewers to realize that actions are more important than objects.
Andre Woodward: A Living Thing Shouldn’t Be There
Andre Woodward finds strange beauty in unexpected places. A beaten-up piece of asphalt raised on wheels and sprouting a small, frail tree becomes a grim urban landscape, mutated for speed. Blocks of concrete ordered in symmetrical grids or dispersed in random configurations miraculously burst with life, pierced by small trees that inject the irrepressible vitality
Delivering to the Moment: Manon Awst and Benjamin Walther
Manon Awst and Benjamin Walther create collaborative sculptures, performances, and paintings that combine ephemeral materials such as ice, grapes, and gelatin with plaster, metal, gold, and other materials. The husband-and-wife team take inspiration from their individual backgrounds in theater and architecture.
Brilliant Rubbish: A Conversation with Robert Cherry
Commanding the east window of Robert Cherry’s hillside studio, which he shares with his wife, painter Seraphine Pick, is the air traffic control tower of the Wellington Airport. Beyond, on the far horizon, one may glimpse a stony suburban seashore where the artist and his young son Joseph once beach-combed flotsam—forlorn, sometimes unidentifiable, mostly plastic,
Simple Simply Isn’t: A Conversation with Peter Shelton
Everything about Peter Shelton (pristine studio, stunning preparatory drawings, conversation sprinkled with Latin terms) suggests a combination of obsessive technician and daring poet willing to risk it all for an idea. (A case in point, his controversial 2009 commission for the Los Angeles Police Department [LAPD] headquarters.)
Making Art Visible for Everyone: A Conversation with Athena Tacha
Athena Tacha was born in Greece and received MA degrees in sculpture (Athens) and art history (Oberlin College) and a PhD in aesthetics (Sorbonne). Since 1970, she has done large-scale outdoor sculpture and conceptual/photographic art and has executed more than 40 large commissions for public sites throughout the United States.
Antipodean Treasure: Connells Bay Sculpture Park
The city of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest population base, sports four first-class sculpture parks within a 50-kilometer radius of its Central Business District. Of these, Connells Bay Sculpture Park is unique in presenting a microcosm of the country’s large-scale sculpture.
Nina Levy: Compelling Discomfort
The exhibition “Related Forms” acted as a mini-retrospective for Nina Levy, displaying sculptures and photographs from 1999 to 2011. Her controversial figurative works, displayed to great advantage in the long, open space of Salamatina Gallery (unexpectedly set in a former Gap store in an upscale shopping mall in Manhasset, New York), caused a stir among
Li Wei: Pursuing Figuration in the 21st Century
Despite the presence of an avant-garde since the 1980s, figurative art remains important in China. This is not to say that Chinese culture rejects abstraction; instead, its preference for realist art is based on centuries of traditional painting focused on the landscape, which many scholars regard as its highest achievement.
Camilo Guinot: Exacting Immateriality
Camilo Guinot’s work is notable for its sensitivity and meticulousness. The Argentinian artist works on each piece like a surgeon. He approaches everything in his environment as a potential medium for expression, discrediting no technique or material as he experiments with installation, sculpture, drawing, photography, and performance.
