Fiona Banner first came to prominence in the 1990s with “wordscapes” or “still films” such as The NAM, a 1,000-page, continuous-text book that describes the action in Vietnam War films frame-by-frame. Her interest lies in the complexities of language and history, how they are appropriated and mythologized; she is also interested in the physicality of
Charles Juhász-Alvarado: Raconteur of Complicated Stories
Charles Juhász-Alvarado’s mid-career retrospective (2008), organized by Exit Art in New York, was titled “Complicated Stories” for good reason. In trying to unpack his intellectually challenging work, a writer scrounges around for synonyms such as complex, maximalist, multi-layered, and, certainly, enigmatic.
Katharina Grosse
Just about 12 years ago, German artist Katharina Grosse initiated a radical and risky extension of her painting, moving off the canvas and into architectural spaces. She began to make her swirling, energetic, intensely colorful abstract works directly on walls and, in some cases, parts of the ceiling; in these and subsequent works, Grosse exchanged
Sopheap Pich: Return to Cambodia
Sopheap Pich, now living and working in Phnom Penh, returned to his native country at the end of 2002, after living and studying in America for close to 20 years. Born in 1971 in Koh Kralaw, a small rice-farming town in northwestern Cambodia, he spent his early childhood moving among towns and villages in his
Sculpting Urban Airspace: Janet Echelman
If your eye becomes entangled by the beauty of a huge fishing net cast into the vast blue of the sky, it has probably been caught in a work by Janet Echelman. Originally a painter, Echelman has been working with nets since a residency in India.
Jan-Ru Wan: A Magical Journey
A mile or more of hand-dyed, waxed thread, perhaps an acre of silkscreened, printed, and dyed silk organza and other fabrics, hundreds of bells, rusted razor blades, brain scans on magnetized rubber disks, small round candle mirrors, miniature Buddhas, the Heart Sutra, and a myriad of other symbolic objects mark the artistic journey traveled by
Claire Lieberman: Material Sensitivities
Claire Lieberman is a sculptor with a clear sensitivity for materials. Incredibly agile, she demonstrates a comfort with everything from alabaster, marble, and glass to cast rubber and resin, to ice and molded Jell-O. She has even experimented with photography and video, though always with her sculptures as the subject of the work.
Irresistible Illusions and Other Worlds
At least since the Renaissance, when artists developed sophisticated perspectival and trompe l’oeil effects to produce convincing representations of the real world or of imaginary scenes, illusionism has been a large part of the story and substance of Western visual art.
Material Dreaming: Photography and Sculpture
In 2004, Xing Danwen began an ongoing series of color photographs titled Urban Fiction. Using showroom models of large apartment complexes created by real estate developers in Beijing as her primary subjects, she digitally inserts a few small figures (often including her own) into windows or onto terraces, roofs, or surrounding sidewalks.
David Smith: Moments of Invention and Experimentation
The work of David Smith is a monolith in the history of modern American art. And like all monolithic structures, it is surrounded by a simplified, essentialized, almost mythological narrative. Now, 35 years after his death, two exhibitions have begun to explore his prodigious output in a much more comprehensive manner.
