As in previous Biennales, these artists challenge, critique, and subvert the idea of being aligned with the politics and policies of their birth or home countries—indeed, the very idea of representing a country seems somewhat archaic in our multicultural and nomadic world.
Dispatch
Sculptural Highlights from “The Milk of Dreams,” 59th Venice Biennale
Following Carrington’s subversive fairytales, Alemani proposes dreaming as a powerful tool for nourishing resilience and imagining alternative futures.
Stand-Out Pavilions for Sculpture at the 59th Venice Biennale
After a year’s delay due to the Covid pandemic, the 59th Venice Biennale is a triumph for women artists, who heavily outnumber men in both Cecilia Alemani’s curated exhibition “The Milk of Dreams” and the national pavilion displays.
Nancy Tobin
Online at Field Projects in New York and at Outer Roominations in Eureka, California Nancy Tobin’s sculptural installations were recently on view in “Afterlight Online,” on the Field Projects website, and at Outer Roominations, a festival of outdoor sculpture and installation in rural northern California.
Simone Leigh in New York
Like the braided clay that adorns some of her ceramic sculptures, Leigh’s practice articulates a richly interwoven narrative of recuperation, resistance, restitution, and healing that directly addresses this core viewership even as it puts the broader public on notice.
New Orleans and the Art of Labor
Considering the long-held view that, for ordinary people, manufacturing jobs hold the key to the American dream, there is something almost elegiac about the often reported fading fortunes of blue-collar workers. But is material, or physical, labor really a thing of the past to the extent that so many seem to think?
Rebecca Belmore
LandMarks 2017 The journey to Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound in Banff National Park in Alberta required considerable effort. Located on a promontory called Centre Point on the shores of Lake Minnewanka, a cerulean blue glacial lake flanked by tall subalpine mountains, the work was more than two hours from the nearest city.
“Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (1300–Now)”
New York The Met Breuer Daring and at times creepy, “Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body” celebrated the pursuit of imitative realism in Western figurative art, the desire to replicate the living human body. Invitees to this raucous, party-like exhibition included a mechanical, brocade-gowned Sleeping Beauty from Madame Tussauds (remade in 1989) “breathing” softly
Art Prospect
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA Art Prospect Last year, Art Prospect, St. Petersburg’s first and only public art festival, marked its fifth year. Since its inception, its artistic vision has been shaped by Susan Katz, an American who has lived in St. Petersburg since 1998, and Kendal Henry, a New Yorker involved with public art. In 2016, the festival focused on social practice and community engagement, with projects by 33 different artists and artist teams, 22 from Russia and the remainder hailing from the U.S., Switzerland, Norway, Finland, and Poland.
Vancouver Biennale
VANCOUVER Vancouver Biennale A stack of five cars, precisely balanced on a twisted old-growth cedar trunk, erupts from a patch of green grass-an incongruity amid the spider web of roadways and elevated rapid-transit lines edging the downtown core of Vancouver. The 33-foot-high, 25,000-pound Trans Am Totem-its massive tree stump supporting the vehicles like an arboreal Atlas-is a tribute to, as well as a critique of the car, North America’s enduring symbol of personal freedom and technological innovation.
