Brussels LKFF Art & Sculpture Projects Materializations of pure thought, Armen Agop’s sculptures are charged with inherent monumentality regardless of their dimensions. His recent exhibition, “Emergence,” focused on an exploration of volume, with works unburdened by narrative or association that transcend solidity of shape to suggest potential energy.
“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
Alana Bartol
CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary A small, one-room structure built from salvaged wood filled the center of the gallery at TRUCK. Apparently an office, it contained a desk, a recycling bin, a fake plant, and a clock, whose minute and hour hands never moved. The desk was neatly arranged with papers and files, just like any regular office desk.
Michio Fukuoka
OSAKA, JAPAN National Museum of Art, Osaka In a conformist society of sophisticated stylization, the Japanese sculptor Michio Fukuoka stands out as an outcast. A “Sculptor Who No Longer Sculpts,” as he’s identified by this retrospective, he questions logical frames of mind and, with his keen intuition, is quick to defy them.
Jeanne Silverthorne
NEW YORK MARC STRAUS Gallery For nearly three decades, Jeanne Silverthorne has treated the artist’s studio and all it encompasses as her subject. The work that gets made there, the furniture and tools, the person who makes the work (herself), and the workings of the artist’s body are all represented, along with memories, dreams, and discarded ideas.
“New Installations: 40th Year”
PITTSBURGH Mattress Factory The Mattress Factory has been commissioning new installations since 1977. Over those four decades, an estimated 800 artists from around the world, including Janine Antoni, Vito Acconci, Ann Hamilton, Yayoi Kusama, Tony Oursler, Kiki Smith, Bill Woodrow, and noted regional artists Kim Beck, Joe Mannino, Kathleen Montgomery, Thaddeus Mosley, and Diane Samuels, have constructed unique works.
Jeffrey Schiff
BOSTON Rafius Fane Gallery “DisInterRuptions,” Jeffrey Schiff’s recent exhibition, included a selection of floor sculptures (many from the “Carpet Rubble” series), three-dimensional studies, and photo-based wall reliefs from the “Inter rup tions” series. The “Carpet Rubble” works feature chunks of concrete debris re-surfaced with pieces of Oriental rugs.
Sheila Hicks
NEW YORK High Line In the mid-1970s, Sheila Hicks was considered a heroine of the “new tapestry” movement. For over 50 years, she has stretched the boundaries of fiber as a medium, creating a distinctive body of work that weaves together sculpture, craft, design, and architecture; now at 84, she continues to create innovative, energetic objects and installations that transcend genres and materials while uniting color and structure.
Jean Arp
MARGATE, U.K. Turner Contemporary “Arp: The Poetry of Forms,” the first U.K. museum exhibition of Jean (Hans) Arp’s work since 1966, gave viewers fresh insights into this pioneer of chance whose serendipitous configurations personify the core precept of Dada practice–that of the gratuitous creative act.
“Through That Which Is Seen”
PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA Palo Alto Art Center The literal meaning of the word “diorama”– through that which is seen–served as the title for this exhibition of sculptures and installations by more than a dozen artists. The idea of the diorama explored in the show–as a model, whether miniature or life-size, of anything from a historical event to a species habitat–dates back to the 19th century.
