WASHINGTON, DC Flashpoint Gallery In Christian Benefiel’s recent exhibition, three large sculptures filled a small, elongated space. Each work, created of interwoven pieces of wood, was held together through the strength of the intricate con – nections linking its individual parts. Benefiel sees his constructions as a physical means of addressing the interactions of singular elements in complex systems, whether social systems ( societies and governments) or biological ones (organisms both simple and complex).
Norbert Prangenberg
COLOGNE, GERMANY Galerie Karsten Greve Nearly every top-heavy Figur sculpted by Norbert Prangenberg (1949– 2012) is reminiscent of an ancient amphora or pithos, although without the lid or twin handles. The rest of his symmetrical Figuren approximate modern barrels. We eventually realize that neither of his container types can hold liquid or grain, because they remain fundamentally un-reconstituted ropes of clay. The concentric coils were crudely kneaded into lengths up to 2.5 inches thick before being barely smoothed and vertically stacked.
Andy Moerlein and Donna Dodson
BOSTON Boston Sculptors Gallery Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein recently transformed Boston Sculptors Gallery into a new kind of Wonderland with their related shows, “Zodiac” and “Geology.” Dodson’s anthropomorphic deities, arranged in two circles, reference both Chinese and Western zodiac symbols. The archetypal figures emanate an extraordinary calm. Each takes a similar stolid stance yet clearly expresses her individuality.
J. Ma, C. Smith, C. Walker
MUNCIE, INDIANA David Owsley Museum of Art The three artists featured in this show come from different places – Jongil Ma from Korea (now living in New York), Christopher Smith from the U.S., and Corban Walker from Ireland – but they all share an interest in glass and Plexiglas. Curator Lisa Banner, a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, exploited this commonality in two ways: first, as a means to remember the university’s ties to the Ball family glassmanufacturing business and, second, as a tool to explore subtle changes in material, as well as shifts in vision and viewpoint.
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.
Heinz Mack
NEW YORK Sperone Westwater In Heinz Mack’s recent, three-floor exhibition, carefully selected monochromatic paintings, wall reliefs, ink drawings, and stelae were placed together to read like a narrative. The quest for narrative in abstract terms is beginning to appear integral to Mack’s work. Rather than em phasizing mediumistic aspects, he clearly went for the impact of earthly and celestial light on physical form, a position related in some ways to the Romantic poet, playwright, natural philosopher, painter, and color theorist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), a figure with whom Mack has been compared.
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.
Simon Starling
VANCOUVER Rennie Collection “Simon Starling: Collected Works” featured a selection of projects produced between 2005 and 2014. The British artist, who lives in Copen – hagen, received the Turner Prize in 2005 for Shedboatshed, an oftencited work that established his attachment to the journey form-of travel in the conventional sense and of peregrination from one state or stage to another in temporal, cultural, material, formal, and other contexts, constructs, transformations, and meanings.
Pipilotti Rist
NEW YORK New Museum These days, theater and spectacle rule public discourse-a perfect moment for Pipilotti Rist’s startlingly prescient critique. Sexy and seductive, soothing and even therapeutic, this survey of Rist’s work from the mid-1980s to the present sought to disrupt the normalizing effect of today’s mediated, digitalized state of being and its accompanying desire for pleasure and entertainment. The exhibition’s subversive purpose was evident in the single-channel videos that initiated Rist’s career.
Wangechi Mutu
NEW YORK Gladstone Gallery The work in Wangechi Mutu’s recent exhibition-installed to create a loose circle inside a square space- was aesthetically sophisticated, empathic, and symbolic. On the surface, Mutu’s 23 new sculptures are formal and classical, a visual contrast to her sensorial mixed-media installation, A Fantastic Journey, which traveled to four U.S. museums during 2013–14. The elegant, finished surfaces in burnt sienna, brown, gray, and black conjure the earth-its wounds and diseases, people, and species nearing extinction.
