Dylan Mortimer is both an artist and an active Christian pastor, but just where one identity begins and the other ends is difficult to tell. He mixes Christian iconography with pop culture to create glitter-covered relief sculptures, more reminiscent of neon casino signs than church altarpieces.
Driven by the Body: A Conversation with Malcolm Cochran
In 1992, while I was an undergraduate focusing on sculpture at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, I helped to install Malcolm Cochran’s In Maine (1989) in the galleries. The work consisted of, among other things, the still-operating guts of 19 refrigerators.
Tal Hwa Goh: Indeterminate Order
Contemporary art by Asian artists in New York occupies an often marginal position in relation to the mainstream. In the ’90s and early aughts, Chinese art captured the attention of the New York art world, but its moment is now over.
Gabriel Dawe: Light Threads
The Toledo Museum of Art’s classically inspired Great Gallery, home to a muscular collection of Baroque masterworks by artists such as Rubens and Poussin, might seem a daring place to install a massive contemporary fiber art installation.
Akio Takamori
SEATTLE James Harris Gallery The works in Akio Takamori’s recent show revealed a strangely somber and perplexing side to this usually exuberant ceramic artist, examining the rituals of male public behavior. These were the last works that he produced before succumbing to a long bout with cancer last year. Idio – syncratic and characterized by masterful technique, Takamori’s work is also known for a perilous awkwardness, which often doubles as self-examination.
Whitney Biennial 2017
NEW YORK Whitney Museum of American Art Smaller and more diverse than in years past, this year’s Whitney Bien – nial featured the work of 63 artists spread across two floors, the stairwell, and lobby of the museum’s new Renzo Piano building. With few walls, high ceilings, and works hung together in separate spaces as if in mini gallery shows, the layout encouraged viewers to wander about almost as if they were at an art fair.
Christian Benefiel
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).
Made in the Middle: Art and the Crossroads of Kansas City
In many ways, the story of art in Kansas City is a familiar one – adventurous and untamed, with a rogue determination that lingers as a holdover from the days of the Wild West. Artists are trailblazers.
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.
