It has been a big year for Rodney McMillian. In a rare achievement for any artist, three major East Coast institutions mounted simultaneous solo exhibitions of his multimedia works, spanning more than a decade. At the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Philadelphia, and MoMA PS1 in New York, McMillian’s
“Megacities Asia”
BOSTON Museum of Fine Arts The immersive, often interactive installations showcased in “Megacities Asia” explored identity amid the masses, sociopolitical issues, and ecological concerns. In a show that mimicked urban sprawl, curators Al Miner and Laura Weinstein examined the successes and failures of Asia’s boomtowns by cherry-picking artists from Beijing, Delhi, Mumbai, Seoul, and Shanghai. Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa’s Breathing Flower was sited next to the museum’s Huntington Avenue entrance. The giant, inflated crimson blossom fluttered buoyant in the wind. At bustling Faneuil Hall, Choi’s inflatable Fruit Tree was equally vivid.
Vik Muniz
THE HAGUE Mauritshuis In 2008, the same year that Vik Muniz produced his first Versos, Gerard Byrne took some black and white photographs of the backs of historical paintings and interspersed them with other pictures and a film installation in an exhibition that explored uncertainties linked to time. These images prompted consternation for how they blended past and present, contrasted image production technologies, and elicited a range of inherent contradictions-particularly in their titles.
Antonia Papatzanaki
NEW YORK President’s Gallery, John Jay College of Criminal Justice Greek-born Antonia Papatzanaki is a sculptor of light. Her public installations are well known in Greece, particularly in Athens, where she lives part of the year while residing at other times in New York. Her recent exhibition, “Stratifications,” featured two bodies of work: “Exceeding Limits,” a series of wall-mounted sculptures consisting of metal casing and curving Plexiglas forms that emanate light from a hidden source, and the “Cellular” series, which takes its cue from cellular structures and includes both computer-generated prints and sculptures made from layers of Plexiglas.
Jeffrey Gibson
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art “A Kind of Confession,” Jeffrey Gibson’s captivating recent exhibition, borrowed its title from James Baldwin, who wrote that “all art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists…are forced, at last, to tell the whole story.” A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and half-Cherokee, Gibson drew from his Native American heritage, as well as from his experience living overseas. His paintings, along with embellished works bearing messages, hung from the walls, but viewers could not help but be immediately drawn to his mesmerizing, three-dimensional work.
Alison Knowles
PITTSBURGH Carnegie Museum of Art For five decades, Alison Knowles has been expanding the parameters of art with performative works and participatory installations. A founding member of Fluxus with George Maciunas, she moved through the 1960s downtown New York City art scene with the likes of Joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono, and Nam June Paik. Working alongside Marcel Duchamp and John Cage influenced her development significantly. What set Knowles apart from other Fluxus artists, however, was the element of touch.
Space as Object: A Conversation with Natalia Abot Glenz
Space, abstraction, geometry, remnants of a Minimalist aesthetic, balance of force and weight, and light: Natalia Abot Glenz’s work brings all of these words and concepts to mind. She thinks about space not only as a means, but also as an end-the sculpture may determine the construction, but space designs the route.
Motion and Matter: Ryszard Wasko’s Exile
Ryszard Wasko, a somewhat legendary Polish artist, has lived and worked in Berlin since 2008. This is not his first period of residency in Germany, just the first time that he has stayed there of his own accord.
Not Just About the Revolution: A Conversation with Humberto Dìaz and Holly Block
In early April of this year, I had the good fortune to travel with Holly Block, executive director of the Bronx Museum, on a visit to Cuba, where I visited Humberto Díaz in his Havana studio.
Nicole Eisenman
NEW YORK New Museum Starting with a deflated Captain America sleeping-or knocked out-on a pilaster, Nicole Eisenman’s recent exhibition addressed cultural and gender identity. “Al-ugh-ories” opened with Captain America’s nondescript, battered brown head at rest on a worn baseball glove. The sculpture was surrounded by weird paintings of a deep-sea diver, an androgynous, long-haired Hamlet with sword and skull, a green head, a cuffed and shackled nude maiden (Spring Fling), and a self-portrait of the artist in an overloaded, cramped studio/houseboat on a turbulent sea.
