Valay Shende’s resourceful and meaningful works reflect his personality as a simple man who conveys his thoughts without ambiguity in a direct manner. His ability to bring together diverse mediums and materials to tell a story-steel combined with graphic videos, for instance-stands out for its forcefulness.
A Japanese Thing: A Conversation with Gabriel Orozco
Many expats who have lived in Japan acknowledge its deep impact, and Gabriel Orozco is no exception. For the past two years, he has resided in Tokyo, which he describes as offering “a new discovery every day,” a refreshing experience that he says is “influential in many ways.”
The Universe in a Pot: A Conversation with Subodh Gupta
Subodh Gupta, who has been compared to Damien Hirst, has adopted something of the attitude of that art world enfant terrible, employing the same charismatic swagger and courting the same kind of international attention with provocative works of a grandiose scale.
Stefano Cagol
TRENT, ITALY Civica/MART Civica, the Trent branch of MART, Italy’s lauded contemporary art museum, ingeniously structured Stefano Cagol’s mid-career retrospective into a cycle that evoked the return of the native son to the site of his first exhibition. Beginning with an early self-portrait (1998) compounded into four states of motion, the show traced the paradigm shift that characterizes two decades of Cagol’s work. Unity through duality is a chief preoccupation, from early video experiments to September 11 (2009), an LED of memorial events on his birthday.
Ugo Rondinone
ROTTERDAM Museum of Boijmans Van Beuningen Maybe it is a good idea to fill a museum with 45 life-like sculptures of clowns supplemented by colorful, rainbow-inspired and cartoon-like works—or maybe not. In any event, Ugo Rondinone chose to do just this in his recent exhibition, “Vocabulary of Solitude,” which also doubled as a retrospective of his color spectrum works. This was one of the weirdest art experiences I’ve had in some time, prompting a PTSD-like reaction similar to those I had in response to the 1980s horror films of my youth.
Catherine Heard
HAMILTON, ONTARIO, CANADA Art Gallery of Hamilton Catherine Heard’s sculptures are disturbing and ethereal, revealing the restraints of corporeal being as well as the intangibles of the soul/creativity. Myrllen: A Portrait, for instance, has indistinct, rounded features akin to Pompeian remains—empty eye sockets and vague features. The graygreen head was created from hundreds of thin layers of linen, lace, paper, clay, and wax. The only external evidence of this laborious process is a rough, compressed texture; a fabric mandala is pressed into its crown.
Alexis Dahan
LONDON LAMB Arts Détournement, the act of decomposing and redistributing cultural value, resists literal translation but finds its closest approximation in “culture jamming.” Détournement is a turn, but it is also a confrontation. It is not just veering from the road, but ripping cobblestones from the road and lobbing them. As Guy Debord and Gil Wolman saw it, “The cheapness of its products is the heavy artillery that breaks through the Chinese walls of understanding.”
“Peekskill Project 6”
PEEKSKILL, NEW YORK Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art A citywide public art festival organized by the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art (HVCCA), “Peekskill Project,” which launched in 2004, is devoted to bringing contemporary art out of the museum and into the community, specifically into spaces not normally used to present art. The 2015 iteration, “Peekskill Project 6,” featured works by 57 U.S. and international artists selected by an international curatorial committee and presented in various locations around the city, including empty industrial buildings, storefronts, public parks, and private homes, as well as at HVCCA.
Augusto Zanela
BUENOS AIRES Centro Cultural Recoleta In “The First Day,” Augusto Zanela— an architect, photographer, and teacher—highlights some of the concerns that have driven his work since 1996, when he began investigating the processes of image formation as applied to photography, video, and installation. He is particularly interested in optical tricks and structures created in the viewer’s space—both physical and mental. Following a rigorous plan, his recent exhibition of three installations established a dialogue across words, colors, and forms through the effects of light.
LeRone Wilson
NEW YORK gallery nine5 LeRone Wilson’s encaustic sculpture is abstract, Minimalist, and geometric yet loaded with individualizing touches. The highly textured and boldly colored surfaces are intense. The titles, such as Divine Circle, Stars Rained on Me, Homage to Ra (Sun), Distinction Between One Color, Universal Journey, and Footsteps of My Ancestor’s Harkhuf, refer to spiritual, mythological, and philosophical concepts. “Universal Journey,” the exhibition title, alludes to human history in general, and more specifically, to historic Egyptian uses of encaustic.
