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.
Experimentation is like Oxygen: A Conversation with Valay Shende
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.
