Los Angeles L.A. Louver Gallery Ben Jackel’s works are splinters off the American culture of violence—hyper-real portraits of instruments of power and aggression. Although the objects originate in a concrete world of specific function, they are re-envisioned as luxury objects borrowed from their industrial and martial origins, and repurposed and valorized as sculpture.
The Space In Between: A Conversation with Charles Ray
Over the past 40 years, Charles Ray has produced a majestic array of artistic touchstones within the contemporary sculptural vernacular. His orchestrated relationships between space and objects tempt the senses and baffle perceptual longings. Ray’s sculptures are the result of deeply considered compositions often requiring extraordinary amounts of labor, sometimes years in the making.
Army of One: A Conversation with Richard Jackson
One of the most radical American artists of the last 40 years, Los Angeles-based Richard Jackson has expanded the definition and practice of painting into almost unimaginable dimensions. His wildly inventive, exuberant, and irreverent takes on “action” painting have dramatically extended its performative and spatial reach, merged it with sculpture, and repositioned it as an
Dread Scott: Radical Conscience
On the Impossibility of Freedom in a Country Founded on Slavery and Genocide, 2014 Dread Scott’s edict is make “revolutionary art—to propel history forward.” Since the early 1990s, after graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and completing the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program, Scott has joined the ranks
Nan Smith: Symbols of Devastation
Nan Smith is an ambitious artist. Over the years, she has increased her command of the ceramic medium, extended her range of techniques and media, and set herself more demanding goals. A full professor in the ceramics program at the University of Florida’s School of Art and Art History, she has also served as head
Strange Events and Mythological Materials: A Conversation with Ojars Feldbergs
In June 2014, Latvia’s Pedvale Open-Air Art Museum hosted its 7th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art (ICCCIA), organized by Ojars Feldbergs, Kārlis Alainis, a teacher at the Latvian Academy of Art, and Tamsie Ringler, a sculpture professor at St.
Geny Dignac: Playing With Fire
Geny Dignac says that she has “a love affair with fire.” The Argentina-born, Arizona-based sculptor began incorporating living flames into her work during the late 1960s. As she explains the relationship: “I respect fire; I’m bewitched and obsessed by it, but I’m not intimidated by it, and I always feel in control.”
Mark Bradford
Waltham, Massachusetts The Rose Art Museum Big and scaly. That’s how most people imagine “Sea Monsters,” which is also the title of Mark Bradford’s recent exhibition. Though these sculptures and paintings lack menacing teeth and constricting coils, which would only make them literal and banal, the title properly warns against hidden danger.
Melvin Edwards
New York Alexander Gray Gallery Melvin Edwards’s head-size, welded metal abstractions draw you in like black holes, revealing themselves gradually. Out of the darkness, individual elements emerge, some menacing—knives, broken forks, machete parts, and chains—others innocuous—horseshoes, locks, bolts, and drill bits.
Lee Mingwei
Tokyo Mori Art Museum If you have patience with the lofty, yet somehow naïve, intentions of Taiwanese artist Lee Mingwei, you’ll find that somehow he gets to the truth of contemporary society. His thoughtful, hypnotic, yet quiet voice in his videos explains the ideas behind each of his participatory projects.
