NEW YORK Simon Preston Michelle Lopez’s recent show, which featured works exploring the history of contemporary American sculpture, was clearly influenced by the late John McCracken and John Chamberlain. Educated in literature and art history at Barnard College in New York, Lopez is perhaps unusual in her sensitivity to this narrative.
Clement Meadmore
NEW YORK Marlborough Chelsea Clement Meadmore, an Australian-born sculptor who moved to New York in 1963, is the kind of artist we don’t see much of anymore: a formalist who eschewed the myths of culture in favor of a purely objective art.
Anna von Gwinner
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINE Projective Eye Gallery, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Berlin-based artist and architect Anna von Gwinner is probably best known for street-level video installations that entice passersby with hints of activity in inaccessible spaces. Among her recent projects are a Winnipeg building that appeared to be filling with water and bunnies doing what they do in the back of a Berlin van.
Martin Calcagno
BUENOS AIRES Elsi del Rio Contemporary Art The Argentine artist Martin Calcagno created his own cardboard and wooden toys when he was a kid. At the age of seven, while visiting an exhibition of Japanese art, he discovered that he was meant to be an artist.
Jean Dubuffet
BRUSSELS Musee d’Ixelles “Dubuffet Architecte,” a survey of Jean Dubuffet’s public artworks, displayed the evolution of his monumental sculptures (some realized, some not) through large-scale models, exploring space and dimensionality with a signature humanist flair.
Fragile Balances: A Conversation with Sarah Sze
Joyce Beckenstein: When Sculpture published a previous interview with you in 2003, your work was very different. In broad strokes, how would you characterize the changes? Sarah Sze: I came to art with more training in architecture and painting.
Etsuko Ichikawa: Fire and Water
Following what may be described as a coming-out event at Miami’s Art Basel in 2005, Seattle artist Etsuko Ichikawa has had a series of impressive solo exhibitions around the United States, capped in 2011 by two extensive shows, one at the University of Wyoming’s Museum of Art and the second at Seattle’s Davidson Gallery.
Yayoi Kusama: Social Transformation Through Infinite Multiplication
Entering Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room—Filled with the Brilliance of Life (2011), as staged at Tate Modern, you found yourself in a darkened, boxed space filled with colorfully flashing, suspended lights. The walls were lined with mirrors and the floor filled with water.
Constance DeJong: Beauty, Bare
There is no escaping the impact of a fully realized and meticulously executed sculpture by leading New Mexico artist Constance DeJong. Her quintessential black pieces, which she calls her “Four/Three Series,” evoke what might be called a shudder.
John Ruppert: Staging Energy
Back in 1992, John Ruppert was cleaning out his studio and rolling up some chain-link fencing when it got away from him. When he caught it, the loose end fanned out into space. All of a sudden, he realized that this loosely woven material had a structure, and he became interested in its mobilization of
