Minimal art and Minimalism imply two different strains within the scope of contemporary American art. For the most part, Minimal art began in New York and was named there (Richard Wolheim, 1965) before it was formalized on the West Coast.
When Place Becomes Sculpture: A Conversation with Mauro Staccioli
Mauro Staccioli first received critical attention at the beginning of the 1970s with a group of “signs,” as he calls his works. For him, the location of these signs is of utmost importance—place becomes sculpture (in Francesca Pola’s phrase).
Yuriko Yamaguchi: Fragile Connections
Yuriko Yamaguchi’s studio feels like a tree house. A highly regarded conceptual sculptor whose work hangs in numerous galleries and museums, Yamaguchi works in a space above the garage of her suburban Virginia house. She occasionally takes tea breaks on a small deck attached to the high-ceilinged room, gazing out at the thick, trail-threaded woods.
Berlinde de Bruyckere
Zürich Hauser & Wirth Berlinde de Bruyckere’s sculptures are imbued with the sublime—they combine awe and anxiety to approach something akin to spiritual uplift. The Belgian sculptor (who has become an international sensation in recent years) works in Ghent, Belgium, in a former Catholic boys’ school transformed into a studio.
Won Ju Lim
Santa Monica, California Patrick Painter Inc. Won Ju Lim’s sweeping installation Baroque Pet Shop celebrates convergences in cinematically tactile and weirdly complete ways. It combines relics of Baroque architecture with the urban trappings of Los Angeles’s Highland Park neighborhood, constructing an idiosyncratic environment in which embellished steeples, industrial scaffolding, and gaudy playthings make the ordinary
Claire Fontaine
Miami MOCA North Miami The French collective Claire Fontaine, a man-and-woman team named after the utilitarian Clairefontaine notebooks, play with language throughout their work, “Economies,” the title of their first American exhibition, immediately calls to mind the economies that one must make in tough financial times; the ready-made sculptures also pose more theoretical, global economic
Michael Murrell
Madison, Georgia Madison-Morgan Cultural Center Michael Murrell’s recent exhibition, “From the Forest to the Shore,” was a tour de force of color, mixed media, and sheer conceptual boldness. Many of these oversized pieces seemed to expand upward and outward in a robust embrace of the natural world that inspired them.
Chris Garofalo
Chicago Rhona Hoffman Gallery Though not a realist per se, Chicago-based sculptor Chris Garofalo takes inspiration from various life forms. She works primarily in porcelain or clay to create objects that visually fuse and elaborate on elements found in both fauna and flora, terrestrial and marine life.
“Open Book”
Ypsilanti, Michigan Eastern Michigan University Sculptures celebrating properties inherent to books, but not artists’ books, featured in “Open Book: An International Survey of Experimental Books,” an eye-opening group exhibition of inventive, frequently challenging work by 18 invited artists…see the full review in May’s magazine.
Linda Stein
New York Flomenhaft Gallery Linda Stein’s recent exhibition of new work focused on the combination of popular culture, myth, and body politics. By eliciting the contradictions that continue to exist between cultural ideals and lived reality, Stein’s work attempts to bridge the gap by creating shells of body armor that speak to the sociopolitical situation
