For the past 40 years, Phyllis Green has questioned the nature of objects and their social context, using a wide range of materials—video, fiberglass, steel, concrete polymer, wood, textiles, polyurethane foam—and fabrication techniques such as hand construction, sewing, and digital milling.
A Large-Scale Homage
Robert Murray says that after he arrived in New York as a young man in 1960, “I forgot to go home.” It’s a good thing he didn’t return to his native Saskatoon, for he would likely not have begun to produce the sculptures for which he is now forever known.
Cecilia Vicuña
BERKELEY AND BROOKLYN Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archives, and Brooklyn Museum The turbulent history of South America—from the advanced civilizations of the pre-colonial era up to the ravaged present—lies at the heart of Cecilia Vicuña’s work.
Cathy Wilkes: Ugly Archetypes
Cathy Wilkes, a 2008 Turner Prize nominee, has raised eyebrows with her highly charged arrangements of commonplace items and personal artifacts. Formally precise and essentially diaristic, her work employs a difficult and coded visual language that succeeds in exerting a strong psychological pull, creating shared experience from isolation.
Irresponsible Objects: A Conversation with Matthew Ronay
Entering a Matthew Ronay exhibition is like walking through a deserted kindergarten, with ice-cream-colored sculptures strewn around a play area. Ronay, who approaches his creative configurations with genuine curiosity, attributes his childlike approach to color blindness and an insistence on scribbling things down.
Sterling Ruby: Monument Material
A precocious 12-year-old once rolled her eyes at me after I described an artist as a “Renaissance man.” When I asked her what was wrong, she said “I hate that phrase. It’s so vague, it’s meaningless.
I Am the Background: A Conversation with Dan Colen
Dan Colen, who applies himself to painting, placards, and sculpture with equal bravado, likens his approach to that of a child enthused first by one idea and then another. He explains his work as closer to a permanent condition than a series of disconnected objects.
Sabotage: A Conversation with Minerva Cuevas
Minerva Cuevas, who came to prominence in the 1990s as part of a group of socially engaged Mexican artists responding to political corruption, NAFTA, and the government’s embrace of neoliberal economic policies, works across sculpture, installation, photography, painting, video, and performance.
Gelatin
ROTTERDAM Museum Boijmans van Beuningen According to Gelatin member Wolfgang Gantner, “The question isn’t why poop, but why not poop?” A video discussion accompanying the group’s recent show of monumental turd sculptures further clarifies the choice of subject matter with references to “democratic art” and how we all create it, starting at the earliest age.
Indian Ceramics Triennale
JAIPUR Jawaharlal Kala Kendra Set in the gloriously restored Jawaharlal Kala Kendra (JKK) arts center in Jaipur, the first Indian Ceramics Triennale (ICT) kicked off
