CLEVELAND, OHIO Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art Native Clevelanders, like myself, are used to national derision, enduring myriad “mistake on the lake” jokes. So, it was clearly evident to us that FRONT founder Fred Bidwell and artistic director Michelle Grabner intended to turn those Rust Belt assumptions around.
Sculpture by the Sea
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Bondi Beach Sculpture by the Sea’s 22nd edition featured 107 sculptures by Australian and international artists that merged almost organically with the prehistoric sandstone rock formations along the stretch of beach, with the grand blues of the sky and the sea as backdrops.
Serious Frills: A Conversation with Phyllis Green
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.
