When I met María Magdalena Campos- Pons in her Boston studio, she was gestating ideas for Documenta 14, thinking about installations in both Athens and Kassel. Her thoughts, figuratively and literally, germinated in a corner, where a branch of spindly potato plant–an invasive species that takes over everything– drew an awkward but tenacious line up
Xu Zhen: Information Age
Shanghai-based Xu Zhen reconstitutes time to create “information objects.” His sculptures appropriate historical elements from different civilizations but siphon them through an insurgence of new technologies, underscoring relationships between tradition and contemporary social experience–all in an attempt to sidestep culture as a “known experience” and breathe new life into what might otherwise be considered dead
“David Smith: The White Sculptures”
NEW WINDSOR, NEW YORK Storm King Art Center Did David Smith intend to leave eight large white sculptures white, the state in which they were seen at Bolton Landing, when he died suddenly in 1965? That question, which has periodically vexed art historians, drove an intriguing exhibition at Storm King Art Center, where six of the white-painted steel constructions were installed outside on the lawn, including the three Primo Piano sculptures on view together for the first time.
Ritual, Politics, and Transformation: Betye Saar
Betye Saar was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sculpture Center in 2018. For a full list of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients, click here. For nearly 70 years, Betye Saar has created prints, collages, and assemblages that transform the cast-off and forgotten into powerful explorations of African American history and identity, the politics of race and gender,
Roni Horn
POTOMAC, MARYLAND Glenstone “Roni Horn,” a survey of work from the last four decades curated by the artist from the museum’s permanent collection, featured photographs, sculptures, and drawings divided into eight rooms: the earliest work, Ant Farm, dates from 1974, but the majority of the works were produced from 2000 to 2015. Horn’s work was ideal for Glenstone, a private museum outside Washington, DC; architecture, site, and art melded seamlessly together into a total experience that allowed for contemplation of complex ideas.
Alberto Giacometti
LONDON Tate Modern The U.K.’s first major retrospective of Alberto Giacometti in 20 years, made possible through unparalleled access to the collection and archive of the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti in Paris, contained more than 250 works, including some extremely fragile and rarely displayed pieces. Although Giacometti is revered for his bronzes, the exhibition showcased a number of works in plaster and clay, repositioning him as an artist with an inherently experimental approach and farreaching proficiency in materials.
Thom Puckey
THE HAGUE Stroom Den Haag Thom Puckey’s remarkable Thorbecke monument and “A Matter of Time,” his recent, revelatory survey, firmly called attention to the intrinsic heterogeneity of his work. The monument, situated on the edge of a green space near the House of Par – liament in The Hague, confronts viewers with two loosely connected scenarios. The carved marble half depicts Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, a 19th-century politician heralded as the architect of the Dutch democratic state.
Jason de Haan
CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA Esker Foundation The artistic practice of Calgarybased Jason de Haan eludes categorization. His work inhabits an in-between space, a space of antidefinition. His recent exhibition, “Oh for eyes! At night we dream of eyes!” spoke to an interest in exploring non-hierarchical formations of objects. Wandering through the show, pondering, viewers first encountered clusters of crystals apparently growing from speakers. Placed in a large circle, the speakers emitted specific frequencies, vibrating at a distinct thrum.
“Revival: Stone and Steel”
RUTLAND, VERMONT Castleton Downtown Gallery The artists featured in “Revival: Stone and Steel” bring new life to their chosen materials in unique figural, botanical, mechanical, and conceptual ways. Selected by curator Oliver Schemm for their versatile skills and hands-on manipulation of media, they all come from the Rutland and Barre regions of Vermont, where quarrying, carving, and forging are part of the local language. Sabrina Fadial’s Burdock, an intricate sculpture incorporating steel and gold leaf, consists of 108 forged steel tapers with curlicue tips emanating from a golden core.
Sabine Senft
SAN ANTONIO Artpace Sabine Senft’s stone towers stood guard at the entrance to “Border – line Reality.” Entry portals made from massive river rocks gathered along the West Texas border, they represented the checkpoints that Senft encountered as a small child growing up in West Germany, yet they also recalled checkpoints closer to home between the U.S. and Mexico.
