LOS ANGELES Blum & Poe Dictionaries define a fetish as a spirit attached to a material object; if nothing else, the oddly configured, misshapen, and obsessional pieces made by the Brazilian artist Solange Pessoa count as such. Her sculptures look as if they have a job to do in the service of divination or magic. The work is deeply suffused with metaphysics, mystery, loss, and sorrow.
Jason J. Ferguson
HAMNTRAMCK, MICHIGAN Public Pool Art Space You go through a door, and you’re faced with the very same door. When you pass through that second door and turn into a room, you see what appears to be an anatomically perfect skull, but as you approach, you gradually realize that it is, in fact, horribly distorted. This is not a dimly remembered dream, but the initiation into “One-man (freak) show,” Jason J. Ferguson’s fascinating exhibition situated at the intersection of technology and the uncanny.
“Age of Terror: Art since 9/11”
LONDON Imperial War Museum In order to reach the Imperial War Museum’s landmark “Age of Terror” exhibition, you had to negotiate its astonishing atrium, complete with a suspended jet plane and rocket. Underfoot, James Bridle’s Drone Shadow lurked as a white outline on the floor. IWM has commissioned contemporary artists to go to war zones since its founding 100 years ago. Its collections include 20,000 works of art, in addition to thousands of war-related artifacts that combine a big-picture view with intimate personal stories.
Reflecting on Space: A Conversation with Sharon Louden
Sharon Louden is best known for room-size, site-specific installations constructed from thousands of small components. She uses a variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, and animation, aiming to capture movement and light. Within these works, industrial materials (her favorite is aluminum) are transformed into something more closely resembling forms in nature, even the human
Elizabeth Michelman
RUTLAND, VERMONT Clastleton Downtown Galler Pandora, the first installation in Elizabeth Michelman’s recent exhibition, “Notes from Underground,” consists of things one might find forgotten in a basement, unearthed after the passage of years. An oversize steamer trunk made of dark gray-green metal provides an anchor. Propped up against it is a cello, its generous curves contrasting with the trunk’s linearity.
Christopher Wilmarth
NEW YORK Betty Cuningham Gallery
Carolee Schneemann
QUEENS, NEW YORK MoMA PS1 Carolee Schneemann, speaking at the press conference for her touring retrospective, recalled the days when the art world labeled her unabashed use of her body to disrupt misogynist attitudes toward women as “lewd” and “narcissistic.”
Open To Association: A Conversation with James Shrosbree
James Shrosbree’s recent work is unexpected, un-designed, and “un-art-like.” His ceramic objects have low, lumbering, often ungainly shapes, at times buoyant and swelling, more frequently drooping as if pulled down by gravity. Some works appear clumsy and awkward, their monochrome glazes of unlovely yellows or greens slightly off; others are startlingly erotic in strangely bold
Caviar and Excrement: A Conversation with Wilfredo Prieto
A beautiful but wilting flower hangs in a noose, an egg sits next to an eight ball, and caviar enfolds excrement. Wilfredo Prieto’s works use simple, precise juxtapositions to tease out intriguing, open-ended metaphors. He often employs basic materials, projecting a certain poetry that at times recalls Minimalism and Arte Povera.
The Happy Effect: A Conversation with Shoplifter/Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir
Hair is an extension of our identity, persona, and character. It can be added to, colored, and formed. It draws us in to look, to feel. Hair can also be a mechanism for attraction or disgust.
