VENICE Biennale di Venezia, Ca’ Pesaro, Fondazione Querini Stampalia Venice recently hosted three solo shows by three leading Italian sculptors whose language couldn’t be more different: video-techno visionary Fabrizio Plessi at the Venice Pavilion at the Venice Biennale; Arte Povera master Pier Paolo Calzolari at the Ca’ Pesaro; and the mysterious, solitary Marisa Merz.
January/February 2012
Duane Paxson
TROY, ALABAMA Johnson Art Center With works from the past decade, as well as a new series, Duane Paxson’s recent show offered an interesting contrast in subjects and materials.
Jene Highstein
NEW YORK Danese Gallery Jene Highstein’s new stainless steel sculptures have a formal morphological relation to his earlier work, going back to the 1970s. In contrast to the generation of Minimal artists who emerged in the early 1960s—Judd, Flavin, Morris, LeWitt, and Andre—Highstein entered the Minimalist stage somewhat later.
Ayse Erkmen: Plan B and Other (Not So) Futile Gestures
Ayse Erkmen’s site-specific sculptures activate the materials found in a particular place to shed light on the factors and histories that have lent it shape. She will often work with evanescent substances such as water or air or use pre-existing objects collected from a site only to return them to their place of origin at
Steven and William Ladd
HONOLULU The Contemporary Museum Think “box” and what comes to mind might be Joseph Cornell’s lyrical mise-en-scène, Donald Judd’s obdurate rows and stacks, or a singular work like Eva Hesse’s Accession II—its lush austerity signaling, among other things, a finely tuned balance between industrial materials and hand labor.
