HELSINKI Taidehalli (Kunsthalle) A walk through Tomás Saraceno’s recent large-scale museum exhibitions conveys the impression that we are witnessing the work of a man obsessed. Much like a researcher or inventor engaged in the development of some all-important proof or machine, Saraceno focuses on the claim that we can comprehend the structure of the universe through the spider’s web.
March 2013
Pier Paolo Calzolari
NEW YORK Marianne Boesky Gallery and The Pace Gallery Pier Paolo Calzolari, like Arte Povera (the movement with which he is associated), is insufficiently valued in the U.S. Some critics deem the Italian movement—with its emphasis on base materials and their interactions—hokey and pompous, a preferably forgotten chapter in the history of postwar art. But at its best, Arte Povera has produced some of the most gripping art of the past half-century, and Calzolari’s strongest works would stand their ground in the finest collections of contemporary art.
“Made in L.A.”
Los Angeles Hammer Museum “Made in L.A.,” the first biennial survey of Los Angeles-based artists, featured three artists making interesting sculpture—Liz Glynn, Caroline Thomas, and David Snyder. A sufficient amount of their work was on view to reveal their conceptual trajectories.
Francis Upritchard
NOTTINGHAM, U.K. Nottingham Contemporary When I entered Francis Upritchard’s recent exhibition, I was puzzled at first. Two spacious galleries were filled with eccentric, fantastical figures placed on plinths designed by Martino Gamper. In the first room, white, terra-cotta, brown, and gray creatures wearing medieval clothes looked as though they had been unearthed from the past.
Greg Payce
TORONTO Gardiner Museum The work of Greg Payce may be framed within and by the medium of ceramics, but unlike, say, the work of a ceramic sculptor like Peter Voulkos, Payce’s aesthetic has less to do with a focus on the merits of the medium itself and virtually everything to do with exploring the inversion of the figure-ground relationship.
David Middlebrook
SAN FRANCISCO The McLoughlin Gallery Wood, stone, and metal may have been supplanted by newer materials (e.g., chocolate, tofu, and frozen blood), but some artists enjoy both the technical and aesthetic challenges of traditional, “noble” materials. David Middlebrook, who emerged on the Bay Area gallery scene only relatively recently—with a 2010 retrospective at the Triton Museum in Santa Clara and now this solo show—has had a long career making public sculpture and teaching (at San Jose State University), so he’s well versed in both technique and theory.
Gary Webb
LINCOLN, MASSACHUSETTS deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum Slick, colorful, playful, and without a cohesive aesthetic, Gary Webb’s work has yet to settle on a recognizable style—he’s having too much fun. A carnival atmosphere pervaded his recent show, “Gary Webb: Mr. Jeans,” with nursery-school hues and shapes bending, arching, and trying to fly off in all directions.
Carlito Carvalhosa
NEW YORK Sonnabend Gallery Carlito Carvalhosa was born in São Paulo, studied at the University of São Paulo’s Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, and lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. His unorthodox and visionary fabrications suggest an acute knowledge of architecture and spatial interaction, while his handling of light and space is concurrently an act of camouflage and disclosure.
