Mariana Villafañe’s work emerges from the study of geometric-morphological patterns, a dialogue between mathematics, pure geometry, and abstraction that gains focus from a sensorial point of view. Villafañe tries to find visual means of representation for movement, as well as the sounds and vibrations that it generates.
September 2017
Achieving Necessity: John Duff
John Duff, a New York-based sculptor long associated with abstract, austere, and often totemic-looking objects, exhibited a new and decidedly different body of work last year. His first solo exhibition in 12 years, it was held in an unconventional setting.
Art Prospect
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA Art Prospect Last year, Art Prospect, St. Petersburg’s first and only public art festival, marked its fifth year. Since its inception, its artistic vision has been shaped by Susan Katz, an American who has lived in St. Petersburg since 1998, and Kendal Henry, a New Yorker involved with public art. In 2016, the festival focused on social practice and community engagement, with projects by 33 different artists and artist teams, 22 from Russia and the remainder hailing from the U.S., Switzerland, Norway, Finland, and Poland.
Heinz Mack
NEW YORK Sperone Westwater In Heinz Mack’s recent, three-floor exhibition, carefully selected monochromatic paintings, wall reliefs, ink drawings, and stelae were placed together to read like a narrative. The quest for narrative in abstract terms is beginning to appear integral to Mack’s work. Rather than em phasizing mediumistic aspects, he clearly went for the impact of earthly and celestial light on physical form, a position related in some ways to the Romantic poet, playwright, natural philosopher, painter, and color theorist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), a figure with whom Mack has been compared.
Color Coded: A Conversation with Rana Begum
For the American sculptor Donald Judd, simplicity focused attention on the object in space: “It isn’t necessary for a work to have a lot of things to look at, to compare, to analyze one by one, to contemplate.