St. Louis St. Louis Art Museum Peyote Kit, Mid-20th century, Wood, brass locks and handle, cloth lining, and assorted objects inside, 8 7/8 x 21 1/8 x 7 3/4 in. Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Unlike some American Indian exhibitions, “Art of the Osage” offers 100 objects whose aesthetic is spare and cohesive.
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Liz Craft
New York Marianne Boesky Gallery For sheer weirdness, not much could beat Liz Craft’s show of figurative sculptures, made mostly of cast bronze. Craft is a brilliant artisan of the bizarre, someone whose idiosyncrasies seem tied to issues of California funk and the morbid consequences of bad dreams.
“Imitation Knotty Pine”
Memphis, TN Delta Axis @ Marshall Arts Artists and art historians are equally engaged in interpreting the past, though what appears in history books and on museum walls is not always what motivates studio work. Indeed, one might suggest that artists construct the past they need—or desire—based on the images they tack to corkboards or
Sung Ho Kim
Belleville, Illinois William & Florence Schmidt Art Center, Southwestern Illinois College Architect Sung Ho Kim recently exhibited 10 models that explore alternative design strategies relevant to sculpture. His unique forms based on non-linear thinking, intuition, and abstraction respond to cultural, spatial, technological, and human needs.
Christopher Saucedo: A Play on the “Real”
Christopher Saucedo, Temple-Arcade, 1/4 scale replica (unassembled), 2004. Cast aluminum, 22 x 57.5 x 6.5 in. Ludic in temper, New Orleans sculptor Christopher Saucedo makes art that might be described as Postmodernist fun. While nodding respectfully at Rodin, Brancusi, and a host of others, he draws from wide-ranging sources both popular and learned, posing mischievous queries
“Mercurial”
Brooklyn Williamsburg Art and Historical Center Having just closed an immense, exhilarating, exhausting show of “surrealist, fantastic, and visionary art” that inspired almost as much denunciation as delight (and that included a costume ball, an over-the-top “fashion show,” and a film series), the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center gave itself a well-deserved breather.
Liu Jianhua
New York Plum Blossoms The ceramic sculptures of Liu Jianhua are an exercise in desire, the consequence of skilled craft and unabashed sensuality. Liu Jianhua, born in 1962 in Jilan, Jiangxi province, began working while still a teenager in the ceramic factories in Jingdezhen; he then studied in the fine arts department of the Jingdezhen
“Fantastic”
North Adams, Massachusetts MASS MoCA With the ascension of high speed internet the low-rent cultural outskirts – where hermetic, criminal, religious, sexual, paranormal, utopian & alt.tech eidolon once came together – a region heretofore known principally to initiates and ‘fanboys’ – are now (due to info-geek triumph) high traffic real estate.
Site “Shore/lines”: Responding to Place in Barrie, Ontario, Canada
About an hour’s drive north of Toronto, Ontario, the city of Barrie (pop. 103,000) is a place that seems to exist for the benefit of any reason other than itself. To some people, it’s little more than a bedroom community for Toronto-bound commuters.
“Texas Uprising: Indoor and Outdoor Sculpture”
San Antonio Blue Star Contemporary Art Center “Texas Uprising,” which focused exclusively on the state of contemporary sculpture in Texas, clearly showed just how diverse contemporary art is here. The exhibition boasted over three dozen artists, most of whom submitted outstanding works.
