
What is it about the personal collection on display that is so appealing, so instantly resonant? Danh Vo, the artist best known for his conceptual sculpture series We the People (detail), has presented in the exhibition I M U U R 2 some 4,000 objects from the home of Martin Wong.
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Danh Vo’s objects are unremarkable without history. We can debate until Miami freezes about over the place of artworks that don’t do much visually, that make references so opaque you have to a) be a specialist or b) have the work explained to you by an outside aid. Vo’s challenges to our assumptions about art are as frustrating as they are exciting.
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At the Art Institute of Chicago’s Steve McQueen exhibition, I saw something unusual: museum-goers spending time — minutes of it! — watching moving images. In an otherwise bustling museum, the visitors in these rooms were silent and enthralled.
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In 2006, art historian Claire Bishop lit a fire under the collective seat of the art world with her Artforum piece “The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents.” It set off — as much as any essay in the hermetic and staid world of contemporary art theory can — an uproar. Her new book takes it a step further.
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Young Asian Americans dominate a great swath of the messy territory called YouTube, holding their own against the well-funded and famous. This fact makes two major points: there is a great pool of Asian Americans who, against the grain of “model minority” professionalism, need an outlet for humor and creative expression. Perhaps more importantly, these numbers prove the existence of a huge audience, largely Asian American, who want to see the experiences and talents of Asian people in popular media.
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The New York Times Arts section celebrated Independence Day with an ode to the Statue of Liberty by dance critic Alastair Macaulay. Being a lyrical article the photo editors must have wanted to create an equally lyrical visual effect. So they decided to make three animated GIFs.
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The advertisement for the new Bravo TV show Gallery Girls is titled “The Cutthroat World of Gallery Girls.” The two-minute preview promises the approved dose of unapologetic reality TV narcissism. Lucky us.
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