Claire Breukel

Claire Breukel is a South Africa-born contemporary art curator and writer. Her interest is in contemporary art that falls outside of conventional modes of exhibition, and often affiliated with “developing” regions. She lives and works in New York and Miami.
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Artist Faces Prison After Eating Voting Ballot

by Claire Breukel

SAN SALVADOR — It is one week after the general elections in El Salvador that split the winning left party from the right by a margin of 6,300 votes — less than 1% percent of the total — electing ex-guerilla commander Salvador Sánchez Cerén president. Tensions in the country are high, and even more so within the nation’s community of artists, who are rallying to defend Víctor “Crack” Rodríguez, who is facing up to six years in prison for a performance piece.

Posted inArt

An Eco-Friendly Villa in Costa Rica Encourages Sustainable Art Practice

by Claire Breukel

SOUTHERN ZONE, Costa Rica — I’m staying in the blue room. It is my honeymoon and we have travelled four hours from the San José airport to a magnificent rainforest hideaway. Monte Azul dubs itself as an eco-lodge that combines culture and conservation. This ecolodge — which comprises four “casitas” for a total of eight guests, a restaurant, an art gallery, an artist studio, and miles of endless river and forest that is its preserve — was built with art as its primary driving force. But what do art and sustainability have in common?

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Giving an Artistic Voice to a Neighborhood, Northside Art Attempts Many Conversations

by Claire Breukel

As the official group exhibition of the Northside Art Festival, Many Conversations was a multilayered dialogue between 26 artists who either live or work in North Brooklyn. Curated by Peter Gynd, the show aimed to formally introduce the local community of artists to each other and to their audience, in order to create exchange and encourage interaction.

Posted inArt

Political Pressure Censors Artwork And Creates Unexpected Spectacle

by Claire Breukel

I feel naïve to have thought that art offered one of the only scared spaces to be freely expressive. Two weeks ago, I wrote a post that attempted to diplomatically depict the controversial saga that has unfolded over artist Brett Murray’s “The Spear”, a Communist propaganda style portrayal of South African president Jacob Zuma with his penis hanging out from his zipper.

Posted inArt

A Critical Discussion on the Art of Video Gaming

by Claire Breukel

It’s a sunny Friday morning in midtown Manhattan, and at the education building of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the second day of the conference “Critical Play — The Game as an Art Form” begins its debates. I’m no video gaming expert, but with 50 other physical attendees and many more over live stream, I vow to learn how video games can be better understood within an art context, as they’ve been the new art frontier for some time.