HONG KONG — Eighty-eight studios with over 250 artists participated in this year’s Fotanian Open Studios, which meant unless you wanted a marathon experience you could view only a fraction of what was on display.
Ellen Pearlman
Ellen Pearlman is a writer and new media artist who lives between New York and Asia, where she is a PhD candidate at the School of Creative Media, Hong Kong City University.
A Performance Artist’s Tribute to Nelson Mandela
On December 11, performance artist and sculptor Angela Freiberger offered a succinct and touching “Homage to Mandela” at the Tambaran Gallery.
A Broken Word Opera
Joe Diebes, a composer and creator of “performance environments” showcased his latest piece BOTCH, part of his three-year artist residency at Manhattan’s HERE Arts Center.
All Style, No Substance: Williamsburg in 3D
Stereoscopic, or 3D, vision is a technique usually associated these days with blockbuster movies. But, using a simple stereo camera, Carlton Bright rollerbladed around Williamsburg from 2003 to 2013 documenting a series of “modules” or “vignettes” about the neighborhood he loves and calls home.
The Quirky Invincibility of Mr. Dead and Mrs. Free
The Squat Theater, an itinerate group of mostly Hungarian political theatre emigrés decamped to NY in the 1970’s, barreling and slaking their way through the uber-outré squalor of an infrastructure challenged city, then self-imploded circa 1985.
The Mordant Absence of Sophie Calle
Sophie Calle creates narrative fictions about tremendous loss, using stories to “protect” her from bitterness. Her life is her art and her art is her life, which makes her pieces either irrepressibly cloying or profoundly moving.
Timeless Amniotic Bubble: William Basinski’s Analogue Noise
William Basinski, self-described composer of “experimental electronic ambient music,” played selections from his new CD Nocturnes at Issue Project Room’s Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain celebration recently held at its majestically renovated downtown Brooklyn location.
Zhang Huan’s Painterly Buddhism
Zhang Huan’s new exhibition at Pace Gallery, his first since 2010, revels in the artist’s newfound love of lush dollops of creamy oil paint.
Nicky Nodjoumi: Ghosts From Iran’s Past
A confluence of factors have made Nicky Nodjoumi’s inaugural show at Taymour Grahne Gallery of large-scale oil paintings and works on paper its own small-scale blockbuster.
The Propeller Group Lands in New York
Despite the Propeller Group’s collective experience, their reined-in launch show Lived, Lives, Will Live! at Lombard Freid Projects was anti-climatic.
Participating in Sound, Interacting With Noise
This month, sound art in New York continues to bloom in various locations throughout the city. First up was “Soundings: A Contemporary Score” at MOMA, then came Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s “Voice Tunnel.” Residency Unlimited, which holds residencies for international artists, jumped into the fray by hosting the sound art section of the three part inToAsia: Time-based Art Festival 2013 curated by inCube Arts and featuring artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
A Tale of Two Phoenixes
First conceived and constructed in China, Xu Bing’s paired “Phoenix” sculptures have flown the coop and are currently nesting at MASS MoCA in Western Massachusetts.