Whenever I find myself strolling in the hutongs near Gulou and see the entrance of Bed Bar, images of Liang Tao’s 2005 cross-gender performance come to mind. I met her that same year in the 798 art district, just after her performance “Madhouse in Paradise” at Marella Gallery. For that piece she built a replica of a room from a Western mental institution, in which she spent two days as a “perfectly happy” schizophrenic patient. Her point was that, after having spent a period of time in a Chinese mental institution, a Western one would be quite a nice place to live.
May 2, 2012
Posted inNews
Helsinki Says “No” to the Guggenheim
Members of Helsinki’s City Board have rejected the long-standing proposal to build a branch of the Guggenheim Museum on the city’s waterfront. Eight of the board’s fifteen members voted today against furthering the proposal to the City Council for consideration.
Posted inArt
Occupy Is Back!
Yesterday’s May Day protest in NYC might have failed to shut the system down, but it did successfully galvanize Occupy’s disparate interest groups into one powerful amalgamation, proving the movement’s lack of cohesion, more accurately its complexity, is a strength that defines it.
Posted inNews
Jerry Saltz Slams Tonight’s Auction of Edvard Munch’s Scream
Today, New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz appeared on CBS This Morning to discuss tonight’s Sotheby’s auction of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Saltz isn’t a fan of the circus surrounding tonight’s sale and he dislikes that the chatter is mostly about the projected price tag and not the art itself.
Posted inArt
Words and Images Tango Downtown
National Poetry Month reminds us that some words can boogie, and dance they do at two exhibitions on the Lower East Side. A fiery tango between word and image takes place in solo shows by both Natalie Czech and Jeff Gibson. This tango — like when a caption twists an image’s meaning, or an illustration shapes how you picture the words you’re reading — can be tense, competitive and at times even semiotically combative. But just as the tango feeds off of two partners’ intensity, this art benefits from the back and forth.
