The artists being considered for one of the most prestigious and substantial prizes in contemporary art are “exploring urgent social issues, and providing new artistic vocabulary through which to examine personal and universal themes.”
Frances Stark
An Omnivorous Tour of the 2017 Whitney Biennial
See highlights from the 2017 Whitney Biennial, which opens to the public later this week.
Best of 2015: Our Top 10 Los Angeles Art Shows
LOS ANGELES — From a show of ancient Greek bronzes at the J. Paul Getty Museum to Rafa Esparza’s adobe brick constructions at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles was overflowing with dynamic exhibitions this year that introduced new talents and reconsidered the old.
The Unbearable Lightness of Frances Stark
LONDON — In a 21st-century take on the artist and his model, Frances Stark has performed a gender swap and had her wicked way with up to ten male muses.
Frances Stark on Reading Robert Ryman
In one of the final remarks of her talk last Monday for the Dia Art Foundation’s Artists on Artists lectures, Frances Stark hit on the essence of the series: “Being an artist is about falling in love with other artists.”
At MoMA, Drawing as the Politics of Living
Sometimes an exhibition reminds you of why exhibitions exist, those surprising moments when usually dull curatorial exercises become transcendent experiences, reinvigorating overlooked corners of art history. I Am Still Alive at the Museum of Modern Art is one of those exhibitions, defiant and vivacious as anything I’ve seen in New York in the past few years. The show focuses entirely on drawing, demonstrating contemporary drawing’s engagement with the politics of living and everyday life. This is art as struggle and art as achievement, nowhere more reaffirmed than in On Kawara’s telegrams sent to the artist’s dealers and friends simply stating: “I am still alive.” To make art and to fight through problems and conflicts, social or personal, through the medium of art is to be alive.