Institutions in Germany, Canada, and the US have postponed planned exhibitions of the digital media artist’s work after allegations against him surfaced online.
Jon Rafman
Strange Creatures and Constructions Alight on the High Line
The High Line’s Mutations exhibition features motion-capture cameras for birds, audio of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and other uncanny interventions in the elevated park.
Strong Solo Booths, Leo Lookalikes, and Plenty of Trends at Frieze New York
From an increasingly diversified roster of galleries to a surprising slew of rock art, the mega-fair is impressively eclectic this year.
A Biennial in Sharjah Offers Worlds Enough
The latest Sharjah Biennial features over 50 international artists, many of whom have created impressive installations in the Emirate.
A Death Labyrinth, a Steampunk Space Club, and More in the New Museum’s First VR Exhibition
From a watery remix of Call of Duty to an elegiac star system commemorating victims of police brutality, the online-only exhibition’s six VR works showcase a range of possible worlds.
The Digital Lives of Public Art Considered in City Hall Park
Digital artifacts manifested as public sculpture populate the Public Art Fund’s Image Objects in Lower Manhattan’s City Hall Park.
Jon Rafman’s Not-So-Still Life of a Digital Betamale
“As you look at the screen, it is possible to believe you are gazing into eternity,” says an absent, artificial female voice in the beginning of Jon Rafman’s NSFW “Still Life (Betamale)” (2013) video.
Pushing Paper in Quebec
MONTREAL — Entry was free but the carpet still red, a rain-sodden lilt up entrance stairs. And under drab skies the people came. Here, tonguing the periphery of Montreal’s infamous red light district, was Papier14, the works-on-paper fair’s seventh annual iteration.
The Art of Paper in Montreal
MONTREAL — While the big glitzy art fairs in New York, London, and Miami often grab the headlines for the sheer volume of ostentatious art, celebrity-friendly promotions, and over-the-top displays, many people overlook the range of excellent small fairs that appeal to discerning collectors in different demographics. One such fair, now celebrating its sixth year, is Papier13 in Montreal, which opens today and features 42 galleries from across Canada. A compact fair devoted to works on paper (papier means “paper” in French) is a sophisticated and comfortable art-browsing experience dropped on an empty lot across from the city’s contemporary art museum and other attractions.
Turn Google Street View into Google Road Trip
Traversing the virtual mirror of the real world created by Google Earth and Google Street View has become something of a global pastime, putting everywhere (as long as there’s a road, at least) within the reach of armchair explorers. Yet walking through the landscape step by step and mouse click by mouse click is a chore. Good thing creative agency Teehan+Lax has created a way to turn Street View into a road trip.
Do Artists Actually Confront Our New Technological Reality?
Art historian and associate professor at New York’s CUNY Graduate Center Claire Bishop has taken to the pages of Artforum’s September edition to issue a kind of rebuke for contemporary art. She argues, in an extended essay that only briefly detours into egregious artspeak, that though the new realities of technology and the internet provide the fundamental context for art currently being made, art and artists have failed to critically confront this context and are too content simply to respond and adapt to it.
Free (With Admission) at the New Museum
Lauren Cornell, Executive Director of Rhizome, gives us a taste of what we can expect from her exciting new exhibition, Free, at the New Museum this fall. Incorporating 23 artists, Free will reflect “artistic strategies that have emerged in a radically democratized landscape redefined by the impact of the web.”