Books
Poetry can be intimidating and difficult to “get.” It can evoke the same feelings many of us have toward contemporary art — we don’t always understand it, and it can make us feel shut out, like outsiders to an in-joke. Poetry as one of human nature’s more obtuse endeavors, can have the same effect.
Art
Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculpture opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City this September with a display of 100 masterpieces borrowed from collections outside of Africa. At face value I thought the exhibition title sounded like an attempt ingratiate African art ob
Art
What is it about boxes that is so fascinating? I was thinking this as I went into Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art to see Pandora’s Box, a show that displays artist Joseph Cornell’s signature assemblages alongside the works of artists who allegedly were inspired by him or who were in artistic sy
Art
The intertwined energies of art, technology, and environment were alive in Brooklyn on the night of Thursday, October 13. I was scheduled to speak at Hyperallergic HQ about the work I am doing with my Ecoarttech collaborative on social, political, environmental and media ecologies. When the first pr
Books
Jai Arun Ravine’s The Spiderboi Files: Volume 1 is a careful, intentional work of book art with themes that reverberate delicately through the book’s physical structure. Its content rattles a cage of constructs: commercialism, California and gender identity.
Art
Sometimes art happens by accident, like teenage pregnancy. On occasion the mishap can be fortuitous.
Art
Last week I had the pleasure of checking out Step and Repeat at Toomer Labzda gallery on Forsyth Street in the Lower East Side. The space is new, and this is their first attempt at a group show. As I’ve written before, I am often skeptical of the whole commercial gallery thematic show thing. I was p
Art
The vibe of Anthony Goicolea’s first traveling museum solo show is a slow melancholy. Looking at the photos, videos, paintings and installation in Alter-Ego: A Decade of Work by Anthony Goicolea at the Telfair Museum in Savannah, Georgia made me sink slowly into thoughts of living with apocalypse. G
Art
SAN DIEGO — One of the most anticipated shows of Pacific Standard Time — the Getty’s epic initiative to “celebrate the birth of the LA art scene” and demonstrate that art history has also been made outside of New York — is the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s Phenomenal: California Light, Spac
Art
To my pleasant surprise this weekend, while going about my business I was stopped by several New Yorkers, from various walks of life, all advertising information about the Occupy Wall Street protests. Occupy Wall Street seem to be on the top of everyone’s mind these days or at least the tips of thei
Art
To commemorate the 10th anniversary, MoMA PS1 organized a group exhibition, titled September 11, now on view to January 9, 2012. Curator Peter Eleey has brought together more than 70 works by 41 artists — many made prior to 9/11 — to investigate the attacks’ enduring resonance. Avoiding sensational
Art
During the Biennale, innumerable numbers of events take place outside of the official Biennale grounds of the Giardini and Arsenale, especially from countries that couldn’t afford pavilions inside the Arsenale. They either rented out abandoned spaces near it, like the Iraqi pavilion did, or, if they