Walking through one of Graem Whyte’s exhibitions is an adventure. On the walls might hang an assortment of curious objects that seem to resemble misshapen billiard sticks or wobbly tennis rackets. They may appear alongside of ping-pong tables that are so drastically reconfigured as to suggest entirely new gaming equipment. There might be musical instruments that seem to belong to Dr. Seuss’s world. Occasionally, Whyte even includes space-age pods into which you might climb for a few magical moments.
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"Where Imagination Resides: Alfredo Gisholt's Canto General" by Leah Triplett
Alfredo Gisholt’s paintings are never one thing. Like the 20th-century Moderns preceding him, Gisholt resists precise categorization of aesthetic, conceit or even nationality. His work, ranging from figuration to hyper-abstraction and back, is marked by a transformative restlessness fraught with literal and symbolic forms.
Read More"Long Time No See" by Stephanie Snyder
We know immediately upon encountering the work of Canadian artist and poet Carmen Papalia that he can’t see very well. Signifiers of the artist’s visual impairment are at the center of Papalia’s multimedia installations, whether in the form of altered white canes, or in still- and moving-image documentation of projects in which Papalia re-imagines the meaning of “access,” particularly in museums that purport to care about outreach, education, and diversity, but accomplish little more than marketing campaigns. Papalia wants to change this. First and foremost he wants to change this for himself, but we get to come along too, buoyed by the enormous generosity, wit, and mischievousness that flows through the artist and his work. Papalia even invites us to engage him directly, installing his contact information on the walls of his exhibitions.
Read More"The Reality of Abstraction" by Shlomit Dror
“Nothing is more abstract than reality,” according to Giorgio Morandi. The work and practice of the artists named galería perdida investigates the kind of volatility that surfaces precisely in situations that seem transparent. Labor, for example, is a prominent subject for the collective; it represents a way for the artists to acknowledge (even to champion) the effort and creativity involved in the production and design of common objects, cajoling the viewer to look beyond the obvious, beyond the “real.”
Read More"Specific Site: The Art of Tyree Guyton" by Justine Lai
We must be careful about romanticizing the fire.
Here are the facts: on May 3, 2013, an act of arson nearly destroyed one of the iconic components of Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project, an outdoor installation spanning multiple blocks on Detroit’s east side. Located on Heidelberg Street and vicinity, the installation consists of houses (some occupied, others abandoned), vacant lots, trees, sidewalks, and streets transformed with layers of bright paint and assemblages of salvaged objects.
Read More"Hip Hop Others" by Cat Kron
The album cover for 2 Live Crew's rap LP, As Nasty As They Wanna Be, shows four black women on the beach. Their backs to the camera, their profiles obscured by loose hair, the women's most noticeable features are their asses, revealed by thong bathing-bottoms. Under the triangles of the women's legs the members of 2 Live Crew sprout fully formed. They beam at the viewer from the hillside below, their black shirts offsetting multiple gold chains. The composition strikes one as though the women's asses are their faces, as if, in a curious perspectival reverse they are holding up the back row in a class picture shot from behind, with 2 Live Crew sitting up front.
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