"Stratagems in Architecture: Hong Kong in Venice" During The Venice Architecture Biennale 2016

Hong Kong is a city known for its versatility and resilience; yet what is often seen in daily life is rigidity and lack of alternatives. Architecture, under such circumstance, becomes an agency reflecting on human, social and even political conditions, and at the same time moulding the values of the public. On one hand, it conforms to the rules of capitalism and private demand; on the other, it seeks to transcend the norm and open up imagination. What lies in between could be conflictive and creates endless and ever-changing battlefields. New ideas are put to test at the borderline; they may fail or they may transform into new set of values. Working on the margins often unveils the social dilemma – whether human need should be replaced by the need for progress and wealth. The classical Chinese essay Thirty-Six Stratagems is a collection of military tactics applied at wars in ancient China. The wisdom provides guides in politics, business and civil interaction in modern time. The stratagems are categorized into chapters that illustrate different situations, both advantageous and disadvantageous. Drawing reference from the classic, the exhibiting architects and artists examine the challenges they face and attempt to provide solutions to the complexity of reality. “Stratagems in Architecture: Hong Kong in Venice” will be on view as a collateral event during the Venice Architecture Biennale, which runs until November 26, 2016. Location: Venue Campo della Tana, Castello 2126-30122 Venezia, Italia (opposite the main entrance of Arsenale)

"Home Economics" At the British Pavilion For The Venice Architecture Biennale 2016

Visitors approaching the British Pavilion are welcomed by an over-sized Georgian panelled door. To prevent the spread of plague, Queen Elizabeth I forbade families from sharing homes by saying “each must have their own front door”, a decree that led to the advent of the terraced house and entrenched the importance of the front door in the British psyche. Black, glossy and monolithic, the Home Economics front door dominates the central axis of the Giardini as a monument to the British home, inviting visitors to explore the different environments. Home Economics responds to the Biennale Architettura 2016 curator Alejandro Aravena’s theme Reporting from the Front by tackling the frontline of British architecture: the home. The curators, Shumi Bose, Jack Self and Finn Williams, were chosen following an open call organized by the British Council and have invited established and emerging artists, architects and designers to produce immersive 1:1 environments, which challenge the status quo and propose new models for the home. Home Economics asks questions of British society and architectural culture that have come about as a result of changes in patterns of everyday life. The exhibition unfolds through a series of five architectural propositions, designed around incremental amounts of time: Hours, Days, Months, Years and Decades. Each room designer has been asked to propose architectural responses, rather than solutions, to the conditions imposed on domestic life by varying amounts of occupancy, and each response inhabits one of the five rooms in the British Pavilion. Home Economics will be open to the public throughout the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia from 28 May to 27 November 2016 - at the Giardini. photographs by Sara Kaufman

Yayoi Kusama "Narcissus Garden" At the Glass House in Connecticut

The Glass House is pleased to present Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden, a landscape installation that will be on view throughout the 2016 tour season to celebrate the 110th anniversary of Philip Johnson’s birth and the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Glass House site to the public. First created fifty years ago in 1966 for the 33rd Venice Biennale, this iteration of Narcissus Garden will be incorporated into the Glass House’s 49-acre landscape. Narcissus Garden, comprising 1,300 floating steel spheres, each approximately 12 inches in diameter (30 cm) will be installed in the Lower Meadow and forest, creating a dramatic view to the west of the Glass House. Drifting in the newly restored pond, the spheres will move with the wind and follow the pond’s natural currents, forming a kinetic sculpture. Their mirrored surfaces will reflect the surrounding Pond Pavilion (1962), wooded landscape, and sky.  Yayoi Kusama "Narcissus Garden" will be on view until November 30, 2016 at The Glass House, click here to schedule a tour. text by Adam Lehrer

Read "Hate-Rosexuality" Morrisey's Missive On American Politics and The Orlando Shooting →

Although the gunman who massacred 49 people at an Orlando gay club is said to have been 'repulsed' by homosexuality, he nonetheless left behind a slew of self-adoring 'selfies'; a handsome man gazing enchantedly at his own face. It is therefore acceptable for him to lovingly admire his own maleness, but it is not OK for other men to like other men. Does Islamic scripture say it is fitting for a man to sit alone taking adoring photographs of himself? I doubt it. Click here to read more. 

Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" Opening Night @ Hammer Museum In Los Angeles

This is what we talk about all the time. "Los Angeles is having an artistic Renaissance," we say. "Now is the time to be in LA." But what do we mean when we say that? Are we talking about fine art, galleries like Hauser and Wirth and Venus over Manhattan opening up shop in Downtown LA? Are we talking about artists who are moving here from Paris, New York, London? What about subculture, the undercurrent of this city, are we seeing the realization of young, bright, radical minds, or were they there all along? It is difficult to recognize history as it happens, predominately because of the fluidity of geography, time, and language. "Los Angeles" means many different things. "Art" means many different things. The 26 artists exhibiting at the Hammer Museum's Biennial "Made in L.A." expand the curbs of the city's "Renaissance." Walking through the various galleries of the Hammer one finds paintings, embroideries, light installations, fashion designs, ephemera, performances, videos, magical objects, cans of Budweiser and more. In one room one sees the dark, natural-history-museum-esque objects of the wrinkling and toothless Kenzi Shiokava. The next room plays a film by 26-year-old Martine Syms, in which the artist reads Black Power articles on her iphone in the dentists office. "Los Angeles" means a lot of things. "Art" means a lot of things. An exhibition featuring "Los Angeles Artists" can only be dynamic, extensive, and provocative. Perhaps the best description of this diverse work is the exhibition's subtitle, "a, the, though, only." Los Angeles is not a dictatorial force over artists who are passive conduits for its agenda. It is the in-between word - the preposition - the place where things and people move, imagine and create. Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" will be on view until August 28, 2016 at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA. Text and photographs by Keely Shinners. 

Watch The Artist Announcement for Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" @ The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles

The third iteration of the Hammer’s biennial exhibition continues to highlight the practices of artists working throughout Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. As part of an ongoing series, Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" addresses Los Angeles as a center of activity inseparable from the global network of art production and reveals how artists move fluidly between contexts and respond to their local conditions. Subtitled by the minimalist poet and writer Aram Saroyan as his contribution to the exhibition, Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" extends into such disciplines as dance, fashion, literature, music, film, and performance. Rather than a unifying regional aesthetic, sensibility, or identity historically associated with Los Angeles, Made in L.A. 2016 focuses on artists from different disciplinary backgrounds, allowing individual projects and bodies of work to shape the overall exhibition. It features condensed monographic surveys, comprehensive displays of multiyear projects, the premiere of new bodies of work, and newly commissioned works from emerging artists. Made in L.A. 2016 "a, the, though, only" will be on view from June 12 to August 28, 2016 at Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard

Highlights From The 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art "The Present In Drag" by Alexander Coggin

The 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art seeks to materialize the digital condition and the paradoxes that increasingly make up the world in 2016: the virtual as the real, nations as brands, people as data, culture as capital, wellness as politics, happiness as GDP, and so on. With its selection of exhibition venues it aims to shape-shift across multiple sites, each one releasing a whiff of contemporary “paradessence” (paradox + essence). The 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art "The Present In Drag" will be on view until September 18, 2016. Photographs by Alexander Coggin. 

Riddle Of The Burial Ground Group Show @ Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp

In concrete-clad tunnels deep within the earth, radioactive matter is being buried on a daily basis. It is only a question of time before this creates an environmental catastrophe. Not a day goes by without men somehow ruining the planet. Every day we somehow mark our existence on this Earthby transforming the landscape, subverting the rules of nature and, slowly but significantly, damaging it beyond repair.  Just as we now can admire vestiges of past civilizations such as ancient ruins, the generations after us will linger overexcavated caverns andunnaturally bright tunnels. Layersand layers of lethal material, piled underground and ready to react: the catacombs of the future. But when exactly will this be? Who are the people that will look at this catastrophe? How do we even know that there will be people on Earth by that time? Taking responsibility for the future has become the resounding imperative of our age, but  how do we relate to something lost in an undefined future? Such are the questions asked in the group exhibition ‘Riddle of the Burial Grounds,’ which stares unblinkingly into this future: a trashed landscape of industrial ruin, where humanity somehow seems to have lost its dominant role. Riddle of The Burial Ground will be on view until July 17th, 2016 at Extra City Kunsthal, Eikelstraat 25, Antwerp. text and photographs by Sara Kaufman