On March 14, Maceo Paisley officially released his book, Tao of Maceo at NAVEL. The book launch was accompanied by a performance with dancer, Brianna Mims and a screening of Paisleyβs short film, DYNAMITE, as well as a short Q&A with Maceo & our managing editor, Summer Bowie. photographs by Lani Trock
Fred Wilsonβs Afro Kismet lays bare questions of visibility: where are Africans in historical accounts of early Europe? How have the narratives institutionalized by museums erased the presence of black individuals of the past and present. Over seven trips to Istanbul, Fred Wilson researched these questions, continuing the project he started in Re: Claiming Egypt and Speak of Me as I Am, his shows at the 1992 Cairo Biennale and 2003 Venice Biennale. In those works, Wilson revealed the black diasporas of each region β histories made obsolete in the Western collective imagination. He continues to interrogate the peripheral treatment of such histories in Afro Kismet, this time mining the history of Istanbul. Afro Kismet is on view through April 27 at Maccarone 300 South Mission Rd, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
New Works is a new series of sculptural works, and large-format drawings on paper, that continue to explore multidisciplinary artist: Tim Hawkinson's playful and morbid morphologies. The artist disassembles the familiar and stages dysfunctional propositions in which the self repeatedly appears as the only, albeit imperfect, measure of experience and inventive return to obsessive craft in service concept exists in an expanded and embodied field, dramatized by the inclusion of living variables like time, breath (sound), and movement. New Works is on view through March 30 at DENK Gallery 749 East Temple Street, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of the gallery
Defining a culture that comprises 7100 islands, centuries of colonization, and an overwhelming desire to assimilate is profound and Sisyphean. Unlike a migration that takes place over land, the ocean seems to wash away all evidence of the traveled path. The historical narrative that has framed Filipino-American immigration is fraught with this eternal question of identity and belonging. Being part Filipino myself, I learned very little about my grandmotherβs life story while she was alive. It wasnβt until after she passed away and my grandfather published her memoirs that I learned just how harrowing her journey had been.
After attending the world premiere of FLEX, a dance theater piece that explores primarily the story of choreographer, Jay Carlonβs father and his immigration from the Philippines to the States, I realized that the erasure of these stories is rather commonplace. Click here to read more.
Pussykrew is a nomadic duo of Polish new media artists Ewelina Alexandrowicz and Andrzej Wojtas. The centerpiece of the show is the artistsβ most recent project, the bliss of metamorphing collapse, presented as multiscreen video installation and virtual reality experience. Using real-time animation and VR sculpting tools, Pussykrew create new supernatural scenery as they re-imagine the future post-human landscape, new living beings, and their ecosystem. This multidimensional work is designed to explore speculative life forms that exist within a networked consciousness, beyond synthetic/organic conditions: the fluid entities that transcend traditional hierarchical binary systems. The audience is summoned into the artist-created universe where newly evolved, gender-free organisms become the augmented hybrids of a body, technology, and nature, and the sentient sense of the past. The Bliss Of Metamorphing Collapse is on view through April 13 at Postmasters 54 Franklin Street, New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery
Fondazione Pradaβs βSurrogati. Un amore idealeβ (Surrogate. A Love Ideal) comprises a selection of 42 photographic works by Jamie Diamond (Brooklyn, USA, 1983) and Elena Dorfman (Boston, USA, 1965.) The project explores the notions of familial, romantic and sexual love. Both artists focus on a specific and unconventional aspect of this universal theme: the emotional link between a man or a woman and a synthetic representation of a human. As explained by Melissa Harris, βtogether, Diamondβs and Dorfmanβs work presented in βSurrogatiβ vividly and non-judgmentally documents the interactions of humans with their lifelike, inanimate companions.β Both photographers portrayed these lifelike surrogates as desired, fetishized, and idealized beings, βlivingβ as such with their flesh and blood mothers and partners, and sometimes with their immediate families as well. βSurrogati. Un amore idealeβ will be on view through July 22 at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II Piazza del Duomo, 20123. photographs by Mattia Balsamini
What does it mean to be a twenty-first century renaissance man? For Maceo Paisley, a wide range of disciplines comes together in a positive feedback loop that supports his indefatigable exploration of human behavior. Using embodied inquiry, he investigates his own identity and presents his findings in performance and film. A prolific writer of prose, he just released his first book Tao of Maceo, which takes inventory of his personal beliefs and aims to define his perspective more acutely. Stepping off the stage, he cultivates community through his Chinatown gallery, Nous Tous and a multi-pronged community practice/social innovation agency called Citizens of Culture. Click here to read more
Bad Lucky Indian is Natalie Ball's first solo exhibition in New York. Her art engages proposals of refusal, complicating easily affirmed and consumable narratives and identities without absolutes. The exhibition will be on view through April 13 at Half Gallery 43 East 78th Street, New York. photographs courtesy of Half Gallery
Where the political left was once the clear bastion of free speech and expression in the U.S., it could be argued that the new left silences thought and speech perceived as antithetical or offensive to its values almost as much as the right wing does, or did. This is a problem for culture, and evidently, for art. βPolitical correctness,β says Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Ε½iΕΎek, βis a desperate attempt by the public norms to tell you what is decent, what is not.β What Ε½iΕΎek suggests here is that political correctness can be harmful in its ability to obscure the truth and dilute public discourse; by sanitizing rhetoric we sanitize cultural meaning. This climate of over-the-top, politically correct theatrics has infiltrated the art world; artβs job is ultimately to push back on societal taboos and interrogate prevailing norms. Good art is almost always offensive to someone. Click here to read more
Hockney β Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature demonstrates the influence of Van Gogh on Hockneyβs work, exploring both artistsβ fascination with nature, their use of bright, contrasting colors and their experimentation with perspective. This exhibition is the first extensive monographic Hockney exhibition to be organised in the Netherlands. The exhibition features works representing all of the techniques in his oeuvre. None of the works have been on display in the Netherlands before. Hockney β Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature will be on view through May 6 at the Van Gogh Museum 1070 AJ, Amsterdam. photographs courtesy of Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)
Robert Duran in his studio, 431 Broome Street, New York, c. 1968. Photograph by Stephanie Chrisman
Robert Duran: 1968β1970 presents a selection of Duranβs earliest paintings, which were born from a time when the then young artist concurrently experimented in minimalist sculpture. Closely examining Duranβs practice within these years, one can recognize the forms and structures of his sculptures loosely illustrating the paintings surfaces, as if tracing the evolution from his sculptural pursuits to the lyrical style of painting that he became known for. Robert Duran: 1968β1970 will be on view through March 31 at Karma 188 E 2nd Street New York
Lowell Ryan Projects presents Color Out of Space, a group exhibition inspired by the eponymous short story of H.P. Lovecraft that brings together works by Mark Flood, Nasim Hantehzadeh, Kysa Johnson, Laurie Nye, and Galen Trezise. In Lovecraftβs story, a meteorite crashes in a remote farm and, as it shrinks, releases globules of βimpossible to describeβ colors that have mutative effects on the surrounding plants, animals, and humans. No solution is found. No motive is uncovered. βDo not ask me for my opinion,β the unnamed narrator concludes. βI do not knowβthat is all.β Color Out of Space will be on view until April 6 at Lowell Ryan Projects, 4851 West Adams Blvd.
Meredith Monk performed Cellular Songs on March 2nd at UCLAβs Royce Hall. Following the celebrated On Behalf of Nature, which offered a liminal space questioning the precarious state of our global ecology, Cellular Songs turns attention inward to the very fabric of life itself. Joined by the women of her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble, Monk combines some of her most adventurous vocal music to date with movement, light, instrumental music and film, as well as a video installation designed specifically for each space. photographs by Julieta Cervantes
Meredith Monk will also be performing at the LA Phil on June 11 &12.
Inspired by the life of explorer Alexandra David-NΓ©el, Meredith Monkβs three-act βquest operaβ uses Monkβs inimitable and hypnotic style to explore the loss and rediscovery of our inherent wonder. More than 20 years since Atlas first made its impact, Yuval Sharon will conceive and direct this landmark new production.
Silke Otto-Knappβs Land and Sea presents six watercolor paintings that wrap around the walls of the gallery like a sweeping horizon line. Spaced apart from each other, and installed low on the wall, the paintings achieve a weighted physical presence, and depict a group of seascapes. In the center of the gallery, a configuration of freestanding walls display vertically oriented multi-paneled paintings scaled in relation to the human form. One tableau features numerous figures activating the pictorial plane in their engagements with geometric shapes. Another larger work portrays a sequence of dancers in different positions. Each composition shifts between alternating positive and negative figure-ground relationships, creating the illusion of movement. Land and Sea is on view through March 30 at Regen Projects 6750 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles. photographs by Evan Bedford, Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Cristian RΔduΘΔβs animals march in droves. A Noahβs Ark of improvised genetic anomalies populate Nicodim Gallery like an emergency spawning ground, but no two are paired or exactly alike. Apelikenesses can be seen from one angle and a shuffle of animalian ciphers from the other. RΔduΘΔ is their shepherd, bringing to each form a unique trembling glory. This harmonious pattern of origin storiesβboth raw and cookedβludically swirl in the artistβs grand tale of a double helix. His creatures are echos of archetypes, songs from a golden record played deep in outer space. Cristian RΔduΘΔ: The Diamond Hunters is on view through April 13 at Nicodim Gallery 571 South Anderson Street. photographs provided by Nicodim Gallery
FOCUS: Agnes Martin is an exhibition that places the artistβs sole completed film, Gabriel (1976), in conversation with an intimate selection of her abstract paintings. A screening room and adjoining gallery of paintings creates an immersive, meditative environment that highlights the relationship between Martinβs work and her conception of joy. βI thought my movie was going to be about happiness,β Martin commented on the production of the film, βbut when I saw it finished, it turned out to be about joyβthe same thing my paintings are about.β The exhibition will mark the second of the FOCUS series, which encourages sustained contemplation of landmark artworks by artists rooted in the galleryβs program, alongside related selections from their oeuvres. FOCUS: Agnes Martin will be on view through April 13 at LΓ©vy Gorvy 22 Old Bond Street, London. photograph courtesy of the gallery
Helen Frankenthaler, New York City, 1974. Photograph by Alexander Liberman
Source: International Center for Photography
Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) is one of the most important and influential postwar painters, whose abstract compositions, featuring brilliant expanses of color and light, have inspired generations of artists and changed the course of art history. She led the way from Abstract Expressionism to a new and vital form of painterly lyricism that heralded the Color Field movement. On view in this exhibition are some twenty major large-scale paintings that celebrate the New York-born artistβs formidable, six-decade career. A classic Frankenthaler work, Swan Lake II (1961), filled with ethereal pools of electric blue, grays, and deep red, against a neutral ground, is a quintessential example of her unparalleled achievement. Helen: Frankenthaler: Selected Paintings will be on view through May 18 at Yares Art 745 5th Ave.
Iβm Blue (If I Was βββββ I Would Die) reconfigures the exhibition space into an imaginary seminar room for law enforcement personnel. Upon entering, visitors encounter what initially resembles a classroom with desks, black board, and an instructional video. In a nod towards the Blue Lives Matter countermovement that has developed in response to Black Lives Matter, American Artist has sculpturally reconfigured the first two elements. Fortified school desks barricade the video screen, while blue police fabric prevents those sitting in desks from seeing the film. The black board, outfitted with the same familiar blue cloth, only allows those reading from it to speculate on the prominence of blue. Onscreen, in place of an instructional video, visitors instead find a speaking digital character. Fabricated by Artist, the characterβs speech interweaves imagined and quoted statements taken from two characters, one fictional, one real. Iβm Blue (If I Was βββββ I Would Die) is on view through April 13 at Koenig & Clinton 1329 Willoughby Ave. Images courtesy the artist, Koenig & Clinton, Brooklyn. Photo: Jeffrey Sturges, New York
Eccentric Reflexivity 1988β1994 is a solo show of works by artist, sculptor and architect Jorge Pardo. In essence, Eccentric Reflexivity 1988β1994 is a non-nostalgic remembrance, appreciation, and documentation of the process of becoming an artist, featuring works imagined, created and produced during a specific period in Jorge Pardoβs life while and just after he was a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. The exhibition explores and investigates Pardoβs playful aesthetic, while offering sly anti-Duchampean commentary on what can transform everyday objects, or ready-madesβmany imbued with symbolic, art historical and autobiographical referencesβinto art. Eccentric Reflexivity 1988-1994 is on view through April 20, 2019 at Petzel 35 East 67th Street, New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery
Carol Rama: Eye of Eyes celebrates the symbolic language developed by this luminary of the Italian avant-garde. Presenting works made over a nearly six decade span, the exhibition encompasses watercolors, paintings, and works from the highly-charged Bricolage series, in which Rama incorporated personally significant objects and materials into her paintings. Carol Rama: Eye of Eyes is on view through March 23 at LΓ©vy Gorvy in New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery
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