“Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour,
before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities,
to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.” - H.W. Fowler
By Paco Barragán
Some weeks ago I met Barry Schwabsky at ‘Garrison’ in Bermondsy, a café only a block away from Delfina’s in [...]
Art’s bad boys are back. Examining the complex interfaces which have emerged between ethics, aesthetics, and politics in recent art practices, this article expands upon some of the themes raised by “The Ethics of Encounter,” an exhibition I curated at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh in Winter 2010/11. It included works by The Atlas Group, François Bucher, [...]
“I love how you you are all the time!”
By Jeff Edwards
Over the last few years, Ryan Trecartin has done for video what James Joyce once did to language: torn it open, twisted it back on itself, and transformed it into a goopy metanarrative soup where everything operates on multiple levels at once, often at cross [...]
The Spanish-Icelandic artist duo Libia Castro (born 1969 in Madrid) and Ólafur Ólafsson (born 1973 in Reykjavik) are representing Iceland at the 54th Venice Biennale 2011, which opened in June. We met the artists in the middle of the production of their new video and performance works for this occasion. The interview was conducted between [...]
In spite of the growing push toward dematerialization of works of art since the pronouncement of the death of art at the end of the nineteenth century, the path toward the immaterial has been historically inhibited by the still dominant notion that it silences art, and that in one way or another translates it into [...]
Since its inception 100 years ago, Abstraction in painting has gone from art world provocateur to art market darling. Today, when much abstract painting seems to want only to please the eye, who are the artists redefining the language of abstraction and from where are they drawing their inspiration? The following essay answers these questions [...]
By Michele Robecchi
The importance of alter egos, doubles, counterparts, and polar opposites can hardly be underestimated in contemporary art. The list of works dealing with it is endless. There are the ongoing series of paintings Roman Opalka and On Kawara have dedicated to the passing of time; Andy Warhol’s iconic serigraphy prints; Alighiero & Boetti’s [...]
By Paco Barragán
The curator is looking for himself. I guess that’s what is happening to most of us engaged in curating, be it freelance or for an institution, so you may well consider this article a kind of mea culpa based on my own experiences. The funny thing now is that everybody wants to be [...]
In the past ten years a proliferation of visual work that embraces the style of digital error has crept into mainstream advertising and popular culture. Recent and ongoing events such as GLI.TC/H in Chicago and Bent Festival in New York City have helped to establish an international dialogue for artists working in this digital underground. [...]
Pablo Helguera (1971, Mexico City) is an interdisciplinary artist and Director of Adult and Academic Programs in the Department of Education at the MoMA, New York. Our conversation evolves around concepts like inclusion-exclusion, active and passive participation, performance and its reproduction, and the validity of art activism today.
By Paco Barragán
Paco Barragán -As Georgia Kotretsos [...]
