By Janet Batet
On Tuesday, May 12, South Florida environmental activists invaded the beaches of Miami Beach in an extraordinary procession. Dozens of activists broke through the peaceful, clear cloudless sky, covering tourists with sheets of black plastic, which like a gloomy cloak astonished them by inopportunely interrupting their sun bathing. Their performance -an effective allegory [...]
The 2008 Whitney Biennial had me prowling the large halls of the Park Avenue Armory and participating in a performance while sipping absinthe. The upcoming 2010 biennial promises to be less sprawling and perhaps, in tune with the economic crisis that has erupted since, a bit more sobering. It also simply might be the case [...]
By Pablo España
Public art that attempts to go beyond mere urban decoration has always had a marked social and even political character. We find ourselves at a moment in time when this practice has become incorporated into the mechanisms of “spectacularization” and institutionalization of contemporary art, where its potential is neutralized.
In order to speak of [...]
By Domenico Quaranta
“Where is reality? Can you show it to me?”
Heinz Von Foerster 1
Reality Construction and Simulation
The relationship between media and reality has been debated since the very beginning of Western culture. The two main keywords at stake here are: representation and construction. According to the first, media portray reality; according to the second, [...]
ASK GOOGLE…
If we think of an artist whose work analyzes our technological, media and internet-based society in a critical and challenging manner, the name of young Mexican artist Emilio Chapela Perez (1978, Mexico City) easily comes to mind. Communication, interpretation, and translation are key concepts in an original artistic practice that both [...]
Jaime Gili (*1972 in Caracas, lives and works in London) is known for his large-scale acrylic paintings that show geometrical forms in truly explosive compositions; an intricate mesh of forms and colors catches the spectator’s attention and draws it into the paintings or, on the contrary, with a dynamic impulse launches it beyond the artworks’ [...]
By Claude Temin-Vergez
Painting’s omnipresence today is difficult to untangle from the climate of insecurity and safe value strategies associated with its format. Although it might seem fair to a medium that had been precipitated into darkness in past decades by the advent of conceptualism, the installation generation and the tidal wave of new media, its [...]
By Ernesto Menéndez-Conde
What is social about art is its intrinsic movement against society
Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory (1)
This commune is a place in which the design of the trays is better than in the outside world.
Liam Gillick, Literally No Place (2)
During the last fifteen years, the British artist Liam Gillick has created parallels between his personal [...]
From 2000 on, German artist Anja Ciupka has developed a semi-figurative formal language in her installations, sculptures, videos, and paper. Her experimental approach takes an ironic look at the perception of the human being in society and often plays with the subversive occupation of space. I met Anja Ciupka (1975, Zwickau, lives and works in [...]
A Conversation with Paco Barragán
Based in London, Mexican artist, curator and dealer Pablo de la Barra is a person who likes to reinvent himself and engage with artistic production and the public in innovative ways. His modus operandi is a good example of the changes the art world and the art market have been [...]
