Amy Simon

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  print February 2008

  Glen Rubsamen

  Glen Rubsamen’s exhibition of new work, “A Reassuring Lie Unfolds,” consisted of work in several media: drawing, painting, printmaking, and video. He uses all four to create a hyperreal landscape, documenting man’s attempt to rectify nature. As indicated in an accompanying text, the images depict a scene after a lightning storm in an open field and the subsequent destruction of trees containing storks’ nests. A tower was built and faux nests installed in the hope that the birds would return.

  In his first drawing, hanging in the reception area outside the main gallery space, one is introduced to

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  picks January 22, 2008

  “Danskjävlar—en Svensk kaerlighedserklaering” (Danish Bastards—A Swedish Declaration of Love)

  “Danskjävlar—en Svensk kaerlighedserklaering” (Danish Bastards—A Swedish Declaration of Love) is the inaugural exhibition at the newly renovated, redefined, and reopened Kunsthal Charlottenborg, curated by its new Swedish director, Bo Nilsson. The title, a famous quote taken from a Lars von Trier Danish TV series, exemplifies the combination of warmth and frustration experienced by the Swedish main character toward his host country. Curated from this “outside” perspective, the twenty artists exemplify the breadth of the Danish art scene, and the luxury of space granted them—each has his or her

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  print May 2007

  Nahum Tevet

  Nahum Tevet lives and works in Tel Aviv, “the white city,” which is in the midst of a construction boom even as areas are deteriorating. His work reflects the quintessence of the city—its light and its air, and above all its indomitability. Despite the title of the current exhibition, “Works, 1994–2006,” the show begins with a key work from 1976 (though reworked in 2006), Pages from a Catalogue (Cézanne), 14 Times 81 x 65 cm, which gives a two-dimensional introduction to what lies ahead. Its monochromatic (off-white), De Stijl–like system of forms creates a tension that is repeated time and

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  print April 2006

  ARS 06

  Unlike the Technicolor world in The Wizard of Oz, where good ultimately outweighs evil, ARS 06 (“Sense of the Real”), the seventh in a series of international exhibitions held in Helsinki since 1961, has given way to the dark side. The sometimes surreal fantasy worlds in many of the artworks presented appear as a mere backdrop for the harsher realities of the present and future, allowing the viewer a false sense of security. Although thematically the link between the one hundred artworks by forty artists has to do with, according to a wall text, “what art says about the world and humanity,” the