Claudia Arozqueta

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  picks May 12, 2011

  “Points of Contact: Jim Allen, Len Lye, Hélio Oiticica”

  This exhibition examines the connections that can be made between works by Jim Allen, one of the most prominent performance and installation artists based in New Zealand, and two of his influences: the Kiwi expatriate experimental filmmaker and sculptor Len Lye and the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica. Curated by Mercedes Vicente and Tyler Cann, the show presents a focused and careful selection of work by these three artists that engages with artificial light, color, and movement. Lye explores the relation between light kinetics and sound: The sculpture titled Grass, 1961–65, consists of thin

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  picks March 15, 2011

  “Face to Face”

  For the first time after the 2008 South Ossetia war, Moscow welcomes an exhibition of contemporary Georgian photographers. Curated by Nestan Nijaradze, the exhibition aims to reacquaint Russian audiences with the range of work being made in this country. The show itself is replete with more than sixty works that demonstrate the diverse aesthetic strategies used by different generations of Georgian artists. Yuri Mechitov explores portraiture in the series “Untitled,” 1978–90, which captures the extraordinary universe of filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov, one of the most outstanding directors of Soviet

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  picks November 26, 2010

  Yakov Kazhdan

  On entering Yakov Kazhdan’s latest exhibition, visitors encounter Art Delivers People (all works 2010), a spoof on Richard Serra’s seminal 1973 video Television Delivers People. In Serra’s work, scrolling texts construct a critique of television as a mechanism of social manipulation. Kazhdan's piece reiterates Serra’s texts but with crucial substitutions, making some of the sentences about not television but art. (One phrase reads ART DEFINES THE WORLD SO AS TO NOT THREATEN THE STATUS QUO.) Yet the artist critiques his own practice as well; in an adjacent room is Discussion Table, a wooden pie

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  picks October 18, 2010

  “Žen d’Art: The Gender History of Art in the Post-Soviet Space, 1989–2009”

  Social equity was one of the principal priorities during the Soviet period of Russian history, and this extended, at least ideologically, to the pursuit of parity between men and women. With the collapse of the Soviet system, everything changed, not only political strategies but also social relationships, concerns, and values. Curated by Natalia Kamenetskaya and Oksana Sarkisyan, “Žen d’Art” considers the emergence of gender-oriented art in the post-Soviet era. In this exhibition, visitors engage in an intimate archaeology of Russian artistic projects (from 1989 to 2009) that take up femininity

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  picks April 14, 2010

  “Futurologia”

  “Futurologia,” a group exhibition curated by Hervé Mikaeloff, examines the legacy of the twentieth-century avant-garde through the works of fifteen contemporary Russian artists. The show is divided into two different themes. In “Science and Fiction,” the art collective Electroboutique stands out with their 3G International, 2010, a sculpture that blends the shape of an iPhone with Vladimir Tatlin’s 1919 Monument to the Third International, and draws attention to the ways in which art has become a commodity, specifically in opposition to the avant-garde ideals. Quantum of Affect, 2010, by Afrika

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  picks November 13, 2009

  Anna Jermolaewa

  This solo exhibition by the Vienna-based Russian artist Anna Jermolaewa offers a single video projection: Der Weg nach oben (The Way Up), 2008, which shows a group of rats trapped inside a glass cage in an animal market in Mexico City. Restrained in this small space, the rodents ruthlessly try to climb upward and look for escape, one above and against the other, in desperation. By capturing this distressing and claustrophobic scene, Jermolaewa turns a seemingly commonplace aspect of everyday life into a revealing moment with multiple meanings. On the one hand, she makes the viewer a witness to

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  picks October 06, 2009

  “Presuntos Culpables”

  “Presuntos Culpables” (Alleged Culprits) is a group exhibition of artworks—photographs, installations, videos, objects, and drawings—that explore confinement in prison. Pericles Lavat’s series, titled “Aquí Estuvo Su Padre Putos” (Your Father Waz Here Motha’fuckers), 2002, consists of interior shots of an abandoned prison. By depicting remains of objects and decorations that were left inside cells, the pictures evince the identity and language codes of the spaces’ inhabitants. In Time Divisa, 2006–2009, Antonio Vega Macotela explores time as a container of actions through 365 exchanges with

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  picks July 13, 2009

  David Hominal

  In his first solo show in Geneva, the Swiss artist David Hominal offers a series of recent wall pieces as well as a group of three-dimensional works that demonstrate his intensive and expressive art practice. Near the entrance of the gallery, three paper bags rest on horizontal wooden planks supported by an aluminum frame, composing I Fail, I Fail Again, I Fail Better, 2009. In . . . Avec vue sur la mer ( . . . With a View on the Sea), 2009, a row of old windowpanes, once part of a ship, are strung, free-hanging, across the larger exhibition space. The “Element” series, 2009, Typewriter, 2006,

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  picks June 23, 2009

  “The Future Depends on You”

  “The Future Depends on You” offers twenty-one artists from contemporary Russian artists, including standouts from AES+F, Yuri Albert, Sergei Bratkov, Anatoly Osmolovsky, and Olga Chernysheva. The exhibition aims to present and promote Russian art within the country and is divided into seven general themes: idea, revolution, the body, parody, society, neoclassicism, and psychedelia. The documentation from Oleg Kulik’s performance I Bite America and America Bites Me, 1997, references Joseph Beuys’s iconic I Like America and America Likes Me, 1974. For his action, Beuys spent three days living in

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  picks April 15, 2009

  “Recursos Incontrolables y Otros Desplazamientos Naturales”

  “Recursos Incontrolables y Otros Desplazamientos Naturales” (Uncontrollable Resources and Other Natural Displacements) presents a selection of works from the collection of the recently opened Contemporary Art University Museum in Mexico City. More complex than a typical show, the exhibition explores the discourse surrounding Mexican art, with documents and curatorial work by the recently deceased art historian and critic Olivier Debroise. Over thirty works—including videos, photographs, paintings, drawings, and installations made over several decades—evince the contrasts between nature, left

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  picks February 23, 2009

  “Another Mythology”

  This exhibition examines the multiple ways in which contemporary artists construct new forms of myth––from imaginaries of the universe to their everyday lives. Rich in juxtapositions, the show creates dialogues between the work of Russian artists—such as Oleg Kulik, Yuri Leiderman, and Pavel Pepperstein—and others from an international roster including Jonathan Meese, Tony Matelli, and Tony Oursler. Jake and Dinos Chapman’s Forehead, 1997, is a multiheaded monster, a mutant imbued with the qualities of mythical characters. In the video Balkan Erotic Epic: Woman with Skull, 2005, Marina Abramovic

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  picks January 09, 2009

  Teresa Margolles

  A 115-foot acrylic band, sticky with an ocher substance that appears to be human blood mixed with water, welcomes visitors to Teresa Margolles’s exhibition. Titled “En Lugar de los Hechos” (In Place of the Facts), Margolles’s exhibition draws attention to a region in Mexico where inhumane acts and insensitivity to people in pain flourish as a result of drug-related offenses. Near the entrance, six plastic gasoline containers, composing Sangre Recuperada (Recovered Blood), 2008, also present the dark-hued mixture. On an adjacent wall, the thirty-seven works in Pinturas de Sangre (Paintings of