Dawn Chan

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  interviews June 13, 2014

  Caitlin Lonegan

  The Los Angeles–based artist Caitlin Lonegan creates abstract paintings that are concerned with perception and illusion. In addition to participating in the “Made in LA 2014” biennial exhibition on view at the Hammer Museum from June 15 to September 7, where she will show a range of large- and small-scale work, Lonegan will also publish her first-ever artist’s book with Laxart later this year. Here, she talks about the new role of narration in her work, as well as the importance of her studio as a site for experiencing her paintings over time.

  FOR “MADE IN LA,” the curators and I decided to do

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  interviews June 07, 2014

  Danica Novgorodoff

  For fans of the Brooklyn–based graphic novelist Danica Novgorodoff, a long wait is finally paying off: Novgorodoff—author of Slow Storm, 2008, and Refresh, Refresh, 2009—recently published The Undertaking of Lily Chen, 2014, with First Second after working on the project for five years. Here, on the occasion of Artforum’s summer issue focus on graphic novels, Novgorodoff talks about her process, her references, and the challenges to creating a narrative that, in her words, is both “Eastern folklore and Western drama.”

  THE BOOK revolves around an ancient Chinese tradition of ghost marriages, in

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  diary February 27, 2014

  Triple Threat

  LAST YEAR I had to reckon with the fact that online magazine Triple Canopy was no longer just some little-known project run by friends. A public program of theirs in New York had sold out, and we were left shivering on Freeman Street. “But I know them!” And more pathetically: “I was in a band with one of them in college.”

  Saying that they’ve “blown up” is a tad hyperbolic—after all, our context is that of publishing and nonprofit art spaces. Plus, some of you out there probably knew Stefani Germanotta at NYU. Still, the fact is, the group is now six years old and has already worked with the New

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  interviews January 15, 2014

  Arlene Shechet

  A Guggenheim fellow and Joan Mitchell Foundation grantee, Arlene Shechet is perhaps best known for her formally complex, often humorous ceramic works. Her upcoming museum exhibition at RISD features art that grew out of work with the Meissen porcelain factory in Dresden over the past year and a half. Here, Shechet talks about her latest body of work, and her show’s both celebratory and subversive take on the long history of porcelain. The exhibition is on view from January 17 to July 6, 2014.

  THOUGH I HAD NEVER WORKED IN PORCELAIN, I knew a lot about it and was very interested in working in a

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  picks October 17, 2013

  “A Modest Occupation”

  If present-day lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow and early Black Flag somehow teamed up to make art, the results might look like what’s on view in “A Modest Occupation”—covetable stuff that sticks it to the Man. Curator Abigail Satinsky documents a selection of goodies that’ve gone out to homes across the US via fifteen different subscription-based art services. Inspired by the boxes of kale and fennel divided up among stakeholders of community-supported agriculture, these DIY art-distribution programs (which range from the Bay Area–based Alula Editions to the Drop in New Orleans) seem, at their

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  interviews May 29, 2013

  Tavares Strachan

  The artist representing the inaugural Bahamas pavilion at the Fifty-Fifth Venice Biennale is Bahamian Tavares Strachan, who has had solo shows at the MIT List Visual Arts Center as well as at the Brooklyn Museum, where in 2009 he exhibited The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project), 2004–2008, a block of ice Strachan brought back from an expedition to the North Pole. Displacement is a theme that runs through his work, whether in the context of geographical distance and scientific measurement or in the context of cultural dislocation and loss. Here, he talks about

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  interviews February 18, 2013

  Allyson Vieira

  Allyson Vieira is a New York–based sculptor. Between installing her work at MetroTech Center in Brooklyn for “Configurations,” which is on view until September 16, and prepping for a solo show in New York at Laurel Gitlen from February 22 to March 24, as well as a joint show with Stephen Ellis this summer at Non Objectif Sud in Tulette, France, and then a solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel in September, Vieira recently took time off to travel to Greece for research. Here she talks about her fascination with the Hellenic architectural and sculptural legacy, and how it informs her practice.

  THERE

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  diary November 09, 2012

  New Normal

  “THE CITY’S FULL of dogs with jobs,” noted Irene Hofmann from within the white Citroën van transporting us through Bogotá. Hofmann—the director and chief curator of SITE Santa Fe—was referring to the Rottweilers and golden retrievers who, at the bidding of security guards (or sometimes soldiers in fatigues), nosed through the bags of visitors to the upscale high-rise buildings that compete for views in the foothills arching around the metropolis’s eastern edge. Security seemed permanently heightened. Downtown, at the Corferias convention center, not one but two rounds of metal detectors greeted

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  diary August 05, 2012

  Magic Mike

  HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED that whenever the leisure class receives its comeuppance, the women get the worst of it? Just ask Marie Antoinette, or Imelda Marcos, or the women who braved downpours to attend the Watermill Center’s annual summer benefit in the Hamptons. Thanks to the rain that just wouldn’t let up, we were at a severe disadvantage—“we” being those of us with hair that could deflate, eyeliner that could dribble, and heels that sank directly into the muddy grounds. (And have you ever noticed that men’s dress shoes are practically rain boots?) As guests made their way up stairs to the

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  diary April 29, 2012

  In the Zona

  THERE’S A SMALL ALTAR off to one side of Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral. Compared to the massive, baroque church organ across the aisle, or the statues of Mary with ashen skin, it’s unassuming and easy to miss. The altar is covered with a tangle of padlocks, an offering to San Ramón Nonato, protector of anyone imperiled by gossip and rumor. Visitors attach their own locks to the display, while praying that they’ll be delivered from the evil of wagging tongues. The week before last, despite all of Raymond Nonnatus’s powers, the art world conjured itself to the Centro Banamex a mere eight

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  picks April 07, 2012

  Jimmie Durham

  In 1984, Jimmie Durham described himself as “a Cherokee artist who strives to make Cherokee art that is considered just as universal and without limits as the art of any white man.” This challenge—to make work that reads as both personal and universal—has long been familiar to artists who’ve watched themselves or their work get marginalized. In his current show, Durham has found yet another sly, inspired solution to that very conundrum he pinpointed nearly twenty years ago and has continued to address ever since.

  “Maquette for a Museum of Switzerland” takes a playful look at the nation that gave

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  interviews December 27, 2011

  Thomas Chen and Adele Röder

  As one half of the collective DAS INSTITUT, Adele Röder has often employed printed textiles in the multimedia exhibitions she stages with Kerstin Brätsch. Thomas Chen, designer of the women’s clothing label Emmanuelle, developed his own line after working for a number of other designers, including Thakoon; his designs are currently stocked at Creatures of Comfort in New York and Colette in Paris, among other stores. Röder and Chen recently decided to collaborate on a print for Emmanuelle’s Spring 2012 collection. Here, they talk about the process that led them to the final product.

  OUR IDEA was