previews May 2008

Anish Kapoor

Anish Kapoor's sculptures draw on broad references: nineteenth-century Indian architecture, Turner sunsets, Minimalism, viscera. It has been fifteen years since his last US museum survey, and the ICA's flexible, high-ceilinged galleries promise the right fit for his increasingly monumental work.

Anish Kapoor's sculptures draw on broad references: nineteenth-century Indian architecture, Turner sunsets, Minimalism, viscera. It has been fifteen years since his last US museum survey, and the ICA's flexible, high-ceilinged galleries promise the right fit for his increasingly monumental work. The venue will be stripped of its interior walls, in order to accommodate thirteen of Kapoor's large works, dating from 1979 to 2007, most making their US debut. The exhibition will feature Kapoor's signature pieces in pigment, mirror, and wax, including two selections from his

Kim Young Jin, I, My, Me, 2004, 2-channel synchronized video projection, pleated screen, two DVD players, and two projectors.

previews September 2004

Past in Reverse: Contemporary Art of East Asia

After a nearly decadelong succession of regionally themed surveys of contemporary Asian art, “Past in Reverse” explores how twenty-one artists and collectives reinterpret indigenous forms such as scroll paintings. The show not only presents the usual suspects (Cai Guo-Qiang, Wang Qingsong) but also takes a risk with a long roster of unknowns.

The regionally themed survey of contemporary Asian art, met with generic “East meets West” curatorial rhetoric, can seem as outdated as fusion cuisine. After a nearly decadelong succession of such offerings, “Past in Reverse” explores how twenty-one artists and collectives reinterpret indigenous forms such as scroll paintings. The show not only presents the usual suspects (Cai Guo-Qiang, Wang Qingsong) but also takes a risk with a long roster of unknowns, suggesting that while East Asia now has claim to a bevy of internationally established artists, it remains a hotbed of experimentation.

Dayanita Singh, First Communion, Saligao, 2000, 2001, c-print, 100 x 100 cm

previews September 2004

Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India

This show of more than eighty works by thirty-two artists and collectives hopes to do for contemporary Indian art what “Inside Out: New Chinese Art” did in 1998 for art from China.

This show of more than eighty works by thirty-two artists and collectives hopes to do for contemporary Indian art what “Inside Out: New Chinese Art” did in 1998 for art from China. That is, to provide both regional and global contexts that challenge preconceptions of recent art from India—whose presence in Western pop culture is often limited to Bollywood, yoga, and outsourcing. The show presents work by urban, nondiasporic artists like documentary photographer Dayanita Singh yet also takes a curatorial risk by offering pieces by rural folk artists such as painter Swarna Chitrakar, who reinterprets

print Summer 2002

Manual Labor

EXHIBITIONS OF NEW MEDIA tend to focus on the new; as a result, artists working with computers in the ’80s who set precedents for today’s technologically savvy photographers, video artists, and Net artists often get overlooked. Take Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom, aka Manual: The duo has been experimenting with digital manipulation since 1985, eleven years after they pioneered montage and text techniques that eerily presage many a Photoshop construction or Flash animation, yet Manual is rarely referenced in articles or shows of new-media art. This summer, Hill and Bloom—who contributed to Artforum

news October 11, 2001

SWISS INSTITUTE WANTS TO PLAY

“The Swiss Institute is in no way a showcase of Swiss culture,” says Marc-Olivier Wahler, when I ask him what’s Swiss about the New York exhibition space and arts organization. In response, the affable young curator hired last October to reinvigorate the institute’s program gives me a quizzical look, as if my question were incomprehensible. “If it were so, it would be boring, and I wouldn’t be here.”

For Wahler, Switzerland is as much a metaphor as an actual country. “Switzerland is not a nation. It’s an attitude of self-effacement, of stealth,” he insists. “It’s invisible, but once you see it,

news September 06, 2001

US NEWS ROUNDUP

THE ARMORY SHOW 2002 BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE: Last year’s Armory Show seemed to suffer from growing pains. As attendance doubled to 20,000 from the previous year, many visitors and participants complained about a lack of organization at the two-venue structure. So how will the 2002 edition, scheduled for February 21-25 at the same location, piers 88 and 90 in Manhattan, and headed by a new managing director, former investment banker Timothy H. Smith, compare? When the deadline for applications arrived on August 31, over 600 galleries had contacted the organizers, seeking one of only 150 slots—twenty

news September 04, 2001

A DEITCH GROWS IN BROOKLYN

Imagine the following: a raw, unfinished new gallery space in Williamsburg that’s open evenings and Sundays but closed on Saturdays; inside, hard-to-sell art such as a Web-based installation by the British Net-art collective Fakeshop; on some evenings, musical events; and, last but not least, a weekly Webcast talk show. Sounds like an upstart artist-run, grant-funded nonprofit space, right? Or perhaps a boutique run by a bookish, Deleuzian critic turned dealer? An elaborate conceptual artwork produced by a European artist?

None of these, it turns out, describe the new 4000-square-foot gallery

news October 2001

David A. Ross

AS ABRUPTLY AS THE DEATH of a Silicon Valley dot-com, David A. Ross’s flashy three-year stint as director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art came to an end on August 16, when he unexpectedly resigned. The departure was so sudden that even Ross’s wife, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, called her husband’s decision “a surprise.”

“I’ve worked in art museums without interruption for nearly thirty-two years. The prospect of some time to think is, quite frankly, a dream come true,” Ross explained when asked why he interrupted his largely successful run at SF MoMA—during which museum

news August 31, 2001

YOKOHAMA TRIENNALE OPENS THIS WEEKEND

Billed as “the first large-scale international exhibition to be held in Japan,” the Yokohama Triennale, titled “Mega-Wave,” seems to find itself in the same paradoxical position so many international art shows now find themselves in: The more it tries to establish itself as a must-visit destination, the less you thrill at the prospect of spending fifteen or eighteen hours in flight to get there. Its shiny list of well-recognized artists and curators, carefully designed to generate interest and critical attention, makes it feel, in fact, too much like other large international festivals.

Like last

news August 21, 2001

DAVID A. ROSS RESIGNS FROM SF MoMA

David A. Ross abruptly resigned as director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (www.sfmoma.org) last Friday, a position he had accepted after leaving the Whitney Museum of American Art three years ago. The move came so unexpectedly that the San Francisco Chronicle, in an article published on Friday, quoted several people prominent in the San Francisco art community expressing their disbelief. The story even quoted Ross’s wife saying that the move was “a surprise."

In an attempt to explain their director’s unexpected departure, the museum’s board of trustees issued a statement saying that

news August 17, 2001

NATIONAL NEWS ROUNDUP

DENVER ART MUSEUM HIRES NEW-MEDIA AND PHOTO CURATOR: After a year-long search, John Pultz has been named a consulting curator of photography and new media for the Denver Art Museum's modern and contemporary art department (www.denverartmuseum.org). In addition to planning the display of the museum's collection of photography in its new contemporary art wing, which will open in 2005, Pultz will organize photography, video, and digital-art exhibitions, and intends to continue his current duties as associate professor of art history and curator of photography at the Spencer Museum of Art at the

news August 15, 2001

MARK DION AND CLAIRE COREY HONORED BY ALDRICH MUSEUM

Conceptual artist Mark Dion has been named the recipient of the 2001 Larry Aldrich Foundation Award. Selected by a panel that included, among others, curator Thelma Golden, artist Doug Aitken, gallerist Bill Maynes, writer and curator Dominique Nahas, and founding director of the New Museum, Marcia Tucker, Dion receives $25,000 and a show at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (www.aldrichart.org), which gives the award annually to an American artist whose work has been influential in the previous three years. Past recipients have included Elizabeth Murray, Cindy Sherman, Bruce Nauman, Robert

Reena Jana