Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (1922–2019) Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, whose lucent works ally modernist abstraction with Islamic ornament, has died at age ninety-seven. Renowned internationally for her dazzling, painstaking mirrorwork, in later life Farmanfarmaian rose to prominence as one of Iran’s foremost contemporary artists as well as one of its most prolific Continue Reading
Studio Drift creates elegant installations and interactive sculptures that explore the relationship between nature, human and technology. The creative duo currently has a solo show at the new, spectacular Amos Rex art museum in Helsinki. During my visit there, I was vexed to learn that everybody but me knew the Continue Reading
A week ago, i was in Rome to visit the spectacular Centrale Montemartini (a former power plant converted into a museum for Ancient Rome sculptures) and an exhibition at MAXXI about artistic imaginaries in the age of AI. That one had a couple of very good works (by Nathaniel Mellors Continue Reading
It’s easy to be a future-phobic these days. It’s easy to be anxious, dubious, critical about what tomorrow will bring. Unfortunately, it’s less easy to ignore the future and pretend we don’t care. The future is, as we know, already here with its cohort of mass extinction, private armies, state Continue Reading
Fergus Greer, “Leigh Bowery, Session III, Look 15” (1990) (image © Fergus Greer, courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery) LONDON — Disco terrorist. Queer monster. Modern art on legs. Impossible to pin down, Leigh Bowery was a monument to his own great, self-willed perversity. He turned his hulking body into a living Continue Reading
A rendering of the BQP proposal (all images by Bjarke Ingels Group: BIG) Architecture firm BIG has unveiled a proposal to replace a decaying section of New York City’s Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) with a park. The proposal reroutes traffic to a subterranean roadway that would also include underground parking. The Continue Reading
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (1989), installation view at Sheridan Square in New York’s West Village, organized by Public Art Fund (photo courtesy Public Art Fund and the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation © Felix Gonzalez-Torres) There are only two lines of text on the pitch-black billboard Felix Gonzalez-Torres debuted in 1989, but every Continue Reading
Screenshot of the Rembrandt Reality app (all photos courtesy Capitola) AMSTERDAM — Recently I walked into a painting. I entered it and was surrounded by its enveloping darkness, its piecemeal illuminations. I walked in front of and sometimes faced each of the characters arrayed around a central figure, a corpse, Continue Reading
LA Art Book Fair 2017 (photo by Rob MacInnis) The LA Art Book Fair (LAABF) first launched in 2013 as the West Coast version of Printed Matter’s popular New York Art Book Fair. Despite the stereotype that Angelenos aren’t a particularly bookish bunch, “the truth is that there are pockets Continue Reading
Marina Abramović’s art pushes the boundary between audience and artist in pursuit of heightened consciousness and personal change. In her groundbreaking 2010 work, “The Artist Is Present,” she simply sat in a chair facing her audience, for eight hours a day … with powerfully moving results. Her boldest work may Continue Reading
When Emperor Akihito abdicates on April 30 it will, quite literally, be the end of an era for Japan. Crown Prince Naruhito will formally accede to the Chrysanthemum Throne and the event will be marked by a change of era name, from “Heisei” to “Reiwa”. An announcement of this at Continue Reading
If ever you happen to be in or near the city of Mechelen in Belgium this Spring (Spring starting in February courtesy of global warming of course), don’t miss a small but incredibly fascinating show at WINDOWBOX #, an artist-run space a short walk away from the splendid Saint Rumbold’s Continue Reading
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