April–May 2016
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In this issue: Goshka Macuga; A.I. and beauty; Cally Spooner; Marguerite Humeau; paranoid-lit; Sam Lewitt and Max Hooper Schneider; Tauba Auerbach and Carol Bove; Rebecca Warren and Albert Oehlen; an ode to the art of forgetting; queerness and the “third space”; a new role for the collectors; Jill Mulleady; Matt Copson; Paulo Nimer Pjota; Sondra Perry; Céline Condorelli; Simone Fattal; Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige; an essay on belly dancing; Mark van Yetter; Andrew Durbin with Richard Hawkins, and Monica Majoli.
One the most iconic images of Goshka Macuga‘s exhibition at Fondazione Prada in Milan is an android entertaining visitors with discourses on humankind mixed with fragments from famous speeches and books: a telling introduction to her polymath interest in systems of knowledge.
In a recent match between the software AlphaGo and the Korean professional Go champion Lee Sedol, the program carried out an unexpected move that took his human challenger off-guard: John Menick ponders the possibility that move thirty-seven was the result of a skillful, beautiful, creativity.
Sam Thorne interviews London based artists Marguerite Humeau—interested in producing speculative narratives investigating prehistory, occult biology, and Cally Spooner who uses philosophy, pop music, current affairs, and corporate rhetoric as sources and references for her productions that appropriate different performance genres.
Steven Zultanski explains the relation between the shape shifting, impalpable web of government and corporate conspiracy, and the logic that has informed “paranoid literature.”
Sam Lewitt and Max Hooper Schneider have known each other for a very, very long time. In conversation they use a shared, semisecret language of hyper-wittiness and common-ground references, from Hans Haacke to life in the city of Los Angeles.
For a period of six days, the artists Carol Bove and Tauba Auerbach exchanged letters following their daily meditation practice. The process resulted in two parallel conversations: one taking a more personal direction, and the second following a more intellectual route.
The German painter Albert Oehlen interviews Rebecca Warren about her practice: physical work, technical issues and progress in sculpture. The British artist is interested in representations and declinations of the feminine, drawing from references located in different periods in the history of the fine arts, illustration, and pop culture.
In 1975, the American artist and poet Joe Brainard wrote the graceful cult book I Remember built around hundreds of disparate mnemonic sketches, all starting with the eponymous sentence. Jennifer Allen replicates the format to pen an ode to the art of forgetting.
David Everitt Howe investigates a group of artists including A.L. Steiner, A.K. Burns, and MPA who are expressing their resistance to the legitimation of queerness occurring in heteronormative terms via a proposal for a wild, “third space” to advance their desire not to fit.
Ingo Niermann takes to the extreme consequences the Twitter outburst Kanye West made on February 14 in which the rapper invited Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Larry Page (Google) to invest a share of their fortunes in his ideas: what if artists could really coach billionaires into leading a non-boring life while engaging in the development of ambitious, new projects?
Nice To Meet You:
Andrew Berardini takes us on a voyage inside Jill Mulleady‘s dreamy and otherworldly representations that combine heavenly peace, turbulent sensuality, desires and fears, constantly eluding univocal, shortcut interpretations.
In the interview with Norman Rosenthal, one of the most-used words is “psychedelic,” the countercultural neologism derived from the ancient Greek words for “soul” and “to reveal.” The young British artist Matt Copson articulates his interest in Reynard the fox, a medieval, anthropomorphic trickster and a recurring character in his work.
The work of the young Brazilian artist Paulo Nimer Pjota has evolved from graffiti toward a practice that includes references to everyday objects, vernacular architecture, antiques, symbols, street life, and music groups. An allegorical journey through histories and local cultures as explained in the interview with Gunnar B. Kvaran.
The New York–based artist Sondra Perry disrupts rote conditions of viewing in her incisive videos and performances. Her original use of special effects questions the way systems of representation are constructed and opens up a distinct new critical and aesthetic territory. An overview on her work with Lauren Cornell.
In a generous and revealing interview, Céline Condorelli discusses with Tara McDowell her practice across art and architecture, curatorial and display approaches, and her research on the Italian environment, in particular the transformation of museums after World War II and the pioneering figures of Carlo Scarpa and Franco Albini.
Hans Ulrich Obrist takes us along on a visit to Simone Fattal‘s Paris studio. Born in Damascus and now based in California and France, Fattal describes her recent works: some inspired by the history and archeology of the Arab world, and others made within the long-term collaboration with fellow artist and poet Etel Adnan.
Omar Kholeif offers an analysis of the work of the inseparable filmmaker-artist duo Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, who have dedicated their research to representations and histories of their native country, Lebanon, in order to question the fabrication of imaginaries of the region in museums, movie theaters, and the stage.
A fortuitous encounter during an Uber ride inspired Martha Kirszenbaum to recount the rich history of belly dancing from the pre-Biblical era to the metropolitan European vogue of the 20th century, via second-wave feminism and pop culture.
The American artist Mark van Yetter lives and works between Istanbul and Berlin. Forged from a potent blend of memory and imagination, and tempered by the subtle influence of a range of precedents encompassing ancient art, the old masters, folk art and the history of graphic illustration, the imagery in his paintings and drawings is often arresting, but always elusive. A conversation with Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith.
Andrew Durbin talks with his friend and artist Richard Hawkins. Among other topics they discuss the Against Nature exhibition at LACE in 1989, which was co-curated by Hawkins and the novelist Dennis Cooper, and today elicits contemporary considerations about post-AIDS art, activism, and the rise of Los Angeles on the world cultural map.
Sabrina Tarasoff investigates “Black Mirror,” a series of paintings and related preliminary works realized in the last decade by the Los Angeles-based artist Monica Majoli. The artist photographed and subsequently painted a number of her former lovers in a dim light; her relationships to the models, the social complexities arising from the situations, and the interior spaces are the starting point for an articulated reflection on autobiography and artifice.
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