Summer 2013
Raised against the backdrop of the Gulf War in a futuristic yet already vintage Kuwait colonized by Japanese manga imagery, Fatima Al Qadiri developed an advanced mixture of music and a unique imaginary. Babak Radboy met with her to talk about her influences.
Prior to being a teacher and a writer, Chris Kraus was a journalist, co-founder of Semiotext(e) and filmmaker with art-world ties. Her awareness of the art context, combined with sharp analytical capacities, informs her brilliant writing. Quinn Latimer and Kraus discuss her latest novel.
The output of German artist Günther Förg spans over four decades, and is striking for its timeliness and relevance to the ongoing debates about the possibilities of painting. Kirsty Bell talked with him about his working process.
Do the production, storage and circulation of images today imply a responsibility to them and to their care? João Ribas argues that contemporary images force us to move beyond basic aesthetic categories into the realm of ethics.
For the occasion of the solo show at Kunsthalle Zürich covering twenty years of Cameron Jamie‘s activity, Andrea Lissoni offers a thorough interpretation of the artist’s ouvre that springs from a thousand rivulets of research into cultural and subcultural phenomena, shaping a very personal imaginary.
Nav Haq analyzes Kerry James Marshall‘s pictorial work that reveals the dictatorship of an intrinsically discriminatory iconography, showing how art can become a tool of reappropriation and expansion of our collective unconscious.
Every artwork offers a theory of knowledge, not simply a chance to make value judgments. So why does taste still call the shots, with all its overtones of personal insecurity and desire for approval? After analyzing the field of personal appraisals, Jennifer Allen points out a new possibility for taste.
In 1986 Ull Hohn left Germany for New York. In the Whitney ISP he began to hone a conceptual approach to painting that took concrete form in fantastic stylistic promiscuity. In LOST AND FOUND, Tom Burr and Fionn Meade trace back through the vision unfurled by Hohn across the short span of his life.
J. Hoberman met with filmmaker Ericka Beckman. After emerging from the Lower Manhattan art scene in the late 1970s, Beckman has maintained a remarkably consistent set of concerns. Taking their structure, rhythm and imagery from games, her films are familiar yet enigmatic.
The concept of “Network painting” has gained currency due to the fact that the idea of the network is a valuable framing device for the contemporary moment—and for contemporary art. Domenick Ammirati‘s overview raises some critical questions.
NICE TO MEET YOU: Lauren Cornell interviews Avery Singer about her project method and the historical inspirations behind her style; Hans Ulrich Obrist meets with Paulo Nazareth to talk about his extraordinary voyage-work on foot.
The “Blue Marble” shot became the icon of “Californian ideology.” In a conversation with Ana Ofak, Diedrich Diederichsen, co-curator [with Anselm Franke] of the exhibition The Whole Earth in Berlin, reflects upon the fears of the Californian counterculture.
A charmer, a dandy, a magician: Andrew Berardini paints a portrait of James Lee Byars, with his talismans and monuments.
Jens Hoffmann speaks with Fulya Erdemci, Massimiliano Gioni, Sofia Hernández Chong Cuy, Gunnar Kvaran and Catherine de Zegher, curators of upcoming biennials, to examine how their approaches have been affected by recent debates on the status of biennials.
BERLIN: The decade-long research of Kader Attia on the ontological status of repaired objects stage a dialectics of destruction and healing. Ana Teixeira Pinto spoke to the artist on the verge of his exhibition at KW in Berlin.
LONDON: Laura McLean-Ferris explores the aesthetic approach of Hannah Perry, Heather Phillipson and Camilla Willis‘s videos, their use of lo-fi, messy imagery and their appropriation of rhythms of speech as forms of poetry in an urban tongue.
LOS ANGELES: Surfacing in a historical moment governed by strong gender bias, Channa Horwitz was a figure unjustly overlooked by her contemporaries. Cecilia Alemani offers a precise, multifaceted portrait of this extremely original artist.
NEW YORK: The seductive feminine cyborgs encrusted with electronic detritus and the post-apocalyptic scenarios of Stewart Uoo offer food for interesting thought processed with Juliana Huxtable on the relationship between the artist’s work, transgenderism and other issues.
Trinh T. Minh-ha reinterprets the status of the documentary, examining the way an open perspective can reveal something that engages those who see and those who are seen, bringing the work onto a different, unexpected terrain.
The films of Gabriel Abrantes trigger problematic issues, and explore the essence of complex, unresolved leanings. Filipa Ramos talks to him about his relationship with references and sources, and the aims of his works.
The practice of exhibition remakes runs the gamut of creative and critical possibilities. Chelsea Haines outlines a dozen exhibitions that take former shows as their starting points, examining the reasons behind this growing trend in curatorial practice today.