Author Archives: jolanta
Toronto Via New York With Eight Artists
As its title and subtitle imply, the human figure informs storytelling, whose attendant connotations of fantasy, intimacy, and attentiveness set the exhibition’s tone. Ernest Concepcion’s black-and-white paintings tell war stories through the lens of the news media and cinema. Further stressing cinema, Concepcion embellishes these war scenes with science fiction genre monsters, for instance, a […]
Volta, Basel
Volta8, BaselJune 11th – June 16th VOLTA is a platform for presenting the vision of contemporary art galleries of global repute whose artists represent new and relevant positions for curators and collectors alike. Conceived to bridge a gap between Basel’s pre-existing fairs, VOLTA showcases galleries – whether young or mature – that choose as their […]
Grid/Un-Grid
Baras’ small, quirky paintings are varied in application—overworked in parts, encrusted or otherwise incised. Untitled 8081 looks like caked cement dipped in a puddle of gasoline. It’s surface is violently scratched and scraped down like a palette, yet unable to get all those old globs fully off. After grating away to the bottom layer, the […]
Week In Review: Wasted In Manhattan
America is, and has been for decades, drowning in a massive pile of trash. We produce trash many times a day. Eventually, it accumulates and we end up not knowing where to put all of it, but in a trashcan. And why is this? Because of excessive consumerism and a state of mind we have […]
Berlin Slows Down To Take A Seat
You cannot visit Berlin without visiting a museum. Some might think this is because of the fabulous collections and great choice of exhibitions constantly offered in the German capital. But, it is also because you don’t necessarily pay for a ticket to enter a museum. You can get it all for free! Why is that? […]
Roberto Pugliese’s Sound Installations: A Bi-Continental Review
If this piece begs the visitor to cross the border of “inside” and “outside” spatial concepts, Roberto’s first project in the U.S. titled A Voice In The Desert (2012), expands space even further; marking the desert of Texas with an installation of 5 square steel frames and as many speakers. The optical and sonic grid […]
Despair And The Decoding of Duchamp’s Fresh Widow
Of course, we know that Rose Selavy did not really exist. Rather, she was an early attempt by the artist to create a female alter ego for himself through the use of a pseudonym. The fictitious name and copyright were carefully printed in Helvetica across a small wooden base that supported a modest French window […]
In The Collector’s Salon
In a sense, then, Matisse and Picasso, at that time mostly unknown, along with Raoul du Gardier and Henri Manguin–now more obscure than ever–were a substitute, as the Steins must themselves have been to ambitious artists in search of ready money. It was a good match, nevertheless: the Steins, subject to a Jamesian revelation of […]
Artistic Sabotage In The Baloney Republic
Hungarian visual arts have hardly been a roaring international success over the last twenty years, especially when we consider the truly remarkable theater, music, and cinema produced here. Still, Hungarian visual artists such as the Little Warsaw group, Róza El-Hassan, and Hajnal Németh participated in major European and international exhibitions; some artists attained a modicum […]
In Conversation: Jean Manuel Beauchamp Interviews John Zinsser
John Zinsser: Yes, “studio time.” Here in Greenpoint, the sky is always grey, depressive—it’s “nowhere time.” There is always this urgency to do something. But it’s so impossible to do anything. So I try to find these “devices” to keep moving. A lot of the little sketches are done as just sort of “warm-ups.” To […]
