Author Archives: jolanta

I am interested in exploring the nuclear-powered sublime on a firsthand basis. Over the past several years, this interest has provoked excursions to malignant locations like the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, former East German Atomic Bunkers, and the Swedish Space Corporation’s Esrange Launch Site in the Arctic Circle. In addition to these specifically charged spaces, I […]

Portrait painters often choose to accentuate particular qualities in their subjects. Louis XIV’s court painter, Hyacinthe Rigaud, idealized the king to make him appear youthful and to glorify the monarchy. Napoleon’s painter, Jacques-Louis David, highlighted the leader’s military prowess. Although she too has painted Napoleon and Louis XIV (Rigaud’s version as well as Leonardo DiCaprio’s), […]

Danica Phelps is best known for her drawings and paintings that expose intimate aspects of her personal life with a remarkably systematic diligence. Stark illustrations depict her daily activities, from the mundane to the erotic, while painted stripes denote the frequency of both. She also carefully tracks and displays her financial transactions in this manner, […]

It is not surprising. Maurizio Cattelan, international star of the contemporary art scene, and Banksy, international star of the counterculture scene, have a lot in common. Arriving at the MoMA in New York from the Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, Cattelan owes his success to a true communicative talent, the ability to falsify, the […]

These paintings celebrate contested space. They describe places that are simultaneously intimate and desolate. These are locations devoid of any particular focus, and yet are of possible significance—places where someone might be conceived and, as likely, someone might expire. My interest in depicting such ambiguous spaces, so often hidden or overlooked, is that they represent […]

Recent modernization of the whole world has had a profound impact on all aspects of our lives, from our eating habits to our way of thinking, to our attitude toward traditional values. It has prompted me to reflect on our living space. I have attempted to understand, through visual means, finer details of these significant […]

Celebrities live in the realm of memory, existing entirely as snap-shots in our minds. The identity of Paris Hilton, for example, is defined by its perpetual absence. Like a ghost, her existence rests always on the reality of un-reality, on the unseen and the untouched. In this way, her image is her being; she begins […]

I. Ya no sé como empezó. Tengo recuerdos, sí. Pero a la luz de los acontecimientos ¿fueron esos hechos los desencadenantes? Guardo imágenes muy potentes desde mi primera infancia. Imágenes que son totalmente diferentes de las que vinieron después. Imágenes de antes de la palabra.   Luciana Cesari  Courtesy of the artist. I. Ya no […]

I love contradictions. I think that the only thing that holds life together is the constant necessity to contradict oneself. What would art and death be without them? I remember going back to a time when I was a fetus; this was during a hypnosis session, of course. I had the feeling that it was […]