Author Archives: jolanta

Two “golden ages” of sexuality come together in Paul P.’s tender drawings of sinuous, slightly gawky young men. Rendering his subjects in cinematic close-up, the young Canadian artist complicates the figures’ origins, 70s gay porn, with the grandeur and heightened sensibility of late-19th-century portraits. His subject matter recalls North America before AIDS while his style […]

History and memory are seldom directly experienced. Re-enactments represent an artistic scrutinization of media images, replacing these images with a direct and often visceral experience while at the same time pointing out the way in which media shapes our collective memory. In a re-enactment, the audience, which normally remains passive, or at a certain distance […]

Ward Shelley is an artist’s artist. His pieces make you stop and consider every work you have ever seen, everything you have ever read about art. Shelley’s work is intense and challenges, almost dares, the viewer to question content, intent. In 2004, he literally holed up in Pierogi gallery, climbing throughout the gallery walls, living […]

In my experience, telling a person that he isn’t fun doesn’t do too much damage to his ego. Although it is, of course, totally uncool to be un-fun, it’s not exactly the most pointed of insults. The feeling is vague, the critique general, and the whole thing begs the return, “Is that really the best […]

The complex sculptural work of Italian artist Gianfranco Meggiato has a primordial life and a spirituality all its own. His bronze-latticed spheres and melting, magma-like cubes create an emotionally charged impact, reminiscent of the sun’s ever-burning but life-giving surface. These bronze orbs call to mind the power and immensity of the universe that surrounds us. […]

I was born in England in 1944. I worked and exhibited in London and Southern England until moving to New Zealand in 1973. Since my arrival, I have lived and worked as a full-time painter in Christchurch. I moved to New York in 1989, where I worked fro a year and exhibited in Manhattan and […]

“You have to have the ability to bullshit yourself,” sculptor Daniel Edwards explained in a recent telephone interview, regarding his work. The work itself is violent, ironic, and highly invested in the conflict and inherent drama of celebrity culture: he has recently sculpted Britney Spears giving birth, the first excrement of Suri Cruise, and a […]

Aaron Holz’s recent work uses images drawn from popular culture to create small-scale paintings on panel. Scavenging through and selecting out disposable images, he appropriates online video and still images using word searches such as injured or fight. The work includes everything from drunkenness to Ultimate Fighting. “Images of drunkenness, injury, and public exposure posted […]

Why are people who live in different cities or different neighborhoods, who have different occupations and interests, attracted by the same works and to the same artists? Why do we have the same taste for certain themes or ways of dealing with them in exhibitions or biennials? Is the tradition of the new so strong […]