News & Opinion - Art in America

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Crossing Over: An Interview with Ron Nagle

"This is my big crossover," Ron Nagle told A.I.A. on the phone from his studio in San Francisco last week. The threshold to which the artist was referring is the 55th Venice Biennale—specifically Massimiliano Gioni's exhibition, "The Encyclopedic Palace," that opened in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini and the Arsenale to VIP visitors today and in which Nagle has 30 pieces. Read More

Carol Bove Colonizes the High Line

by Zoe Larkins 5/22/13

Approaching Prudence—one of the seven sculptures that Carol Bove recently installed on the High Line's Rail Yards segment—Cecilia Alemani, curator of High Line Art, pointed out where the vegetation first appears on this northernmost stretch of the elevated park. This spot is where Bove's "nature walk" begins. Alemani spoke with A.i.A. last week, soon after Friends of the High Line began giving tours of the final portion of the track, which has not yet been renovated like the rest of the park. Bove's multipart installation "Caterpillar" will be on view here through May 2014.

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Elad Lassry Brings Ballet to the Kitchen

by Zoe Larkins 9/6/12

Next Thursday, Elad Lassry's performance, Untitled (Presence), will debut at The Kitchen. Lassry staged an earlier iteration of the work at the Hayworth Theater in LA in March, as a prelude to an exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery. The performance in New York is part of an exhibition of new photographs, sculptures and a film by the artist, also at The Kitchen. This show is the first to which The Kitchen has given over both its downstairs and upstairs spaces. "I'm interested in the performance functioning as a piece within my exhibition," Lassry told A.i.A.
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Steve Powers's Sign Language

by Zoe Larkins 8/30/12

"This is my play for greatness," Steve Powers told A.i.A. at the Icy Sign Shop, his Downtown Brooklyn studio, last week. Powers was describing new paintings he has prepared for his first solo gallery show in New York since 2004, opening Sept. 6 at Joshua Liner Gallery.

While Powers talked at Icy Signs, two assistants, whom he calls "sign mechanics," sat painting bold-lettered idioms and cartoonish illustrations on four-foot-square aluminum panels. These will be included in the exhibition, as will Powers's "metaltations," eight-by-ten-inch enamel-on-aluminum panels that the artist paints daily from sketches he makes during his morning commute on the subway. (He frequently posts photographs of the finished paintings on his blog.)
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Wendy Helps You Spiritually Connect at MoMA PS1

by Zoe Larkins 7/6/12

On Saturday, MoMA PS1 kicks off its 15th summer Warm Up. This year, Wendy, a spiky blue mass that floats in a steel scaffold, will cool crowds at the Saturday concerts in the museum's courtyard. Matthias Hollwich and Marc Kushner, of the New York architecture firm HWKN, won this year's Young Architects Program (YAP) award (now in its 13th year) with their design for the work.

Last Sunday, in an on-site interview with A.i.A, Hollwich described how Wendy will do more than shade concert-goers. Pointing to one of the work's pyramidal arms dripping cool water, he explained that the structure functions as an air purification system. The bright nylon surface is coated with titania nanoparticle (TiO2), which breaks down nitrogen oxide (NO2), the pollutant produced by most cars. Hollwich and Kushner expect Wendy to remove the equivalent of 260 cars' exhaust from the air during a two-month installation this summer.
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