Art in America - Most Recent Finer Things Posts

Roving Eye: Juan Downey Returns to New York

Holly Block — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0100

Last week, pioneering video artist Juan Downey's work finally arrived at the Bronx Museum from Tempe, where it had been on view at the Arizona State University Art Museum. It's the first museum survey in America of the Chilean-born artist (1940–1993). It took over two years of planning for the 100 works in his exhibition "The Invisible Architect" to make it here [where they are on view through May 20], after Arizona and the MIT List Art Center in Cambridge, Mass.

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss

AiA Staff — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0100

This week we check out Thomas Heatherwick's slick furniture and architectural designs at Haunch of Venison, On Kawara's career-long dedication to documenting today's date at David Zwirner, and a cheerfully engaging group show at Joe Sheftel's recently opened Lower East Side gallery.

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss

AiA Staff — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:15:00 +0100

This week we check out Thomas Scheibitz's blocky, collage-inspired compositions at Tanya Bonakdar, wander among Ross Knight's elegantly spare sculptures at Team, and discover Japanese model/curator Mie through the eyes of 35 artists, in a group portrait show at Freight + Volume.

At the DeCordova Biennial, Dreams of Disneyland

Francine Koslow Miller — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0100

The 23 artists and collaboratives in the second DeCordova Biennial [through Apr. 22] live and work in the six original New England states, and the stated purpose of the show is to demonstrate the high level of work being made there. Co-organized by Dina Deitsch, the museum's curator of contemporary art and Abigail Ross Goodman, former director of Boston's Rotenberg Gallery, the show reflects economic instability and self-effacement.

Andrea Fraser Targets Male Take on Feminist Movement, circa 1972

Paul David Young — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0100

"Men on the Line," Andrea Fraser's one-woman, one-night only show at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Los Angeles, Jan. 23, dripped with dramatic irony. Fraser, a performance artist known for her work on institutional critique and the roles and portrayals of women, derived her script from a radio talk show broadcast from 1972, in which three men and a male moderator earnestly discuss the burgeoning feminist movement of the time. "Men on the Line" was presented in connection with the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, sponsored by the Getty Museum.

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss

AiA Staff — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:15:00 +0100

This week we check out the mostly boat- and airplane-themed images that emerged from Malcolm Morley's foray into printmaking at Sue Scott, Joyce Pensato's wonderfully messy studio-in-a-gallery at Friedrich Petzel, and Nick Mauss's installation of folded and cut-out printed aluminum sculptures at 303.

One Book Takes on Creativity

Stephanie Cash — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0100

What compels a person to become an artist, actor or singer, and to make the financial and comfort sacrifices that so often precede success, or accompany failure? A new book offers myriad, unscientific answers. The Art Life: On Creativity and Career is "as much curated as written," says author Stuart Horodner, artistic director of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, which is publishing the 200-page book with funding from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. It will hit bookstores in February (distributed by D.A.P.).

Performance Meddles With Media at APAP

Paul David Young — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:35:00 +0100

While the annual gathering known as APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters) is under way through the end of January, New York is awash in festivals—COIL, Under the Radar, American Realness—each presenting a suite of performances, clamoring for attention and bookings from theaters and promoters across the nation and abroad. The shows in these festivals tend toward the artier end of the theater scene. The ubiquity of video, at these events and in art performance generally, makes genre distinction less and less clear.

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss

AiA Staff — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0100

This week we check out a powerful show of Italian Renaissance portraits at the Met, read through the decades-old psychological evaluations that make up Janet Malcolm's collages at Lori Bookstein, and get a first look at Joel Sternfeld's never-before-exhibited color photos from the 1970s at Luhring Augustine.

Roving Eye: Fuel for Design

Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0100

It took me some time to realize that very few people can choose to work for those in need. And that it takes more than generosity to make things happen. It takes ideas and creativity, which is undertaken by "Design with the Other 90%: Cities," an exhibition about sustainable urban planning organized by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum at the United Nations building in New York [through Jan. 9].

Currents in Sculpture Circa 2011

Fionn Meade — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0100

Art in America's critics write their way through the best of 2011. We've asked leaders in the fine arts to highlight the top works in their areas of special focus. Fionn Meade is a curator and writer based in New York. He is a faculty member at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and in the MFA program for Visual Arts at Columbia University. He was formerly curator at the Sculpture Center.

Roving Eye: Beth DeWoody, in the Blink of an Eye

Bonnie Clearwater — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0100

Collector Beth Rudin DeWoody has the quickest eye around. Her sweeps through art fairs are legendary and her West Palm Beach and New York homes are resplendent with arrangements of art, vintage furniture and other treasures gleaned from her expeditions. I've observed Beth in action on several occasions, but last week I asked if we could sit down to analyze her decision process.

12 Notable Books of 2011

Stephen Maine — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Art in America's critics write their way through the best of 2011. We've asked leaders in the fine arts to highlight the top works in their areas of special focus. Stephen Maine is a Brooklyn-based painter, critic, curator and teacher, and a frequent contributor to this magazine.

2011's Top Ten in Painting

Raphael Rubinstein — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0100

Art in America's critics write their way through the best of 2011. We've asked leaders in the fine arts to highlight the top works in their areas of special focus.

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss

AiA Staff — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:45:00 +0100

This week we check out George McNeil's robust abstractions at Ameringer McEnerny Yohe, appealingly ramshackle tentlike sculptures by Yorgos Sapountzis at Simone Subal, and Mel Bochner's experiments with photography at Peter Freeman.

Roving Eye: A Happy Tracey Emin

Bonnie Clearwater — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0100

Surprisingly enough, when Tracey Emin attended this year's installment of Art Basel Miami Beach, it was her first trip to the city. She came to check out the opening of "Mark Handforth: Rolling Stop" at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, where in two year's time her own major exhibition will kick off the week of Art Basel. She was so enthused by the spirit of the annual MOCA party, and its diverse group of revelers— her friend Julian Schnabel, Art Basel VIPs, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, throngs of North Miami teens, and Yves Jason, mayor of Port-au-Prince—that for a few moments she stood amongst the crowd in the exhibition and thought to herself, "this will be me in two years."

Roving Eye: Rothko in New Orleans

Bonnie Clearwater — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0100

The Tony Award-winning play Red, about Mark Rothko, is currently being produced in regional theaters throughout the United States. As the former curator of the Mark Rothko Foundation, I have become something of a roadie, giving lectures on his work and even interviewing the late artist (the actor in character) in conjunction with the GableStage production in Miami.

The Lookout: A Weekly Guide to Shows You Won't Want to Miss

AiA Staff — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0100

This week we check out Suzanne McClelland's word paintings and wacky video installation at Sue Scott, Jim Hodges's glam disco-ball-and-mirror-heavy exhibition at both Gladstone Gallery locations, and Nan Goldin's sensory-overload photos at Matthew Marks.

New Roads at Maxxi

Sheela Raman — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0100

In its latest incarnation, at the MAXXI in Rome through Jan. 29, the traveling exhibition "Indian Highways" shows how contemporary Indian art reflects frenetic national change, and the ways in which Indian artists are adopting European influences. Rome is the fifth stop in Europe for the exhibition, which first showed at the Astrup Fearnley in Oslo. The show presents 60 works by 30 artists.

OMA Triumphs at Cornell

Faye Hirsch — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0100

Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., has just boosted its architectural profile with a sensitive expansion to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, I.M. Pei's concrete-and-glass modernist jewel of 1973, and the near-completion of the 48,000-square-foot Milstein Hall, a brand-new facility for the College of Architecture designed by OMA partners Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu. It is a return of sorts for Koolhaas, who studied for a year at Cornell in 1972, when the Johnson Museum was under construction.