Open Secrets: Gossip and the Reframing of a Canadian Painting Dynasty
The October 12, 2019, edition of CBC Radio’s “Weekend AM Newfoundland with Heather Barrett” begins with a Thanksgiving-themed story about Newfoundland’s love of the…
After the Afterparty: Alan Belcher and Friends, in Retrospect
Alan Belcher’s Friends at Downs & Ross is an afterparty. The works in the exhibition are a series of mascot-like plush sculptures sitting in…
The Art We Deserve: Luc Tuymans’s Exhausted Image
After days of historic high water and watching Venice’s warren of shops and restaurants struggle to survive, it was a relief to enter the…
In the Waiting Room: The Sticky, Slippery Duration of “Sick Time”
It’s my last morning in Detroit, where I’ve come for two days to see an art exhibition. The wind’s picking up as I stand…
Land and Landlessness: A Conversation with Larry Towell
Despite living all his life in peaceful rural Ontario, celebrated photojournalist Larry Towell’s work is characterized by struggle, from his projects in Gaza and…
Let Them Eat Crystal: Rodney Graham and the Bankruptcy of Ironic Art
The following words are angry. Their author has discarded the separation between emotion and analysis customary in his line of work. How else could…
The Signs for Where We Meet: A Conversation Between Robert Fones and James Kirkpatrick
At the center of contemporary art, there is increasingly the absence of any center at all. We are flown wide, work digitally, and shuttle…
It’s Okay to Laugh: The Political Turn in Bridget Moser’s Prop Art
When we meet on St. Catherine Street in Montreal on a chilly Thursday afternoon in October, Bridget Moser tells me she has recently been…
Episode 15: “What Makes Great Art?” with Isabel Lewis
For this month’s episode circling the question “what makes great art?”, Lauren Wetmore spoke with Berlin-based artist Isabel Lewis. Lewis was trained in…
Decolonization is Not a Metaphor: The Toronto Biennial Fights its Frame
The fanfare and the pageantry of press junkets, patrons’ previews, and inaugural performances have long subsided. A reluctant holdout, I belatedly find myself in…
John Boskovich Steers His Own “Recovery”
In the fall of 2018 the Guggenheim presented a retrospective of 19th-century Swedish artist Hilma af Klint to a zealous, if unsuspecting, audience. The…
A Provisional Biennial Amid Istanbul’s Endless Restoration
Everything is always under construction. In Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, the famed church-turned-mosque-turned-museum, has, over the centuries, seen earthquakes, bloodbaths, and any number of politically…
Unequal Planes: Vancouver’s Architectural Clash of Ideal and Real
When socio-political awareness gathers to a breaking point, and nerves are raw, and people start getting fed up, fantasy runs into problems. In fraught…
Fantastic Emissions: Mika Rottenberg’s Labor of Mystification
“Once in a while it happens that I vomit up a bunny,” confesses the narrator of Julio Cortázar’s “Letter to a Young Lady in…
Marfa’s Two-Step: The Uneasy Landscape of Minimalist Heaven
I was lured by the promise of a sepia-tinged ideal: west Texas golden hours and wide-open spaces. A visit to Marfa had long been…
Episode 14: “What Makes Great Art?” with Jarrett Earnest
For this month’s episode, towards our season’s question, “what makes great art?”, Sky Goodden spoke with artist, curator, and writer Jarrett Earnest. Earnest…