Applying “Applied Art”: Gropius Bau Mines Old Division Under New Direction
The term “applied art” can only read as a misnomer in 2019, when the line between strictly functional and purely aesthetic art practices has…
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Deeper Wounds: Nep Sidhu and Aestheticizing Trauma
To reconstitute memory that has been violently suppressed, we often turn toward the monumental, hoping to fill a discursive void with a profusion of…
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The Substance of Grief: Nelson Henricks Deepens the Black Page
In the course of my grieving, I lost my capacity to represent my grief to others. There were no useful tools to properly describe…
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The Architecture of Exclusion: Storytelling Hannah Hoffman’s New Home Through Paul Williams and Tony Cokes
Architect Paul Williams used to sketch out plans, virtuosically, upside down. He became famous for this skill – most writing about him mentions it….
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More Culture than Capital: Modesty and Ambition at the Atlanta Biennial
Every year, more cities mount biennials. Over a century of variations on a similar theme, and the purpose of this recurring model remains unclear…
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Can Words “Bounce”? A Complicated Resilience on Vancouver Island
“Words are worldly; not just in the sense that they proliferate and float up into the sky and become cloud-like. Words world too.” Billy-Ray…
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Feeling the Idea: Jennifer Rose Sciarrino Advances a Speculative Future in Flesh
A strangeness has taken root in Jennifer Rose Sciarrino’s Ruffled Follicles and a Tangled Tongue, at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. It’s a strangeness…
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Ana Mendieta’s Death is Not a Metaphor
Let the art come first. This must have been the axiom behind Covered in Time and History, Martin-Gropius-Bau’s 2018 exhibition of twenty-three films and…
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Sanded Edges: Pierre Huyghe Turns Polite at the Serpentine
Pierre Huyghe’s work has often worn its politics lightly, preferring to focus on the exhibition as a laboratory-theater for cultural experiment. However, his latest…
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“Velvet Buzzsaw” Should Terrify the Artworld
Velvet Buzzsaw, launching on Netflix tomorrow, had me hooked from the first line uttered by its protagonist. In the opening scene, we see Jake Gyllenhaal’s…
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