A Theory of Everything: On the State of Theory and Criticism (Part One)
Given that I’ve chosen to contribute to a platform that boasts “a return to art criticism,” it would be worth considering what that might…
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The Commons of Aggregation: The Case for Net Art as Public Art
Let me begin with an art historical chestnut — a 1855 painting by the French painter Gustave Courbet called The Artist’s Studio, A Real…
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Feature Art Fair’s Focus on the Art, and the Currents That Emerged
The latest fair to arrive to Canada’s growing art market was named Feature, but could have been titled Focus. With only twenty-three galleries, and…
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Machinations: Stan Douglas Makes His Theatrical Debut
What to make of Stan Douglas’s Helen Lawrence – currently on at Toronto’s CanStage – from the perspective of a theater-goer unfamiliar with the…
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Nice Things: The Pleasure Principle in Jeff Koons and Cory Arcangel
If you’ve taken the New York subway in the last couple of months, you’ve probably seen advertisements for the Whitney Museum’s Jeff Koons exhibition….
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The Militant Image
In 2003 the medieval town of Graz, in lower Austria (a region famously the birthplace of Arnold Schwarzenegger – his cardboard cutout greets you…
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Fossils
Enthusiasts probing the furrows of British art are currently liable to stumble across one of two types of fossils. One, London’s major galleries and…
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Pierre Huyghe’s Airless Fantasy at Hauser & Wirth
Here’s my beef with Pierre Huyghe: the more his work dazzles his viewers with theatrical special effects, the more his underlying motivations are lost…
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How to Write About Contemporary Art
First, don’t. Don’t intend to write about art at all. Write about something else. Go harrowingly into debt for an MFA in creative writing…
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An Italian Futurist Out of Step with the Rest: Salvatore Scarpitta
Salvatore Scarpitta’s solo show at the Hirschhorn Gallery, Traveler, includes two race cars, a burnt-out sled, canvases that had been slashed, layered, and strung…
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