22 March 2007 | Contemporary, Theory
The Winter 2007 Representations features an article by Katalin Orbán on “Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers“: “[these are] parallel books, devoted to historical crisis as family history — the former to the Holocaust, the latter to the attack on the World Trade Center — both narrated through [...]
2 March 2007 | Ancient, Books, Contemporary
The December 2006 issue of Antiquity includes a review by Leo S. Klejn of Colin Renfrew’s Figuring It Out, followed by a reply from Renfrew. Klejn: “[Renfrew's book] is a remarkable phenomenon both in art criticism and archaeology. He poses the eternal questions (what are we? where do we come from?) and hopes to figure [...]
19 February 2007 | Conferences, Contemporary
Blogger Paddy Johnson writes: “If you like discourse about the ‘aesthetic criteria of compression’ or ‘virtuality as the ontology of art’, then this conference will suit you well. The quotes are two of the more comprehensible phrases I managed to glean out the session Virtualities: Contemporary Art between Fact and Fiction, with star panelists David [...]
19 February 2007 | Career, Conferences, Contemporary
Blogger Jeffry Cudlin writes: “One of the more popular panels of the conference was held on Saturday. ‘A Faustian Bargain? Emerging Artists, Critics, and the Market’ consisted of the usual hand-wringing about art fairs and the diminished role of criticism — but it also featured Jerry Saltz … ‘I don’t think that any artist wakes [...]
17 February 2007 | Conferences, Contemporary
Blogger Joy Garnett covers Friday’s “Reexamining Appropriation: The Copy, the Law, and Beyond”: “One of the most germane questions came at the end from organizing co-chair Virginia Rutledge, who asked Leval if he thought that the importance of context and conceptual underpinnings of works of art would ever finally trump visual, formal (superficial) resemblance in [...]
16 February 2007 | Africa, Conferences, Contemporary, Museums, News
Just two of the five scheduled speakers showed for this panel! “Contemporary African Art: Moving Forward, Looking Back; Investigating the Currency of Contemporary African Art” nonetheless proved quite lively. Barbara Pollack in particular provided fireworks. A very rough and selective transcript of her talk: “I’m not an expert on Chinese art or African art. I [...]
14 February 2007 | Conferences, Contemporary, Modern, News
About 120 people are here for the “Reframing Modernism” panel in the Hilton’s rather unmodern Trianon Ballroom, where bad lighting is making the slides near-impossible to see. One speaker, Jenny Anger, considers it still necessary to contest Michael Fried’s concept of “theatricality.” Among other things, she believes that there is a fascist element in modernism [...]
4 February 2007 | Contemporary
On February 13, UCLA professor Saloni Mathur will present a lecture, “The Politics of Oil: Contemporary Indian Art and the War in Iraq”: “This paper juxtaposes several different uses and politics of ‘oil’ – as a painterly medium, a global commodity, and a discourse of imperial power – in part by examining the history of [...]
29 January 2007 | Books, Contemporary
“Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice” assembles essays (some already published elsewhere) by James Elkins, Thomas McEvilley, Jerry Saltz, Katy Siegel, Lane Relyea, Arthur C. Danto, JJ Charlesworth, Nancy Princenthal, Carter Ratcliff, Eleanor Heartney, Michael Duncan, Peter Plagens, and Raphael Rubinstein, the anthology’s editor. In his introduction, he writes: “The mess [...]
26 January 2007 | Contemporary
According to the University of California, Berkeley, which is showing an exhibit of “Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s depictions of Abu Ghraib prison abuses,” it will host “a series of public conversations on campus on related issues such as art and violence, torture, human rights and terrorism,” including “a panel discussion on ‘Art and Violence’ [that] [...]
24 January 2007 | Books, Contemporary
From the press release: “London’s famous Whitechapel Gallery and the MIT Press announce a new series, Documents of Contemporary Art. Each volume will cover a single theme, practice, or obsession central to contemporary visual culture … selecting writings that range from foundational texts to freshly made arguments … The first two volumes in the series [...]
22 January 2007 | Books, Contemporary
In the December 2006 Art Bulletin, James Meyer celebrates Pamela M. Lee’s Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s: “The narrative style … is dazzlingly associative … [it] enlists all manner of sources and evidence to make its case … that Chronophobia opens up more questions than it is able to answer is [...]
6 October 2006 | Contemporary
For Art Basel, James Rosenquist showed a big mural in homage to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In an interview with El Pais, he looks back on his North Dakota childhood, F-111, the Cold War, the limits of the term “pop art.” He also praises Dalí.
5 October 2006 | Contemporary
Whatever happened to the Neuen Wilden, 1981’s bad boys of painting? In Die Welt (English version at signandsight.com), Cornelius Tittel visits surviving members, such as Rainer Fetting, who is shown gazing upon an opening for the young star Matthias Weischer like a ghost of Christmas past.
29 September 2006 | Contemporary, Journals
The May-July 2006 Third Text is themed “The Conflict and Contemporary Visual Culture in Palestine and Israel.” Its introduction reads: “The issue of visual arts and their role in both the Palestinian and Israeli projects of identity creation has not been treated before in a substantial and comprehensive manner … Over forty Palestinian and Israeli [...]
28 September 2006 | Books, Contemporary, Museums
Over 100 artists have incorporated Disney imagery into their work. Why? Holly Crawford considers several possible motivations in her new book, “Attached to the Mouse: Disney and Contemporary Art” (she was kind enough to send us a complimentary copy), which aims to be “the first art history analyzing use of Disney imagery.” Among them: Disney [...]
27 September 2006 | Contemporary
In a long interview with Phong Bui in the Brooklyn Rail, Serra hints that he might have had something to do with the beginnings of Arte Povera, when he was in Italy on a Fulbright: “I dropped painting and started working with stuffed and live animals, including chickens, rabbits, and a live pig, zoological cage [...]
11 September 2006 | Contemporary
CAA Reviews has a long essay by John Clark on “Contemporary Asian Art at Biennales and Triennales”. The following paragraph seems representative: “When your biennale/triennale largely selects artists the curator(s) ‘know’ or who are from groups ‘known to’ the curator(s), taste is substituted for more local or regional art-critical or curatorial advice, and a search [...]
24 August 2006 | Contemporary, Museums
Live from New York, it’s contemporary art. Fifty years’ worth comes to the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo – 500 works by 200 artists, including film, photography and architecture. Laura Larcan in La Repubblica: “Creative euphoria, emancipation, liberty and dissolution. In other words, the belle epoque.” The Principality of Monaco offers an alphabetical guide. David [...]
8 August 2006 | Contemporary
From the New York Times: “Arlene Raven, a pioneering historian and advocate of women’s art, died Tuesday at her home in Brooklyn. She was 62 … Ms. Raven wrote or edited nine books, including the important anthology ‘Feminist Art Criticism’ (1988), with Cassandra L. Langer and Joanna Frueh as co-editors … She also wrote monographs [...]
