Comings Together/Comings Apart
by Sara Jane Stoner
Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present, at the Museum of Modern Art We’re just past the halfway point of the run of Marina Abramović’s retrospective at MOMA, “The Artist is Present,” and chances are good you’ve already seen it, or maybe seen one of the blogs that has materialized in response. Abramović, born in Yugoslavia in […]
A Hidden World of One’s Own
by Alison Powell
When walking into the Brooklyn Museum’s recent Kiki Smith exhibit, a large panel presents this brief statement about the exhibit: “The idea of how women found space for creative inspiration in the past is the point of departure for Sojourn, this exhibition by Kiki Smith.” It praises Smith’s “lyrical and highly personal vocabulary of images,” and declares […]
Theatre Review: Greek to Me
by Frank Episale
Medea and its Double by Euripides, adapted and directed by Hyoung-Taek Limb. Presented by Seoul Factory for the Performing Arts and La MaMa ETC Auto Da Fe by Masataka Matsuda, translated by Kameron Steele and Shigeki Mori, directed by Josh Fox with Paul Bargetto. Presented by International WOW Company and the Baruch Performing Arts Center On […]
A Dutch Treasure Comes To The Met
by Michael Busch
The mini-marquee exhibit, which runs through the end of November, offers a blueprint of what to expect from the Met as it moves forward with a new model of recession-special installations — small shows anchored in a prominent work or two, and bolstered by a supporting cast drawn from the museum’s expansive permanent collection. The logic of the move is clear: with a contracting endowment and significantly reduced operating budget, the Met’s recently-appointed director Thomas Campbell decided that looking inward and relying on the occasional munificence of partner institutions was the museum’s most promising tactic to cut costs without sacrificing quality. But concerns challenging the utility of this approach persist, making Vermeer’s Masterpiece the most important trial of Campbell’s young career.
Unfortunately, the budget blockbuster falls flat. To be sure, the exhibit betrays hints of limited resources. Including period reproductions of ceramic bowls and tile work, for example, is charming but suggests a quiet desperation to fill space without clear purpose in the absence of relevant content, while the comic book-length catalogue (stapled at the spine) indicates that the Met has abandoned its tradition of producing gorgeously hefty companion pieces to its major exhibits. But this is hardly the problem.
Archive Art: A Rosler Project Revisited
by Sarah Mills
By Sarah Mills Martha Rosler’s homeless project is back, only this time in archival form. The exhibition, “If You Lived Here Still…,” currently on view at New York’s e-Flux gallery, revisits numerous materials on homelessness and housing, which Rosler first began collecting for the exhibition, “If You Lived Here…,” held at the Dia Art Foundation in 1989. In […]
Generation ‘Ehh’
by CMatlin
The Generational: Younger Than Jesus. At the New Museum, on view till June 14, 2009 Let’s get right to the point: if this is the best the so-called Millenials have to offer (myself being one of them) then the art world as we know might as well pack up and leave. It’s been a good run. Everyone […]
Nothing to Say: Hirschhorn’s Universal Gym
by CMatlin
I have always been suspicious of Swiss-born installation artist Thomas Hirschhorn’s art; it always strikes me as a little too easy. The blatant in-your-face qualities of his installations recall a petulant teenager who really wants to shake things up but can’t get out of his own way. Hirschhorn’s 2006 show Superficial Engagement, at Barbara Gladstone, was at […]
A Swooning We Will Go: On Pipilotti Rist’s ‘Pour Your Body Out’
by CMatlin
Pour Your Body Out (7345 Cubic Meters), by Pipilotti Rist. At the Museum of Modern Art. How do we approach Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist’s video installation Pour Your Body Out (7345 Cubic Meters)? The criticism, if it can be called that, up to now says that one should be completely enamored with the visual spectacle of […]
Enchanting the Modern: Gino De Dominicis at P.S. 1
by NKurchanova
Gino De Dominicis at P.S. 1. On view October 19, 2008 — February 9, 2009. 22 – 25 Jackson Ave at the intersection of 46th Ave, Long Island City. P.S.1, the official affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art in Long Island City, has recently become a more attractive place of pilgrimage for art lovers than its revered parent. A series […]
In the Custody of Love: Elizabeth Peyton at the New Museum
by CMatlin
Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton. At The New Museum (through January 11). One must be careful with how one approaches the work of Elizabeth Peyton. It is too easy to dismiss her, to fault her for her own seemingly bottomless devotion to the seductions of youth and beauty as Sarah Valdez did in her review of Peyton’s […]
