Gallerina NYC

The 2012 Hugo Boss Prize is Coming Up

Gallerina — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:49:23 +0000

ArtInfo has the breakdown of the finalists for the upcoming Hugo Boss Prize. The awards ceremony will be held at the Guggenheim, where the winner will get a solo exhibition.

Here is the list, from ArtInfo:

Trisha Donnelly (1974, United States)

Known for: Ethereal works in photography, sculpture, and sound; challenging perceptions of time, language, and narrative.

ARTINFO Selection: In addition to more traditional works included in the 54th Carnegie International (2004), Donnelly dressed as a waiter for the event’s opening dinner, serving water to visitors unaware of her role as a participating artist in the show.

Rashid Johnson (1977, United States)

Known for: Addressing issues of racial representation and identity in America; juxtaposing personal history, pop culture, literary and art-historical references; shelves as sculpture.

ARTINFO Selection: Inspired by images from the Harlem Renaissance, “The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club” (2010) is a series of photographs of fictional African-Americans. Dressed in 19th-century attire, the fictional subjects are members of a secret society of intellectuals, partaking in an imagined discourse on escapism.

Qiu Zhijie (1969, China)

Known for: Moving between traditional and conceptual forms in video, photography, and installation; work with Chinese calligraphy; exploring the relationship between Chinese political history and contemporary realities.

ARTINFO Selection: “I Used to Have Seventy-Two Forms” (2009) is a collection of eclectic, crafted objects set on a surface of green mats. The piece evokes elements of ancient Chinese history while exploring the tension between individual objects set within the group.

Monika Sosnowska (1972, Poland)

Known for: Large-scale sculptures and site-specific immersive installations; distorting geometry; creating optical illusions; challenging perceptions of space.

ARTINFO Selection: “1:1” (2007), a large-scale work of steel bars running horizontally and vertically, raises questions about the relationship between sculpture and architecture, and the architectural aesthetics of post-Cold War Poland.

Danh Vo (1975, Vietnam)

Known for: Interlacing personal and political histories; work dealing with colonialism, displacement, and global migration.

ARTINFO Selection: “We the People,” (2011–on-going) an unassembled, true-to-size, copper, recreation of the Statue of Liberty designed to be displayed as separate segments of the whole in a meditation on concepts of freedom.

Tris Vonna-Michell (1982, United Kingdom)

Known for: Immersive performances involving egg-timers and audience participation; mash-up explorations of memory, truth, and intimacy; ridiculously fast and ambiguously accented storytelling

ARTINFO Selection: In “Down the Rabbit Hole” (2006–2007) Vonna-Michell tells the story of travelling to Paris in search of Henri Chopin, the French avant-garde poet. Vonna-Michell brings a package of quail eggs to the poet in hopes that he will offer details about the artist’s expat American father in exchange for the eggs.

Life Imitates Art

Gallerina — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:47:21 +0000

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup screen prints have become some of the most iconic pieces of 20th century art. Turns out that when the prints first appeared, Campbell’s actually contemplated suing the artist. Now, in an interesting 180, the soup company is borrowing the artist’s color schemes for a limited line of cans that will appear in Target stores. Only 1.2 million will be produced, at 75 cents each. I might grab a few just for the kitsch value.

A Gallerinas TV Show?

Gallerina — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:43:44 +0000

I just read on ArtInfo that there’s a new Bravo tv series about…people like me? Or a reality show version of people like me at least. “Gallery Girls” starts today, I guess. Hopefully it’s a bit more Girls and a bit less Real Housewives…

London’s Art Village

Gallerina — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:37:27 +0000

London is putting on an amazing art festival to coincide with the Olympic games this summer. The Cultural Olympiad will feature works from over 25,000 artists from the 205 countries participating in the Olympics. 25,000! The art pieces will be exhibited all over the UK, beginning on July 27th with a bit in which Martin Creed will literally ring in the opening of the games by attempting to get every bell in London to ring for 3 minutes starting at 8am. Some of these exhibits sound incredible, so it will be worth keeping an eye not only on the games, but on the art surrounding them. Most will not tie in directly with the sporting events themselves, but this is essentially as close as art can get to the spirit of the Olympics – international, without borders, celebrating diversity but also expressing unity.

Click here for more info

Under Destruction

Gallerina — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:29:31 +0000

Great article from ArtNews on a new trend of artists embracing images of destruction. It’s interesting to keep in mind the dichotomy of creation and destruction embodied in these works. It almost seems oxymoronic to “create” these impressions of devastation…

Dedicated to creating works that reflect the fear and anxieties of a post-9/11 world—or at least challenge the notion that an artwork must withstand the test of time—many artists are incorporating elements of obliteration in their work. Not all of the productions are violent; some are simply chilling in their subtle references to everyday occurrences. Many play on the pervasive images of destruction and devastation in today’s society, drawn from headline news to Hollywood movies.

Click here for the full article.

Summer Camp! (The exhibit, that is.)

Gallerina — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:25:06 +0000

Anyone who is a fan of camp (the aesthetic) should love Summer Camp, the new exhibition at Schroeder Romero & Shredder in Chelsea:

Schroeder Romero is thrilled to announce the exhibition Summer Camp featuring James Bidgood, Brice Brown, Tom of Finland, Scott Hunt, Heather Johnson, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Cary Leibowitz/Candyass, Jean Lowe, Robert Mapplethorpe, Uzi Parnes, Carl Plansky, John Waters, and Ken Weaver representing over forty years of work about and within ‘camp’ culture and aesthetic—an aesthetic, according to Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp (1964), focused on artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and ‘shocking’ excess.

This all sounds like a winning combination of eclecticism from some of the greatest minds in camp. The exhibit is already open, so check it out now!

Neanderthal Artists? Smarter Than We Thought…

Gallerina — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 15:19:59 +0000

New evidence has been found that possibly contradicts the wide view that the Neanderthals were less intelligent than our forebears the Homo Sapiens: they may have been artists! I found an article in The Guardian about a discovery that could prove that Neanderthals were actually the first human species to paint in caves. A painting recently found on a wall in Spain is now Europe’s oldest piece of art by about 4000 years, and probably came from the Neanderthals. Amazing!

Jerry Saltz of ‘Vulture’ Reflects on Brice Marden

Gallerina — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 18:33:07 +0000

Jerry Saltz, an art critic for Vulture.com has recently done a little write-up of the Brice Marden exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery. I wrote a little piece on this opening a while ago, and it’s great to see that it’s getting attention from something as mainstream as Vulture. Again, it’s a great exhibit so check it out before it’s gone! The show is open until June 23rd.