TORONTO — When ceramic artists place their hands in clay, they are echoing an expressive gesture that has been with humanity for some 20,000 years. With all that in mind, you might think there is no new ground for contemporary ceramicists — but, as Earth Oracles proves, nothing could be […]
“It never occurred to me that we would ever have an audience,” said painter Nancy Mitchnick, in a curator’s statement that accompanied a series of three exhibitions presented at Simone DeSousa Gallery in 2017. Mitchnick is referring to the Cass Corridor art movement, which took place roughly between 1960 and […]
“I came to this collection as a fan of Lillian’s,” said Kristen Gallerneaux, curator of Communication and Information Technology at the Henry Ford Museum. “I remembered learning about Lillian Schwartz when I was in art school, and wondered where her archive is.” In November, Gallerneaux’s wondering bore fruit, as the […]
You don’t have to be a mycologist to enjoy Brian Blomerth’s new art book, Mycelium Wassonii — you could also be a fan of amazing graphic storytelling, interested in the cultural roots of mushroom as ritual and medicine, or eager to learn about some of the unsung heroines that helped […]
Movie-making is a highly collaborative form, with individual contributors on every level adding up to a final product that is often associated with a few key figures. While directors are often associated with the aesthetics of their films — and naturally play a huge part in their determination — their […]
SAGINAW, Mich. — At the beginning of my guided tour through the Blactiquing Space, collector and curator Kevin Jones asked me a provocative, challenging question: Can something be racist and also be beautiful? It was just the first of many moments that evoked conflicting thoughts and emotions during my experience of […]
The ethical conundrum of using live animals as art materials is not a new issue in the art world — a place where aesthetics are considered a cause worth dying (and killing) for. But this week, fine art photographer and trained bird and wildlife rehabber Sheida Soleimani voiced objections to […]
“I hope what the section does is show the complex nature of how each of us might envision the future,” says Wassan Al-Khudhairi, the curator of the Focus section at this year’s Armory Show. “The works are informed more by the idea of looking into the future as a place […]
DETROIT — One of the first points of discussion at the “HBB from the future” workshop, conducted by Armenian-American weaver Levon Kafafian and Lebanese-American poet and educator Kaymelya Omayma Youssef at Room Project, was the definition of the word “habibi”( حبيبي), often abbreviated as HBB. Translated literally from Arabic, it […]
As early as the introduction of railroads and the telegraph system, the Western landscape has struggled with the aesthetics of convenience. From commercial interests like strip malls and billboards, to national systems like highways and telephone wires, to individual interventions like graffiti and public sculpture, the definition of “eyesore” is […]