A State of Voluptuousness — “Francis Bacon: Late Paintings” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Francis Bacon’s last painting is mostly raw canvas. It depicts a single form: a ghostly bull bridging the blackness of an open doorway. A bit like one of those optical illusions where a shape simultaneously pushes forward and recedes, the bull alternates between presence and absence; charge and rest. Study for a Bull (1991) derives […]
“Ct King: Dangerous Little Strangers,” Clifton Cultural Arts Center, closed August 21, 2020
Each year the nonprofit Clifton Cultural Arts Center sponsors a juried exhibition. The first-place winner receives a Golden Ticket, redeemable for a solo exhibition. Last year Ct King nabbed it and cashed it in for “Ct King: Dangerous Little Strangers.” This year’s Golden Ticket is not as shiny as in the past because of the COVID-19 pandemic. King’s […]
Letting Go: Unfinished/Accidents: Art about Serendipity at Manifest Gallery
When we encounter a portrait of the artist in her studio, a readymade that calls into question its own selection and display, or a time-lapse series that documents change in specific structures and locations, we receive an invitation to reflect on processes of artistic invention and performance. In most any exhibition, we can find works […]
Joseph Lorusso at the Miller Gallery
“I believe truly great art serves as a trigger into something deeper within all of us” Joseph Lorusso Nostalgic romance is alive and well at Miller Gallery in Hyde Park in the contemporary figurative work of Joseph Lorusso. Born of Italian descent in Chicago in 1966, Lorusso has been exposed to art from an early […]
It Is Otherworldly: Maya The Exhibition Cincinnati Museum Center Now through through January 3, 2021
Before the pyramid builders in Egypt began their staggering achievements, in our Americas, ancient people were erecting pyramids that rose splendidly and improbably above the formidable rainforests of Central America and Mexico. Like the Egyptians, the ancient Maya civilization had an elaborate pictographic language. Little known too, is the fact that it was the Maya […]
Arrest: the Politics and Transcendence of Aesthetic Arrest Qua Protest
Recently, given the fomenting protests following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery (amongst countless others), much discussion has erupted amongst contemporary artist-activists about the proper place for art and the aestheticization of politics. This is, of course, by no means a novel conversation. Historically, the aestheticization of politics has been disparaged […]
The Studio Where It Happened: James VanDerZee and the Role of Being a Modern African American
James VanDerZee (1886-1983) produced somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 photographs in his creative lifetime, maybe even more, almost all of them of African Americans who lived in or were passing through Harlem. He had a fraught relationship to street photography and worked predominantly out of his studio. At the height of his career in the […]
Erase, Tear, Gouge, Replace: Mark Bradford Excavates the Present
What to write about Mark Bradford? His ascent into the art world seems to border on the magical. His story makes for a perfect Hollywood movie if Hollywood was inclined to turn its lens to artists more often, which it does not. Mark Bradford is African-American, born and raised in South Los Angeles, in the same […]
America Goddam
Can’t you see it Can’t you feel it It’s all in the air I can’t stand the pressure much longer Somebody say a prayer Alabama’s gotten me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest And everybody knows about Mississippi goddam -Nina Simone In 1963, Nina Simone wrote this song in protest of the atrocities […]
Kahlil Robert Irving “Ground Water From Screen Falls [(Collaged Media + Midwest STREET)]” at the Contemporary Arts Center
Engaging with Kahlil Robert Irvings’s installation requires action. Its scale requires moving one’s body, viewing it first from afar and then up close. From a distance, such as viewed from outside standing on 6th street, it’s a frenetic tableau of screenshots. There are memes and browser tabs, overlapping digital prints filling the lobby’s central wall. […]