Alex Smith speaks with L. Graciella Miaotalesi about the curated series The(se) Black Experience(s) which explores the myriad of Black lived experiences and aims to address issues of imposter syndrome that may arise for Black people navigating spaces of identity.
Read MoreDear readers, as we publish the cash prize and honorable mention winners in the 2018 New Art Writers Contest, we’d like to thank everyone who took the time to share their writing with us and congratulate all the winners! This year’s turnout was truly encouraging and we can’t wait to share the “Best of the New Art Writing Contest Anthology” book with you in 2019. Thanks also to Mari Shaw, whose generosity and support of local art writing allowed us to offer our biggest prizes to date.
Read MoreNathalie Du Pasquier is one of the founders of the influential Italian Postmodern design group Memphis. Her colorful and immersive installation at ICA is both art and design. Ephraim calls it playful yet rooted in the artist’s adherence to principles of design, structure and systems. A walk through the paintings, rugs, furniture and still life paintings of objects and furniture exposes a seamless and natural interplay between art and design.
Read MoreAccording to curator Anthony Elms, Rodney McMillian: The Black Show is an exhibition about transformation. You might prefer to call it an exhibition about flux. It is about fictions, literally literary, with numerous instances of homage to Octavia Butler, and metaphorically historical, as McMillian himself expounded in a preceding interview. It is about mutable spaces, fluid identities, the distance between material and perception, the so-called experience of this ‘reality,’ and the staking out of that reality itself as a constantly undulating landscape.
Read MoreSize can create competition in some shows, larger works demanding more attention than small, but these more typical relationships were somehow absent from this show. Holes were drilled into the sides of display armatures, perfectly framing a small Fishman sculpture covered in paint, encouraging the viewer to look. You did not get the sense that you were supposed to spend less time looking at the smaller things.
Read MoreComposer and electronic music pioneer George Lewis (a MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship recipient) took it upon himself to continue the dialogue he shared with the late artist, performer, and multi-instrumentalist Terry Adkins in the way he knew would be most appropriate–a recital.
Read MoreThe word association round offered the most lively interaction between the audience and panelists, with audience members voting for the best word with loud applause. Some of the words matched the thoughtfulness and effort put into the exhibitions considered, while some fell flat.
Read MoreThe Black Show makes me think about José Saramago’s epic novel “Blindness” (1997), in which blindness invokes darkness, oscillating between sociopolitical misconception and human malice. “I don’t think we did go blind,” reflects one of Saramago’s figures at the end.
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