Tag Archive "sharon-hayes"

The poignance of protest at Marginal Utility

No surprise that the show “Five Acts: Chronicles of Dissent” is mostly an audio/video show. With their roots in radio, tv and film, documentary-type media like audio and video (and photography and first person accounts, too) are the best way to chronicle humans acting out their anger and defiance on issues that concern them. Naeem Mohaiemen Live True Life or Die Trying, 2009
photographs with paired text (21 pairs)

Museum Musings: Lobby Art and Paula Hayes’ Fantastical Gardens at MoMA

I’ve been thinking for a while about Lobby Art – art in museum lobbies, that is. Not all museums feature Lobby Art; for some, such as the Guggenheim, the Philadelphia Museum of Art or the Art Institute of Chicago, the architecture suffices to create an ambiance for the entry areas, although certain artists, notably Jenny Holzer and Rebecca Horn, have taken on the Guggenheim’s central void to spectacular effect, and one might consider the Tate Modern’s  Turbine Hall as the apotheosis of artist project lobbies.

Queer Voices at the ICA

Queer Voice, at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA ), University of Pennsylvania through August 1, 2010 is an exhibition organized around an idea: that a number of artists since the 1960s have created narrative or performance-based work that emphasizes the voice, the voice distorted or manipulated such that gender is divorced from sex and/or gender is undistinguishable: a queer voice.  And this queer voice, in turn, establishes a queer or de-familiarized space for the audience. That the work of the nine artists does not clearly support this thesis, or that the thesis misses the most significant aspects of the ... More » »

Whitney Biennial – noisy, quiet, beautiful, ugly

Now in its 75th go-round, The Whitney Biennial is still the big kahuna, the show every American artist wants to be in and every art lover wants to see. This year the career-boosting show includes no Philadelphia artist.   We had representation in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 — so much for that trend.  Instead, the curators went to Chicago, Oregon, Los Angeles and, of course, New York for the 55 artists, more than half of them women (a first) and many of them under the national radar.

Shiny penny no more–Whitney Biennial takes on the new America

Quiet, a little sad, introspective, and not a lot of beauty. Those are how I’d sum up this year’s Whitney Biennial, now celebrating its 75th edition. After the ebullient excess of 2008, in which more than 80 artists exploded beyond the bounds of the museum, taking up residence in the nearby armory, and pock marking Central Park, a mere 55 artists certainly reflects a societal time of retrenchment and self-reassessment. It’s as if America is no longer the youthful shiny penny it used to be. Well, that would be right. It’s not. And this is the Whitney Biennial that reflects ... More » »