Imani is still thinking about her trip to Volta last month. In particular, she reflects on “The Aesthetics of Matter” — this year’s curated section by Mickalene Thomas and Racquel Chevremont, which featured artists Tomashi Jackson, Troy Michie, Devin N. Morris, Christie Neptune, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, David Shrobe, Didier William, and Kennedy Yanko. While their work mines the political potential of collage across a variety of media, the surrounding context of the fair raises important questions about the political labor that African American artists and curators perform in the global contemporary art market. Volta NY 2018 was on view March 7th-11th at Pier 90 in Manhattan, NY.
Read MoreMichael visits “Space Invaders,” on view through April 19th at Rutgers Camden’s Stedman Gallery. For this collaborative group show, artists have been commissioned to produce new works in dialogue, not only with the interior of the gallery itself, but with each other. The result is a show that pushes the boundaries of medium, combining sculpture, projection, sound and lighting to suggest the complexity of the ties that bind objects in memory and in the world. “Space Invaders” includes work by Elizabeth Mackie, Andi Steele, Kaitlyn Paston, Joanna Platt, and Jacintha Clark.
Read MoreArtblog’s Paris correspondent, Matthew Rose, is back with a review of Steven Rifkin’s retrospective at Les Douches La Galerie. Comprised of square format black and white photographs from the 1970s and 80s, this show reveals Rifkin as a master observer of form both natural and man-made. “Steven Rifkin: Au Fil du Temps” was on view January 20th – March 3rd, 2018.
Read MoreNew Artblog contributor Deborah Krieger visits Maria Dumlao’s latest solo exhibition at Vox Populi Gallery, “History in RGB.” Comprised of densely-layered, multi-colored posters set amongst draped mosquito netting and potted tropical plants, this work imagines colonialism (in Dumlao’s native Philippines and beyond) as a cacophony of myths and half-truths. Colored film viewfinders, installed along the gallery wall, approximate a kind of worldview by allowing visitors to literally filter their experience of work and its histories. “History in RGB” is on view through April 22, 2018.
Read MoreCatherine Rush attends the February 24th, 2018 performance of “Poor People’s TV Room” at Bryn Mawr College. Created by Bessie-award-winning writer/choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili, and performed by a small inter-generational cast of black women, this multidisciplinary piece exists at the intersection of installation and dance theater. Inspired in part by Nigeria’s 1929 Women’s War, as well as the 2014 Boko Haram kidnappings of 276 schoolgirls, “Poor People’s TV Room” takes a non-narrative, full-bodied approach to articulating the interplay of trauma and resistance.
Read MoreMandy Palasik visits Spanish-born architect and industrial designer Patricia Urquiola’s first solo exhibition stateside, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through March 18th. “Patricia Urquiola: Between Craft and Industry” celebrates Urquiola’s innovative use of familiar forms and traditional techniques to activate both mind and body.
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