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Text by Emily Sack
It may seem that a fictional institution created to further the research of a fictional scholar and his fictional endeavours would be too abstract and absurd to have any real artistic clout, but Patrick Keiller’s most recent project brings the imaginary to life in a very real and concrete way. Robinson, the enigmatic scholar, seeks to explain the current economic and social condition based on historical events and their remnant markings on the landscape.
I Myself Have Seen It: Photography and Kiki Smith is the product of a decade-long conversation between independent Curator Elizabeth Brown and the artist, examining a little-known body of work to provide important new insights into Smith’s extraordinary career. Aesthetica spoke to Claire Carter, Assistant Curator at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) to learn more.
Text by Bethany Rex
Cities are often described as living organisms; viewed as subject rather than object. Matthew Picton engages with this traditional of humanising the city by deconstructing the clean, uncompromising aesthetic of the cartographic city plan and imbuing it with the unique history and culture of each place.
Text by Travis Riley
David Hall is a formative figure in time-based art. Creditedwith introducing the term “time-based media” into circulation through hiswriting, he followed this by creating the first British course in the subject.In January of this year he was awarded the Samsung Art Lifetime AchievementAward for his groundbreaking work in video art.
Text by Bethany Rex
Tina Hage (b. Port-au-Prince) is a London-based artist. She grew up in Düsseldorf and studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne until 2004 and then completed her Masters in Fine Art at Goldsmiths in 2009. Gestalt, Hage’s first solo-show in London, opened earlier this month at Tenderpixel. We spoke to Tina about her work and future plans.
The 32nd edition of The AIPAD Photography Show New York will open this Thursday 29th March. It promises to be a fantastic show with new by Philip-Lorca diCorcia from David Zwirner, New York and a specially curated exhibition of early French photography at James Hyman Photography, London. A number of extraordinary portraits will be on view from Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, who are showing Linda McCartney’s photographs of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix alongside new portraits of Occupy Wall Street protesters by Accra Scheep at Steven Kasher Gallery.
Text by Sarah Allen
This month Dublin’s Gallery of Photography plays host to the work of two esteemed photographers – Sebastião Salgado and Per-Anders Pettersson. Each photographer presents distinct bodies of work which deal with the Amazonian rainforest and the ongoing plight of its inhabitants.
Massimo Nolletti’s April exhibition at Bar Lane Studios is a wonderful celebration of the sounds and vibrations of everyday life. This series of work represents the endless possibilities of photography in an urban setting, exploring the Australian landscape and all its idiosyncrasies.
Text by Elizabeth Holdsworth
An immobile red hatchback, front smashed against a skewed road sign, blares out hypnotic and maniacal club anthems from its boasting stereo system. Beyond, bagpipes coalesce with distant explosions, and someone, somewhere, is cranking a hurdy-gurdy.
Text by Carol Huston
Born into a Muslim family in Birmingham in 1978, London-based artist Idris Khan decided to stop practising Islam when he was fourteen years old. Despite this, he is now reknowned for producing Islamic-themed works which garner public acclaim. In a recent interview, Khan likened the practice of reading the pages of the Qur’an to his artistic process, which he described as a continual return to the same place. For Khan, this place appears to be found in the methodic repetition of found texts, written or photographic.
Text by Emily Sack
“Do you hear me?” echoes a haunted voice in a vacuous subterranean space while a man crouches in a cell unable to escape the persistence of the creeping and persistent speaker. This is just one of many vignettes encountered in Mark Storor’s most recent collaborative performance acknowledging the experience of homosexuals in the prison system, both as prisoners and guards.
Text by Daniel Potts
Birdhead’s concern is the flow of power from West to East, as gauged by that thriving metropolis of ever increasing scale, life and culture: Shanghai. Captured in black and white, the city in all its enormity – skyscapers, towerblocks, flyovers – is seen in its potent vastness to host the human activity. We are encouraged, therefore, to view the snapshots – for a snapshot aesthetic is employed – of culture with an eye to the effects increasing power can have.