Grande Bianco Plastica

Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting

Culture

For those fond of making lists, Alberto Burri: The Trauma of Painting, a large-scale solo exhibition of paintings currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York provides a fertile stomping ground: Catrami, Gobbi, Muffi, Bianchi, Sacchi, Combustioni and Legini, Ferri, Combustioni Plastiche, Cretti.  Tars, Hunchbacks, Molds, Whites, Sacks, Combustions and Woods, Irons, Plastic Combustions, Cracks.  Ground pumice stone, tar, discarded linens, burlap sacks, wood veneer, cold-rolled steel, plastic sheeting off factory rolls, Celotex and blowtorch.

BXB – Envy, Mexican Onyx 1

Barry X Ball: Part 2

Culture, Features/Op-Ed

Bookshelves line the walls of the American sculptor Barry X Ball’s compact office and, while walking me through the blueprints depicting his new Greenpoint, Brooklyn production facility and studio, he directed my gaze up to some palm-sized sculptures resting on them.

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Barry X Ball: Part 1

Culture, Features/Op-Ed

“So,” began the New York sculptor Barry X Ball who was kind enough to allow us a visit to his Brooklyn studio some months back, “we bought a 200 foot by 100 foot piece of land.” And, while I couldn’t have imaged it at the time, this was a highly appropriate beginning to telling his story.  It was a story that began at the end: the land in question was purchased in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to house Ball’s new studio and production facility.

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Berlinde De Bruyckere Monograph

Culture

The Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere is famous for her striking sculptures of wax and epoxy that resemble flesh in all its disfigured, vulnerable glory. She has been making these since the 1990s, but there has not been a definitive monograph of her work until now.

On Kawara

On Kawara — Silence

Culture

On making the first turn of the spiral up the Guggenheim ramp you too might question whether there is going to be enough to keep this exhibition of On Kawara going.  It is one thing to walk the thirty-six Date Paintings permanently on view at Dia:Beacon, where the mind has been primed for the experience, and a whole other matter to walk in fresh off Fifth Avenue and immediately hit the ramp with three months of consecutive Day Paintings (“Everyday Meditation” 1971).

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KISHIO SUGA

Culture

The Upper East Side outpost of L.A.’s Blum & Poe gallery takes up the top floors of an unprepossessing brownstone and is easy to miss. That said, you will most likely have the place to yourself, which is a special way to get to walk through the first New York solo show of Kishio Suga that takes up the gallery, including its courtyard-facing terrace.

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Brancusi: The Photographs

CultureLeave a comment

A question relevant to contemporary concerns quietly resonates in the elegantly understated show of 30 or so vintage prints shot by Constantin Brancusi in the 1920’s and 30s, currently showing at Bruce Silverstein gallery in New York, and it is namely one of intent. What are we to make of photographs taken by an artist known as a sculptor? What purpose were these photographs intended to serve? To whom were they addressed? What has the passage of time wrought on them and on our interpretive efforts?

The gut reaction is to see the photographs as simply documentation. However, even a cursory stroll through demonstrates that there is more going on than just Brancusi photographing sculptures for his consumption alone.