Sometime in late 1997, at the former site of the New Museum, I was introduced to a seemingly dejected young painter named Odili Donald Odita. I say “dejected” because he claimed his career was going nowhere. I said something to the effect that maybe he was placing too much emphasis on his career rather than giving himself credit for the quality present in the paintings. The conversation continued. In the years that followed, things for Odita slowly began to change.
Originating in the Himalayas, the Yamuna river flows through New Delhi and accounts for more than 70% of the city’s water supply. The river is highly venerated in Hindu mythology: bathing in its sacred waters is a way of cleansing one’s sins. But in reality, the Yamuna has become a highly toxic sewage dump for domestic and industrial waste from the city, saturated with deforested silt and slimy goop. The river’s dire condition is the concern of many Indian artists, among them Vibha Galhotra. The galling absurdity of people who continue to purge themselves in the Yamuna, and of officials who would rather perform rituals on its banks than sanitize its waters, has inspired her stirring exhibition ABSUR -CITY -PITY -DITY at Jack Shainman Gallery. It might well be considered her homage to the river.
KINDERHOOK, NY — The School, Jack Shainman’s splendid gallery in Kinderhook, NY, is about to blow its own roof off. The power of the El Anatsui retrospective there is palpable and deeply moving.
The idea is so ingenious, it almost seems obvious: take advertisements and remove the text that makes them so, leaving only a string of images behind. This was the process that Hank Willis Thomas undertook for Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America 1968-2008, a series of appropriated ads that covers the period between the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the election of Barack Obama, with one ad representing each year. Shown at the Brooklyn Museum in 2010–11, Thomas’s images laid bare looked alternately bizarre, sinister, and deeply surreal.
The (Un)Changing Portrayal of White Women in 100 Years of Advertisements
Because I am a writer, this confession may not shock you, but here it is anyway: I am extremely picky about pens. I silently judge people when they use dull, crappy ones, and I admire those who clearly take pride in their writing utensils. I am in fact so picky about pens that I only buy a certain kind, in packs from a store that I otherwise never visit, for more money than I tell myself one should logically spend on pens.
hen artist Titus Kaphar began searching for his father’s prison records in 2011, he found the mugshots of 99 other black, incarcerated men who shared his dad’s first and last name. “I simply wanted to know where he was,” Kaphar told Hyperallergic, explaining that he’d left his father’s home during his first year of high school and was struggling to deal with their conflicted relationship.
(via Nick Cave on the Artist’s Responsibility)
“I began thinking more about myself as an artist with a civic responsibility,” said artist Nick Cave to Mass MoCA curator Denise Markonish during a conversation last Friday evening at Jack Shainman Gallery. Realizing that he was bored with his past work, he decided he needed to find another means of challenging himself. “I didn’t want to hide behind the Soundsuits anymore.”