Ocula Report Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber 15 Mar 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula In Meiro Koizumi's three-channel video installation, The Angels of Testimony (2019), the central frame features an interview with Hajime Kondo about his time as a solider of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The conversation centres on war crimes perpetrated in China, including the beheading of Chinese prisoners for...
Ocula Conversation Diana Campbell Betancourt Diana Campbell Betancourt is a curator working predominantly across South and Southeast Asia. Since 2013 she has been the founding artistic director of the Samdani Art Foundation and chief curator of the Dhaka Art Summit in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a transnational art event that has grown in size and scale ever since its first edition in 2012. Backed by...
Ocula Report Chinternet Ugly at Manchester’s Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art 7 Mar 2019 : Mike Pinnington for Ocula China, home to 802 million internet users, is subject to sophisticated online censorship. This shrouded state of affairs, unsurprisingly perhaps, serves to reinforce stereotypes around conformity elsewhere. Any realm, digital or otherwise, subject to such strict scrutiny must necessarily be bland and uncritical, right? I was mulling over such...
Metro Pictures is a New York City art gallery founded in 1980 by Janelle Reiring, previously of Castelli Gallery, and Helene Winer, previously of Artist's Space. It was located in SoHo until 1995 when it was among the first wave of galleries to move to Chelsea.
Metro's opening exhibition in 1980 included Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherry Levine, James Welling, and Richard Prince. Subsequently, the one person exhibitions that followed at the gallery were these artists' first major exhibitions in New York. These artists were also each prominently included in the 2009 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition, The Pictures Generation.
During the early and mid 1980's, Mike Kelley, Louise Lawler, Martin Kippenberger, John Miller, Tony Oursler and Jim Shaw joined the gallery. Newer generations of artists have continued to expand the context of the gallery by presenting comparably provocative conceptual material in unforeseen formats that address current conditions, methods of thought, and means of generating art ideas. These artists include Olaf Breuning, André Butzer, Andy Hope 1930, Gary Simmons, Andrea Slominski, Isaac Julien, and most recently, Claire Fontaine, David Malkjovic, Paulina Olowska, Trevor Paglen, Catherine Sullivan, Sara VanDerBeek, Tris Vonna-Michell, B. Wurtz, Camille Henrot, and Nina Beier.
Camille HenrotCity by Clifford D. Simak, 2014 Ikebana: vase, Tiki Fern (Asparagus virgatus), Plume Asparagus (Asparagus densiflorus cv. 'Meyers'), Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae), Creeping Lilyturf (Liriope spicata), Plywood, Plexi label
Nora Turatothe things you worry about aren't supposed to happen
that's what worry does
worry works, 2018 Inkjet print on glossy photo paper
Ocula Photolog Frieze Los Angeles 15 February 2019 'Frieze Los Angeles largely focuses on contemporary art and celebrates the exceptionally dynamic culture of Los Angeles and its global contributions to the visual arts. Frieze Los Angeles joins Frieze New York, Frieze London and Frieze Masters at the forefront of the international art fair calendar, celebrating Los Angeles' position as a global...
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Miami Beach 2018 6 December 2018 'This year, over 200 of the world's leading international Modern and contemporary art galleries display artworks by over 4,000 artists, including paintings, sculptures, installations, photography, film, video, and digital art.' –Art Basel in Miami Beach (6–9 December 2018).
Ocula Report Shanghai Art Exhibitions to See: The Lowdown 2 Nov 2018 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula There is no official Shanghai Art Week, but the term has nevertheless entered the lexicon of the city's contemporary art community. It's especially apt this year, with the firmly established West Bund Art Fair (8–11 November 2018) and Art021 (9–11 November 2018) taking place the same week that the 12th Shanghai Biennale opens at the Power Station...
Ocula Photolog FIAC Paris 2018 19 October 2018 'For the 2018 selection, held in Paris from 18 to 21 October, FIAC brought together 195 galleries from 27 countries in the nave and exhibition rooms of the Grand Palais. The fair presented the finest examples of artistic creation since the turn of the twentieth century; modern masters through to the latest trends, notably represented in the...
Related Press Communal Luxury Art in America : 1 March 2019 VOGUE POLSKA debuted in February 2018 and was instantly embroiled—perhaps by design—in heated debates around Polish national identity and self-image. When Condé Nast announced the magazine's forthcoming launch in 2017, the news was received by many in Poland as confirmation that they had truly arrived as equals in the eyes of the West;...
Related Press Trevor Paglen’s ‘Orbital Reflector’ Asks Who Gets to Exercise Power Over our Planetary Commons Frieze : 24 January 2019 US photographer Trevor Paglen, best known for his striking images of telecommunications and national security infrastructure, studies 'ungraspable architecture': radio wave transmissions, secret missile ranges, N.S.A. choke points, surveillance and combat drones that alter the very conditions of visibility. His geographic research and photography...
Related Press Artes Mundi 8: Filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul wins £40,000 prize BBC News : 24 January 2019 Indie Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has won the £40,000 Artes Mundi contemporary art prize.The judges said his film Invisibility was 'a powerful weapon in these turbulent times'.The 48-year-old gave a UK premiere to his dream-like work, projected over two screens and showing two figures rising from their beds in separate rooms.He was...
Related Press At Chelsea Galleries, Three Artists Subvert Aesthetics L'OFFICIEL : 30 November 2018 With the impending winter melancholy yet awaiting behind glitter-laden holiday vitrines and a few illusively warm afternoons, art galleries contribute to the season's festivities with ambitious solo exhibitions, showcasing the newest by art world key players and emerging talents. Bookended by the fall's back-to-school shows and Art Basel Miami,...
Related Video & Audio /Dialogues: Visibility | Invisibility — Sculpture in Everyday Space EXPO CHICAGO : 14 September 2017 Nina Beier (Artist, STANDARD (OSLO), joségarcía, mx), Tom Burr (Artist, Bortolami Gallery). Moderated by Stephanie Cristello, Director of Programming, EXPO CHICAGO and Editor-in-Chief, THE SEENWhat is the responsibility of formalism in the twenty-first century? This panel will trace the work of contemporary artists whose diverse sculptural...
