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...
Alex Katz is one of the most significant artists of his generation. A graduate of the prestigious Cooper Union Art School in Manhattan in 1949, Katz was subsequently awarded a scholarship by the Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine. In 1968, Katz moved into an artists’ cooperative building in SoHo, where he has lived and worked ever since, spending his summers in Lincolnville, Maine.
Common to both Katz’s celebrated portraits and immersive landscapes is a pristine flat surface and an economy of line, first developed by the artist in the 1950s. Katz’s minimal aesthetic was, at this time, both an anticipation of Pop Art and a reaction to the Abstract Expressionist movement. In tandem with his painting practice, Katz continues to explore three-dimensional space with sculptural cutouts—a technique first established by the artist in 1959. He is also a prolific printmaker.
Alex KatzDeparture (Ada), 2017 Cutout from shaped powder-coated aluminium, printed on 2-sides with UV cured archival inks, clear coated, and mounted to white bronze base
Alex KatzNicole, 2018 14-run lithograph, woodcut and screenprint
Alex KatzDeparture 1 (Ada), 2017 Powder-coated aluminium cutout, mounted to white bronze base and printed with UV cured archival inks
Alex KatzAda (Outline), 2017 Mirror polished stainless steel mounted on absolute black granite base
Related Press 'Fashion doomed to fade, but art is forever' The Korea Times : 27 April 2018 American artist Alex Katz is known for his distinctive style of portraits featuring sophisticated yet daring women of all ages. The Lotte Museum of Art (LMOA) in southern Seoul presents the first solo exhibition of the 90-year-old artist, who stylises American culture and society such as fashion, beauty and landscape, in Korea.Titled Alex Katz:...
Related Press Alex Katz - 'I never had any self-confidence until I was 30' Phaidon : 10 November 2017 We've loved and admired the work of Alex Katz for a long time now so we were happy to bump into him while checking out some of his new paintings, sculptures and a show of his 1940's Subway Drawings at Timothy Taylor, London a couple of weeks ago. The drawings were made by Katz during his time as an art student at Cooper Union, when he used his time...
Related Press Alex Katz’s Subway Drawings Give a Glimpse of 1940s New York Vogue : 27 April 2017 If you're in New York City and you catch the Q train at the new subway station at 86th Street, you'll glimpse a massive, scowling, photo-realistic portrait of the artist Alex Katz by his friend, the painter/photographer Chuck Close. But Katz's presence can also be felt 30-odd blocks south. That's where, seven decades ago, the artist would cross the...
Related Press Alex Katz on his five decade career, collaborating with H&M, and being a millennial icon PAPER : 3 December 2016 When artist Alex Katz confides to me that he's in good shape he's not kidding. The 89 year-old painter is as sharp as ever, and still paints seven days a week. Although he insists he never goes out anymore, the work he is turning out from his studio is speaking louder than ever these days to a new millennial generation of style kids who...
Related Video & Audio Alex Katz at Timothy Taylor, London Vimeo : 10 November 2017 Alex Katz (b. New York, 1927) is known world-wide for his unique approach to contemporary representational painting, developed in reaction to the dominance of Abstract Expressionism, prior to the emergence of Pop Art in the USA. This exhibition will contrast over 50 intimate, delicate early pencil drawings with the artist's latest works - a series...
