Ocula Conversation Pierre Huyghe: The Artist as Director Pierre Huyghe is a producer of spectacular and memorable enigmas, with works that function more like mirages than as objects. Abyssal Plain (2015–ongoing), his contribution to the 2015 Istanbul Biennial, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, was installed on the seabed of the Marmara Sea, some 20 metres below the surface of the water and close to...
Ocula Report MoMA Expansion: Once the Modern, Always the Modern 29 Nov 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula In the early decades of its existence, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), founded in 1929, transformed from a philanthropic project modestly housed in a few rooms of the Heckscher Building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, to an alleged operating node in the United States' cultural struggle during the cold war, and one of the...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Chuck Close is renowned for his highly inventive techniques, and is best known for his large-scale, photo-based portrait paintings. In 1988, Close was paralyzed following a rare spinal artery collapse; he continues to paint using a brush-holding device strapped to his wrist and forearm. His practice extends beyond painting to encompass printmaking, photography, and, most recently, tapestries based on Polaroids.
Beginning in 1988, Close faced new personal and artistic challenges after suffering a collapsed spinal artery that initially left him paralyzed from the neck down. Through his remarkable courage and tenacity, his condition improved, and though dependent on a wheelchair, he was able to begin painting again with a customized brace. Close’s work continues to evolve in surprising ways. Incorporating new techniques, from nineteenth-century daguerreotypes to twenty-first-century computer-generated Iris prints, he has remained committed to rigorous experimentation within his rigidly defined practice. Through more than thirty-five years of “isms” and art movements, Close has operated on his own continuum, one that never fails to propel his work to new places.
In 2000, Close was presented with the prestigious National Medal of Arts by President Clinton. Close is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, has served on the board of many arts organizations, and was recently appointed by President Obama to serve on The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Ocula Conversation Terrie Sultan Curator, 'Chuck Close: Prints, Process and Collaboration' Terrie Sultan is the energetic curator behind the incredibly popular series of exhibitions Chuck Close: Prints, Process and Collaboration. First staged in Houston in 2003, the show has now been exhibited over twenty times around the world. The exhibition changes each time, reflecting the fact that Close continues to make prints and push the...
Related Press From Chuck Close to Sarah Sze, a Ride Through the Art of the Second Avenue Subway Hyperallergic : 5 January 2017 On New Year’s Day, there were two ways you could celebrate 2017 on either end of New York City’s Q train: take it all the way to Coney Island and go for a frigid swim with the Polar Bear Club or journey to three new Manhattan stops nearly a century in the making. The Second Avenue Subway, following long delays, incredible cost, and years of...
Related Press Art Underground: A First Look at the Second Avenue Subway The New York Times : 20 December 2016 When a city has been waiting for a badly needed new subway line since 1929, public art is probably far down the list of expectations, well behind accommodations like a) working trains, b) lights and c) some means of entrance and egress.But when commuters descend into the new Second Avenue subway’s four stations, at 96th, 86th, 72nd and 63rd...
Related Press The mysterious metamorphosis of Chuck Close The New York Times : 13 July 2016 A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit Chuck Close at his beach house on Long Island. The drive there always reminds me of an escape to the Hamptons in reverse. From the aristocratic brownstones of Park Slope, you work your way steadily down the socioeconomic ladder, past the towering Soviet-style apartment complexes of Coney Island, through...
Related Press The Magic Of Chuck Close'S Prints At Mca, Sydney - Review Nicholas Forrest for Blouin ArtInfo / 28 November 2014 : 7 December 2014 American artist Chuck Close’s singular artistic vision is not something that can be taught, or for that matter explained. In fact, walking through the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MCA) “Chuck Close: Prints, Process and Collaboration,” there is a strong sense that Close sees the world differently to everyone else,...
