Contemporary sculptor and print maker Kiki Smith has been photographing and exhibiting her work for three decades. Smith grew up in a family where “life wasn’t worth living if you didn’t make art.” As the daughter of minimalist sculptor Tony Smith, Kiki assisted her father with his large-scale sculptures by folding and gluing together geometric cardboard models.
It is undeniable that the reduction, which was largely brought on by budget constraints, has created a more sober atmosphere than the artistic smorgasbords of previous years – but maybe that’s not a bad thing. 2010 is less about the diva that is the art world and more about the art, and the people who make and inspire it. Walking through, you can concentrate on each piece without feeling overwhelmed by an overabundance of visual stimuli.
If Salon Cubism pleased nobody in 1912, the recreation of the gallery from the Salon d’Automne in the Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris exhibition is bound to excite the highest praise. The paintings are clustered about the walls, many of them positioned well above the heads of viewers, which presents Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 from an especially striking position. Sculpture busts, including one by Amadeo Modigliani, are stationed in front of the paintings, revealing how displays of different types of art were often closely integrated during the pre-World War I era.
The astonishing amount of detail, the tremendous amount of work that went into crafting the tiny piece and Lorna’s serene expression and frontal pose give her the air of a modern day Madonna. Despite her imperfections, nose rings and edgy attire, Lorna becomes an icon of contemporary feminine beauty.
In Roberto Cuoghi’s 2006 portrait of Davide Halevim, one of the highlights of the section entitled “Representations of Mortality,” Halevim is covered in leaves, dirt, and twigs; his face is discolored; and rigor mortis appears to have set in. But Halevim was alive (and still is) when Cuoghi made this depiction of the Milan-based collector. To create this work, part of the artist’s series of portraits of art-world figures begun in 2001, Cuoghi made a cast of Halevim’s face, buried it in his garden to let the process of decomposition run its course, and then photographed the results.
Predictably, Tim Burton is already a wildly popular show. As throngs of families, film buffs and multi-pierced hipsters make their way through the narrow hallway, you are forced along at a fairly rapid pace. In the background, a museum employee occasionally shouts that this part of the exhibit is available online to remind you that lingering is not an option.
Born in Antwerp in 1554, Bril was working in Italy at the end of the century, where his landscapes marked the transition between what Paolucci called the “autumn of Mannerism” of the Renaissance and the birth of the Baroque style. The change was enormous, and Bril is acknowledged as among its authors.
So what are today’s landscape artists telling us? In his eponymous show at the Hirshhorn, John Gerrard presents us with scenery that reflects a very different view of America. Rather than inspire us, the Irish artist constructs images that fill us with anxiety, hopelessness and a sense of imminent disaster. And we can’t look away.
The people of that ancient nation had been decimated in the opening genocide of modern times, victims of Turkish aggression during the First World War. “Who now remembers the Armenians?” Adolf Hitler exclaimed, as he and his Nazi lieutenants planned the Final Solution. The answer can be found lining the walls of the masterful exhibition in Philadelphia. Arshile Gorky remembered. “I shall resurrect Armenia with my brush,” Gorky declared in 1944, “for all the world to see.”
The first piece you see upon entering is Shapeshifter (2000), an enormous, abstracted whale skeleton built entirely out of white plastic chairs. Jungen’s leviathan is hung in front of a simple black wall and the contrast of colors intensifies its extraordinary power. Shapeshifter has the pristine, flawless texture of a mass produced object, yet somehow feels organic. You can easily imagine the enormous tale with its graceful, individually-carved vertebrae swinging to life.
A startling achievement in a first novel, the work seems to have already touched a chord since it has taken Italy and Europe by storm and sold copies in the millions. It was undertaken by a young Italian physicist at age 27, who tells a haunting story. Better yet, he’s a natural, adept with characterization, knowing how to captivate and hold his readers.
A Separate Country tells the story of Confederate General John Bell Hood, who moves to New Orleans after the war and marries a Creole debutante. Hood is a haunted man who has been physically marked by the war; he has lost a leg and the use of an arm. In addition, he can only excel militarily, and his life as a businessman is a resounding failure. Nevertheless, he finds love with the young beauty Anna Marie and they have eleven children together.
Giap had lost several family members to the rigors of French colonial rule, including his wife who was arrested and died in a French prison. A model of cool, methodical persistence, Giap was not goaded or tricked into a rash counterattack on Dien Bien Phu. He patiently assembled his forces, digging gun positions in the forested slopes overlooking the French defenses and amassing a huge supply of ammunition carried by thousands of porters through the jungle. Then on March 13, 1954, Giap struck at Dien Bien Phu, capturing several key strong-points and pounding the air strip so that supply planes could no longer land. The base aero-terrestre had become a death trap.
The Extinction Clock is counting down. Time is short—10,800 minutes (just seven days)—and if the clock zeroes out, billions will die.
Ex-cop Joe Ledger and the DMS (Department of Military Science) are assigned the mission to stop the clock and the men behind it, a pair of freakishly brilliant monsters who intend to commit genocide on an apocalyptic scale.
Voodoo Histories isn’t an attempt to tell everyone to chill out and stop worrying about what people in authority are up to. Rather, it attempts the trickier task of explaining why a set of conspiracy theories do not hold water on close examination, and accounting for how they differ from traditional historical explanations – what is specifically “conspiracist” about them.
It’s a radioactive fairy tale, with adults known only by nicknames (the Black Sheep, the baroness) and facts twisted into fantasies. Ever seen Heavenly Creatures? There’s a bit of that in here – the overheated imaginings of two girls on the edge of puberty.
If the book were a movie, it would be rated R; the author’s got a dirty mouth (or pen, if you prefer) and hormones out the wazoo, and this book is not your mom’s dating guide. But for modern women it’s a refreshing and smart reassurance that they’re not alone in their woes.
Garrity is an archetype, an ill-understood and imperiled hero who after overcoming every obstacle, exits hand-in-hand with the alluring heroine. It is part of the fun for our heroes to be bigger, somehow, than life, and for villains to be so brilliantly inventive and evil as to rival Satan himself. This fictional world of good and bad provides the reader with a comforting temporary escape from the real world with all its pesky shades of gray.
Novelist Lee Harwell is having breakfast at his favorite Chicago diner when a hostile homeless guy shouting a single word—obstreperous—interrupts his meal. He’s unsettled by the encounter and finally realizes why. The homeless man reminds him of his childhood friend Hootie who has been confined to a mental hospital since the sixties and communicates only in single words and literary quotations.
The mythology behind the Wonderland books is so complex, there are sure to be disappointed diehards, but Alice in Wonderland is a fun reinterpretation of the stories so many of us grew up reading and watching. It is easily the most visually impressive release since Avatar, and though it’s by no means Burton’s best movie, it is among his better ones.
This contrasts strikingly with next chapter which follows Ethan and his family to the mall, where Ethan – and the player – loses sight of one of his sons. As the crowd impedes your movement, the only indication of your child’s whereabouts is a bobbing balloon you just purchased for him. Then, in the distance, dozens of balloons fly out of someone else’s hands. The effect is one of dread and hopelessness. The conclusion only confirms those fears.
Horror film is enduring a period of what some would call “rejuvenation” and others would dub “total lack of imagination.” Good new horror is hard to find and recent remakes have been totally hit-or-miss. This weekend’s The Crazies is based on a 1973 George Romero film of the same name. This version, directed by Breck Eisner, shares basic plot points and characters, but it outdoes the mediocre-to-awful original by far.
Martin Scorsese’s newest picture Shutter Island is a creepy cinematic passage into paranoia, guilt, and insanity—a classic thriller with undertones of gothic romance and the failed American dream. The trailers, which anyone who’s taken in a movie in the last year has seen, reveal little but hint at a lot. Fortunately, the movie is a great watch even if the conclusion may leave some audiences grumbling.
Dante’s Inferno gets no points whatsoever for originality, but it’s such an entertaining, suspenseful and gorgeously designed videogame that it would be a shame for anyone to dismiss it based on poor marketing or the uninspiring downloadable demo. Visceral Games has proven themselves once again to make solid entertainment with striking visual aesthetics, and luckily for all of us seem to be growing a bit as storytellers as well.
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