March 5, 2017 by Justin O. Walker

Tessellations – Jack Whitten at Hauser & Wirth

These tessellated paintings are naturalistic by an abstractly-expressive-mimetic process, a reconciliation of the human creative impulse with the superior natural forces of creation that encompass it. In other words, Whitten’s work seems to be at an ethereal place, where art production rhymes with the ebb of creation at its highest state.

February 22, 2017 by Flora Ward

The Spanish eye – From Doodles to Pixels at International House

Spain is not a country that I immediately associate with either historical or avant-garde animation, so I was curious–what is Spanish animation, and what makes it distinctly Spanish? Will these films be interesting for normal people who aren’t obsessed with Spain like I am, or will my boyfriend resent me for dragging him out to see obscure Spanish short animations on a Friday night?

February 21, 2017 by Chip Schwartz

A lot on his mind – Matt Freedman at Fjord

Fjord’s gallery is brimming with Freedman’s assorted colorful papier mâché and found object sculptures that exist in constant dialogue with his ideas, stories, and sketches; they are the physical manifestations of his ceaseless cerebral exercises.

February 13, 2017 by Michael Lieberman

Turning trash into art – RAIR at the Galleries at Moore

Descendants of trash pickers and connoisseurs of the found object, wearing overalls and hard hats, and “interrupting the waste stream,” the RAIR artists turn trash into artwork of one sort or another, and challenge our perceptions of the discarded.

February 12, 2017 by Flora Ward

Andrea Hornick’s metamorphoses – Unbounded Histories at the Barnes

Hornick wants to take us on a voyage through the collection that is both physical and spiritual, asking us to participate in her own mystical and shamanic experience of the paintings and sculptures of the Barnes.

February 9, 2017 by Neil Marcello

Tall tales, short films – 2017’s Oscar-nominated live action shorts

The five nominees for short live action films showing at the Ritz at the Bourse don’t waste much time getting down to business, starting with the French entry, “Ennemis Interieurs,” directed by Selim Azzazi. The fictional story is set during the Algerian civil war (1991-2002) and at a time when French citizens on French soil were being targeted by terrorists. The two main characters of the film, known simply as the Applicant and the Interrogator (both from Algeria), enact an interview for French citizenship. If you ever have been through an interview for citizenship in the west–and I am speaking from experience–there aren’t too many pleasant moments in which you feel like you are welcome during the interrogation about your background, name, or religion.

February 9, 2017 by Neil Marcello

Big visions, short films – 2017’s Oscar-nominated animated short films

With the charming exception of Disney-Pixar’s avian mini-adventure, “Piper,” this year’s Oscar nominees for best animated short film is a mixed bag of tales of whimsy, nostalgia, coming-of-age, tragedy, and personal loss. Whether it’s an existential crisis of a girl in “Blind Vaysha” or the unrequited affection and generosity of a friend in “Pear Cider and Cigarettes,” all nominees offer a personal vision and emotional subtlety that vary in tone, style, subject and inspiration.

February 8, 2017 by Matthew Rose

John Berger’s ways of seeing & reading Magritte

The absurdities that Magritte quietly broadcast are possible in this and any universe; meaning, one realizes, is ultimately in flux. But Berger and Magritte charge the viewer with the responsibility of working out the real, and ultimately that which is critical and consequential. How to do that, how to decode reality? Perhaps only with our greatest tool and its full arsenal of flavors: language. Language, which got us in trouble to begin with.