Author Archives: jolanta

Several years ago I was hired to curate an exhibition of black female artists. I rolled my eyes and coined it, “The Soul Sisters Show,” which infuriated the sponsor, who was also my best friend, my roommate and a black man. So, I made an appointment at the Kenkeleba House to peruse their slide banks […]

In the summer of 2006, Cecilia Jurado turned a mini space in Tribeca into a dollhouse. Formerly, this space was an entrance to a building, which gentrification had transformed into a black hole. After renting the space for two and a half years and conceptualizing this project, in 2006 “Welcome to my Dollhouse” was finally […]

When you enter the Ronald Feldman Gallery to see Todd Siler’s “Fractal Reactor: Recreating the Sun,” you are immediately pulled into two directions. One is toward the roiling blast of fiery images on the wall facing you—and the other is to the story of those images, mounted on the wall next to you. That story […]

Illustrations, sculptures, really, for a phantasmagorical story that happens to feature little old you. A virtual—“can this be possible?”—reality-goggled trove? No, it’s “Caught from Below,” Sarah Perry’s new work at Hunsaker/Schlesinger Fine Art featuring 17 pieces cobbled together from Spanish moss and English house sparrow feathers, snake vertebrae and ribs, pigeon feet and millipedes, not […]

Next to Gilbert and George, Bob and Roberta Smith might just be the most infamous couple in the contemporary art world (and far less creepy and terroristic than the duo). But, like most folk hero gestalts (Robin and Marian, Bonny and Clyde, Kenan and Kel), the nature of their existence is in some dispute; supplementary […]

Decoy, 2001, is a series of short digital animations presented on plasma screens that have been hung on the wall like paintings. Each sequence shows a photograph of an idyllic English landscape succumbing to digital effects. Computer-generated elements appear in the scene, sometimes under the cover of artificial fog, sometimes simply “out of the blue”: […]

The cut paper, sculptural work of artist Jane South goes to show that sketching out one’s depictions before their execution can lead to a whole lot more than just a blueprint of the final product. In South’s case it led to the discovery of an entirely new medium and even to an additional dimension in […]

Ik maak tekeningen.Ik maak tekeningen van wat ik zie en wat ik hoor om me heen. Maar ook van wat ik gelezen heb, of wat ik bijvoorbeeld gezien heb in een film. De aanleiding voor mijn werk zijn de vele indrukken die ik opdoe door het observeren. Ik teken deze indrukken pas dan als het […]

The quirky sculptures of Alex Wagman and the buoyant paintings of Phil Joanou address the human condition. And it’s not so much with serious commentary—or at least nothing earth shattering. Yet the humor here, which is mostly tongue-in-cheek and symbolic, bounds between art history and some relatively current events. Of the two, Wagman’s expertly patinated […]

I’ve always envied men. They have power, aggressiveness and true, plain beauty. My latest body of work, “Man,” explores my internal struggles with the better of the sexes. The impetus for this work is a black and white photograph of my father at 19, and oddly enough, I look just like him. In the photograph […]