The woman on the screen is in a completely empty auditorium. She is singing and her voice is shrill and long, like a wounded animal. In her voice there is also a yearning, a pleading, as if she were praying. At the same time an immense tenderness is felt, as if her song were a [...]
"Reflection alone can give us the idea of what perception is" We saw these words in pale white neon lights above the stairs leading to the basement gallery at New York's Sean Kelly art gallery. We paused and wondered who wrote these words, and who was the artist who noticed them and used them to [...]
Rafael San Juan-Primavera In the rhythm of the festive Salsa music, under a burning sun, the month-long12th Havana Art Biennial came to a close on June 21st. And with it, the incredible feeling that something of importance happened this time, something that might change the future of the Cuban art world. Poorly organized, [...]
Spouts Installation The world famous Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, who is not allowed to travel outside of China since 2010, opened a solo exhibition for the first time in his home country. I was lucky to arrive at the opening before it became too crowded. The exhibition took over two adjacent galleries and [...]
Egg Bed Crystal Shell, 2014Plywood, cotton fabric, polyamide textile, polyurethane foam, semiprecious stones, and pulley Life is for enjoyment and happiness. To Ernesto Neto, one of the world’s leading contemporary artists, this is not just a statement about the purpose of life. This is what he does with his art work, which provides [...]
From the Series of Essays Ritual Practices by Elaine Smollin In Mamma Andersson paintings, what is apparent is always the flip side of consciousness. The present may as well be the past, while the past with its heavy hand, can deftly reveal a sudden lightness of being. From where comes this painter’s dialectics? An Andersson [...]
by Light-man The symbiotic relationship between the artist and the land, the soil, natural elements is gaining momentum as the world is more aware of the woes of growing environmental crisis. Already this issue concerns basic human survival, just as what the Land Art movement in the 70s predicted when they pioneered an art [...]
From the Series of Essays Ritual Practices by Elaine Smollin The vision of deities and their familiars, among animals, tends to exclude humans from those with the ability to see the progress of eternal forces in the actual world. Perhaps this is because our vision is more pragmatic. Unlike dogs and birds, we don’t [...]
From the series of essays Ritual Practices by Elaine Smollin On the road from Frankfurt-am-Main to Leipzig, departing Hessen into Thuringia, a vast heap of salt towers above the passerby. This inert, looming, giant byproduct of industry dwarfs the relevance of anything nearby. The power of its sheer enormity stuns the senses, pressing the [...]
Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2014 Contemporary art often crosses the line of pure art expression or craft. It contributes to building a culture, thus encompassing many different creative fields, such as film making, literature, political issues, and even spirituality. At the recent 11th Ubud Writers Readers Festival in Indonesia, we experience art [...]
