All in Review
New York Times // Apocalypse Anxiety, the Musical
“Carnelian,” the latest show from the multimedia artist Lex Brown, rides the emotional roller coaster of life under constant threat of demise, with catchy songs.
Art Agenda // Dancing at the End of the World
image courtesy of kim córdova
Mousse Magazine // Yto Barrada at Casa Estudio Barragán
Double Skin, Yto Barrada’s exhibition in the architect’s home, presents her works in three main thrusts: prints and wallpaper inspired by paste papers found in books in Barragán’s personal library; a continuation of her work with natural dyes; and abstract video animations.
Art Review // Edgar Orlaineta: History is taking flight and passes forever
‘History is taking flight and passes forever,’ wrote Isamu Noguchi from the Poston War Relocation Center internment camp in Arizona in a letter to Man Ray, expressing his frustrations at the US policy towards Japanese Americans during the Second World War.
In his exhibition titled after the famed designer’s lamentation, Edgar Orlaineta presents new sculptural works and an installation that considers the political and artistic legacies of Japanese-American icons of mid-century art and design who had been interred in concentration camps in the US, a history that was something of a suppressed anathema in contemporary American consciousness and is now being invoked into broad awareness by Donald Trump’s proposals.
Art Review // Beyond Lawn and Order
Print only. October 2016
frieze // Nicholas Ceccaldi at House of Gaga
In ‘Les Chemins de la Honte – The Path of Shame’ at House of Gaga, Nicolas Ceccaldi presents just such a series of mass-produced works – purchased from the Pier 1 Imports section of a Sears department store in Mexico City – which he has altered with paint-pen markings, paper collages, animal skulls, butterfly wings, fabric flowers and hair clips. A series of wall-mounted animal skulls has also been similarly decorated.
Art Review // Chelsea Culprit
Chelsea Culprit’s Miss Universe reimagines the titular parade of competitive objectification as the psychic mise-en-scène of a strip club locker room, strewn with all the defences, reconciliations and intimacies needed to survive the pressure to perform.
Art Review // The Natural Order of Things
Review of the Natural Order of Things at Museo Jumex in the Summer 2016 issue of Art Review
Art Agenda // Elusive Earths III
At Parallel, Oaxaca, curatorial-artistic-investigative-philosophical team Jennifer Teets and Lorenzo Cirrincione present “Elusive Earths III,” the third iteration of their ongoing ethnographic inquiry into the history of geophagic traditions.
Art Review // Chantal Peñalosa
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SFAQ // VIRGINIA COLWELL
It’s easy for us to forget in all our ever-present over-interconnectedness that even as recent as 10 years ago, much less 30 years ago, letters were the primary means of communication, especially between radical leftist movements. And that the life of those underground radicals was lonely and anxious and ambiguous, especially as they wrestled with what is a justified use of lethal or symbolic violence, and that the solidarity they sought in their struggle would only be available from other radical groups, perhaps continents away.
SFAQ // Material Art Flair
The art market in Mexico has long been a one-gun town on the art-fair front. That is, until three years ago when the Material Art Fair opened its doors and shook things up.
Each year since its inception, Material has seen pretty radical format and venue changes, but at their core they maintain a dedication to emerging practices with the ambition of attracting fresh new talent and vision to Mexico City. On that front, they are an undisputed success, attracting the young, fabulous, and broke, whose collective hustle builds a palpable and dynamic energy. Art Fag City even went so far as to call it the most important art event of the year for artists.
“For artists” is the key.
Art Review // Sangree
Sangree at SAPS in Mexico City
SFAQ // Fordlandia Fever Dream
Descriptions of Fordlandia—Henry Ford’s ill-fated urban development and rubber plantation of the same name, built in 1928 in Brazil’s Amazonian rainforest—sound alternately surreal, hilarious, and completely miserable.
SFAQ // ON BEAUTY IN MEXICO
It may sound like a dusty snooze through Intro to Art History for anyone living in London, New York, or Paris, but Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo have come to Mexico City, and it’s a very big deal.
The blockbuster conjoined-twin exhibitions have smashed museum attendance records in Mexico and the historical significance of bringing these two artists’ work to Latin America for the first time makes this a trophy event for Palacio de Bellas Artes, the nation’s most important cultural center.
SFAQ // SWIMMING IN SELF REFLECTION
The movie poster for the 1968 Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer features a portrait of the star’s face dissolving into a swimming pool wake, and asks in that Vaseline-around-the-edges-soft-focus-dated-movie-poster-way, “When you talk about ‘The Swimmer’ will you talk about yourself?”