 01/07/05 Artforum
This month: What's new in the new year? Artforum continues its annual tradition of finding out with "First Take," where ten critics, curators, and artists profile the work of up-and-comers poised to make waves in 2005--including The Kitchen's Debra Singer on Kristin Baker, Tate Modern's Jessica Morgan on Roman Ondak, Castello di Rivoli's Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev on Michael Rakowitz, and artist Joe Scanlan on Walead Beshty, as well as regular Artforum contributors David Rimanelli on Adam McEwen, Tom Holert on Julian Gothe, and Alison M. Gingeras on Richard Hughes. "Walead Beshty consistently pays attention to the wrong things, or the right things in the wrong way, or the right places at the right time--as in his photographs of outmoded shopping malls, visited thirty years too late. Little by little, step by step, potted plant by potted plant, Beshty's images zero in on the revelation of being confused."--Joe Scanlan And: In his cover essay, Barry Schwabsky takes stock of Carol Bove, whose retrofuturist variations on Haim Steinbach's "shopping and shelves" aesthetic, as well as her sometimes barely decipherable drawings of yesteryear's magazine fashion plates, make her an incisive critic of cultural and material history. "The strikingly ingenuous yet imperious faces we squint to perceive in Bove's drawings seem to be wondering why we, their future, have ended up even more fucked up than they were."--from "Shelf Life: Barry Schwabsky on the Art of Carol Bove" Plus: Michael Auping listens in on Bruce Nauman's spoken-word installation at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, discovering a powerful fusion of individual and collective experience that he rates among the artist's best work to date. "Nauman has always been an artist who does the opposite of what you think he should, then somehow makes you think it was exactly the right thing to do. When he agreed to create a work for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, I thought he had clearly accepted an invitation to fail. The Turbine Hall is the Jaws of museum architecture."--from "Sound Thinking: Michael Auping on Bruce Nauman at the Turbine Hall" Also: Lars Bang Larsen talks to Yinka Shonibare about his first film, Un Ballo in Maschera, 2004, a lavish choreography based on the assassination of King Gustav III that also hints at contemporary geopolitics; Hilton Als ponders photographer Juergen Teller's naked obsession with Charlotte Rampling; Dennis Cooper views Jessica Yu's acclaimed new biopic on Outsider superstar Henry Darger; and Katy Siegel mingles with the crowd in contemporary art, parsing the social and political significance of public gatherings depicted in the art of the past decade, from the photographs of Andreas Gursky to Jeremy Deller's re-enactment performance The Battle of Orgreave, 2001. Also in Artforum's January issue: Brandon W. Joseph surveys the Santa Monica Museum of Art's revelatory retrospective of "expanded filmmaker" Pat O'Neill; Bruce Hainley reviews Sturtevant's total occupation of the Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt ("Repeat after me: Erase and rewind. That's Sturtevant, the short version."); and Siegel points to the highs and lows of the 2004 Carnegie International. All that, plus Artforum's seasonal exhibition guide, previewing 50 exhibitions internationally this winter to keep you informed of the new year's essential wheres and whens. Visit Artforum online at http://www.artforum.com To subscribe, visit http://www.artforum.com/subscribe Visit our free online directory of international museums at http://www.artforum.com/museumfinder |
