December 2014 in Artforum
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This month in Artforum:
THE BEST OF 2014
Seventeen distinguished contributors—Lynne Cooke, Elena Filipovic, Hal Foster, David Rimanelli, Daniel Baumann, Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, Daniel Birnbaum, Michael Fried, Sarah K. Rich, Wayne Koestenbaum, Pauline J. Yao, Briony Fer, Christine Macel, Polly Staple, Tim Griffin, Vince Aletti, and Nicolaus Schafhausen—consider the year in art:
“Huyghe entirely redefined the midcareer survey and the ways in which it can address an audience, with none of the swagger to which others from his generation have succumbed.”
–Elena Filipovic on Pierre Huyghe at the Centre Pompidou, Paris
“Though Gober’s mapping of the American sociocultural landscape by way of themes of sexuality, politics, religion, and domesticity is often trenchant, even bleak, it is leavened by its resilient generosity of spirit.”
–Lynne Cooke on Robert Gober at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
“On September 28, as young people took to the streets demanding true democracy, a crucial new phase of self-definition began.”
–Pauline J. Yao on the Hong Kong protests
“If narcissism has become the default psychological state of the first world in the twenty-first century, then Arunanondchai is bang on it.”
–Polly Staple on Korakrit Arunanondchai at Carlos/Ishikawa, London
“It’s not often that contemporary art scares me—but this sure did.”
–Daniel Birnbaum on Ed Atkins at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris
THE YEAR IN INFORMATION
Renowned science-fiction writer William Gibson, scholar Grégoire Chamayou, and curator Ben Vickers on the “year in information”: From Ferguson to ISIS, branding to biometrics, how we post, search, map, picture, and track—and, in turn, are tracked—at a moment when the very act of communication is at once a submission to surveillance and a will to power:
“There are more secrets than ever before, but they seem, individually, exponentially harder to keep.”
–William Gibson
Film: John Waters, Amy Taubin, James Quandt, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, and J. Hobermancount down the year’s highlights:
“I love this film more than I love my own mustache.”
–John Waters on David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars
Music: Kathleen Hanna, Shintaro Sakamoto, Matthew Higgs, Wu Tsang, and George Lewis pick 2014′s top ten in sound:
“I saw comedian Hari Kondabolu perform live, and he turned a dick joke into a feminist one in five seconds flat. His new album is like Rapunzel turning straw into gold, if straw was injustice and gold was humor.”
–Kathleen Hanna on Hari Kondabolu at Union Hall, Brooklyn
Books: Carroll Dunham, Sophia Al-Maria, Michael Fried, Branden W. Joseph, Bruce Hainley, Susanne Pfeffer, Brooke Hodge, Diedrich Diederichsen, and Mira Schor on the most compelling reads.
Claire Bishop on the Year in Performance
Sarah Nicole Prickett on the Year in Fashion
And: The Artists’ Artists: Forty-five artists from around the world choose the work, event, or exhibition that most struck them this year: Vito Acconci, Mounira Al Solh, Marwa Arsanios, Korakrit Arunanondchai, John Baldessari, Lucas Blalock, Antoine Catala, Maurizio Cattelan, Susan Cianciolo, Alex Da Corte, Tacita Dean, Alex Dordoy, Loretta Fahrenholz, Vincent Fecteau, Kim Gordon, Wade Guyton, Trajal Harrell, Maria Hassabi, Hu Xiaoyuan, Lisa Jo, Rashid Johnson, Morag Keil, Andrew Kuo, Gabriel Kuri, Adriana Lara, Simone Leigh, Glenn Ligon, Park McArthur, Dave Miko, Jeanette Mundt, Oscar Murillo, Shahryar Nashat, Paulo Nazareth, Shinro Ohtake, Virginia Overton, Marlo Pascual, Adam Pendleton, Laure Prouvost, Nick Relph, Pamela Rosenkranz, Ed Ruscha, Jacolby Satterwhite, Aura Satz, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Lawrence Weiner.
Plus: Dieter Roelstraete and Abigail Winograd visit the 31st São Paulo Bienal, and Colby Chamberlain reviews Mel Bochner at the Jewish Museum.
