· And: Investigating the legacy of the cold-war think tank and its culture of cover-ups and leaks, art historian Pamela M. Lee detects a new aesthetics of redaction and disclosure—what she terms the “open secret”—in the work of artists Jill Magid and Trevor Paglen and in today’s politics of information at large.
“The secret paradoxically possesses something like an appearance—an aesthetics, if you like. The past several years have seen the development of a certain kind of artistic practice that visualizes covert relationships of power.”
—Pamela M. Lee
· Plus: Critic Michael Wang goes into thin air—charting a history of the dissolving boundaries between architecture and atmosphere, from corporate architect Kevin Roche’s 1976–82 Union Carbide building to recent projects by Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi and even to the catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.
“The formerly distinct realms of building and environment have merged on multiple fronts, with both productive results and disastrous consequences.”
—Michael Wang
· Curator Stuart Comer sits down with filmmaker John Smith—star of the recent Berlin Biennial and director of the cult film The Girl Chewing Gum (1976)—about his riddling conjunctions of image and sound, fact and fiction, and his insatiable love of the pun.
· Italian legend Pino Pascali gets his proper due from historian and curator Mark Godfrey, who looks at the artist’s alogical late works of the 1960s.
· Historian P. Adams Sitney rethinks the career and continuing influence of Ken Jacobs, on the occasion of the first monographic publication on his work.
· And: Ina Blom takes a Close-Up view of Cerith Wyn Evans‘s megawatt installation at Bergen Kunsthall, curator Chus Martínez pens an Openings to introduce Mexico City–based artist José Antonio Vega Macotela, and Suzanne Hudson asks Mika Tajima and Charles Atlas for 1000 Words on their multimedia collaboration, The Pedestrians, this past month in London.
· Also: Alice Aycock remembers the life and groundbreaking work of Dennis Oppenheim; Martin Jay analyzes Avital Ronell‘s new book Fighting Theory; Rachel Haidu deciphers Luis Camnitzer‘s survey at El Museo del Barrio in New York; Tim Griffin draws the curtain on “William Leavitt: Theater Objects” at LA MoCA; Martin Herbert gets immersed in the Susan Hiller exhibition at Tate Britain; Huey Copeland applauds Alicia Hall Moran‘s The Motown Project; J. Hoberman recaps comedian Ernie Kovacs‘s early innovations in televised humor; and London-based artist Hilary Lloyd, whose solo show at Artists Space opens in New York this month, records her Top Ten.
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