April 2006 in Artforum
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This month: What Does the Jellyfish Want? On the heels of artist Christopher Williamss impressive appearances at the 2006 Whitney Biennial and David Zwirner Gallery in New York, critic and curator Bennett Simpson looks at the artists body of photographic work, which–reminiscent of the marine animal that has no stomach, mouth, or skeleton–defies consistent theme, style, and technique.
One does not read a Williams photograph for its transparent portrayal of things in themselves. The decisive moment always lies elsewhere, buried deep inside the backstory of a chosen subject or ricocheting among groupings of images within an exhibition. This simultaneous deferral and insistence on meaning lend a certain irony to the experience of Williamss work. One is overloaded with facts but significance remains a riddle. –Bennett Simpson on Christopher Williams
Plus: Double or Nothing: The Art of Douglas Huebler. Just as Williams uses photography to respond to the material and discursive underpinnings of the medium itself, so did his CalArts teacher Douglas Huebler. John Miller takes another look at the Conceptual artist and sees his cool-handed work and gamelike practice as one of the most prescient artistic forerunners of todays information economy.
What Huebler grasped was the cameras force as an economic and social agent. He saw that its ability to disseminate images widely, cheaply, and immediately implies a degree zero of democratization bordering on complete devaluation. –John Miller on Douglas Huebler
And: Blind Spots. Art historian and critic Hal Foster examines the art of Joachim Koester, following him along the border between documentary and fiction in search of the sites of historys less-expected turns.
Even as modernization obliterates history, it can also produce points of suspension that expose its uneven developments–or, perhaps better, its uneven devolution into so many ruins. Such are the blind spots that intrigue Koester. –Hal Foster on Joachim Koester
Also in April: Martin Herbert talks with Angela Bulloch about her recent suite, Group of Seven (One Absent Friend); Pamela M. Lee engages the World Social Forum; Jan Tumlir pumps up the volume with Sunn O))); Robin Wood discusses the films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne; James Meyer surveys The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art in Buffalo, New York; Yve-Alain Bois tours the Museum Ludwigs major exhibition of the work of George Brecht, the first in twenty-eight years; Chrissie Iles celebrates the life and work of John Latham; and Suzanne Hudson takes another look at the art of Katja Strunz.
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