Paint slides, slips, changes its meaning. Artists grapple with it to harness its potency, bring it under control and still give it full weight. The issues the medium raises, the messages carried on the surface are startling, unnerving, compelling, political, lyric and full of fury and compassion. This applies in full measure to the work we are looking at in this volume of Border Crossings. Painting is always subject to discussion, interrogation, and rhapsody.
So, in this, the largest issue in our over 40 year history, Border Crossings is looking again at painting through the work and words of a panoply, a myriad, a dazzle and a diversity of artists.
Border Crossings foregrounds the interview because we want to hear what artists say. For this issue we talked with Tala Madani, Paul P, Margaux Williamson, Ambera Wellmann, Christina Quarles, Ekene Emeka-Maduka, Azadeh Elmizadeh and Laura Lewis.
The articles in this special issue are a full and fascinating mix, including considerations of the astonishing and varied career of Alfred Leslie; Nick Cave’s important iterations; Remedios Varo and Mika Rottenberg—they more same than different; the precise abstractions of Paul Pagk; and an Illustrated Essay on Chris Cran’s just a little other-worldly paintings. There is also an elegant and wistful Portfolio of text and photographs by Jarrett Earnest.
The issue opens with a presentation of the tender small circus paintings—women all—of Mélanie Rocan, followed by the “boys of war”, the work of Bosnian Canadian artist Sadko Hadzihasanovic. Border Crossings’ issues always conclude with an extended review section, criss-crossing borders as we do. A brief look at this lengthy section: Jin-me Yoon, Sean Landers, Johannes Vermeer, Dana Schutz, Henrike Naumann, Mohammed Sami, Sasha Pierce and very many more.
