A Disagreeable Object brings together 20 artists who employ and borrow from the methods and artistic practices that the Surrealists developed in the first half of the century. This is not an exhaustive survey, nor an attempt to re-consider our understanding of Surrealism as an historical movement. Rather, the exhibition offers a view of contemporary sculpture identifying influences and attitudes that have filtered through decades of cultural production. The works in A Disagreeable Object respond to a decidedly contemporary context…

Ancient Egyptians regarded the balls that dung beetles diligently form as a symbol of the earth. According to Jean-Henri Fabre’s 1921 Book of Insects, the creature was admired for its cosmic synchronicity: creating microcosms by rolling up feces and dirt, it was engaged in sacred activity. However, as Fabre explains in the chapter “The Sacred Beetle,” the beetle’s balls are actually a food source: “It is not at all nice food. For the work of this Beetle is to scour the filth from the surface of the soil. The ball he rolls so carefully is made of his sweepings from ...

On a recent visit to an archaeology museum, I was struck by the ornate jewelry dating from the early Bronze Age—bracelets, rings, and necklaces that look remarkably contemporary in design. People have always had a taste for fine things. And of course, these were objects for the wealthy, for those of high social status who were buried with their goods. While I have become accustomed to admiring such items during museum visits, my central thought on this trip was that luxury has always existed. This prosaic musing led me to consider the problematics around luxury. It’s difficult to look at ...

The Renaissance Society presents a new, site-specific installation by Gabriel Sierra, the Bogotá-based artist’s first solo show in the United States. Sierra is intrigued by the language of man-made objects and the dimensions of the spaces in which we live, work, and think. His practice employs a variety of techniques – from sculpture and spatial interventions to performance and texts – to examine how the human body functions in relation to its environment. Originally trained in architecture and design, Sierra’s work draws on the history of Latin American Modernism. His project at the Renaissance Society consists of a group of constructions to ...

Chelsea Knight and Martine Syms Hosted by The Shandaken Project and Storm King Art Center New Windsor, NY Sunday September 6th, 2015, 3pm-evening The Center for Experimental Lectures invites you to join us sixty minutes north of New York City for our fourth annual Labor Day weekend event hosted by the Shandaken Project, for new lecture-performances by Chelsea Knight and Martine Syms. The day’s program will begin at Storm King Art Center at 3pm, and continue into the evening on the contiguous campus of The Shandaken Project at Storm King. Chelsea Knight will present an experimental walking tour of Storm King beginning at the Visitor ...

When the parasite sets in, small white bubbles rise up. They are warm, transparent and may appear anywhere. Cases have been documented in Boston, Cambridge and New York and the number is increasing. The appearance is not on the skin but on the sidewalks. New York artist Michael Rakowitz is the engineer of paraSITE, a temporary living space for the homeless. We may see homeless citizens every day, but now we see them unexpectedly, living inside what looks like a space age tent. paraSITE uses the warm air that escapes buildings to inflate and to provide night-time shelter. The cities and ...

Deal or No Deal is an exhibition sourcebook detailing a field of transactions and negotiations, employing elements of geometric formalism to delineate various positions of inclusion and exclusion, participation and observation, and the particular and universal. The circle, line, and square in its proliferation are brought into relation with the built environment. Intersecting circles, shaded areas, and parallel stripes form abstract Venn diagrams illustrating uncontainable combinations of relationships and differences (insiders and outsiders).

Dear_Tony (2013) is an unauthorized, distributed retrospective of the public sculptures of Tony Smith by Christian de Vietri and A.E. Benenson. Addressed as much to the deceased sculptor and his practice as our contemporary audience, Dear_Tony rethinks the artist’s historic investigations into modular construction, phenomenology, and public space within the contexts of digital fabrication, interactivity, and networked communication. At the same time, Dear_Tony is a means to reflect on the form of the retrospective and how its requirements may be adapted to contemporary conditions of viewership. Dear_Tony consists of a digital sculpture by Christian de Vietri, which is composed of extractable models ...

This code is written in the language Perl – a general purpose UNIX scripting language written in 1987 by Larry Wall. It’s a great language, especially for quick no bullshit text hacks. Also, FYI, it’s my favorite language, the first one I learned, and the one I program in most. .dae is an open standard XML schema for exchanging digital assets aka ”D”igital ”A”sset ”E”xchange. In English: basically it’s a file format that was developed in order to allow different 3d programs to exchange digital information between each other. Otherwise, a 3d object composed in, say, the 3d program Bryce could ...

By inserting the work of contemporary artists into global channels, E-State Realisms identifies the absence of critical contemporary art in the viral domain. Here artists are dealing critically with and not about the digital/IRL landscape. They are active players in the systems they critique. The neoliberal deregulation of capital as a state of exception exemplifies how corporations are currently privileged at the expense of citizens. Similar to offshore tax avoidance, the neoliberal art market stages artwork as a temporary home for accumulated wealth. This conflation places the voice of critique in a murky position. In order for Art to theoretically ...

These line drawings are preliminary plans for sculptures. The sculptures themselves are trilateral, perforated structures that don’t have a “correct” perspective and are intended to be both looked ‘at’ and ‘through’, like a screen. On the page, the same forms are applied as patterns, geometric abstractions, and parred-down faces and bodies.