DaWire

Expanded Window, 2011. Site-specific installation. Acrylic, cable, aluminum.

Rectangular amber filters catch spectators unaware, forming an untouchable structure of lights and shades over the ramp at the entrance of this exhibit curated by Itala Schmelz. Reflecting plexiglas panels form geometric relations, the beam of yellow light fills the room with sparkling reflections, and the color of the sky changes when watching towards the zenith through the filters.[...]

Recently, during the month of April, Mexico City has been the seat of an international contemporary art fair: Zona Maco. Even though the fair has changed its name several times, it has grown to currently become the most successful art fair in Latin America. A great deal of society in Mexico City is always excited by this event. Many artists, collectors and people related to art from abroad come to the city. Parties, dinners and gallery openings are abundant, museums have special events, and bars in Polanco, Roma and Condesa districts, and the historical downtown are full of people talking about art, artists and collectors. Artists, cultural managers and agents, gallerists and curators gather together in order to widen their public relations and magazines publish special issues on contemporary art. Everybody has some kind of fun![...]

An assemblage with concave and convex elements by Thomas Glassford prepares the viewer for a distortion in their perception about the indiscernible limits and differences between established, procedural, formal, abstract or conceptual in contemporary art. Artists working within the context of Mexico, free of the historical and social imperatives, provoke an anamorphosis of vision located in the fold of Being and matter. Much like an erotic act, they speculate through an intimate relationship of art and artist. Matter and intelligible code field converge recreationally as a reflection of the Self. Some features, discovered by the curator Josefa Ortega, operate as a common thread that bring together works by artists from many different lands and ages: analytical construction, unveiling of the quality of material, structural game, time investment, non-referentiality and minimal use of materials. Looking for an evolution in form, the artists here described delve into the archives of abstraction and trends since 1945 such as pop, minimal forms, Arte Povera and conceptualism, using a wide range of media from painting, video, sculpture and object art.

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The saying goes that ‘the 30′s are the new 20′s’ and if we consider this in light of ARCO’s 30th anniversary this year, we find that the Madrid-based fair is as youthful as ever. After last year’s controversial edition (many galleries boycotted the fair due to its unbridled growth), ARCO seems to have regained its old-time mystique. Stricter parameters for the fair’s gallery program translated to more spacious stands, a more relaxed viewing experience and reportedly more sales.[...]

Titus Kaphar, This place never felt like home There is no question that nuances of power are central to the work of Titus Kaphar.  However, in today’s world, to dis-empower, overpower, or empower is dépassé. To play with power is the name of the game.  To cut off the head of power, exploit it, expose [...]

Rae McGrath’s SUGAR JUNKIE; a Winnebago turned gallery turned school bus

One of the most enticing legacies of the tradition of writers and their multiple identities as graffiti artists, aerosol artists, street artists, or simply artists, is the spontaneous intensity of a particular type of art making. A certain “Live Art”, in dialogue with the moment. It is precisely this paradigm that Rae McGrath’s Brooklynite Gallery has engaged with for the last 3 years on Malcolm X Boulevard, not far from Fulton Street, in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Now at a crossroads, McGrath is looking to take this living art practice into new territory.[...]

View from my end of the table at AO&’s curated dinner

Coming down from Chelsea Piers on a taxi on my way down to NYC’s Lower East Side, I wasn’t sure where exactly I was supposed to meet my friend for dinner. She told me earlier that evening to be there at 8pm, but I had just finished working a fair and wasn’t sure if I could be there on time. Arriving at Broome and Forsyth, there was no restaurant in sight. Looking around, I saw a couple that seemed just as lost as I was. “Are you here for the dinner?”  ”Yeah,” I replied. As we called our respective friend, a door opened on Broome right next to Simon Preston’s gallery inviting us in. Walking up the stairs, (this was no restaurant I realized), we arrived at an abandoned storefront set-up with a makeshift kitchen and a long nicely lit dining table. This was no ordinary dinner. It was the performance/experiential work of the Austrian collective AO&; a part of their Fall residency at Simon Preston Gallery.[...]

Carlos “Mare139” Rodriguez, WU/StyleWriter, an illegal public sculpture in Wuppertal Germany.

One of the hardest working women in New York City is Martha Diaz. Dedicated to community empowerment through institution building for over a decade, her most recent project, The Hip-Hop Education Center for Research, Evaluation, and Training [H2ED Center], finds her in partnership with New York University. Launched in June 2010 at New York University’s Metropolitan Center for Urban Education [Metro Center] in the Steinhardt School for Culture, Education, and Human Behavior, The H2ED Center is the premiere institute formed to explore and advocate the potential of Hip-Hop education.[...]

We are happy to continue our partnership with DailyServing, an international forum for the contemporary arts based in California. Today we feature an article written by Catherine Wagley on the exhibition The City Proper currently on view at West Hollywood’s Margo Leavin Gallery. Read on… it’s good.

Ger van Elk, “The Co-Founder of the Word O.K.-Hollywood,” 3 color photographs, 1971.. Courtesy the Artist and Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: by Brian Forrest.

The first time I visited downtown Los Angeles, I was surprised by its bareness. A friend and I, both of us art students, had driven in from Claremont for an opening, tackling the congested Santa Monica freeway for the first time, too. A fellow student and L.A. veteran had warned us that, even if we experienced smooth sailing through Covina, we’d hit an out-of-nowhere stand still once we’d “cleared that hill and past the Westfield [mall].” He was right, and we slowed to a laborious crawl 20 miles from the city. Braving traffic felt like initiation and we were proud of ourselves. However, once we arrived in the city proper and exited the I-10, all the people seemed to evaporate. The galleries we wandered through may have been well-populated, but, otherwise, downtown felt weirdly gutted of life.[...]

Carlos Amorales (in collaboration with André Pahl), Logo for Juárez Project, 2006

Guns, narcos, prostitutes, rape, murders, these are some of the most common images that the media utilizes to portray Ciudad Juárez. Once considered an attractive city, in recent decades Ciudad Juárez has become synonym with violent crimes and terror. As an artist residency program, Proyecto Juárez started as an independent initiative in an attempt to approach the socioeconomic changes of the border city; commissioning artworks that considered the context of the city while benefitting from the help of local institutions and the community.[...]