DaWire

How do you remain uncommercialized in an increasingly commercialized space? A very difficult question when it comes to the business of art.  Some lean toward shock value, the status quo, or cleverness, while others choose to continue to expand the boundaries of intellectual and creative integrity on behalf of artists and audiences. The Gallery at 1GAP (One Grand Army Plaza), an alternative contemporary art space, mediated by curator Isolde Brielmaier, offers up a site based on the latter.[...]

The work of Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander often explores the minuteness and grandeur of everyday actions. In her mid-career retrospective at the New Museum, A Day Like Any Other, the artist conveys these poetic actions through a variety of different media, including film, sculpture, collage, painting, installation and participatory events. From rain-weathered maps to a looped video that follows a wandering soap bubble, Neuenschwander presents small, seemingly insignificant occurrences that become metaphors for translation and transience.[...]

Jorge Ortega del Campo, Thy Kingdom Come

This multiple art form exhibition entitled Non Compos Mentis refers to that unclear and even psychopathological part of the human mind. It is related to subtle nets of machine like, mechanized and automaton humans who live in large urban areas. It provokes an indescribable block of emotions manifest in a variety of machines and artifacts framing this exhibition. A green room simulating an industrial atmosphere, far from any eco considerations, gathers working and domestic realms in a confusing and indiscernible way. [...]

Continuing our partnership with our West Coast friends at DailyServing, today we feature an article written by Rebecca Najdowski on the 29th São Paulo Bienal. Enjoy!

Terreiro: Marilá Dardot Tand Fábio Morais, Longe daqui, aqui mesmo (Far from here, right here)

What makes an art exhibition political?

The 2010 São Paulo Bienal, There is always a cup of sea to sail in, uses Brazilian poet Jorge de Lima’s line as a metaphorical container to address the ambitious theme of art and politics. The head curators Agnaldo Farias and Moacir dos Anjos see the title as an expression of the essential aspiration of the exhibition, “to affirm that the utopian dimension to art is contained within art itself, not outside or beyond it; to affirm the value of poetic intuition in the face of ‘tamed thought‘ that emancipates nothing, though it permeates political parties and even formal educational institutions.” (29th Bienal Catalogue, 21) This is an infinitely large concept in the palm of ones hand.[...]

We are proud to post a review written by Carla Acevedo published in the first edition of ArtPulse Magazine on a video exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum last year: Reflections on the Electric Mirror; New Feminist Video. Hope you enjoy it!

Shifting women’s roles from muses to creators, feminist art of the 1970s sought to redefine the position that women had conventionally occupied in art history, through artistic practices that were more inclusive of sociopolitical and ideological concepts relevant to women.[...]

The whole of last July saw the launch of Denver’s inaugural Biennial of the Americas, an international event dedicated to “celebrat[ing] the culture, ideas and people of the Western Hemisphere”—a considerable endeavor for any one city. The event culminated in citywide exhibitions, samples of cultural diversity, and a series of roundtables that brought together world leaders, dignitaries, and other industry experts to discuss the broader issues of the day. However, this is not a biennial in the conventional sense, as contemporary art played a surprisingly small role. Instead, it could more appropriately be described as a platform for the hemisphere’s 35 nations to air their grievances, with a few object lessons thrown in.[...]

As most of you may have noticed, to celebrate DaWire’s first year, this week we are revisiting articles that have made an impact in one way or the other. They are fan favorites, personal favorites or just plain great reads. Today we are featuring an article by Diana McClure on Murcia’s contemporary art scene, written after a trip made to the hosting region of Manifesta as a part of ARCO’s 2010 VIP Program.[...]

Continuing our one year celebration, today we are revisiting an article by our contributing writer in Mexico City Alejandro Sordo-Guzmán on the work of Hector Falcón. The book, its uses and transmutation by the hand of the artist into an art object makes us reflect further about how the act of mutilation turns into one of discovery.

There are many ways to enter the work of Rafael Ferrer. His experiences are reflected in multiple mediums including painting, collage, drawings, mixed media, and sculpture. Abstraction, portraits, and text-based work mix and mingle to suggest the presence not only of a man, but also a spirit in search of freedom.[...]

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Marcos Castro utilizes connections to alchemic procedures in order to describe metamorphoses that happen to the foundational myth of the eagle and the snake. The emblematic animals in which ancient Mexico City was founded visit this young artist’s individual mythology.[...]