Month: January 2023
Symbionts: Contemporary Artists and the Biosphere
Each collaborative entity mobilizes its own kind of micro-performance, but together they maintain a coherence through the way we simultaneously apprehend them in the sensorium. As such, the materials feel less instrumentalized by aesthetics and more mysterious.
Monira Al Qadiri: Refined Vision
Whereas fossil fuel exploration happens on a global scale, Al Qadiri zeroes in on extraction and refinement, which are much more visible at ground level in certain regions of the world. This exhibition drew a nuanced connection between the Persian Gulf region and the Texas Gulf Coast (although not noted in the exhibition information, the processing infrastructure of the latter region certainly extends into southern Louisiana).
Nope—A Certain Tendency of the Immaterial
Leah Clements—INSOMNIA
Providing access to the exhibition for blind and partially sighted people, this audio description acts as a way in for all audiences. Excitingly, here, through this interpretive sonic contribution, the visual aid becomes an affective feature rather than simply a functional element. It affects pace, the order of encounter, and the awareness of oneself in the environment, embedding us within it. It asks us to pay attention, to be indulgent with our time, and in so doing, to allow details and sensations to emerge.
Krista Clark — After Barkley
Even Clark’s techniques appear to be sly allusions that further enmesh her suite of references. In many of her works on paper, such as Play 1, Verse 1, the artist has created a subtle layering of paper through cutting and ripping—terms also used to label maneuvers in basketball.
All My …/All My— Designing Motherhood and the Labyrinth of Reproductive Health
The breathtaking range of topics in Designing Motherhood—choices of whether to conceive children or take a pregnancy to term, infant mortality, sterilization abuse, thalidomide, cesarean birth curtains, masculine birth, baby formula, the faja (a wrap for binding a postpartum abdomen), gender reveals, the Del Em Device, car seats, carers and carrying, the tie-waist skirt, the breast pump, and so on—reveals the immense, intricate knowledge necessary to understand reproductive health, and to advocate for conditions that promote wellbeing.