circulation
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).
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.
Fuego Nuevo —Sergio Suárez
Through a combination of printmaking, ceramics, and installation, Sergio Suárez uses distinct traditional techniques to assemble a visual language, one that examines the fusion, impermanence, and consistency of objects, images, and structures. The exhibition is framed by the Meso-American, post-classical-period ceremony Fuego Nuevo (New Fire)—a ritual enacted every 52 years to ensure that the sun would return, thus staving off the end of the world.
End of Year Letter: 2022 —> 2023
Binge Watch—On Performances of Excessive Eating
“The act of binging is one of abjection. It demonstrates the power of something inanimate, or no longer animate, over human beings—in this case, food. The abject manifests viscerally as squirming, belching, or vomiting. Such images threaten the common belief that eating is pleasurable, a notion that begins in infancy.”
Hito Steyerl: I Will Survive
Hito Steyerl is one of the most important artists of her generation, a landmark thinker of the image and its status under late capitalist accelerationism. Yet her recent retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum, I Will Survive, was marked by a semiotic complexity that did not coincide with what had been happening to the body in the past two years—my body, but also the body in a broader philosophical sense.