Published articles
A selection of published articles.
The Torture and Insurrection of Andres Serrano
Exhibition Review | SEPTEMBER 2022 | VIJ!
Andres Serrano’s Torture series (2015), along with his film, Insurrection (2022), have arrived to Sofia’s National Art Gallery. The artworks are presented as part of Masters of Photography implemented by the MUZIS Foundation, and are produced by the London-based arts organization, a/political. The exhibition open on September 16th and will remain open until October 27th, during which viewers can see some of Serrano’s most recent works. The exhibit addresses complex issues that are profoundly political, discussing disquieting aspects of human nature both individually and collectively.
DANGER: We Forge the Future!
Exhibition Review | SEPTEMBER 2022 | AFTERIMAGE, University of california press
On May 10, 2022, near the small town of Maubourguet in southwestern France, the prolific avant-garde music group Laibach held a live event titled DANGER: We Forge the Future! The concert was put together in conjunction with the contemporary Russian artist Andrei Molodkin. The collaboration resulted in a music event and an exhibition where artworks by contemporary artists including Santiago Sierra, Jens Haaning, Erik Bulatov, and Molodkin were displayed.
Slave Rebellion Reenactment: History, Context, and Impact with Dread Scott
Performance Review | July 30 2020 | The Seen Journal
From November 8 to 9, 2019, over five hundred reenactors marched on the streets of New Orleans to restage and reinterpret one of the largest, yet little-known, slave rebellions in American history. The performance, entitled Slave Rebellion Reenactment (SRR), was organized by the New York-based artist Dread Scott in an effort to celebrate togetherness, freedom, and emancipation.
age of you
exhibition review | June 1 2020 | AFTERIMAGE, University of california press
Age of You is a multimedia exhibition that took place at Toronto's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). The exhibit, co-curated by Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, featured the works of seventy-two contemporary artists, designers, filmmakers, and musicians. The show aimed to address the ongoing metamorphosis of human individuality in the age of advancing technology.
Democracia/order
exhibition review | December 1 2019 | AFTERIMAGE, University of California Press
DEMOCRACIA/ORDER was a solo exhibition that took place earlier this year at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art in Houston, Texas. It featured two series by the Spanish art collective DEMOCRACIA, formed by artists Iván López and Pablo España. The two artists have collaborated since 2006 and have consistently created projects that challenge the sociopolitical status quo.
ANdres serrano: torture
exhibition review | June 2 2019 | AFTERIMAGE, University of california press
Ten photographs from Andres Serrano’s Torture series were recently exhibited at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. The large images on display belong to a comprehensive body of work that Serrano completed in 2015. The artist traveled to over fifteen cities in Europe, where he photographed torture museums, concentration camps, Stasi prisons, victims of torture, and medieval torture devices.
tania brugUera: 10,145,915
exhibition review | march 1 2019 | AFTERIMAGE, university of california press
When this sentence was written, the title of Tania Bruguera’s recent exhibition at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall was 10,145,915. For the duration of the installation, the title changed to reflect the sum of two changing figures: the number of recorded migrants globally plus the number of migrant deaths since the beginning of 2018.
A history of violence: why Andres Serrano turned his camera to torture
interview | February 13 2019 | The Guardian
Andres Serrano has never shied away from controversy. Back in 1987 his work Piss Christ – a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of his own urine – led to accusations of blasphemy, and the work is still the subject of protests whenever it appears in exhibitions.
US or chaos
exhibition review | November 1 2018 | AFTERIMAGE, University of California press
US OR CHAOS is a group exhibition held at BPS22 (previously called the Solvay Provincial Building, abbreviated as BPS22) in Charleroi, Belgium—a museum committed to showing international artwork that examines pressing social issues. This exhibit’s title comes from a statement a Spanish riot police officer gave to Democracia, a Madrid-based artist collective.
An Exhibition of Afro-Cuban Art Unmasks the Legacy of Racism in Cuba
exhibition review | September 13 2017 | Artslant
At the heart of the exhibition Sin Máscaras (Without Masks), currently at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, is the inherent contradiction between socialism’s ideals of equality and the lived experiences of racism for Cuban artists of African descent.
Art on the Streets of Havana: Public Art and Politics from Ché to Today
ESSAY | October 5 2015 | Artslant
Ruin lust comes in large doses in Havana. It seems that after 1959 (Castro’s Socialist Revolution), time only began performing in one direction, aging and tearing apart the physical fabric of the city. Familiar images of Havana show vintage American cars that still (as if by miracle!) keep running; photogenic colonial buildings with torn, rotting façades; barefoot children playing baseball with makeshift bats; an elegantly attired man with a cigar in his mouth; and of course Ché.
Athar Jaber's Defaced Sculptures Speak to Violence, Entropy, and Human Nature
Exhibition Review | July 13 2015 | Artslant
Where Pain Becomes Beauty is an exhibition at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, in Florence, presenting 19 works by the young Iraqi-Italian sculptor Athar Jaber. Several members of the international art community opened the exhibition with a series of talks and discussions on "Poly-cultural Identities," examining topics related to the blurring of national narratives and cultural boundaries.
Connecting Commuters: Alejandro Cartagena’s Suburbia in a Toronto Subway Station
Exhibition review | May 5 2015 | ArtSlant
Contacting Toronto: Expanding Cities is a public installation on view as part of this year’s CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto and is located on the platforms and bus bays of Warden subway station—a busy stop connecting Toronto’s downtown to the city’s suburbs.
5 New Media Installations to See at the Images Festival
EXHIBITION REVIEW | April 13 2015 | Artslant
The 2015 Images Festival, North America’s largest festival for contemporary and experimental media, opened in Toronto on April 9. Art and film enthusiasts in the city have the chance to attend a variety of events taking place across the city—from artist-run centers and art galleries, to the Chinatown Centre Mall.
Buy a Cardigan and the Holocaust Painting Is Half Price
ESSAY | FebruarY 19 2015 | artslant
About eight years ago, before J.Crew arrived in Toronto, I was having a conversation with a colleague at the University of Toronto. He was an Art History PhD from Ohio, who specialized in medieval Italian church frescoes and dressed like the quintessential preppy yuppie: buttoned-down gingham cotton shirts, khaki pants, Clarks. He complained about how he couldn’t shop in Toronto, because it hadn’t yet caught up with “civilization” by having a J.Crew.
villa toronto: this is not an art fair!
Exhibition review | january 19 2015 | artslant
This is a conversation I overheard between two hurried commuters while attending opening night for the event Villa Toronto a couple of evenings ago. Organized by Warsaw’s Raster Gallery and presented in association with Toronto’s Art Metropole and other local art organizations, the week-long event brings together 19 international private galleries to collectively curate a show for the city’s public.
Art, Alcohol, and Fundraising: Match Made in Heaven or a Doomed Relationship?
Essay | December 16 2014 | artslant
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have taken on a novel approach to programming in the last year with two common purposes: to increase institutional relevance and popularity, and as a fundraising strategy. Both institutions organize frequently scheduled parties; AGO has First Thursdays and ROM hosts Friday Night Live.
Allen Ginsberg’s Photographs: The Unforgivable Passage of Time
Exhibition review | october 24 2014 | artslant
An exhibition of Allen Ginsberg’s photographs, currently on view at the University of Toronto’s Art Centre, presents its audience with a large volume of stills taken by the poet between 1953 and 1996. Approximately 150 images hang on the walls of We are Continually Exposed to the Flashbulb of Death: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg (1953-1996), representing some of Ginsberg’s most intimate documented moments that capture and immortalize an instance in time.
Effectively Ineffective: Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Exhibition review | September 11 2014 | Artslant
The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is currently holding an exhibition of video works by American artist, Matthew Barney. The works belong to Drawing Restraint—a long-term, ongoing project Barney started in 1987. Thus far, he has produced nineteen installments in the series, of which three—Drawing Restraint 2 (1988), 6 (1989) and 17 (2010)—are looped on display. The exhibition similarly unfolds in three parts.
Ruin Lust: A Review of Our Fascination with Decay
exhibition review | 2014 | Drain magazine
Ruin Lust was an exhibition that recently took place at London’s Tate Britain; it presented its viewers with a narrative of artists’ fascination with ruins. The participating artists in the exhibit were predominantly British, from J.M.W. Turner and John Constable to contemporary figures such as members of the Young British Artists, Rachel Whiteread and music journalist Jon Savage.