Month: March 2015

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James Benning

Agnieszka Gratza

This review of James Benning: Decoding Fear at Kunstverein Hamburg appeared on artforum.com: View of “James Benning: Decoding Fear,” 2015. With its white walls, this latest installation of “Decoding Fear” seems the negative image of the show’s first iteration at Kunsthaus Graz, where sundry objects, texts, and projections were displayed in a dark space. In either iteration, the gallery spaces have felt as sepulchral as the immaculately white, minimally furnished twin cabins at the heart of the show. These simplified, abstract reproductions of the hermitical dwellings that Henry David Thoreau and the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski constructed at Walden Pond and … Continue reading James Benning

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Private Eyes

Agnieszka Gratza

This report from the 4th artgeneve appeared on artforum.com: Left: Dealer Massimo Minini and Andrea Bellini, director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Geneve. Right: One of the spinners in Ahmet Ogut’s Fair Wage. (All photos: Agnieszka Gratza) CONVENIENTLY LOCATED FOR THE CITY AIRPORT, if not much else, artgenève is a ten-minute walk from the arrival gate. Though styled as a salon d’art, there is nothing salon-like about the vast complex known as Palexpo—short for Palais des Expositions et des Congrès—that has housed the fair since its inception. Now in its fourth edition, artgenève prides itself on being more intimate and … Continue reading Private Eyes

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Richard Tuttle

Agnieszka Gratza

This review of Richard Tuttle’s retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery and at Tate Modern appeared in Dutch translation in Metropolis M (Feb-March issue): This autumn, two of London’s most illustrious public modern art galleries have joined forces to stage a survey of American artist Richard Tuttle’s textile-based works – with somewhat mixed results. This joint venture consists of a retrospective spanning five decades of Tuttle’s work with fabric at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and of a large-scale sculptural installation made to measure for Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall, accompanied by a single lavishly illustrated publication. The latter reveals Tuttle’s wider … Continue reading Richard Tuttle