Hrag Vartanian

(G)HOST IN THE (S)HELL at Storefront for Art & Architecture is one of the best uses of the vintage Vito Acconci space I’ve ever seen.
A site-specific installation by Didier Fiuza Faustino/Bureau des Mésarchitecture (Paris, France), the work cleverly creates a false skin of chain-link fences that imprisons Acconci’s adjustable facade while giving the illusion of [...]

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David Kramer’s well-crafted “Untitled (Destination)” installation in the storefront display of Trojanowski’s Liquor store on Bedford Ave may be the best of the Bedford Artwalking works. Not because there aren’t equally impressive displays of talent, but because Kramer’s work seems to directly address a major part of the neighborhood’s identity (that the other’s don’t [...]

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From Jed Perl’s scathing summation for The New Republic of Robert Rauschenberg’s legacy:
Rauschenberg’s chutzpah–the man painted, sculpted, danced, choreographed, designed sets, even composed music–opened up the possibilities that are now being mined by contemporary con-artists such as Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, and Jeff Koons. Rauschenberg didn’t poeticize the ordinary. He aggrandized the ordinary, he put [...]

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Since Hurricane Katrina, refuse and squalor have inspired a popular aesthetic in the art world. There’s a laissez-faire decadence in a work like Peter Garfied’s “One: Number 31, 1950” (2008) sculpture at Pierogi Brooklyn (below).

These artworks of devastation all seem to reference (even if unwittingly) Jeff Wall’s stunning and prescient photograph from 1978, “The Destroyed [...]

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I’m consistently impressed with Jack the Pelican Presents‘ bold taste. The gallery shows art that should’ve been included in New Museum’s “Unmonumental” exhibition instead of the overwhelming number of weak pieces (sometimes by bad artists).
Today, I stopped by to check out the “HEADSetera” show which featured three artists: Peter Drake, Laurence Hegarty and Mark Mennin. [...]

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