Neon

Agitated Histories

Grasping the nebulous zone of art and politics can be arduous at best. The curatorial project of Agitated Histories attempts to do just that by compartmentalizing the political narrative. The Re-enactment, The Archive, The Persona, and The Intervention give some scaffolding from which the viewer can approach the work. The artists in this exhibition engage with the political, the social, and the personal through formal[.....]

Leo Villareal at the San Jose Museum of Art

Today’s article is from our friends at Art Practical, where Michele Carlson discusses the new traveling survey exhibition by Leo Villareal at the San Jose Museum of Art. It’s hard to know where to look upon entering Leo Villareal’s exhibition. Light literally dances on every wall and even on the ceiling—the blinking lights bridge the many large light sculptures and installations, melting the exhibition space[.....]

Keith Sonnier

Currently on view at Mary Boone Gallery in New York City is a series of neon sculptures by artist Keith Sonnier. The exhibition includes two distinct bodies of work, the artist’s Oldowan Series, which features sexually charged gestures and materials such as silk, as well as his Chandelier Series, which were originally designed for the artist’s home and were later expanded for use in larger[.....]

Glenn Ligon

Off Book is the title of a current exhibition by acclaimed New York based conceptual artist Glenn Ligon. The exhibition, which is on view through January 23rd at Los Angeles’ Regen Projects, continues the artist’s investigation of cultural identity, social and historical constructs, language, race, and gender. Similar to previous exhibitions by the artist, Off Book explores these ideas through text-based work, installation, and video.[.....]

Josue Pellot

Chicago artist Josue Pellot deploys several mediums and styles in order to examine his Puerto Rican roots as transplanted into the quintessential American experience – that is, as mediated by pop culture and consumerism in his current exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center.  Thus, he displays a photomontage of the iconic fortress El Morro in Puerto Rico in which it is conflated with a supermercado/laundromat/liquor[.....]

Jonathan Jones

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Paddington is currently hosting new installation works by Indigenous-Australian artist Jonathan Jones. Untitled (The Tyranny of Distance), 2008 is positioned within the main exhibition space and is composed of a series of six blue tarpaulin covered walls, each extending to over eight meters in length. Each of them radiate with light from fluorescent tubes positioned to make arrow like chevron patterns.[.....]

Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin‘s first Los Angeles solo show, “You Left Me Breathing”, opened at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills on November 2nd. Emin, who was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999, is one of the hyped Young British Artists whose work gained notoriety in the mid 1990s. She recently represented Britain at the 2007 Venice Biennale, installing large-scale neon signs and drawings on the walls[.....]