From the very beginning, Damien Hirst: The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011, was always going to be the target of much contempt. An embodiment of savvy self-promotion, Damien Hirst has become the world’s richest living artist, and with that, a scapegoat for the pompous market and inflated celebrity status representing all that is wrong with contemporary art today. This latest publicity stunt – a gargantuan worldwide[.....]

2012 has arrived and it can mean only one thing: the apocalypse. Will the End Times be ushered in by the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar reaching its end date? We can’t be sure until late December! What has become painfully certain, however, is that we are in an election year. And, while the economy looms large on the minds of most Americans, immigration is not[.....]

When Lady Macbeth said “Out, damn’d spot!” she was referring to stains of blood, not brightly-colored enamel paint, but I’m sure there are more than a few art critics out there who echo her thought this month. The reason? What to make of “Damien Hirst: The Complete Spot Paintings 1986–2011”, now on view at eleven Gagosian galleries worldwide. The spots at Gagosian LA range from[.....]

Comprising only a large installation at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Gabríela Friðriksdóttir’s Crepusculum – Latin for “twilight” or “dusk” – is a mixed-media, polyphonic, physical exploration of metaphysical structures that govern the human psyche, and speculates that an enigmatic and irrational system of signs, meanings and forms counterbalances the deceptively ordered exteriors of our existence. Above all, it is an experiential and tactile show that prioritises[.....]

In grad school, my studio was kiddie-corner from Feodor (or Theo) Voronov’s. I was always there and he was there more often than I was. I respect smart people who do the work, or people who are smart because they do the work, and seeing them get better and better and get recognized for it is sort of a thrill — it means the world[.....]

Sometimes an interview comes easily, and sometimes not: Rafał Bujnowski needed convincing.  We smoked a cigarette together in Tarnow, Poland, where he was exhibiting work in Tarnow: 1000 years of modernity. I enthused about his work.  He agreed to do it if I would email him the questions, and I gently refused.  He claimed a poor grasp of English.  I denied it.  We smoked another[.....]

It was almost impossible not to take notice of Iraqi-American artist Ahmed Alsoudani’s mass invasion at the Venice Biennale this year – if the vivid colours and immense canvases didn’t immediately attract your attention, the sheer repetition of his highly distinctive work assured that the images infiltrate your psyche. And hot on the heels of this inclusion in three major Venice exhibitions is Alsoudani’s first[.....]