What defines the art of craft? What is the difference between art and craft? 40 Under 40: Craft Futures at Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery blurred the lines for me, while at the same time helping me to appreciate craft in a new light. There is something about the word “craft” that connotes antiquated techniques that don’t necessarily relate to our contemporary world. This exhibition breathes new[.....]

Due to several recent shows on the subject, I have lately been pondering the enduring yet amorphous allure of landscape in photography.  Among the exhibitions currently on view, Pictura Gallery’s exhibition of photographs by Adam Thorman and Laura Plageman offers an especially engaging encounter with the genre. Displayed on opposite sides of the bisected space, each artist’s series—Thorman’s What Light Remains in the Absence and[.....]

I witnessed at least a handful of passerby pause in front of the glass-front façade of the Jones Center in downtown Austin, Texas. They shuffled through pockets and bags to find their iPhones, quizzically documenting the two unusual objects on view. How much contemporary art stops people dead in their tracks, not to scoff and mutter “well, I could do that,” but rather to ponder[.....]

This post was originally written for Art21.org and published on October 25, 2012. When photographer Laura London’s show opened at Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown last month, it was called Once Upon a Time…Axl Rose was my Neighbor. By the time it closed on October 20, its title had been cut down to just Once Upon a Time… and all direct reference to Axl Rose, famous[.....]

A visually compelling, conceptually provocative consideration of the photographic medium, American View:  Landscape Photography 1865 to Now is anything but the kind of straightforward overview such a title suggests.  Showcasing works drawn primarily from the Rhode Island School of Design’s rich photography collection, American View shifts deftly between and among periods and styles and, in so doing, illuminates the ever-evolving relationship between landscape and photographic image. Upon entering the[.....]

  With Lutz Bacher‘s exhibition, San Francisco’s Ratio 3 creates a stark contrast to the surrounding neighborhood. Once the gallery’s heavy black doors close behind you, the vivid colors of Mission Street are abruptly shut off. The jagged, cavernous space is given over to stark black and white, or, to be more precise, irregular spatters of black on a white or light grey surface. The first thing one notices are small[.....]

Prior to this exhibition, I associated Jules Olitski with his stained color field canvases from the early 1960s. But like my experience of most solo exhibitions, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the dramatic range of paintings he produced throughout his nearly fifty-year career. Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitski at American University Museum walks the viewer through Olitski’s creative evolution as an abstract artist,[.....]