Some shows demand a second viewing. Sometimes because they’re great, sometimes because they’re a totally different experience on a second viewing, and sometimes because they’re a slightly different exhibit on a second viewing. And then, of course, some shows are simply demanding. All of the above are true in Place Gallery’s survey of Northwest contemporary photography, Off the Plain. Curated by Portland photographer TJ Norris, it’s a[.....]

A dominant feature of contemporary Asian art has always been the reflection of cultural and historical frameworks within which such works are produced: firmly entrenched in tradition, yet forward-looking thanks to the far-reaching changes – and homogenisation – brought about by the formidable impact of globalisation. Even though artistic production in South Korea seems to follow this trend, it is problematised by the emergence of[.....]

“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.” This quote by German theologian Albert Schweitzer captures a universal truth about the human condition, but its poignancy is particularly acute for city dwellers. Feeling lonesome while contemplating the vastness of the ocean or looking at the night sky is one thing; feeling isolated while surrounded by a crush of people on[.....]

The leering white faces watch from the walls. They follow you from room to room, vacant eyes staring out from behind their grotesque masks. Though the lower part of their jaws are missing—unhinged—their slit-like eyes and upturned mouths indicate that the figures are consumed with mirth. We see the same white mask over and over, but from various angles: on its side, in three-quarter profile,[.....]

In Art, I am generally not a fan of beautiful landscapes. That is not to say that I do not appreciate the inherent splendor of nature, it just always seems too picturesque and subsequently too easy.  The source of my aversion is popular visual culture’s inundation of images showing over-saturated suns rising or setting, paths and docks receding into the distance, and natural monuments impressing[.....]

The journalistic expression “If it bleeds; it leads” is particularly resonant in Mexico, where an entire subgenre of daily tabloids, devoted to crime and disaster, cover train wrecks and murders in lurid detail. Enrique Metinides made a career as a crime photographer for these nota roja (“bloody news”), earning the sobriquet the “Mexican Weegee” for his obsessive chronicling of accidents and crime scenes throughout Mexico[.....]

Born in 1962 of parents who were attached to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Geng Jianyi grew up in a country shaped by rigid, state-mandated structures that had, by the late 1960s to the early ‘70s, fallen a long way short of the idealistic socialist Chinese state that Mao Zedong had envisioned. Where solidary socialism was intended to create commitment to the system by way[.....]