The following interview was originally published by Artslant on April 6, 2014.
Xaviera Simmons is a New York-based artist whose practice manifests in performance, photography, sculpture, installation, sound, video and more. That dynamic interdisciplinary material is fueled by research, contemplation and feeling, three modes that enable Simmons to not only reflect the complexity of the human condition but also empathize with it. No subject would seem unconquerable: she tackles history, the... +
The following interview appeared on Bad at Sports and Daily Serving in December, 2013.
Singapore-based artist Robert Zhao Renhui is the Institute of Critical Zoologists, an organization that, for any Doctor Who fans out there, would be the... +
The following interview was originally published by Artslant on September 16, 2013.
When I came to Chicago in 2004, Goat Island was a prominent feature in the performance art landscape. Its reputation extended beyond the Midwest, across the ocean to Europe. The group began in 1987 and, until its ninth and last performance in 2009, conscientiously developed a collaborative body of performance work. Co-founder and Director, Lin Hixson, since went on with Goat Island’s other co-founder,... +
Heather Mekkelson. “Limited Entry,” 2008. Mixed media (soaked in clay slurry, particulates added, sealed). Old Gold, Chicago, IL. Courtesy of the artist.
The following essay was originally published in Art21 in May, 2013.
It was the summer of 2008. It was hot. And humid. Everything was green and/or sweating. People who didn’t sweat stood out. Their reserve both enviable and mysterious—a contrast from everything else. Refuge from the heat was similarly impressive and constantly sought. Most apartment galleries were barely tolerable for... +
The following interview was originally published by Artslant on April 28, 2013
Guy Ben-Ner began with an idea. He wanted to divorce a soundtrack from a film, then make a new film that accommodated the appropriated soundtrack. The idea provided a mechanism, defining the rules of a game which would yield Ben-Ner’s latest work, Soundtrack. He decided to appropriate 11 minutes of sound from Steven Spielberg’s, War of the Worlds. In Ben-Ner’s version the world is not... +
