Skulptur Projekte Munster has changed my perception of sculpture. Until recently my perception of sculpture has been a bronze, stone, wood, marble, or other construction material in some form that typically does not invite audience members to physically engage with it. Sculptures were supposed to be a monument like Michelangelo’s David or Constantin Brancusi’s Bird…
Jacques-Louis David and Michelangelo’s David: a Look at 21st Century Art Tourism
In thinking about cities to visit during time off I had while staying in Cologne, Germany, Brussels became a top priority due to the current location of Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Death of Marat (1793): the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in downtown Brussels. David’s political involvement in the French Revolution has fascinating…
Antoni Gaudi
Before I left for Spain in mid-July, I was advised to go inside any Gaudi place I came across while in Barcelona. The first day I was in Barcelona I did not understand what that meant but the next day I stumbled upon a Gaudi exhibition. At first the exhibition seemed to present Antoni Gaudi…
Reflecting on America
At the beginning of the program, our group realized that we would be in Venice for the Fourth of July. We decided, half-jokingly but half-seriously, that although we were in Italy, it was only right that we do something to mark the day. After some discussion, it was determined that the the appropriate course of…
documenta 14: A City of Site-Specificity [Space as Medium: Part 2]
Documenta 14 was, among other things, an exploration of place and history. Artist, teacher, and curator Arnold Bolde established documenta in 1955 as a modern art exhibition in the wake of the fallen Nazi Regime, where modern art was branded with the title “Entarete Kunst” and banned due to its alleged un-German, Jewish, or communist…
documenta.com
After visiting this year’s documenta, I was struck by how much video art was included in the exhibition. Some of these works, such as the four-channel video installation at the Gleishaus, or the Douglas Gordon film being shown at the high-end theater Cinestar, required highly specific installation techniques. Some videos, however, were not so demanding…
Crapumenta?
We have just returned from 5 days in Kassel for the monumental documenta 14, the quinquennial exhibition hosted in the German industrial city for 60 years. This, however, is the first year that documenta has taken roots outside of its German home. The curator Adam Szymczyk split the exhibition in two, hosting half in the traditional…
Performance and Participation: Les gens d’Uterpan at Documenta 14
We have encountered a lot of participatory art over the course of this program, and I mean a lot. It has not only been a major theme at the exhibitions we have visited, and also in our readings for our courses. It is clear that the contemporary art world is currently captivated by this notion…
Documenta and the Venice Biennale as an Art Tourist
My experience with my second global art exhibition, documenta 14, couldn’t be more different than the first. We spent a little less than a week steeped in the world of documenta, and I was lucky to have already visited the Venice Biennale as a point of comparison. I found myself returning to the differences between…
Venice Biennale: Nationalism and the State as Art Institution [Space as Medium: Part 1]
The Venice Biennale has occurred every two years since 1895 during the summer and early fall of odd-numbered years. The concept of a Biennale as an institution is a controversial subject, as temporary exhibitions have many advantages and disadvantages. The impermanent nature of these contemporary art exhibitions presents the curators with a task quite unlike…