Category Archives: contemporary art

Sinta Werner: Question Reality

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There were so many high-quality artists being shown at Volta, but Sinta Werther’s work at the Nettie Horn Gallery booth stood out to me.

The Broken Bits of Pieces use glass, lightbulbs, and mirrors to reflect carefully painted scenes, but they are less scenes as suggestions of place.

These Autoprojections, above and below, are done on photographic paper with paint, and as you can kind of see in the image below, the paper has also been folded.

Apparently these are small-scale examples of her preoccupation with bending space and begging the view the question reality and perception, and some very cool examples of large-scale manipulations can be found on Volta’s page dedicated to the artist.

Then and now: Similarities at Pulse

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I felt like I was seeing a lot of the same things that I saw (and liked) last year at Pulse Art Fair this year. Magdalena Mura then, above image from 2010, and now:

Priscila Di Carvahlo then and now:

Seong Chun then and now:

Why the repetition? I’m sure I’m not the most observant or aware art fair-goer. Other industry people must notice even more than I do. Is it a sign the artist is selling so well nothing needs to be changed? The first two artist created different pieces in recognizable styles, but I’m pretty sure the beautifully-crafted paper piece I admired in 2010 is interchangeable for the 2011 piece.
I had the same sense of deja vu for the pieces below, just not the photographic evidence to support it. Did anybody else notice this? 
Xiaoze Xie this year at Pulse:
Marcus Linnenbrick this year at Pulse: 

Tara Donovan’s Pin Drawings at Pace

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Drawing (Pins)
Drawing (Pins), 2010


While out for some openings in Chelsea last night, I noticed Pace had kept its doors open, so I got to take a close look at Tara Donovan’s latest work. As always when I see her work in person, I love it. Her use of materials manages to be subtle and simple but transformative. I originally thought when I saw the press release that these were graphite drawings, but as you can see below, they are made by sticking pins into gatorboard.

Not only do the pins create line and shading, but there’s a nice depth to the varying degrees of how deeply stuck the pins are. The pins themselves have a sheen to them, which picks up nicely in the light as you walk around them, and at 96″ x 96″ these large works leave some room to walk.

These pieces really don’t reproduce well in photographs, so if you have the chance to get over to Pace before March 19, I recommend it. The circles drawings, like the first image, are my favorite, but most of the works are  clean and perfect gradients like these: