|
|
|
Sort By:
 |
Museums
By Greg Youmans
Few things are scarier than math. Other subjects, art for instance, may be daunting and inscrutable. But faced with difficult art, we can always defend ourselves with our imperious subjectivity, scoffing at an artwork's failure to affect us as intended, or, better yet, accusing a piece of simply not meaning anything. These are harder positions to take when math confronts us in our ignorance. For many of us, math is meaning. And when faced with the austere beauty of a parabola, reducible to a simple equation composed of numbers and symbols — into which the subjectivity and imprecision of language do not even enter! — a person can indeed feel s More
|
 |
Museums
By Rodrigo Diaz
Video as a medium has expanded our understanding of our sense of sight -- however it has come with limitations. Video footage of the Rodney King beating and recent terrorists attacks ingrain themselves in our collective psyche. Yet acquittals of the police officers, and analogies to an "action film come alive", elucidate video's failure to truly communicate "reality." This is the premise that Blind Vision: Video and the limits of Perception at the San Jose Museum of Art, through November 11, 2001, aspires to highlight, yet partially misses due to the selection of artists and a claustrophobic presentation. More
|
|
|
Museums
By Rachel Churner
Can you create an exhibition around a title? Co-curators Elizabeth Armstrong and Victor Zamudio-Taylor have done just that in Ultrabaroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art currently at SFMOMA. What emerges from this masterful title is a collection of the contradictions and multiplicities inherent in the baroque itself. Used to describe a style of art prevalent in the 17th century that was characterized by bold ornamentation and contrasting elements, the term baroque also denotes grotesqueness, extravagance, and flamboyance. More
|
|
