Psychedelic experience has some distinct qualities. One may experience hallucinations of shifting yet repetitive imagery. Random objects become supercharged with symbolic meaning. Reality dissolves into the purely visual. Time itself is revealed as an abstract...
Alvaro Ilizarbe
Louis CK: Comedian cum Auteur
In an episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Louis CK takes Seinfeld out on his boat on the Hudson River. Looking across the water and admiring the skyline, Louis says, “New York makes me crazy. I love New York City. I love the different brick...
Benoît Maire at Kiria Koula Gallery
In his first solo show in the U.S., French artist Benoît Maire includes a video presented on a MacBook showing an image of another MacBook showing a video of the artist watching a video of Foucault on YouTube (on a MacBook). Foucault is shown praising Gaston Bachelard...
Forrest Bess
Forrest Bess (1911–77) was, by his own account, a man divided. He saw himself as containing two selves: the masculine, roughneck hard-drinking fisherman, and the sensitive painter. He believed that he could unify these parts of himself by surgically becoming a...
Art Nowhere
If you have been in any number of major cities this summer across the U.S., you might have seen a billboard with the hashtag caption #ArtEveryWhere alongside a reproduction of a famous work of art. According to the tagline on the #ArtEveryWhereUS website, this is “A...
Ryan Trecartin Reaches for the Supporting Stars
If you have not seen Ryan Trecartin’s videos, imagine flipping at break-neck speed through 500 channels of reality TV contestants in garish makeup reading random fragments of text from the Internet out loud. More readily, you could also just go check them out on Vimeo...
Michelle Segre
It is rare to see an artist make a shift in their work as dramatic as the one Michelle Segre made between her shows at Derek Eller in 2008 and 2011. Within a few short years, she went from making fastidious, slightly-surreal beeswax and papier mâché sculptures to...
Doug Aitken
Sonic Fountain, the centerpiece of Doug Aitken’s show (all works 2013) includes a large, round hole jack-hammered into the cement floor and filled with water. From above, a system of pipes with five spigots drips water into this small pool. The drops fall in...