In The Alchemist (2015) artist Paulina Olowska (b. 1976) restages one of the many erotic Polaroid photographs taken by Italian architect, Carlo Mollino. The artist portrays himself in period clothing, and in a playfully provocative pose. She adopts in imagined persona to subvert representations of women as images of heterosexual male desire. In the background, she has woven together mushroom imagery and depictions of her sketches, gesturing toward her rich inner world.
Three Studies for Portrait of Lucien Freud (1965) shows the artistic dialogue between artists Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. While their visual styles differed, both were interested in the human figure and sat for each other on multiple occasions. Bacon painted Freud 14 times from 1964 to 1971, working from photographs rather than real life. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Three Studies for Portrait of Lucien Freud By Francis Bacon→
If a first glance at the photo above has you wondering how a gallery floor covered with a vast and pristine aggregation of Sunflower Seeds qualifies as “Art,” please consider that these aren’t merely sunflower seeds but, rather, tiny hand-painted ceramic sculptures of Sunflower Seeds, and you may find your perception shifting. The Mary Boone Gallery in Chelsea is currently hosting an installation of Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds (2010), which originally debuted at London’s Tate Modern, where it covered nearly the entire floor of the Turbine Hall gallery. The Boone Gallery show has been significantly scaled down in size (from 100 million seeds in the original installation to several million here) but it is nevertheless an impressive sight. Continue reading Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds at The Mary Boone Gallery→
