The material conditions of being an artist in New York have a direct impact on the aesthetics and considerations taken in the studio and within an artist’s practice. While the return of the influence of Arte Povera and the prominence of post-studio practices can both can be attributed to ideological and conceptual decisions or to new “structures of feeling” in Raymond Williams’s terms, they can also be translated and defined through the prices of lumber, rising studio costs, and the commuting culture created through the gig economy.
THERE’S SOMETHING FAMILIAR about these men; if we don’t know them, then we know others like them. Wandering around the house in their undershirts, engaged in ridiculous horseplay, they are our eternally awkward uncles, the boorish family members you hope your friends never meet.Or no, actually. Such an identification with the situations depicted in Tala Madani’s “Cake-Men” series (begun in 2005; all works referred to here are from 2005) depends on ignoring the constant reminders of their cultural specificity. The first hint might come from pictures within the pictures––portraits of men in turbans