PROBABLY THE OBSERVATION by Virginia Overton cited most often by writers came on the occasion of her 2013 exhibition at Switzerland’s Kunsthalle Bern. Wishing to tease out the artist’s thoughts on the found objects used for her sculpture, the exhibition’s curator, Fabrice Stroun, asked a relatively straightforward if historically loaded question: Is “a piece of wood looked at in a space consecrated for art . . . no longer the same piece of wood found on the side of the road”? It’s a reasonable line of inquiry, particularly given that Overton’s work suggests some nominal underpinnings, if only
Madeline Hollander at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 2021. Courtesy of Bortolami Gallery. Photo: Nicholas Calcott.
This is often the case for the 35-year-old professional dancer-turned-artist. Where you and I see chaos, Hollander sees choreography: New York City traffic, flood mitigation systems, environmental change. The product of extensive research, her work transmutes the abstract patterns that govern our daily lives into elegant dance performances, heady gallery installations and now, for the first time, film.
The 16-minute video at the Whitney documents Hollander’s search to find flatwings, a new breed of Polynesian field cricket that, due to genetic mutation, has lost the ability to chirp. For the insects, it’s both a gift and a curse: They are now essentially invisible to their predators an acoustically oriented parasitic fly that once threatened to wipe out their entire population but also invisible to their potential mates. The crickets’ ability to adapt is lik
Frieze Week 2020.
Lisson Gallery (Cork St)
Photo by Linda Nylind for Frieze.
A version of this story first appeared in the spring 2021 Artnet Intelligence Report, which you can download in full for free here.
“Imagine a world where you could not fly around the globe anymore. How would you conduct business?”
That was the “thinking-out-of-the-box” assignment that a consultant gave Phillips executives at the auction house’s annual strategy meeting in January 2020. “We looked at each other, like, ‘What is he talking about?’” Cheyenne Westphal, the company’s chairman, recounted.
“Just imagine there might be a volcano erupting,” the consultant told the assembled honchos, many of whom had traveled to New York for the occasion.