Dimensions vary
Calle’s drawings all inhabit received forms but alter them to call attention to specific qualities. A newspaper is both reproduced and modified to call attention to the newspaper as a means of information transmission. This also emphasizes the effect of various seemingly unimportant support mechanisms: the role of visual layout and images. In other drawings Calle explores systems: the unfurling of suburban streets, resembling text and the veins on a leaf. These congruences point to the unity of Calle’s thematic interests: the circulation of information, human energies, and lives.
Johanna Calle’s drawings use pre-existing systems to explore issues of built space, cultural identity, and language. Her work often departs from common lines of handwriting, altering them with energy and pattern. The practice of drawing is considered expansively in Calle’s work, as she inserts stitching, metal, and even, returning to her background as a painter, the covering capacity of paint.
Primero estaba el mar ( First Was the Sea , 2012) is a system of equivalences between syllables and silhouettes of waveforms cast in cement...
Defined as entropy, the second law of thermodynamics proposes that energy is more easily dispersed than it is concentrated...
With Roca Carbón (Charcoal Rock, 2012) and Roca Grafito ( Graphite Rock , 2012), López plays with our relationship to inert and unremarkable objects such as rocks...
Johanna Calle’s Abece “K” (2011) is part of a series of drawings (compiled into an artist book called Abece ) based on the alphabet...
Primero estaba el mar ( First Was the Sea , 2012) is a system of equivalences between syllables and silhouettes of waveforms cast in cement...
Defined as entropy, the second law of thermodynamics proposes that energy is more easily dispersed than it is concentrated...
Her 2016 video installation quotes the sitcom-as-form and also draws from a 1907 comedic short, Laughing Gas...
Vietnam's visual arts and COVID-19 | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Nguyen Duc Phuong July 30, 2020 By Quyen Hoang (2,100 words, 8-minute read) On a rainy evening towards the end of May 2020, it seemed like Saigon’s most dapper guys and modish gals all flocked to Galerie Quynh...
Book Review: "Writing the Modern: Selected Texts on Art & Art History in Singapore, Malaysia & Southeast Asia" | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles September 12, 2018 By Carmen Nge (1300 words, five-minute read) In the vast firmament of Singaporean-Malaysian art history, no star illuminates as radiantly as T...
Johanna Calle’s Abece “K” (2011) is part of a series of drawings (compiled into an artist book called Abece ) based on the alphabet...
Bowers’ Radical Hospitality (2015) is a sculptural contradiction: its red and blue neon letters proclaim the words of the title, signaling openness and generosity, while the barbed wires that encircle the words give another message entirely...
Wright Imperial Hotel (2004) is a sort of bow and arrow made out of feathers, a São Paulo phone book, and other materials...
Sarcastically titled to call attention to the problematic notions underlying colonialism, this photograph shows hundreds of Native Malaysians seated quietly behind one of their colonial oppressors...
By Way of Revolution is a series of works by Helina Metaferia that addresses the inherited histories of protest that inform contemporary social movements...
Choke documents the artist filming a wrestler “choking out” his teammate until he is unconscious...