Third Realm (2011) grew out of the artist’s long-term research of Indonesia’s colonial history and the processes of modernization and urbanization that have taken place there. Kuswidananto describes the nation as perpetually in an “in-between” state of transition. Thus he has developed the concept of a third reality, third space, or third body—an identity specifically for Indonesia that reflects its spatial realities and national character.
South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Shot in black and white and printed on a glittery carborundum surface, Black Hands, White Cotton both confronts and abstracts the subject of its title. As with many of his works, the artist has taken a found image and manipulated it to draw out and dramatize the formal contrast between the black hands holding white cotton. Cotton, of course is one of the most familiar fabric sources to us, and becomes incredibly soft once processed.
The image is borrowed from protests during Civil Rights where African Americans in the south would carry signs with the same message to assert their rights against segregation and racism. Historically, in countries such as the US and South Africa, the term “boy” was used as a pejorative and racist insult towards men of color, slaves in particular, signifying their alleged subservient status as being less than men. In response, Am I Not A Man And A Brother?
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Intentionally Left Blanc alludes to the technical process of its own (non)production; a procedure known as retro-reflective screen printing in which the image is only fully brought to life through its exposure to flash lighting. Using a found photograph depicting a passionate crowd of African Americans—their attitude suggesting the fervor of a civil-rights era audience— Intentionally Left Blanc reverts in its exposed, “positive” format to an image in which select faces are whitened out and erased, the exact inverse of the same view in its “negative” condition. This dialectic of light and dark re-emerges when we view the same faces again, only this time black and featureless, a scattering of disembodied heads amidst a sea of white.
Bread and Roses takes its name from a phrase famously used on picket signs and immortalized by the poet James Oppenheim in 1911. “Bread for all, and Roses, too’—a slogan of the women in the West,” is Oppenheim’s opening line, alluding to the workers’ goal for wages and conditions that would allow them to do more than simply survive. Thomas’ painting includes several black, white, brown, yellow, and red raised fists—clenched and high in the air in the internationally recognized symbol of solidarity, resistance, and unity.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Thomas’ lenticular text-based works require viewers to shift positions as they view them in order to fully absorb their content. Meaning, therefore, changes depending on one’s perspective—and in the case of Thomas’ installation, only emerges when one knows that there is always something hidden, always more to one of his works than immediately meets the eye. This lenticular print with text shifts as you walk in front of it from its title, “Black Imitates White” to the inverse, “White Imitates Black”(and some other possibilities in between) emphasizing that there are always at least two perspectives to the same scenario, and thereby encouraging us as viewers to consider them all together rather than trying to identify with any one subjectivity.
Like many of his other sculptural works, the source of I am the Greatest is actually a historical photograph of an identical button pin from the 1960s. I am the Greatest presents the famous quote by Mohammad Ali to think about his important presence in the African American community. In dialogue with the painting I am a Man, also in the Kadist collection, this assertion that begins the same way takes the line from the protest poster several steps further.
Sombras de los Valles (Shadows of the Valleys) is part of a series of works created by Bayrol Jiménez in which he is influenced by hand-painted signs and large billboards in Mexico. From small artisanal store-front insignia to widespread symbols and lettering, Jiménez looks at how this iconography shapes Mexican cultural identity. It is worth noting that the hand painted signs especially are highly unique, especially in an age of homogenised digital images and reproduced typefaces.
Sexy shows Yan Xing unsuccessfully trying to reach orgasm in freezing temperatures among the falling rocks and howling winds of a precarious canyon. His erotic failure leaves the voyeur-viewer unfulfilled and disappointed. The work explores notions of identity, masculinity, sexuality, voyeurism, and cultural taboos.
Composed of four images, the series Sleeping Elephant in the Axis of Yogyakarta (2011) explores the artist’s observation of how Javanese mythology and cosmology have marked the geography of Yogyakarta, the cultural centre of Indonesia. Through photomontage digital operation, an identical elephant is superimposed in front of iconic landmark of the city: Parangtritis Beach, Sultan Square, the City Monument and Mount Merapi. These four locations are spiritual symbols and the subject of cosmological beliefs in Indonesia and the imagery of elephant has long been considered as a cultural and religious icon.
Wordplay was a central focus of Koller’s work, in particular the acronym U. F. O, which he adapted in his diagrammatic drawings to stand variously for Univerzálna Futurologická Organizácia (Universal Futurological Organization, 1972–3), Univerzálny Filozoficky Ornament (Universal Philosophical Ornament, 1978) or Underground Fantastic Organization (1975), and which also appeared in a series of slapsticky self-portraits titled ‘U. F. O.–naut’ (1970–2007). These infinite variations on a common cipher constituted an insistent incantation of the Utopian principle.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
These hand drawn maps are part of an ongoing series begun in 2008 in which Gupta asks ordinary people to sketch outlines of their home countries by memory. Gupta created each map by superimposing 100 separate drawings of each country. The project investigates modern notions of the nation-state, national identity, and borders by looking at countries in which boundaries are contested and the history of the land far precedes such ideas.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
These hand drawn maps are part of an ongoing series begun in 2008 in which Gupta asks ordinary people to sketch outlines of their home countries by memory. Gupta created each map by superimposing 100 separate drawings of each country. The project investigates modern notions of the nation-state, national identity, and borders by looking at countries in which boundaries are contested and the history of the land far precedes such ideas.
Hands Around in Yangon is both a secular and religious exploration of the meaning of hands in Myanmar. Moe Satt’s father is Muslim, while his mother is Buddhist. In the Buddhist context, hand gestures or mudras are often important in signifying the identity of deities.
Farah Al Qasimi’s approach to photography deviates from the norms and conventions of traditional figurative and portrait photography. It’s Not Easy Being Seen 2 is from a series of photographs depicting women who are otherwise unnoticed by the public. In this work, her subject is obscured by a bright, green fabric (also referred to as a morph suit) that uses the concept of green screen technology to conceal identity.
In Un Hombre que Camina (A Man Walking) (2011-2014), the sense of rhythm and timing is overpowered by the colossal sense of timelessness of this peculiar place. Shot in Uyuni, Bolivia, the film depcits world’s largest salt flat, a site that sits in a mountainous region at over twelve thousand feet above sea level. Ramirez’s work is deeply invested in the loss of regional identity, and the anachronistic dress of his “modern-day shaman” in the film is meant to reconcile the historical and cultural gaps between tribal traditions of a specific time and place and the all-too-prevalent homogeneity brought on by advanced capitalism.
The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi . These staged photographs were shot against the backdrop of the city’s empty streets at sundown during the holy month of Ramadan. During this time, Muslims fast and retreat indoors, leaving the city eerily empty.
The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi . These staged photographs were shot against the backdrop of the city’s empty streets at sundown during the holy month of Ramadan. During this time, Muslims fast and retreat indoors, leaving the city eerily empty.
Sahana Ramakrishnan’s work blends cultural influences, spanning a range of visual mythologies, she weaves together a tapestry of pop cultural references that are upended by the artist’s exploration of identity, sexuality and gender perspectives. Narrative journeys are central to myth, and Ramakrishnan’s own journey through culture, mythology and sexuality is echoed in the physical matter she uses to create her work. The artist embarks on Odyssean quests for her materials.
Projet d’attentat contre l’image? (Acte 3) by Sinzo Aanza brings together literature and objects in their varied forms. This project stems from the artist’s interest in the syncretism that emerged after Congo’s independence in 1960.
Xaviera Simmons often employs her own body and collected materials in the service of her photographs and performances. Not to be mistaken as mere portraiture, however, Simmons’ works are explorations of the Black body in relation to landscape and other dimensions of non-linear space and time. Concealing and flattening her subjects with costumes and collage-like, abstract pictorial devices, the artist arranges archival photographs, printed textiles, and anthropological artifacts in configurations that highlight the power of visual culture to shape contemporary understandings of the self.
The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources. Growing up in an African-American community in Los Angeles, Capistran has long been influenced by hip-hop culture. The photographs in this print document him surreptitiously breakdancing on Carl Andre’s iconic lead floor piece after the guards at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have left the gallery.
For 7 Materials , Tao Hui films seven scenes selected from the countless scenarios in his notebooks, including a group of ethnic minority girls in a spoil pit in the rain, a reporter interviewing a corpse, and a deity sailing on the river. Due to the lack of internal logical order, these one-minute video “materials” are not played in a fixed sequence but randomly. For Tao Hui, to film his diary is to adorn and embellish his memories before evoking and reviving their spirits.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Studying the body in movement, this series of drawings depart from Karla Kaplun’s work A ztec BLAST® Workout (AWB) . Taking the form of a fitness training program, this work critically explores issues of cultural appropriation, focusing on the traditional “Conchero” Aztec dance. The Concheros dance—also known as the Chichimecas, Aztecas and Mexicas—is an important traditional dance and ceremony which has been performed in Mexico since early in the country’s colonial period.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Studying the body in movement, this series of drawings depart from Karla Kaplun’s work A ztec BLAST® Workout (AWB) . Taking the form of a fitness training program, this work critically explores issues of cultural appropriation, focusing on the traditional “Conchero” Aztec dance. The Concheros dance—also known as the Chichimecas, Aztecas and Mexicas—is an important traditional dance and ceremony which has been performed in Mexico since early in the country’s colonial period.
In this untitled acrylic painting, Tessa Mars explores the long-lasting effects of colonialism on the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, particularly in terms of female vulnerability and resilience. Drawing on her interest in retelling stories of her native country, and confronting the past and the present, Mars portrays her cultural essence and heritage by imagining spiritual spaces that connect people and land across time. With a pictorial practice that highlights pastel colors, the divinisation of the figures on the canvas and the spiritual elements within the composition ultimately enhance the narrative of her Caribbean ancestry while conflating the distinctions between autobiographical and historical events.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
The artist’s Passings series are hand-sewn works composed of radiological scans of items of clothing loaned by the Tiraz Foundation in Jordan. These articles – Palestinian, Jordanian and other Arab costumes from the 19th and 20th centuries from the Widad Kamel Kawar dress collection – are mixed in with contemporary clothing sometimes borrowed from participants in Kiswanson’s performances. In this particular piece, a tracksuit is overlaid with an 18th century Jordanian Robe.
Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
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.
The photographic artwork of Santu Mofokeng (b...
Bani Abidi’s practice deals heavily with political and cultural relations between India and Pakistan; she has a personal interest in this, as she lives and works in both New Delhi and Karachi...
Born in 1977 in the city of Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, Paulo Nazareth now lives as a global nomad...
Prabhakar Kamble is an artist, curator, and cultural activist...
Photographer Zhang Kechun documents striking scenery that meditates on the significance of landscape in modern Chinese national identity...
Karla Kaplun’s practice centers on micro-utopias, the construction and functioning of collective memory, as well as mechanisms of political and economic power and control...
Young Min Moon is a Korean American artist, curator, critic, and art historian, who migrated to the United States from South Korea as a teenager...
Epaminonda’s video works are based on re-shot excerpts of film and television footage – principally the Greek soap operas and kitsch romantic films fromthe 1960s that used to fill up Sunday afternoons in the artist’s Cypriot childhood –which she then subtly reworks...
Spanning painting, drawing, and sculpture, Troy Chew’s practice reflects on the legacy of the African diaspora through the lens of urban culture...
Michelle Handelman’s video, installation, live performance, and photography works analyze the human sublime in terms of its excess and dullness, providing a sneak peek into a jewel thief’s therapy sessions or following the life of a famous drag queen who experiences her own narcissistic destruction due to her increasing fame...
Ren Zi turned to art after having spent his working life in the business of words, having previously worked in advertising...
Fehras Publishing Practices is a collective founded by Sami Rustom, Omar Nicolas and Kenan Darwich that was established in 2015...
born in 1961 in Cotonou, Benin...
A crucial figure in the history of African modernism, Papa Ibra Tall was a renowned tapestry weaver, painter, and illustrator...
Pangrok Sulap is an Indigenous artist collective comprised of members from the Dusun and Murut clans of Malaysian Borneo...
Taus Makhacheva’s performance and video works critically examine what happens when different cultures, traditions come into contact with one another...
Patrick Bernier and Olive Martin are a duo of artists collaborating since 1999...
Rajni Perera’s practice foregrounds a hybrid model that merges immigrant politics, feminine power, mythology, and science fiction...
For the past decade Shaun Leonardo’s practice has been fully engaged in the politics of race, identity and pervasive male violence in sports...
Sahana Ramakrishnan creates images that are complicated, dissonant, and abject in ways that open the heart and mind...
Embarking from myriad audio-visual narratives, Chia-Wei Hsu pursues imaginative interrogations of cultural contact and colonization in Asia, oftentimes amalgamating his primary narratives with non-human actors including technologies, animals, gods, environments, traditions, and material objects...
In contrast to the westernized search for one’s personal identity, Polynesian cultures express their identities collectively, through symbolism and tattoos...
Special programme: Taiwan, a culture of freedom and diversity (part 2) - arts24 Skip to main content Special programme: Taiwan, a culture of freedom and diversity (part 2) Issued on: 12/01/2024 - 17:25 Modified: 12/01/2024 - 17:29 13:17 FRANCE 24's Alison Sargent takes you to Taipei for a special programme on the island's cultural diversity...
The photographer’s queer and Muslim identity gives him a distinct perspective...
Cultural Changes at the Coldest Place on Earth — A Photo Story from Yakutsk - Photographs by Alex Vasyliev | Essay by Marigold Warner | LensCulture Feature Cultural Changes at the Coldest Place on Earth — A Photo Story from Yakutsk Photographer Alexey Vasyliev offers an intimate look into the life and changing culture of the Evens, an indigenous tribe in his hometown of Yakutsk — one of the coldest places on Earth...
As the company celebrates its 100th anniversary, its dominance as a generation-spanning cultural force no longer seems certain....
Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Museums & Heritage news Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art The jade statuette of an Olmec ruler holding a baby were-jaguar will be exhibited as the centrepiece of the Texas museum's ancient American collection Theo Belci 14 December 2023 Share Standing Figure Holding a Were-Jaguar Baby (around 900BC-300BC) Photo: Justin Kerr., courtesy of the Justin Kerr Maya archive, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has acquired Standing Figure Holding a Were-Jaguar Baby (around 900BC-300BC), a jade statuette at the centre of Olmec civilisation studies since the mid-20th century...
An Interview with Curator Robert Storr | Art & Object Skip to main content Subscribe to our free e-letter! Webform Your Email Address Role Art Collector/Enthusiast Artist Art World Professional Academic Country USA Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Ascension Island Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Caribbean Netherlands Cayman Islands Central African Republic Ceuta & Melilla Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo - Brazzaville Congo - Kinshasa Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czechia Côte d’Ivoire Denmark Diego Garcia Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard & McDonald Islands Honduras Hong Kong SAR China Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao SAR China Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands North Korea North Macedonia Norway Oman Outlying Oceania Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Islands Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Réunion Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka St...
Nan Goldin ‘Refused’ to Release Documentary About Herself in Israel – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Alex Greenberger Plus Icon Alex Greenberger Senior Editor, ARTnews View All December 11, 2023 10:48am Nan Goldin...
Nevada lithium mine threatens cultural sites Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Heritage news Nevada lithium mine threatens cultural sites The US federal government’s manoeuvres to boost domestic lithium extraction are raising fears from tribal communities about archaeological and environmental impacts Gabriella Angeleti 8 December 2023 Share Members of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone tribe gather to oppose the Thacker Pass lithium mine Photo: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The construction of an open-pit lithium mine in northern Nevada, which is scheduled to begin full-fledged operation in 2026, will have irreversible effects on the environment and cultural heritage sites in the region, according to archaeologists, environmentalists and Native American communities who oppose the project...
Traditional Craftsmanship Merges With Digital Pixels in Installation Home / Art / Installation Suspended Paper Kite Installations Explore Artist’s East Asian and Western Identities in the Digital Age By Margherita Cole on December 6, 2023 Japanese-American artist Jacob Hashimoto unveiled an immersive installation at the Miles McEnery Gallery in New York City...
Has Banksy Finally Revealed His True Identity? | Observer A Welsh politician...
Gen X to Gen Z: Generational Differences in the Shaping of Cambodia’s Cultural Preservation Policies | ArtsEquator Skip to content In Cambodia, most cases of arts censorship are linked to the notion of protecting and preserving culture...
Toronto art collector has concentrated exclusively on Black artists, and established the Wedge Gallery in Toronto to showcase their work...
Kelly Wang's private art museum will be one of the largest private museums of contemporary art in th...
The Berggruen Institute also announced that philosopher Peter Singer was the recipient of its annual $1m prize...
Thousands of works will disappear from galleries as rent rises and a stand-off with city government take their toll...
Tan Boon Hui: A Cultural Leader Of Grace and Courage | ArtsEquator Skip to content The Executive Director of Singapore's Arts House Limited's untimely death last week reverberated through the international art world...
Afro-Ecuadoreans Maintain Identity Through Spiritual Practices - The New York Times Lens | Afro-Ecuadoreans Maintain Identity Through Spiritual Practices https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/lens/afro-ecuadoreans-identity-spiritual-practices.html Give this article Share Advertisement Continue reading the main story As a teenager growing up in Ecuador, Johis Alarcón was mesmerized by hip-hop culture...
Meeting Point 2021: The cultural worker in a time of social change | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Mekong Cultural Hub June 7, 2021 By Wennie Yang (2,000 words, 8-minute read) Laptop fully charged, professional Zoom background selected – Meeting Point 2021 organised by Mekong Cultural Hub and its partners took place virtually between 20 to 22 May 2021...
Jatiwangi Art Factory: Cultural work that breaks the mould | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Courtesy of Jatiwangi Art Factory September 7, 2020 By Nia Agustina, translation by Eka Wahyuni (1,980 words, 6-minute read) In one corner of West Java, Indonesia, in the Majalengka Regency, a group of volunteers work hand in hand to distribute Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), groceries, food, and medical equipment to people who have to work outside the home during the Covid-19 pandemic...
Pandemic in the Philippines: A cultural sector on its own | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles August 17, 2020 By Katrina Stuart Santiago (2,200 words, 8-minute read) When I was first asked to write about “cultural leadership” in the Philippines, I turned up a blank...
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Is Filipino gender neutral? ; Cultural tours go online | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar JL JAVIER via CNN Philippines July 9, 2020 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
Weekly Southeast Asia Radar: Artists non-essential? ; Cultural festivals make a comeback | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar Image Dynamics via Jakarta Post June 18, 2020 ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asia Radar features articles and posts about arts and culture in Southeast Asia, drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region...
Embracing A Bigger Human Identity: “PheNoumenon” by T...
Music – a propaganda promoting the Khmer Rouge socialist identity (via the Phnom Penh Post) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles January 21, 2019 Shortly after their rise to power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge sought to change the social identity of the Khmer people...
26th ENCATC Congress – Key Reflections (via culture360...
Reflections on the Sight/Unseen Asian Drama Conference | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Che-Min Hsieh September 20, 2018 By Benedict Leong (1700 words, 10-minute read) The Sight/Unseen Asian Drama Conference was a two-day event on 26 – 27 April 2018 at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Tara Arts ...
Vietnamese Cultural Week opens in Cambodia (via Nhân Dân) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles September 11, 2018 NDO – The Vietnamese Culture Week opened at Chaktomuk theatre, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on September 11...
Cultural Life: Maverick Sabre, musician | The Independent | The Independent Music: Recently I've been listening to a record with Ella Fitzgerald on one side and Billie Holiday on the other side, and lots of music by Ahmad Jamal...
Carib Carnival illustrates Aubrey Willams’s unique artistic language, combining Pre-Columbian iconography with abstraction...
Since the global capital expansion, billboards have been the medium of communication between the rulers and the residents of townships...
In this work, a woman sits on a couch with her shirt pulled up to expose her pierced nipples, which are connected by a chain...
Catherine Opie’s candid photograph Cathy (bed Self-portrait) (1987) shows the artist atop a bed wearing a negligee and a dildo; the latter is attached to a whip that she holds in her teeth...
Mofokeng’s experiences during the turbulent time of the 1980s in South Africa led to a turn in his practice, opting to turn to the crowd, focusing on individual faces and bodies within the masses to tell a story of the collective resistance that is present in the daily life and surroundings of South African townships...
Like many of Opie’s works, Mike and Sky presents female masculinity to defy a binary understanding of gender...
Although best known as a provocateur and portraitist, Opie also photographs landscapes, cityscapes, and architecture...
This early photographic work by Fre?de?ric Nauczyciel, titled Untitled (Boîte à prière, Istanbul, Novembre 2005) , features a young man in religious attire reading a religious text from inside a glass prayer box...
His series, The Golden State, harkens back to his early career and his photographic training...
Drawing & Print
Glenn Ligon’s diptych, Condition Repor t is comprised of two side-by-side prints...
The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources...
Drawing & Print
Calle’s drawings all inhabit received forms but alter them to call attention to specific qualities...
Re: Looking marks a new phase in Wong’s work which connects his region’s history with other parts of the world...
White Minority , is typical of Capistran’s sampling of high art genres and living subcultures in which the artist subsumes an object’s high art pedigree within a vernacular art form...
Drawing & Print
During her research on primitive currencies and cultural cannibalism, Cuevas came across the Donald Duck comic book issue “The Stone Money Mystery,” where Donald goes on a quest to find missing museum objects...
Drawing & Print
This screen-print by Dread Scott titled Imagine a World Without America shows a map without the landmass that is the USA, as if the continents have drifted, or as if it never existed in the first place...
Lynn Hershman Leeson’s genre-bending documentary Strange Culture tells the story of how one man’s personal tragedy turns into persecution by a paranoid, conservative, and overzealous government...
Haris Epaminonda’s work questions the manipulation and the flow of images as well as their power of fascination...
Typical Weapons is a series of sculptural interventions where Alejandro Marre transforms traditional Guatemalan craft objects usually sold as souvenirs into weapons...
The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi ...
The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi ...
The video Interrupted Passage presents a performance Morales staged in the former home of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, a mid-nineteenth-century Mexican general serving in California...
Hill of Poisonous Trees (three men) (2008) exemplifies the artist’s signature photo-weaving technique, in which he collects diverse found photographs—portraits of anonymous people, stills from blockbuster films, or journalistic images—cuts them into strips, and weaves them into new composition...
The short two-channel video Pause/Tanmpo takes its cue from a coincidental encounter artist Bili Bidjocka had in Dakar...
The Last Post was inspired by Sikander’s ongoing interest in the colonial history of the sub-continent and the British opium trade with China...
Canoas by Tamar Guimarães is a film made for the 2010 São Paulo biennial as an exercise in the projection of national identity...
Drawing & Print
In his posters, prints, and installations, Erick Beltrán employs the language and tools of graphic design, linguistics, typography, and variations in alphabetical forms across cultures; he is specifically interested in how language and meaning form structures that can be misconstrued as universal...
The Mohawk, the emblematic Frontier river in the period of American colonisation, is here a cable of data transmission, and the 7 Sultans Casino is a virtual destination, one of the three hundred online casinos hosted by the servers located in Kahnawake, a small native american indian reserve to the south of Montreal...
Reborn, 2010 is a three-channel video by Desiree Holman that questions ideas of motherhood and the maternal instinct...
The headdresses, woven from artificial hair braids, symbolize historical icons including Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Fela Kuti and King Guézo of Dahomey...
Third Realm (2011) grew out of the artist’s long-term research of Indonesia’s colonial history and the processes of modernization and urbanization that have taken place there...
Composed of four images, the series Sleeping Elephant in the Axis of Yogyakarta (2011) explores the artist’s observation of how Javanese mythology and cosmology have marked the geography of Yogyakarta, the cultural centre of Indonesia...
Drawing & Print
Johanna Calle’s Abece “K” (2011) is part of a series of drawings (compiled into an artist book called Abece ) based on the alphabet...
Zhang Kechun’s photographic series The Yellow River documents the effects of modernization along the eponymous Yellow River, the second longest in Asia...
Drawing & Print
Intentionally Left Blanc alludes to the technical process of its own (non)production; a procedure known as retro-reflective screen printing in which the image is only fully brought to life through its exposure to flash lighting...
Bread and Roses takes its name from a phrase famously used on picket signs and immortalized by the poet James Oppenheim in 1911...
Drawing & Print
Thomas’ lenticular text-based works require viewers to shift positions as they view them in order to fully absorb their content...
Like many of his other sculptural works, the source of I am the Greatest is actually a historical photograph of an identical button pin from the 1960s...
The perceived effortlessness of power, projecting above experiences of labored subordination is examined in Death at a 30 Degree Angle by Bani Abidi, which funnels this projection of image through the studio of Ram Sutar, renowned in India for his monumental statues of political figures, generally from the post-independence generation...
For Taus Makhacheva, the wild, untamed side of human nature is often the foundation of many of her formal investigations...
Haris Epaminonda’s work questions the manipulation and the flow of images as well as their power of fascination...
Zhang Kechun’s photographic series The Yellow River documents the effects of modernization along the eponymous Yellow River, the second longest in Asia...
The image is borrowed from protests during Civil Rights where African Americans in the south would carry signs with the same message to assert their rights against segregation and racism...
Fashion is the focus of Blood Sugar , which consists of a video projected onto a vintage vinyl jacket set at torso height on a dressmaker’s dummy...
South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race....
Drawing & Print
Shot in black and white and printed on a glittery carborundum surface, Black Hands, White Cotton both confronts and abstracts the subject of its title...
Drawing & Print
These hand drawn maps are part of an ongoing series begun in 2008 in which Gupta asks ordinary people to sketch outlines of their home countries by memory...
Drawing & Print
These hand drawn maps are part of an ongoing series begun in 2008 in which Gupta asks ordinary people to sketch outlines of their home countries by memory...
In Muted Situations #2: Muted Lion Dance by Samson Young, Chinese lion dancers perform the auspicious procession traditionally presented at special occasions such as weddings or during the Lunar New Year...
In his work Housing Dreams Walls , the houses photographed are from a closely-knit locale in Kerala – a significant and rapidly popular pattern in this part of the country...
Paint and Unpaint is an animation by Kota Ezawa based on a scene from a popular 1951 film by Hans Namuth featuring Jackson Pollock...
Michelle Handelman’s video work Irma Vep, The Last Breath takes its inspiration from Musidora, a famous French silent film actress, and a character she played called Irma Vep, from the film Les Vampires (1915), directed by Louis Feuillade...
Drawing & Print
Cristóbal Lehyt has conducted thorough research on the historical and cultural complexity of the northern region of Chile where the Atacama Desert is located...
Juego de Banderas (a play on words that loosely translates to both set of flags and game of flags) is a triptych of modified Colombian flags by Antonio Caro...
Farah Al Qasimi’s approach to photography deviates from the norms and conventions of traditional figurative and portrait photography...
Projet d’attentat contre l’image? (Acte 3) by Sinzo Aanza brings together literature and objects in their varied forms...
For The Reverse Sessions , the artist reversed the order in which instruments are usually created, taking the sounds of a collection of ethnic musical instruments from The Dahlem Museum as the starting point...
The work La Loge Harlem focuses on the history of Harlem and its development over the last 200 years...
Sombras de los Valles (Shadows of the Valleys) is part of a series of works created by Bayrol Jiménez in which he is influenced by hand-painted signs and large billboards in Mexico...
Agony of the New Bed by Sheelasha Rajbhandari brings out the familiar yet often ignored reality of gender discrimination and taboos built within the construct of marriage...
Chinese restaurants have been a familiar feature of Swedish cities since the late 1970s, embodying the foreign and the exotic...
De sino à sina (From Bell to Fate) is a six-channel sound installation by Carla Zaccagnini exploring the relationship between modern Brazil and its colonial past...
Sahana Ramakrishnan’s work blends cultural influences, spanning a range of visual mythologies, she weaves together a tapestry of pop cultural references that are upended by the artist’s exploration of identity, sexuality and gender perspectives...
Xaviera Simmons often employs her own body and collected materials in the service of her photographs and performances...
Drawing & Print
Studying the body in movement, this series of drawings depart from Karla Kaplun’s work A ztec BLAST® Workout (AWB) ...
Drawing & Print
Studying the body in movement, this series of drawings depart from Karla Kaplun’s work A ztec BLAST® Workout (AWB) ...
In the video Color Strip by Elsa Werth two-dimensional versions of all the national flags of the world (197 in all) are compiled into a long horizontal strip...
He Xiangyu’s Terminal 3 presents excerpts from the lives of young African acrobats attending the Hebei Wuqiao Acrobatic Arts School in China...
Addressing the 1966 XVII World Chess Olympics, Pataki 1921 by Ulrik López continues the artist’s interest in chess as a subject and as a symbol for various world affairs and political confrontations...
Drawing & Print
The artist’s Passings series are hand-sewn works composed of radiological scans of items of clothing loaned by the Tiraz Foundation in Jordan...
Zhang Kechun’s photographic series The Yellow River documents the effects of modernization along the eponymous Yellow River, the second longest in Asia...
Drawing & Print
All Nations are Created Special is a black and white woodcut print by the artist collective Pangrok Sulap...
Drought Mask by Rajni Perera is a prototype that is suggestive of dire implications for human survival...
Maya Watanabe’s video installation Bullet unfolds within the context of the Peruvian justice and forensic systems...
Leyla Stevens’s two-channel video Patiwangi, the death of fragrance is an immersive video installation that addresses erased histories...
Victory Through Air Power III (1943) by Wendy Cabrera Rubio is part of a series of quilted maps that reproduce different scenes from the eponymous film...
In this untitled acrylic painting, Tessa Mars explores the long-lasting effects of colonialism on the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, particularly in terms of female vulnerability and resilience...
Young Min Moon’s recent paintings repetitively portray the rituals bound up in the Korean tradition of Jesa...
Young Min Moon’s recent paintings repetitively portray the rituals bound up in the Korean tradition of Jesa ...
To produce the series of sculptures collectively titled Utarand , Prabhakar Kamble relocated his studio to Kolhapur, Maharashtra, near the village where he was born into a family of daily wage earners...
To produce the series of sculptures collectively titled Utarand , Prabhakar Kamble relocated his studio to Kolhapur, Maharashtra, near the village where he was born into a family of daily wage earners...
To produce the series of sculptures collectively titled Utarand , Prabhakar Kamble relocated his studio to Kolhapur, Maharashtra, near the village where he was born into a family of daily wage earners...
Tony Cokes’s long-form, multi-channel work Some Munich Moments 1937–1972 forms a layered montage of historical and contemporary source material exploring different periods of Munich’s history...
For Richard Bell, art is not simply a vehicle through which to represent and convey political content...