Solo (2003) is a video exhibited as a video/sound installation depicting shots of drum, voice, guitar, clavier/synthesizer, and a melodica player cut into segmented fragments from the perspective of a studio recording set. Rather than deploying a narrative strategy, Grandmaison focuses on the gestures of the musicians and the repetitions they carry out when recording their individual tracks. The musicians are portrayed nodding, dancing, improvising, strumming, creating resonance that is repeated over and over– however, Grandmaison is sure not to document their entire faces or expressions while they perform, just details. Similar to that of a “jam,” close attention is granted to the exertion of the camera and how it portrays the framing of sequences. What one can pick up from the segments, especially those of voice recording, is a modified reworking of Anne Clark’s 1980’s track “Sleeper in the Metropolis.”
Marked by an apparent austerity and meticulousness, Pascal Grandmaison’s works display a disconcerting aloofness from the world, a clearly asserted detachment from reality. The subjects that interest the artist primarily deal with the means by which humans try to grasp their world, both visually and intellectually. The artist employs photography, video, and sculpture in order to compose a vision of what some have termed “troubling strangeness.” Overturning conventional codes of visual analysis, Grandmaison focuses on inanimate subjects that, once disassociated from their familiar environment, are re-contextualized through his cold gaze. His depictions do not exist as stories instead he reverses viewpoints and inverts color codes. His photographs and video works are generally black and white, giving them a monotone feel. A constant visual repetition in his work is his rigorously impersonal gaze. As a keen observer, he meticulously scrutinizes the world around him, analyzing it through the lens of a camera. Grandmaison is interested in the appearance of things and non-beings and, more rarely, of beings themselves. When human figures do appear in his work, they are presented in an inexpressive, impassive, distant way, equated to the role of an object. Pascal Grandmaison was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1975.
Beauty and Danger in the Art of Ambreen Butt Skip to content Ambreen Butt, "Arsenal of Ambiguity" (2023), tea, coffee, watercolor, and collage on tea-stained paper, 44 x 30 inches (all images courtesy Gallery Wendi Norris) SAN FRANCISCO — Ambreen Butt: Lay Bare My Arms at Gallery Wendi Norris combines collage and text with traditional South Asian miniature painting to create energetic works that radiate delicate beauty, underpinned by a pervasive threat of violence...
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Kavadi Attam | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Radar Joy Ho / Jawn October 24, 2020 10 Things is a series of three short animated videos, each focusing on a lesser known traditional artform – Dikir Barat, Kavadi Attam and Nanyin...
Cold feet? Why fewer investors are guaranteeing art at auction Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Art Market Eye comment Cold feet? Why fewer investors are guaranteeing art at auction According to a recent report, guarantees are down—what's happened? Georgina Adam 8 December 2023 Share © Katherine Hardy Art Market Eye Georgina Adam, our editor-at-large, comments on major art market trends and their impact on the trade...
Displacement, Disconnection & Disruption: Alternate Perceptions of the Diasporic Experiences – Art and Cake June 12, 2023 June 15, 2023 Author Displacement, Disconnection & Disruption: Alternate Perceptions of the Diasporic Experiences Fatemeh Burnes “Wonderland” Displacement, Disconnection & Disruption: Alternate Perceptions of the Diasporic Experiences By Betty Ann Brown We are living in dystopia, in a world that is dominated by technology and disconnect, alienation, loneliness, and dysfunction...
Binelde Hyrcan’s video “Cambeck” is a playful study of four boys on a beach in Angola playing in a chauffeured car made of sand...
Women Are the Post-Apocalyptic Future Skip to content Dana Schutz, "Civil Planning" (2004), oil on canvas (all photos Ela Bittencourt/ Hyperallergic ) BERLIN and PARIS — In recent years, impending ecological apocalypse has spurred a number of contemporary artists to visualize fears of an environmental collapse...
The Black Canyon Deep Semantic Image Segments by Trevor Paglen merges traditional American landscape photography (sometimes referred as ‘frontier photography’ for sites located in the American West) with artificial intelligence and other technological advances such as computer vision...
Those who stay: the Hong Kong artists fighting for a brighter future Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Hong Kong analysis Those who stay: the Hong Kong artists fighting for a brighter future Despite governmental intimidation of arts entities, the high cost of living and the lure of better opportunities abroad, many artists are choosing to remain in the city Lisa Movius 5 February 2024 Share The satirical cartoonist Wong Kei-kwan, who uses the pen name Zunzi, had his comic strip in the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao cancelled following government pressure, but he continues to live in the city Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu Some call it the great exodus: the family company owners, the bankers and the expatriate businesspeople departing Hong Kong in droves during and since the Covid-19 years...
Canned Laughter was Okón’s response to an invitation from Ciudad Juárez , Mexico, where artists were asked to create works based on their experience of the city...