Sprawling and jam-packed with painting, sculpture, video and more, the ‘Brucennial’ – the biannual, tongue-in-cheek response to the Whitney Biennial organized by anonymous art collective ‘Bruce High Quality Foundation’ – is a hive of activity worth witnessing, especially as this version is billed as the ‘last’ Brucennial. (Through April 4th at 837 Washington Street, opposite the Standard Hotel.)
Installation view of the 2014 Brucennial, March 2014.
Beijing-based artist Xu Bing is a star of the Met’s excellent ‘Ink Art’ exhibition, which features important work by prominent Chinese artists of the past few decades who have maintained a link with China’s traditional calligraphic and painting traditions. Here, Xu’s Book from the Sky submerses visitors in a sea of Chinese characters (with over a thousand unique variations) yet comes to question tradition and the relay of information by the fact that all are illegible. (At the Metropolitan Museum of Art through April 6th).
Xu Bing, Book from the Sky, ca 1987-91, installation of hand-printed books and ceiling and wall scrolls printed from wood letterpress type; ink on paper.
Twice a day, a New Museum employee starts up and moves a motorcycle to maximum speed, its rear wheel causing a huge, cast-iron flywheel to spin for over two hours after the performance ends. Chris Burden’s contraption – The Big Wheel from 1979 – contrasts the freedom of an individual on a bike with an industrially sized wheel, visibly demonstrating both labor and energy harnessed. (On the Lower East Side through Jan 12th).
Chris Burden, The Big Wheel, three-ton, eight-foot diameter, cast-iron flywheel powered by a 1968 Benelli 250cc motorcycle, 1979.
The sobriety and simplicity of Imran Qureshi’s Roof Garden installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a sharp contrast to previous Met roof projects (like the Starn brothers’ climbable bamboo labyrinth in 2010). Partly in response to deadly bombings in Lahore, Qureshi paints the roof’s floor and walls with blood-red paint splatters and beautifully rendered floral motifs. (At the Met through Nov 3rd.)
Imran Qureshi, installation view of ‘The Roof Garden Commission: Imran Qureshi,’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2013.
Known for crafting historical art and furnishings as if they’d been partly destroyed, Brooklyn artist Valerie Hegarty has astoundingly transformed several rooms in the Brooklyn Museum’s Cane Acres Plantation Dining Room to look as if disaster has struck, turning a gentile space into a riot of gunshot holes, destroyed food and flapping crows. (In the 4th floor Period Rooms at the Brooklyn Museum through Dec 1st).
Valerie Hegarty, installation view of ‘Valerie Hegarty: Alternative Histories’ at the Brooklyn Museum, July 2013.
