Author Archives: Lucas Zwirner

There may be no better way to explore an idea than by rubbing it against one medium or another until there’s a spark. It was with this kind of art-making in mind, emphasizing process and material over end product, that artists like Eva Hesse, Bruce Naumans, Robert Morris and Richard Serra arrived at much of »

It’s always astonishing when a piece of satire manages to reinvigorate a sterile issue. “Branding Natasha,” a video by Michael Mikulec ART ’11 on display at the Second Year MFA show at the Green Gallery, does just that. The video begins with a young man — presumably the artist — speaking: “The point of this »

Most of the students who participated in part one of the School of Art Painting MFA Thesis Exhibition for last-year art students did not make paintings; despite its name, the show, which closed last Saturday, was comprised primarily of sculptures. The interdisciplinary distinctions once so popular at art schools are falling out of fashion: Yale »

In part two of the Sculpture MFA Thesis Exhibition, which features the work of five second-year School of Arts students, many of the installations are rooted in actions that took place before and during the show’s opening last Thursday. Through the actions they reference, the pieces draw the viewer into the context of their own »

NEW YORK — At the Whitney Biennial, many young artists have made videos and installations about their perceptions of time, but in the end what stands out are the paintings by older artists. Erika Vogt’s “Secret Traveler Navigator” (2009) is a video of different moving silhouettes, which range from a marching man to an object »

It’s clear from part one of the Sculpture MFA Thesis Exhibition that the School of Art is not producing a rigidly similar group of sculptors. The exhibition, on display at the Green Gallery and the Sculpture Building on Edgewood Avenue, features five second-year master’s students’ sculpture work, which ranges from more traditional clay sculptures to »

The world of the visual arts has always been a meritocracy. The artists history celebrates are the ones who have been innovative, talented or, best of all, a combination of the two. But because of the accessibility of information nowadays and the general trend toward globalization, questions of merit are slowly being replaced by a »

NEW YORK — “Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity” is the first exhibit the Museum of Modern Art has dedicated to the work of the Bauhaus since 1938. As the show’s title suggests, the exhibit is a retrospective of the work produced at the Bauhaus — a school of art and design founded by Walter Gropius »

The most important skill for young artists to cultivate is the ability to see well. The way an artist judges the things he sees determines his taste, and this taste can be cultivated. With this in mind, I walked into the Art Department’s “Undergraduate Comprehensive Art Exhibition of Fall 2009 Work” at Green Hall, and »

NEW YORK — At a time when photographs are as common as the cell phones that can take them, some young photographers are choosing to construct their own subject matter and develop different methods to ensure the uniqueness of their images. “New Photography 2009,” curated by Eva Respini and currently on display at the Museum »

NEW YORK — How can an artist take war-related photographs that aren’t defined by tragic emotion? Richard Mosse ART ’08, for one, focuses on landscape, or rather, what landscape has become. Mosse’s new exhibition, “The Fall,” currently up at the Jack Shainman Gallery here, consists of a video and 12 photographs that the artist took »

NEW YORK — “Richard Serra: The Man of Steel” is the title of a 2008 BBC interview with Richard Serra ART ’64, and the description is fitting. Serra’s large, breathtaking sculptures originate in his dedication to and obsession with his medium: Corten steel, a type of steel with a copper color. “Blind Spot / Open »