philadelphia

Rafael Soldi at the Print Center

Originally published in Artforum’s Critics’ Picks. â—Šâ—Š Rafael Soldi’s exhibition “Cargamontón” features selections from two of the artist’s recent series that consider dissonance as a tool of identity formation. Hung across one wall in three rows are twenty-five of the fifty self-portraits Soldi took in a photobooth over the span […]

Mohamed Bourouissa at the Barnes Foundation

Originally published in Art in America’s October 2017 issue. â—Šâ—Š Throughout his career, Mohamed Bourouissa has anchored his projects in collaboration with friends and strangers. His Barnes Foundation exhibition, titled “Urban Riders” and constituting his first solo show in the United States, comprised eighty-five works related to the time he […]

Bruce Nauman at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Originally published in Art in America’s January 2017 issue. ◊◊ Bruce Nauman’s Contrapposto Studies, I through VII (2015–16) is part of his ongoing search for capaciousness in the particular. This seven-part video installation is split between two galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and is kin to his iconic 1968 […]

William Emlen Cresson’s Caricatures

I contributed an essay on William Emlen Cresson’s exhibition caricatures for the catalogue of Expanding the Audience for Art in the 19th Century at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The show was co-curated with colleagues and friends under the guidance of Michael Leja, and mounted at the Arthur Ross Gallery […]

Jennifer Bartlett at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia

Originally published in Art in America’s December 2015 issue. â—Šâ—Š It is challenging to choose terms to describe the works in Jennifer Bartlett’s recent show at Locks, titled “Hospital.” We are told in press material that the show’s 10 oil paintings, all 54 inches square and made in 2012, are […]

Barbara Kasten at ICA Philadelphia

Originally published in Art in America’s April 2015 issue. â—Šâ—Š The ground floor galleries of the Institute of Contemporary Art currently house “Stages,” the first and sorely overdue survey of Barbara Kasten’s photography-based, multi-medium practice. As a prismatic allusion, the show’s title bundles the themes of the exhibition: the theatricality […]