Cohesive Holes
by Travis Jeppesen on April 9, 2013
“As an embodiment of the myriad contradictions that China
finds itself mired in today, MadeIn effectively explodes the
double-mindedness that Chinese artists have had to internalize
in the post-Tiananmen era. The million little shards that
result, when put together, probably wouldn’t form a cohesive
whole. If anything, they’ll yield a cohesive hole.”
My essay on MadeIn Company appears in the April issue of Art in America.
The 27th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
by Travis Jeppesen on April 7, 2013
(Ms. Vaginal Davis in She Said Boom! The Story of Fifth Column)
My review of the 27th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival at Artforum.
Berlinale 2013
by Travis Jeppesen on March 5, 2013
My summing-up of this year’s Berlinale can be read at Artforum in two parts: here and here.
Aliens & Anorexia: A Chris Kraus Symposium
by Travis Jeppesen on February 27, 2013
The Critical Writing in Art & Design programme at the Royal College of Art is pleased to announce the first conference on the work of the American writer Chris Kraus, to take place in London on 13–14 March 2013. Alongside presentations of new interpretations of Kraus’s work, the conference will include a reading by the author of some of her writings, an on-stage interview and screening of her films.
You can find the schedule of the symposium–and book tickets–here.
Spreadeagle
by Travis Jeppesen on February 24, 2013
A review of Kevin Killian’s new novel Spreadeagle, at Bookforum.
State of the Art
by Travis Jeppesen on January 26, 2013
“With magazines, it’s also complicated. Either you work for big bucks for Conde Nast and have them completely rewrite everything you turn in, or you work for less remunerative venues where, in the last few years, 1500 words have come to be considered a feature article. To me that’s a caption. And even if you have a good editor, they have people pushing in on them, demanding last minute cuts so some designer can jerk himself off giving pages his special sparkle, with lots of white space, and sometimes even the good editors feel they have to edit these micropieces to death. Take your voice right out of the equation, suggest little word changes, strike out sentences, until you no longer have any idea why you bothered to write the thing in the first place, since any entry-level job slinging burgers at McDonald’s would be more remunerative, if you factor up the time you spend making beetling little changes to what was perfectly all right in the first place.” – Gary Indiana, “The Five Percent Paradox”
Vertigo of Freedom
by Travis Jeppesen on January 9, 2013
For those accustomed to attending group exhibitions organized around a neat thesis, “Vertigo of Freedom” is sure to disappoint. Instead, Kata Krasznahorkai gives us curation as art form, leaving us to form our own conclusions—of which there are potentially many, despite the slim and nuanced selection of works.
Best of 2012…
by Travis Jeppesen on January 1, 2013
Joan Mitchell, Hai Bo, and Chris Kraus.
Over at Artforum.
Joshua Tree 1951: A Portrait of James Dean
by Travis Jeppesen on December 12, 2012
“Joshua Tree gives us an account of the process by which Hollywood molds an individual into its systemic image of a star. That it accomplishes this through a formal subversion of Hollywood’s stylistic code—with its deliberately slow rhythm and acute attention paid to photography, nearly every image resembling a still—makes the message all the more subtle.”
