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Tag: Kyle Chayka
Fat Slag, engenders accusations of sexism (November 25 2012) Fat Slag, engenders accusations of sexism (November 25 2012)

Charles Alexander Jencks the 73 year old Scottish American architectural theorist, landscape architect and designer whose books on the history and criticism of Modernism and Postmodernism are widely read in architectural circles, is the subject of an article by Kyle Chayka for Blouin Artinfo relating to a Landart sculpture he designed. The article titled ‘U.K.’s Giant Woman-Shaped Earthwork, Nicknamed “Fat Slag,” Engenders Accusations of Sexism’. Chayka states “In British English, “slag” has a few different meanings. Most literally, it means the refuse from mining or metal smelting operations… In a more vernacular setting, the term can refer to a “coarse or dissipated girl or woman,” according to the venerable Collins English Dictionary. A huge new public artwork in Northumberland is both at the same time.  “Northumberlandia,” a 1,300-foot-long earthwork of a curvy woman created by the Banks Mining Group, Viscount Matthew Ridley, and landscape architect Charles Jencks, was molded from a 1.5-million-ton slag heap taken from the Shotton coal mine. She’s the largest human earthwork in the world, and her breasts (which feature walkway spirals) rise 100 feet into the air. The woman is traced with white pathways, reminiscent of the antique earthwork the Uffington White Horse. Unfortunately… hasn’t struck the same chord with its audience as the graceful horse. Jencks’s installation has been unkindly nicknamed the “fat slag” by locals, taking full advantage of the double entendre. …Despite the feminist critiques, the privately funded earthwork might prove a boon for Northumberland residents. The project’s planners hope it will attract 200,000 visitors annually and bring attention to the area. The artist sees no problem with what he considers to be a humanist gesture: “I don’t believe it is demeaning to women, men or the human species as a whole; in fact it celebrates all of that,” he said. “I profoundly believe that, given time, people will not find any offense in this, and will grow to love her.”

 

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There’s so much I want to say to you (August 18 2012) There’s so much I want to say to you (August 18 2012)

Sharon Hayes the 42 year old American artist who uses mixed mediums of video, performance, and installation in an ongoing investigation into various intersections between history, politics and speech, has been profiled by Kyle Chayka on Blouin Artinfo for her Whitney Museum exhibition titled ‘There’s So Much I Want to Say to You’. In the article Chayka states “…Hayes came of age during the rise of gay liberation movements and Third Wave feminism, twin currents that drive “There’s So Much I Want to Say to You.” In this tour-de-force solo show, the artist is equal parts activist, diarist, and journalist, charting her own individual upheavals even as she experiences the upheavals of her time and excavates the struggles of the past. A gay woman, Hayes integrates the personal and the political in a way that brings to mind the recent identity-based work of Simon Fujiwara and Danh Vo, but with a keener sense of the painful realities of the world and their impact on the individual. In formats ranging from her 1990s-era solo theatrical performances to her 2004 DJ set drawn from her extensive collection of spoken-word LPs, Hayes draws on lives and stories outside her own. Much of the Whitney exhibition confronts the struggle for queer identity. Sixteen-millimeter film footage shot at the 1971 “Christopher Street Liberation Day and Gay-In” is voiced over by Hayes and activist Kate Millett, who was born in 1934, in a piece called “Gay Power.” Millett reminisces about the excitement of the day while the camera runs up and down young bodies lit by the yellowing setting sun.”

 

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Voyeurs caught spying on moments of grace (August 10 2012) Voyeurs caught spying on moments of grace (August 10 2012)

Rineke Dijkstra the 53 year old Dutch photographer renowned for her single portraits usually in series of work taking in groups such as adolescents, clubbers, soldiers, recent mothers, or bullfighters; has been profiled by Kyle Chayka in an article published on Artinfo. In the article Chayka states “While working as an editorial photographer on assignment, the artist got into a serious accident. Doctors warned her that if she didn’t exercise extensively she might lose the use of her legs, and so she took to swimming. One day after climbing exhausted out of the pool, she noticed that her eyes were rimmed with red, as if she had been crying. Dijkstra decided to turn that moment into a self-portrait, and the resulting image hangs on the Guggenheim’s gallery wall. …Dijkstra is seen standing against a geometric tiled wall, eyes staring straight ahead at the viewer, worn out yet ferociously self-possessed. It was then that the photographer realized the power of shooting her subjects in moments of distress or suspension, times when the wall between the individual and society comes down and the soul is bared. The strategy pays off viscerally in Dijkstra’s series of portraits of new mothers shot just after birth. The women stand in the hallways of their homes (where Dutch women often give birth) cradling their newborns, faces communicating a captivating mix of shock and bemused joy. … We, of course, are the voyeurs caught spying on their moments of grace. Yet Dijkstra’s accomplishment is that she doesn’t sexualize, idealize, or exoticize what she captures.”

 

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Marilyn Minter the 63 year old US artist whose photographic works often include sexuality and erotic imagery via staged photo shoots with film and conventional darkroom processes, has been interviewed by Kyle Chayka in the lead up to the debut opening of the new art space ‘Family Business’ in New York, a collaboration of Gioni and Cattelan. Minter has curated the opening group show ‘The Virgins’, and during the interview stated, “Gioni and Cattelan have been great. They gave me full control… Cattelan explained the project as an altruistic gesture, giving artists a free place to express themselves. He pays rent and electricity and supplies interns to attend the space. It’s a pretty cool way to give back. I was sitting next to [Cattelan] at a dinner, and since he was “retiring,” I suggested he might want to start teaching. A month later he asked me to curate a show. I think they expect artists to use the space as a laboratory, to go with the flow… I wanted to have something on a screen that could run 24/7… I asked them if they would become “born-again virgins” for the length of the exhibition and show the first video works they ever made. It’s an excuse to show work night and day.”

 

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