As he recounts in this interview, self-taught, Turin-born artist Paolo Colombo began working as a painter and drawer and writer in the early s, but stopped in to begin a twenty-one-year career as a curator of contemporary art in the United States, Europe, and Turkey. Today, his intricate, intimate images and word-image hybrids bridge worlds and times. They are sparked both by the formal and philosophical innovations of the modernist avant-garde and by the wonders of history, especially of literature and the ancient world.
In December he sat down with painter and writer Joe Fyfe, who first met him in the early eighties and has kept up with him and his work since that time. Like her paintings, Jacqueline Humphries has established a subliminal presence in the art world, composed of intrigue and integrity. Our conversation veered obliquely around topics small and large, and Humphries asks as many questions as she answers. February For the Critics Page in each issue of the Rail , a guest critic is charged with suggesting a topic or theme that can be explored and debated for this special section.
In the s, the rise of deconstructive theory and changing ideas about feminism pushed these ideas into the background. The identification of women with nature had a retrograde ring, rife with essentialism, wishful thinking, and cultural appropriation. But today, the wheel has turned again.
In the face of a warming planet, widespread social upheavals, and geopolitical disruptions, the visions of the Goddess artists no longer seem so naive and wrongheaded. The hamburger is not simply a mundane symbol of food. It is instead a symbol of the system that has processed mere food into property that can be in fact, must be withheld from us until we submit to the social domination of the owners. And you and I are not owners.
I want to first and last commend you for being one of the only American news organizations that has hired an actual Palestinian news correspondent. Sort of defining free improvisation as a genre away from, say, jamming. After each is done, you feel like the next could go anywhere else in terms of structure and affect. The weeklong festival, now in its third year, features seven performances plus a film series.
