RECOMMENDED If one needs any more proof that East Asia has become the flash point of avant-garde photography, feast your eyes on Miao Xiaochun’s irreverent large-format scenarios, in which he inserts digitally sculpted images of his naked body in place of the figures inhabiting paintings by early-modern Western masters. Although Xiaochun intends his photo-works—all of which incorporate water—to be a reflection on that substance’s essential role in the economy of our lives, the sight of multiple images of him populating the scenes immediately brings to mind Sandy Skoglund’s eerie photo-tableaux, with the difference that Xiaochun—always performing with expressionless stoicism—cuts an absurd figure that subverts modern pretensions to authenticity, as when he refuses to revel when he enacts Titian’s “Bacchanal.” The new East meets the old West here, with the advantage decidedly going to the former. (Michael Weinstein) Through November 24 at WALSH GALLERY
Beyond the Void: Nate Young on Recreating History and Making Art Anew On view is a new series of drawings, in which Young attempts to recreate a photograph from memory of his great grandfather standing with a horse, a continuation of a larger project, in which Young is learning how to ride a horse so he can recreate his great grandfather's migration by horse, from North Carolina to Pennsylvania.
Living History and Time Unbound: A Review of "Counterpublic" With over twenty-five participating artists and art collectives, the second iteration of St. Louis’ "Counterpublic" is an ambitious, multi-site exhibition series that takes place in public spaces, community gathering spots, and cultural and historical institutions.
The Friction of History: A Review of Sky Hopinka at the Block Museum Merging metaphor and direct accounts of Fort Marion, Hopinka’s “Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer” offers perspectives on the long and complex reality of American colonialism told through this site of annihilation.
