Monday, September 25, 2023

Art of Assembly book launch

A conversation at the Graduate Center with curator Florian Malzacher to launch the English translation of his book The Art of Assembly (2023). A video of the conversation is archived here.

Thursday, September 7, 2023

A roundtable conversation about "reviews" for the German art magazine Texte zur Kunst. I realized with some unease that I am now the elder at the table. The 1990s - remember them? Tbh, the glitterball cover might be the best thing about this conversation.

Friday, June 30, 2023


A short piece on Mike Nelson after seeing his super intelligent Hayward retrospective "Extinction Beckons" back in April. I first met Mike in London in 2001, after seeing his incredible installation The Coral Reef, and have followed his work ever since, our paths intersecting every few years or so. This essay charts twenty years of my intense responses to one of his works in particular, MAGAZIN: Büyük Valide Han, which I first saw in Istanbul in 2003.

Monday, April 10, 2023

Information Overload! Research-Based Art



A preview of my next book in Artforum's April '23 issue. They rushed the pictures in the magazine and didn't consult me, so focus on the online version instead! The longer version will be out next year in Disordered Attention (Verso). NB interesting debate about the essay on Dieter Roelestraete's Instagram here.

Friday, January 6, 2023

Bocanegra Performance-Lecture

After a long pause with Artforum, I'm back. They invited me to write a Top 10 but I hadn't seen ten great things. Instead, they let me write about Suzanne Bocanegra's dazzling performance lecture (with Lili Taylor) at The Met back in February. It really stood out as a blinding example of the genre. Link here.


Thursday, March 31, 2022

Art of Assembly XIV


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Florian Malzacher's long-running and excellent series Art of Assembly came to NY in March. I was totally thrilled to be doing my first in-person public event in 2+ years, and in the company of (insane combination alert) Tania Bruguera and Ann Liv Young. I also discovered I was completely out of practice at navigating live Q&A. Here's the vid.

Conservation Conversation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know nothing about conservation, so I was disconcerted by this invitation to talk to researchers at Bern University of the Arts about the conservation of performance. I declined but Hanna Hölling was persuasive and twisted my arm. The awkward results can be viewed here.