Sarah Sze, Triple Point (Planetarium) (2013), All Images Via Kelly Lee for Art Observed

Just over a year ago, Sarah Sze brought her eye-catching assemblages to Italy as the U.S. representative to the 2013 Venice Biennale.  Puzzle-like contraptions snaked in and around the building façade, even allowing and supporting a huge boulder to balance on top of the pavilion’s roof.  A myriad of fake rocks, water bottles and other miscellaneous objects were scattered across the space, offering only a small taste of the deceptively hazardous mess that awaited visitors inside. It was widely praised  as a stand out work, and brought Sze to a new level in her artistic recognition. (more…)

The Bronx Museum is reportedly in talks with the organizers of next year’s Havana Biennial in Cuba to plan a possible exhibition during the event, which would make it the first major show by a US museum in the country.  The talks are also centered around a possible show of Cuban artists at the New York Museum. (more…)

Thomas Hirschhorn, Gramsci Monument (2013), via Daniel Creahan for Art Observed

“Everyone is an intellectual.”  These words by Italian anarchist/Marxist Antonio Gramsci adorn the walls of Gramsci Monument, the fourth and final entry into Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn’s monumental installation series to his favorite thinkers and writers, currently open in the Forest Houses housing project in the South Bronx.  Opening the platform to cultural dialogues, political research and community art efforts, Gramsci Monument continues Hirschhorn’s efforts at destabilizing the spatial encounters of a work of art, broadening its scope to a space where all participants are welcome to create their own meaning. (more…)

The last of artist Thomas Hirschhorn’s monument structures, constructed in in tribute to writer Antonio Gramsci, opens today at the Forest Houses housing project in the South Bronx.  Consisting of a library, performance space and Internet access point, the Gramsci Monument will stand all summer, welcoming all visitors to engage with the writings of the Italian anarchist at a space constructed by Forest Houses residents.  “I tell them, ‘This is not to serve your community, per se, but it is to serve art, and my reasons for wanting to do these things are purely personal artistic reasons,’” Hirschhorn says. “My goal or my dream is not so much about changing the situation of the people who help me, but about showing the power of art to make people think about issues they otherwise wouldn’t have thought about.” (more…)