Eduardo Navarro, Five minutes ago (2015), All photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

Since unveiling its new expansion and renovated architecture in 2014, SculptureCenter has been embarking on a series of compelling, and conceptually unorthodox exhibitions, repurposing the building’s structural challenges and unique layout into an equally unique curatorial advantage.  The Eccentrics, organized by the staff curator Ruba Katrib, is the most recent example of such efforts at matching the space’s rugged industrial façade with distinctive aesthetic trends and aesthetic sensibilities in contemporary art.  Introducing eight international artists working in a variety of media, the exhibition stems from German Marxist theorist Walter Benjamin’s observations on the circus as a platform for societal norms and a performance of fabricated others. (more…)

All images by Peter Tiso for Art Observed, unless otherwise noted.

The experience of entering Cosmic Voodoo Circus, a new exhibition by Sanford Biggers that opened last night at SculptureCenter, is somewhat like entering a flea circus. A large sculpture inspired by traditional African spirit sculpture towers above the dwarfed crowd as an empty, motorized trapeze occasionally swings overhead.

A video entitled Shake (2011), is the center of the show; it stars Brazilian-born, Germany-based choreographer/clown/stuntman/DJ Ricardo Castillo as he journeys through Brazil. With his skin painted silver and his feet clad in knee-high platform boots, Castillo shines against a background of favelas, colonial palaces, and the roaring ocean. Funded by a Creative Time travel grant, Shake is the second portion of a trilogy, the first part of which will be on view in Biggers’ upcoming exhibition at Brooklyn Museum, opening September 23.

Artist Sanford Biggers, on the right, greets a friend.

More text and images after the jump… (more…)