Global contemporary art events and news observed from New York City. Suggestion? Email us.

New York – “Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016” at the Whitney Museum Through February 5th, 2017

Sunday, January 22nd, 2017

Stan VanDerBeek, Movie Mural (1968), via Art Observed
Stan VanDerBeek, Movie Mural (1968), via Art Observed

If there’s one distinct argument coming out of the Whitney’s expansive exhibition Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, it’s a reinforcement of the expression “the story’s in the telling.”  Drawing on a wide range of artists and collectives practicing in the late 20th Century and early 21st, the exhibition takes a decidedly narrative bent on increasingly pervasive communication technologies, and the cultural effects that these forms have left both on human interaction at large, and the art world itself.

Hito Steyerl, Factory of the Sun (2015), via Art Observed
Hito Steyerl, Factory of the Sun (2015), via Art Observed

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Berlin – “Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens” at Sprüth Magers Through April 2nd, 2016

Wednesday, February 24th, 2016

Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens (Installation view), via Sprüth Magers
Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens (Installation view), via Sprüth Magers

For the most recent new exhibition in Berlin, Sprüth Magers has brought together work from thirteen artists under the title Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens.  Curated by Goodroom and Johannes Fricke Waldthausen, the exhibition features works by Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, Andy Hope 1930, Oliver Laric, Jon Rafman, and Andro Wekua, among others.  Intended to navigate visitors through the intersecting narratives within the realm of surrealist animation, abstraction and the ideas of “New Materialism” as expressed through the greater logistics of the world wide web, the exhibition references the notion of the screen as a critical tool of the conscious and unconscious, as well as a surface for projections of communication and technological abstraction.   (more…)