In photography and video, Yto Barrada interrogates borders, both geographic and economic. In the new Parkett, her work is discussed by Nuria Enguita Mayo and Urs Stahel as well as by the artist herself, in conversation with Eyal Weizman. Barrada’s edition Aquariums for Sale on a Rainy Day, Tangier is a colorful photographic diptych of fishbowls stacked to form sculptural shapes.
Parkett vol. 91, cover by Liu Xiaodong
“For Barrada, Tangier is not simply a storied site within the modernist imaginary but the place of a complex experience that vacillates between two irreconcilable situations: emigration and mass tourism.” —Nuria Enguita Mayo
Nicole Eisenman creates portraits of her tight-knit community of artists and writers; now Jess Arndt and Litia Perta take their turn portraying Eisenman, while Erica Kaufman, Matt Longabucco, and Ariana Reines contribute poems that respond to the artist’s work. For her Parkett edition, Eisenman has created a series of black-and-white woodcuts and vibrantly colored monotypes, featuring an abstracted and behatted smiling figure.
“What is it that draws one body to another? What is it that then draws a body to pull out a pen and try to trace what it sees, record the figure before it in line or stroke?” —Litia Perta
Observation and critique are central to the paintings of Liu Xiaodong, who employs realism to expose social problems rather than to glorify the status quo. Hou Hanru and Charles Merewether offer their views on the artist, who also engages in a dialogue with Philip Tinari. Liu’s edition of overpainted color photographs grew out of his recent “Hotan Project,” a large-scale artistic and curatorial endeavor during which the artist lived among Muslim Uyghur jade miners in western China.
“I needed to think of a new way to engage, to make people discover that painting still has possibilities.”
—Liu Xiaodong
Monika Sosnowska examines the promises and failures of modernist architecture, in particular in her native Poland. In this Parkett, Francesco Bonami, Brian Dillon, and Joanna Mytkowska consider her many projects. Inspired by a simple construction the artist saw in a market in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Monika Sosnowska’s Parkett edition Fly Repellent continues her interest in informal architecture and improvised solutions.
“Sosnowska’s Warsaw is at one and the same time this archipelago of non-places and the Communist-era city of tower blocks, now garishly clad in an act of historical forgetting.” —Brian Dillon
Also in this issue: David Velasco reflects on Jérôme Bel‘s Disabled Theater, presented at dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel; U.S. senior editor Nikki Columbus visits Xavier Le Roy‘s exhibition at Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, and contemplates the popularity of dance in museums; a Cumulus by Stefano Rabolli Pansera focuses on architectural projects in Angola and Sardinia; and Les Infos du Paradis features a collaged text by Liam Gillick on “Vers la lune en passant par la plage,” a four-day event at the Amphitheatre in Arles. The Insert is designed by Nick Relph.
For more details on Parkett 91 as well as on artists’ editions, subscriptions, and back issues, and to connect on Facebook, please visit www.parkettart.com
