Author: avantika

Ruin Lust: A Review of Our Fascination with Decay

Yoanna (Yoli) Terziyska Why are we fascinated by ruins? They recall the glory of dead civilizations and the certain end of our own. They stand as monuments to historic disasters, but also provoke dreams about futures born from destruction and…

Eva Kot’átková

Natasha Chaykowski Eva Kot’átková, Untitled, 2014, Wood, collage on paper, glass. 14 feet. Courtesy the artist, Art en Valise, Scrap Metal Gallery and Meyer Riegger. ‘Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars,’ wrote Walter Benjamin. Benjamin’s whimsical comparison…

All Beneath the Moon Decays

Britt Gallpen To ask viewers to read the minimal, largely monochromatic forms on view at Daniel Faria Gallery as a meditation on ruin is also, perhaps, to ask them to imagine how we might begin to give material form to…

Perishable Bodies: An Interview with Joshua Vettivelu

Natasha Chaykowski All images by and courtesy the artist. In this age of biomedical ingenuity, which sees the wholesale embrace of cosmetic procedures staving off bodily wear-and-tear and soaring (Western) life expectancy thanks to remarkable feats in engineering and healthcare,…

Making Time: A Conversation on Aging Film Costumes

Clare Wilkinson All images courtesy Anthea Mallinson. A critical pre-production function in contemporary drama, fantasy and historical films is the deliberate, and deliberative, aging and breakdown of costumes. The special category of breakdown artists who perform this task often come…

Stories from Sappho

Hannah Rahimi like the hyacinth in the mountains that shepherd men with their feet trample down and on the ground the purple flower They don’t warn you about the dangers of oblivion. They should tell you: Stay away from the…

Haiku Breaks on Tides of Melancholia

Concetta Principe Fishbowl of what aches a rusted nail dying in its bed of wormed wood feels nothing Fishbowl of nothing is not nothing but the tremors of something saints or Danish princes whine about Fishbowl of the limit of…

Ground Pepper

Jen MacDonald The freckles around your eyes always had always looked like ash. After spending my morning stacking river rocks to shoulder height for a fire pit, I finally found fuel. I squatted down and grabbed a weightless, crunchy armful.…