Nicholas Johnson – Michigan Quarterly Review

Nicholas Johnson

Emergent Modes of Seeing and Display: Helen Marten & Camille Henrot

Leave a Comment /

* Nicholas Johnson *

How does an artist make something now that compels us to look longer than our modernised attention spans are accustomed to looking? The piling up, ease of access to, and relentless mutation of cultural information occasioned by the internet has so drastically altered the way we look and process images that it’s nearing impossible to remember a time when it was any different. Two artists: Camille Henrot and Helen Marten, present two new methods of dealing with this increasingly dense accrual of objects and information.

Emergent Modes of Seeing and Display: Helen Marten & Camille Henrot Read More »

* Nicholas Johnson *

How does an artist make something now that compels us to look longer than our modernised attention spans are accustomed to looking? The piling up, ease of access to, and relentless mutation of cultural information occasioned by the internet has so drastically altered the way we look and process images that it’s nearing impossible to remember a time when it was any different. Two artists: Camille Henrot and Helen Marten, present two new methods of dealing with this increasingly dense accrual of objects and information.

Colony: An artist-led takeover in London’s Fitzrovia

Leave a Comment /

* Nicholas Johnson *

Last December Anarch gallery of London commissioned the artist Andrew T Cross to build a sculpture designed to function as a platform for a series of artists to ‘colonise’ the space. For two weeks Warren St. in London’s Fitzrovia district was host to a frenetic schedule of day long residencies, exhibitions, performances, meals and parties. In the spirit of artist Gordon Matta Clark this temporary community assembled in a vacant lighting show room to propose new ideas about making art.

Colony: An artist-led takeover in London’s Fitzrovia Read More »

* Nicholas Johnson *

Last December Anarch gallery of London commissioned the artist Andrew T Cross to build a sculpture designed to function as a platform for a series of artists to ‘colonise’ the space. For two weeks Warren St. in London’s Fitzrovia district was host to a frenetic schedule of day long residencies, exhibitions, performances, meals and parties. In the spirit of artist Gordon Matta Clark this temporary community assembled in a vacant lighting show room to propose new ideas about making art.

How Long We Look at Things

Leave a Comment /

* Nicholas Johnson *

An exhibition I saw very quickly at the end of this year, reminded me of another exhibition I viewed quickly earlier in 2013. Kaye Donachie and Gary Hume have a knack for getting us to look longer. And the economy of means they achieve this with is remarkable.

How Long We Look at Things Read More »

* Nicholas Johnson *

An exhibition I saw very quickly at the end of this year, reminded me of another exhibition I viewed quickly earlier in 2013. Kaye Donachie and Gary Hume have a knack for getting us to look longer. And the economy of means they achieve this with is remarkable.

Innercity Pilgrim

Leave a Comment /

* Nicholas Johnson *

Marianne and I meet over drinks, at a wooden table, well trod floorboards, wooden panelling on the walls, a low plaster ceiling, paving stones and graffiti through the window on the street below as dusk settles, lavender, royal blue, black. We’re here intending to talk about images that aren’t in front of us. Images of urban landscapes at night, underpasses, tunnels, back rooms. Innercity Pilgrim is a film by the artist Marianne Walker. She lives in London.

Innercity Pilgrim Read More »

* Nicholas Johnson *

Marianne and I meet over drinks, at a wooden table, well trod floorboards, wooden panelling on the walls, a low plaster ceiling, paving stones and graffiti through the window on the street below as dusk settles, lavender, royal blue, black. We’re here intending to talk about images that aren’t in front of us. Images of urban landscapes at night, underpasses, tunnels, back rooms. Innercity Pilgrim is a film by the artist Marianne Walker. She lives in London.

Psychedelic Revision: An Exhibition on Psychedelia @ Raven Row, London

Leave a Comment /

* Nicholas Johnson *

It is probably not entirely inaccurate to say that artists have always been interested in methods of altering our perceptions of reality and along similar lines that artists have often sought methods of altering their own in search of new methods of representation. With art work ranging from 1959 to 2013, Reflections From a Damaged Life: An Exhibition on Psychedelia at Raven Row in London, is an attempt by curator Lars Bang Larsen to reframe psychedelia as a mode of art making that is more critical in its approach than the institution shunning, free-love and poster paint aesthetics of a bygone hippie counter-culture.

Psychedelic Revision: An Exhibition on Psychedelia @ Raven Row, London Read More »

* Nicholas Johnson *

It is probably not entirely inaccurate to say that artists have always been interested in methods of altering our perceptions of reality and along similar lines that artists have often sought methods of altering their own in search of new methods of representation. With art work ranging from 1959 to 2013, Reflections From a Damaged Life: An Exhibition on Psychedelia at Raven Row in London, is an attempt by curator Lars Bang Larsen to reframe psychedelia as a mode of art making that is more critical in its approach than the institution shunning, free-love and poster paint aesthetics of a bygone hippie counter-culture.

lsa logoum logoU-M Privacy StatementAccessibility at U-M