New Media Art isn’t so new anymore: The genre has grown too big for the avant-garde and even too big for its own institutions. Now the geekifed form is showing up in places where you wouldn’t expect it — like the Museum of Natural History in New York’s Central Park. You need an art chart just to keep track of it all.
<![CDATA[ table#holiday {padding:0; margin:0; border-spacing:0; font-size:12px; background:#eee;} td {width:100px; vertical-align:top; padding:0 5px 30px;} .td1 {width:90px; } .td1, .td3,Event: | A More Perfect Union | X-Lab | M.C. Escher: Impossible Realities | Sol LeWitt: 2D +3D | Six Solos |
Where: | Bitforms Gallery, New York City | Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, New York City | Akron Museum of Art, Ohio | Walker Art Center, Minneapolis | Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus Ohio |
When : | Jan.13-Feb. 19 | Through Jan. 29 | Starting Feb. 12 | Through April 24th | Through Feb. 13 |
Who: | R. Luke DuBois, composer, artist and performer focused on temporal, verbal and visual structures of cultural ephemera | Up-and-coming multimedia, tech-savvy artists in the midst of projects | Mind-bending printmaker, draftsman, illustrator and muralist Escher | Iconic, elegant minimalist LeWitt, known for ultra-precise line drawings and sculptures | Six young artists with a penchant for geek-centric installations transforming the architecture of a space |
Why you’ll geek out: | DuBois’s newest works stems from his exploration of time-lapse photography and uses the idea of long camera exposure to reveal the “average sonority, visual language and vocabulary” in music, film, text and more. | X-Lab’s “Sandbox” extends the hacker collective aesthetic to the art gallery to encourage new thinking about interactive design; public visitors can tour four works-in-progress at a time and give feedback to the artists, plus follow their progress on a Tumblr account. | We all now know Escher’s uncanny and untrained expertise in mathematics; these rarely-seen-outside-Europe prep drawings, lithographs and sculptures give precious insight into his creative process. | LeWitt’s spare works actually contain complex, acutely conceived geometric systems; looking at a bunch of lines has never been so transfixing. | Three good reasons: Megan Geckler plays with pattern and form through grids of colored translucent tape; Erwin Redl uses LED lights to create a beacon-like grid on the museum’s façade; and constructivist Gustavo Godoy lets material dictate form using lumber and lighting. |
Authors: Adam Fisher