1. Michael Stevenson: The Fountain of Prosperity is open at the Sculpture Center until August 3, 2015.
The Fountain of Prosperity was created after the Michael Stevenson’s extensive research into the Phillips Machine, a.k.a. Monetary National Income Analogue Computing Machine, or MONIAC, a hydro-mechanical computer invented in 1949 by Bill Phillips with the purpose to represent fiscal and monetary flows in a national economy. The MONIAC was initially used for educational purposes, but it was eventually marketed to developing countries. Stevenson’s sculpture is inspired by this market shift, and stems largely from archival and field research in Guatemala, where the Central Bank purchased a MONIAC in 1952.
2. Doris Salcedo retrospective is open at Guggenheim until October 12, 2015.
This major retrospective will survey the searing, deeply poetic work of Doris Salcedo (b. 1958, Bogotá, Colombia). Over the past three decades, Salcedo’s practice has addressed the traumatic history of modern-day Colombia, as well as wider legacies of suffering stemming from colonialism, racism, and other forms of social injustice. Originating in lengthy research processes during which the artist solicits testimonies from the victims of violent oppression, her sculptures and installations eschew the direct representation of atrocities in favor of open-ended confluences of forms that are fashioned from evocative materials and intensely laborious techniques. Many of her works transmute intimate domestic objects into subtly charged vessels freighted with memories and narratives, paradoxically conjuring that which is tragically absent.
3. Leonor Antunes: I Stand Like a Mirror Before You is open at New Museum until September 6, 2015.
Antunes’s approach to questions of space, measurement, and compositional structure in her new installation, made specifically for the Lobby Gallery, is informed by the work of experimental filmmaker Maya Deren and textile artist Anni Albers. Likewise, the artist’s deep engagement with native and ancient craft traditions, and her insistence on the work of the hand, is demonstrated through her use of natural material. Engaging directly with both the site of exhibition and the viewers’ bodies, Antunes has created a densely choreographed series of meticulously handcrafted objects that find sculptural form as vertical or horizontal demarcations in space or as woven, transparent nets and grids.
4. The Rise of Sneaker Culture is open at Brooklyn Museum until October 4, 2015.
From their modest origins in the mid-nineteenth century to high-end sneakers created in the past decade, sneakers have become a global obsession. The Rise of Sneaker Culture is the first exhibition to explore the complex social history and cultural significance of the footwear now worn by billions of people throughout the world. The exhibition, which includes approximately 150 pairs of sneakers, looks at the evolution of the sneaker from its beginnings to its current role as status symbol and urban icon. Included are works from the archives of manufacturers such as Adidas, Converse, Nike, Puma, and Reebok as well as private collectors such as hip-hop legend Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, sneaker guru Bobbito Garcia, and Dee Wells of Obsessive Sneaker Disorder. Also featured are sneakers by Prada and other major fashion design houses and designers, as well as those made in collaboration with artists including Damien Hirst and Shantell Martin. Film footage, interactive media, photographic images, and design drawings contextualize the sneakers and explore the social history, technical innovations, fashion trends, and marketing campaigns that have shaped sneaker culture over the past two centuries.
