Art Column

If You Build it, Will They Come?

The first art opening I attended last spring after the long lockdown was at Wading Room Gallery on Alvar Street, a new and temporary space created by Peter Hoffman and Ryn Wilson. Though I usually avoid openings, I wanted to support the new project, was curious to see what was there, and maybe just needed to get out of the house. This event and gallery, a garage and surrounding lawn, got me thinking about the spaces–current, past and future–to see art in New Orleans.

Virtually There: Looking at Art from a Distance Part 3

Art Column by Emily Farranto

Carmine Cartolano, an Italian artist and writer, has been living in Cairo for twenty-one years. After a couple of email exchanges, Carmine and I met on a Zoom call in March. We talked about the pandemic and how it has affected our work, and life in our respective locations.

Virtually There: Looking at Art From a Distance, Part 2

Art Column by Emily Farranto

It was dark outside my window in New Orleans and nearly dark outside Katarina Janeckova Walshe’s studio in Corpus Christi, Texas. We were finally on a video call; she was sitting in her studio, an enclosed space underneath her stilted house and I was in my home office. I apologized, remembering I was chewing gum, took it out and stuck it on my tape dispenser. Katarina held up a slice of pizza and said it was okay because she was eating her dinner. Speaking to her, one feels immediately on familiar terms.

Virtually There: Looking at Art From a Distance, Part I

Art Column by Emily Farranto

How close can you get to a painting in a museum that’s not open to visitors? Is it possible to see an exhibition in a city you can’t travel to? What is the best way to experience art from a lockdown? It has been over a year of closed venues, online viewing rooms, and limited travel.

Seeing Things: Gabrielle Ledet, Swam to the Moon at Good Children, New Orleans

Art Column by Emily Farranto

“I am not entirely opposed to madness, not when it comes with this kind of clarity.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

When I heard New York Times art critic Holland Cotter speak at Tulane several years ago, he said something like, …

The Problem of Pain: Meditation Patterns by Matt Vis

Art Column by Emily Farranto

When you first see the photographic constructions artist Matt Vis calls “Meditation Patterns,” you will probably not think, Ah, this is art about pain. These are not illustrations of pain, like many paintings of Frida Kahlo, Edvard Munch, or …

What Does a Stingray Mean?

Art Column by Emily Farranto

Photograph by Kevin Barrios, 2020

In a post-Christmas torpor, a kind of sensory malaise, I found myself recalling that a year ago I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, lying on my living room floor in the doldrums …

Hindsight is 2020

Art Column by Emily Farranto

Hindsight is 2020

My Top Ten Nine Art Experiences of the Year

It’s a tradition to end the year with Top Ten lists. Artforum dedicates its December issue to reviewing the year in film, music, and art. The New York …

The Mail Gaze: Art and the Postal Service

Art Column by Emily Farranto

In 1995, the summer after I graduated from college, I received my first envelope from a stranger named Pascal Lenoir. Inside the tan Euro-style C5 envelope was a collection of original artworks varying in size, subject, and texture. Several were collaged and many included text and rubber stampings. This was the curatorial mail art project of Pascal Lenoir. I received my last Mani-Art envelope in 2000, the year I began an MFA program in painting and then I pretty much forgot about mail art until now.

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