first email

<![CDATA[<p>hi, welcome to the first edition of the grapefruits sometimes art mail! these are a few articles i have read and found interesting recently.</p>

first up, a feature by Léuli Eshrāghi about curating indigenous artists at university of british columbia's museum of anthropology. i appreciated this super direct critique of the way institutions keep reproducing cringey old eurocentric fantasies of pacific island and coastal cultures. it also features work by natalie ball, whose work is so good. check it out here

natalie ball, "bang bang" 2019

another amazing artist mentioned in the Momus feature is marianne nicolson, whose exhibition at yale union in portland is reviewed at oregon artswatch by laurel reed pavic. i got to see this show over the summer and it was beautiful. read about it here

installation view, marianne nicolson, "a feast of light and shadows," yale union, 2021

another momus feature from a couple years ago but still very much worth reading is bean gilsdorf's review of pacifico silvano at melanie flood projects. i feel like pacifico is one of the coolest artists working in what i think of as "new collage"... i just made up that term right now. but i think it's totally a thing! collage is more relevant than ever imo. see what you think here

pacifico silano, "how i picture a sunset (detail)" 2019

full disclosure, bean and melanie are both friends of mine, and are wonderful people. not biased or anything.

if you like bean's writing, you might also like her research. she recently completed a huge study on the state of artists living and working in portland. in this article for SFMOMA's online journal openspace, she generously breaks down her research methods, including what she would do differently next time. helpful for those of us conducting our own artistic research! take a look here

image courtesy bean gilsdorf/SFMOMA

finally, another old(ish) piece featuring work that is still hecka fresh, rachel hahn interviews artist aria dean at topical cream. i loved this work, and wish i could have seen it in person, but dean's words about it are their own enlightening experience. to see a short review on dean's most recent show, click here. for the interview, click here.

aria dean, "metamodels:fam", 2019

hope you liked these links! thanks emerson and ellie for suggesting this. i'm using this little newsletter platform so other people can subscribe if there is any interest. pass it along : )

martha