Articles by Caroline Picard

A Fickle Trickster Screen

A Fickle Trickster Screen

Although Joan Jonas might not work in the same public, ad-hoc settings, her recent work connects live performance, drawing, and live-feed video in a circular fashion to carve out new depths.

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Flickering Memoirs and Surveys: An Interview with Bill Burns

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Flickering Memoirs and Surveys: An Interview with Bill Burns

Caroline Picard interviews artist Bill Burns about his new book, “Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us,” both a memoir and an artistic survey that questions notions of cultural capital.

Center Field: Art in the Middle

The Brevity of Space: An Interview with Allison Glenn

Center Field: Art in the Middle

The Brevity of Space: An Interview with Allison Glenn

Curator and writer Allison Glenn discusses her exhibition “In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street,” which brought artwork to billboards and public sites across Chicago.

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The Variations of its Shadows: An Interview with Jorge Méndez Blake

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The Variations of its Shadows: An Interview with Jorge Méndez Blake

Artist Jorge Méndez Blake discusses his method of translating the psychological places within books and poems into sculptures and installations.

Open Access: A Conversation with Sria Chatterjee and Hanna Husberg

Open Access: A Conversation with Sria Chatterjee and Hanna Husberg

After meeting at the “Anthropocene Campus” in April, poet and scholar Sria Chatterjee and visual artist Hanna Husberg discuss their plans for collaboration, blending research and art to reorient our understanding of climate change.

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In Defense Against Material: An Interview with A. Laurie Palmer

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In Defense Against Material: An Interview with A. Laurie Palmer

A. Laurie Palmer discusses her book “In the Aura of a Hole,” which, through photography and essays, exposes the physical consequences of humanity’s dependence on the earth and its resources.

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Life Among Other Men: An Interview with Black Deutschland ’s Darryl Pinckney

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Life Among Other Men: An Interview with Black Deutschland ’s Darryl Pinckney

In this extended interview, author Darryl Pinckney discusses characters caught between conflicting identities and locales in his latest novel “Black Deutschland.”

Center Field: Art in the Middle

The Sensation of Un-thought Thoughts: An Interview with Simone Forti

Center Field: Art in the Middle

The Sensation of Un-thought Thoughts: An Interview with Simone Forti

Caroline Picard interviews experimental dancer, choreographer, and writer Simone Forti, who recently held a two-day workshop at Northwestern University entitled “Thinking with the Body.”

After the Hot Mess: Philippe Parreno at the Palais de Tokyo

After the Hot Mess: Philippe Parreno at the Palais de Tokyo

A look back at Philippe Parreno’s exhibition “Anywhere, Anywhere, Out of the World” at Palais de Tokyo.

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Reenactment and Mourning: Old Roads to Gary Indiana

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Reenactment and Mourning: Old Roads to Gary Indiana

Chicago-based columnist Caroline Picard looks back on an artist’s tribute to Michael Jackson and “the complex network surrounding Jackson’s stardom.”

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Pledging Artistic Friendship: “2 of a Kind” at LVL3

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Pledging Artistic Friendship: “2 of a Kind” at LVL3

Caroline Picard reviews a Chicago exhibition that she describes as an “invisible network of relationships, historical and contemporary, pragmatic and idealistic, that facilitate artistic production.”

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Heather Mekkelson and the Flood That Never Came

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Heather Mekkelson and the Flood That Never Came

Columnist Caroline Picard reflects on a 2008 installation by Heather Mekkelson and the stories of disaster conveyed by the artist’s distressed objects.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Embracing the Cliché: An Interview with Michelle Grabner

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Embracing the Cliché: An Interview with Michelle Grabner

Caroline Picard interviews Michelle Grabner, artist, writer, and co-curator of the 2014 Whitney Biennial.

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Center Field | The Stage of Scientific Reproduction: An Interview with Jeremy Bolen

Center Field: Art in the Middle

Center Field | The Stage of Scientific Reproduction: An Interview with Jeremy Bolen

Columnist Caroline Picard speaks with Jeremy Bolen about his photographic investigations of phenomena invisible to the human eye.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield: Art in the Middle | Mashed Up and Shredded into Space: An Interview with Candida Alvarez

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield: Art in the Middle | Mashed Up and Shredded into Space: An Interview with Candida Alvarez

Caroline Picard poses four questions to artist Candida Alvarez whose paintings are currently on view at Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Afterimage: An Interview with Dahlia Tulett-Gross and Thea Liberty Nichols

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Afterimage: An Interview with Dahlia Tulett-Gross and Thea Liberty Nichols

Caroline Picard talks with Dahlia Tulett-Gross and Thea Liberty Nichols about some of the visual legacies between two Chicago generations in the exhibition “Afterimage,” held last summer at the DePaul Art Museum.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | The Past Lives of Books

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | The Past Lives of Books

Caroline Picard on the many forms that textual marginalia may take.

Flash Points

The Undead Tree of Charles Ray

Flash Points

The Undead Tree of Charles Ray

Caroline Picard looks at Charles Ray’s “Hinoki” and asks, how does this sculpture–a reproduction of a fallen redwood tree–tell a story about survival, time, nature and humanity?

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Two Histories of the World: Part Two

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Two Histories of the World: Part Two

Caroline Picard looks at “Two Histories of the World,” a two-part exhibition taking place at two different venues and at two different points in time.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Goal-less Living Things: The Plants of Heidi Norton

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Goal-less Living Things: The Plants of Heidi Norton

Caroline Picard talks to artist Heidi Norton about her current solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, which incorporates living houseplant material.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Embodying the Disembodied: Leif Elggren at LAMPO

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Embodying the Disembodied: Leif Elggren at LAMPO

Caroline Picard shares her observations on Leif Elggren’s performance at the Graham Foundation (presented by LAMPO) last fall.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | An Interview with Terri Kapsalis

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | An Interview with Terri Kapsalis

Caroline Picard talks to Terri Kapsalis, an artist, performer and writer whose work investigates bodies, and the means by which conclusions about the body are drawn.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Transformation of Permission: An Interview with Millie Kapp

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Transformation of Permission: An Interview with Millie Kapp

Caroline Picard talks to Millie Kapp, an artist currently working with the collaborative performance group Husband, about the process of building a performance.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Talking to the Moon

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Talking to the Moon

Silence speaks volumes in the work of artist Katie Paterson as well as in Theater Oobleck’s stage performance of “The Hunchback Variations.”

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

The Energetic Persistence of Water: An Interview with Mary Jane Jacob

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

The Energetic Persistence of Water: An Interview with Mary Jane Jacob

How might Buddhist frameworks help artists better understand the creative process, and art’s function in society?

Flash Points

A Willing Girl

Flash Points

A Willing Girl

Still controversial today, Jeff Koons’s 1990s “Made in Heaven” photographs tap into cultural anxieties about pornography, art, and commerce.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Ideas as Medium: An Interview with Laurie Palmer

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Centerfield | Ideas as Medium: An Interview with Laurie Palmer

Caroline Picard talks to Chicago artist Laurie Palmer about collaborative practices, political action, and how we might save the world.

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Embodying Echoes: An Interview with Matthew Goulish

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Embodying Echoes: An Interview with Matthew Goulish

“WE MAY AGREE on the premise that each work of art is at least in part perfect, while each critic is at least in part imperfect. We may then look …

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Threading Infrastructure: An Interview with Anne Wilson

Center Field: Art in the Middle with Bad at Sports.

Center Field | Threading Infrastructure: An Interview with Anne Wilson

When I asked Anne Wilson if I could interview her for Art21, she sent me a preview copy of her book, Anne Wilson: Wind/Rewind/Weave—a catalogue published collaboratively by White Walls and …

How To Stretch an Arm Through a Gap : An Interview with Ellen Rothenberg

How To Stretch an Arm Through a Gap : An Interview with Ellen Rothenberg

While Ellen Rothenberg works in a range of scale and material, there is a tactile quality to her work–a directness that calls attention to the body. I always think of …

Fostering Pragmatism: An Interview with Nadine Nakanishi

Fostering Pragmatism: An Interview with Nadine Nakanishi

Nadine Nakanishi has been working with Nick Butcher in their collaborative independent print shop since 2005. Under the shared moniker, Sonnenzimmer, they’ve made posters for such notables as Beach House, …

Occupying Multiple Scales at Once: An Interview with Hiro Sakaguchi

Occupying Multiple Scales at Once: An Interview with Hiro Sakaguchi

I am fascinated by varying scales of reference, especially when one has to negotiate multiple scales over the course of a single day. Hiro Sakaguchi works as an art handler, …

Caution, You Are Being Watched: Deb Sokolow and You

Caution, You Are Being Watched: Deb Sokolow and You

Deb Sokolow invokes You, the audience. When engaging her work–wall drawings rife with text-narratives that revel in heist, hijinks and mystery, You are not a passive bystander. You are implicated …

Active Blur: An Interview with Tsherin Sherpa

Active Blur: An Interview with Tsherin Sherpa

Tsherin Sherpa has a unique background. Trained as a Tibetan thangka painter in Nepal, he was raised within a specific regime of mark-making, proportion, and subject. Embedded in that tradition …

At the Center: An Interview With Brandon Alvendia

At the Center: An Interview With Brandon Alvendia

While conversations continue (albeit tiredly) to predict the demise of physical book production, new publishers continue to produce books. There is a wealth of new, bright-eyed small presses all over …

Negotiating an Artistic Practice in a Capitalist Ecology: An Interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore

Negotiating an Artistic Practice in a Capitalist Ecology: An Interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore

This introduction is short. Anne Elizabeth Moore gave such thorough answers, it seemed more important to let those stand than offer an interpretation of her merit. Safe to say having …