Best of 2011
by Wurtz, Artforum, Dec, 2011
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Tony Tasset's film 'Judy', 1998, shows a woman looking at the camera, which is supposedly being operated by Tasset, her husband. We witness, and relate to, her air of suspicion and self-consciousness, but what is most palpable is the strong psychological bond between her and the cameraman. Like voyeurs, we study the few seconds of footage as they loop over and over again. The piece is presented in a dark room by a cold and impersonal monster--the film projector--which loudly screeches and creaks along, scratching and gradually destroying the film. even with this machine standing in place of her husband, we still detect love on the woman's face.
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KaviGupta_Review129.pdf
Tony Tasset @ Leo Koenig Inc. Projekte
by Chris Kasper, Whitehot Magazine, June 29, 2011
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In the small Leo Koenig Inc. Projeckte space, a film projector sits atop of what appears to be the crate it was shipped in. It casts an image of a woman’s face on the far wall opposite from the entrance to the space, which has been covered with solid black tarps to shut out all daylight. A 15 second edit of 35mm film runs in a loop, and the woman has her gaze set into the camera. Light blond hair falls unto her shoulders, which are covered by a light blue t-shirt. She is framed by a bush of what appears to be powder-pink roses in a field of lush green foliage. A lone earring of some modest gem dangles from her exposed ear, the ear that holds back a lock of hair. She flashes a gentle smile, in a demure manner, which seems to come from some radiant joy that she just can’t keep in, although she seems to try for a moment. Light crow’s feet form in the outer corners of her eyes. She blinks. Our gaze slowly and steadily zooms onto her face through the camera. The smile fades from her mouth, she blinks a few times, and casts her face down into a pensive, inward gaze. The camera moves in closer, a lock of her hair gently blows across her chin, and the flowers around her head are dancing, steadily moving out of the frame. The sober, wistful look suddenly seems to take a darker turn into what appears to be grief. For just a moment, she looks so awfully sad. The camera is still moving in, flowers move out of the frame, and a wrinkle on her brow forms. She lifts her head, blinks, her brow is furrowed, and she casts her gaze, which appears to have grown cold, back into the camera.
Continued....
Download PDF: KaviGupta_Review122.pdf
Tony Tasset
by Michelle Grabner, Artforum, October 2010
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Contesting the progress-and-mastery saga of twentieth-century modernism, Chicago-based artist Tony Tasset spent much of the 1980s and '90s meticulously crafting insolent, critical objects, and the nine works represented in this ten-year survey (1986-96) unambiguously assert his past affinity for blunt deconstructionist strategies...
Rewind: 1970s to 1990s Works from the MCA Collection March 13 - September 5, 2010
MCA website, March 13th- September 5th, 2010
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During its forty-year history, the MCA has distinguished itself with groundbreaking exhibitions that have contributed substantially to the evolving history of contemporary art. These exhibitions have, in turn, stimulated the museum and its supporters to acquire important and often numerous pieces by these artists. A resulting hallmark of the MCA's collection is the presence of significant, in-depth bodies of work by artists. By displaying several examples of an artist's work, visitors can gain a better understanding of their working process and development of ideas over the span of several years.
Rewind presents concentrations of work by artists whom the MCA has collected in depth, or whose pieces in the collection are definitive examples of their singular aesthetic. Showcasing key artists of the last forty years whose work has been and continues to be defining to international contemporary art underscores the MCA's role as a leader in and incubator of artistic innovation.
Rewind focuses on works from these particular decades to show how the groundbreaking work from the recent past is only now becoming historicized for its critical take on art institutions, identity politics, and new approaches to video and photography in the late-20th century. It includes works by Vito Acconci, Richard Artschwager, Matthew Barney, Alfredo Jaar, Mike Kelley, Sharon Lockhart, Richard Long, Richard Prince, Lorna Simpson, Tony Tasset, and Gillian Wearing.
This exhibition is organized by Julie Rodrigues Widholm, Pamela Alper Associate Curator.
The Slant on Tony Tasset
by Abraham Ritchie, ArtSlant, August, 2010
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Chicago, August 2010-- Tony Tasset is receiving a kind of city-wide, mini-retrospective currently in Chicago. The Museum of Contemporary Art is showing a significant number of his artworks from the 1980s (more), held in their permanent collection. Kavi Gupta Gallery has had a survey of Tasset's early work on view all summer (more). Tasset also has a work included in the Art Institute of Chicago's exhibition "Contemporary Collecting: Selected Works from the Donna and Howard Stone Collection." And speaking of selections, Tasset was selected for two commissions in Chicago Downtown Loop area. All along Chicago's busy State Street are Tasset's Cardinal banners showing the titular bird in flight, but the piece that has people buzzing is Eye, a thirty-foot tall fiberglass and steel construction of a very realistic eyeball.
As crews welded Tasset's newest sculpture together under his watchful eye, we had a quick chat about the work, Free Masons, rock and roll and Pop Conceptualism.
--Abraham Ritchie, Editor, ArtSlant Chicago
Download PDF: KaviGupta_Review76.pdf
Form & (un)Function
by Robyn Farrell Roulo, ARTslanT, June 5, 2010
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2010 has been a good year for Tony Tasset. Known for his witty and often sardonic approach to Postmodern art, Tasset’s work has gained quite a bit of attention in the city he calls home. The artist was selected alongside fellow Chicago artist, Phyllis Bramson to participate in the College Art Association’s annual Artist Interviews during the organization’s conference that was held in Chicago in February 2010. Last month, Tasset’s Blob Monster (2009) was one of several large scale installations that made an impressive appearance on Orleans Avenue outside of The Merchandise Mart, in collaboration with Art Chicago and NEXT. This summer, Tasset’s larger than life sculptures will once again join the public sphere thanks to a dual commission from the Chicago Loop Alliance for their inaugural Art Loop program slated for early July. The artist will unveil Cardinal (2010)an installation of more than one hundred banners along Chicago’s famed State Street. Tasset’s vision for the series of installed sculptures is to form a collective image of the state bird, a cardinal taking flight. The second work, standing 30 feet in the air and scheduled for Pritzker Park, is aptly titled Eye(2010), a massive mixed media sculpture of an eyeball overlooking the Chicago community.
Download PDF: KaviGupta_Review69.pdf
Giant Eyeball to Invade Chicago
by Abraham Ritchie, Chicago Art Blog, June 3, 2010
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On July 7th, Chicago will be invaded by a three-story eyeball. There is no word yet whether it will threaten us with death rays. Of course, I am kidding. What will be coming to Chicago on July 7th is Eye, a three-story sculpture by Tony Tasset...
Download PDF: KaviGupta_Review73.pdf
Artists gear up for Armory: Local talent represented at international fair, Biennial exhibition in New York
by Lauren Viera, Chicago Tribune, March 4, 2010
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It's Armory Week. Falling on certain ears, this news conjures knights conferencing in gaggles, their heavy chain mail collectively clinking. But creative types know better: Armory Week is one of the biggest events of the year for visual artists.
Download PDF: KaviGupta_Review64.pdf
Odyssey of an Eye
by Lauren Viera, Chicago Tribune, July 4, 2010
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SPARTA, Wis. — On the ides of June, while squinting at a cluster of threatening clouds from his perch on a grassy construction site just outside this small city, Chicago sculptor Tony Tasset is, to use his words, totally freaking out.
“You know those reality shows?” Tasset says, a slightly uneasy smile on his face. “This is that part when the
team is up against their deadline, and it looks like they’re never going to finish on time.”
Tasset’s “team” is made up of a half-dozen fiberglass workers at Sparta’s Fast Corp. (Fiberglass Animals Shapes and Trademarks), who have been assigned to construct the artist’s largest piece to date: a giant eyeball aptly named Eye which, upon completion, will stand three stories tall and stare east from the Loop’s Pritzker Park, at State and Van Buren streets. Tasset was commissioned for the job last fall by the Chicago Loop Alliance, and Fast Corp., with which he had collaborated on prior sculptures (including a 2-foot-high eyeball), took the engineering reins earlier this year.
Download PDF: KaviGupta_Review74.pdf