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Petzel Gallery

What Should Anti-Trump Art Shows Achieve?: Petzel Gallery’s “We Need To Talk…”

by Emily Colucci on January 27, 2017
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Since Trump’s election, numerous exhibitions have attempted to address the seemingly endless horror of his presidency. But, how should we judge these shows’ efficacy? Is the quality of the included work enough or should viewers demand more practical political action? A visit to Petzel Gallery’s disappointing We Need To Talk… convinced me of the latter.

The exhibition’s proposed exploration of the many fraught issues currently under siege seemed promising. But, with an unwavering devotion to showing big name artists, half-assed attempts at engaging the general public and a convoluted donation strategy (the press release vaguely states, “A percentage of sales will be donated to any organization that seems appropriate to artist and collector.”), We Need To Talk… came out well short of its activist goals. So short, in fact, that the goals of the show itself were put into question.

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This Weeks Must-See Art Events: The Art World Mobilizes for 2017

by Paddy Johnson and Michael Anthony Farley on January 3, 2017
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For everyone who has complained that the art world is too apolitical in the past month or so, take note of how 2017 is kicking off. We have a week of feminist exhibitions, the start of a month-long project about Trump’s America Saturday at Petzel Gallery, and shows that tackle topics from water contamination to the holocaust and the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

Welcome to the art world in the Trump era. If the list of participants at Petzel’s event is any indication, the big guns are coming out.

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This Week’s Must See Events: Get Outta Town!

by Paddy Johnson and Whitney Kimball on September 3, 2014
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Let’s not sugarcoat this: Chelsea has become a glittering straight jacket for any artist who actually wants to experiment. The collector market tethers these artists to calculated production where artistic value and cost never seem to go hand in hand. This makes it hard to get too excited about opening night in Chelsea, and in fact, but for a handful of openings, we’re not. This is what we recommend.

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