Dear Readers,

Summer is a difficult time for art. It is a hotter, quieter time, a good moment to contemplate and reflect on what you've seen all year. That is, of course, especially if you are in Venice on odd years when the Biennale of Art is taking place, as it is this year. In last month's TAS, I wrote an overview of the Women Artists at the Biennale, whom I believe were represented in record numbers. I have chosen to write about Joan Jonas for this issue, not because she is a woman or the artist representing the United States at the Biennale but because she is a seminal artist whose piece They Come To Use Without a Word, a significant and thoughtful work of art, was particularly moving to me. Jonas has recreated a deep narrative of her personal relationship to the earth in layers upon layers. It has just about everything--ghosts, animals, drawings, video, mirrors, costuming and performance.

 

Floriana Piqué has written an article about three artists she found to be of particular interest at the Biennale, including Sarah Lucas, a British artist Floriana has written about before (see TAS archives under Visual Art); Fiona Hall, the Australian artist who has an amazing array of artifacts in the country's new pavilion that both give our eyes forms to devour and comment on contemporary life; and last, an unusual show for the Biennale: a superb painting show by Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie, whose lush brushstrokes and paint are definitely works worth holding in one's mind's eye.

 

Anna Leung has written about an artist who has always been dear to my heart, Sonia Delaunay at the Tate Modern, an exhibition which I am sorry to say closes on August 9. Delaunay was a colorist of the highest order. She was an artist who created a movement with her spouse, the artist Robert Delaunay. A quote from Delaunay says something quite right for me at this moment: “Color is the skin of the world.”

 

Thank you for reading!

 

Deanna

 

Deanna Sirlin

Editor-in-Chief

The Art Section