Description:
Cream is oversized, is packaged in a heavy plastic bag, and is the brightest of hot pinks. It is designed to be noticed and everything about it screams cutting edge. Ten curators from different cities each chose ten artists and one text to include in this exhibition in book form. The emphasis is on the artwork, with 400 of the 448 pages devoted to color images. Art world luminaries such as Matthew Barney, Gabriel Orozco, and Douglas Gordon are included, but the focus is on emerging artists from all over the globe. This global perspective is discussed in the transcribed online conversations between the publisher and the curators, including Dan Cameron from the New Museum in New York and Hans Ulrich Obrist from the Musee d'Art de la Ville in Paris. Other topics range from questioning the audience for contemporary art to defining the term "emergent artist." These topics are hotly debated at times due to the vastly different perspectives of the curators. These varied viewpoints lead to an eclectic collection of artwork, yet there are certain discernible themes: politics, the body, the use of everyday objects, architecture, and design. Though many of these themes have circulated within the art world for some time, much of the work here is new and exciting, and there is brief, helpful text accompanying each artist's work. The writers included are equally as diverse, from Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison to cultural critic Edward Said to artist-writer David Robbins. Cream offers many different perspectives and a great chance to get a glimpse of what is brewing in an art world that is less limited by physical boundaries than ever before. --Jennifer Cohen
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