Two Crowd-Sourced Contests

Complete an Iron Man comic or help Shepard Fairey liven up LA schools

One surefire way to inject some inspiration into a project is by opening up the objective to the world at large. We were pleased to see crowd-sourcing contests by two very different artistic enterprises—Marvel Comics and Shepard Fairey for the LA Fund—tasking illustrators and students to get in on the action. Whether it’s determining the fate of an action hero or livening up the streets …

XChange by Nick Gentry

Obsolete disks and discarded negatives make for startling portraits at Robert Fontaine Gallery

“When you walk into a gallery, there’s a very sterile gap between you and the artwork. I want to close that gap—that’s my main mission as an artist,” says Nick Gentry. This weekend at Robert Fontaine Gallery in Miami’s Wynwood District, Gentry hopes that a series of works comprised of fan-sourced floppy disks and film negatives will do just that. A painter by training, Gentry …

Art Paris Art Fair 2013

Identity obscuring portraits, "Half Drags" and lost-and-found family trees in our look at the contemporary fair

Held at the beautifully historic Grand Palais, the 2013 edition of the Art Paris Art Fair seemed fixated on distorting reference points, by playing with illusions and optical tricks. Among the group of 144 international galleries we encountered work featuring blurred, masked and obstructed faces in generally uncomfortable settings, giving off a disorienting and macabre vibe throughout. Aurore Valade Italian gallery Gagliardi Art System presented …