We can call last month in art news the month of Kara Walker. In the beginning of May, the contemporary art star created her first large-scale installation, bringing sugar-covered sculptures into the Domino Sugar Factory for a piece called A Subtlety. The work, which comments on both the history of slave labor used to harvest sugar and the destruction of the Domino Sugar Factory in favor of a swanky apartment complex, took the public and arts media by storm. The space is still ringed with a line of visitors every weekend.
Besides Walker's dominating presence, the other biggest player in the art world was not an artist, but a musician. Pharrell made his curatorial debut with "G I R L," an exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in Paris. For the show, Pharrell brought together many of his artist friends and collaborators, including JR, Takashi Murakami, Rob Pruitt, Daniel Arsham, Marina Abramovic, and Mr. The exhibition proved the explosive power of art colliding with the music world.
Check out everything else you missed last month with our Monthly Review: May 2014 on Art+Design.
Complex Art+Design News:
May 7: Jessica Hess and GATS Team Up to Present a Visual History of the Bay Area's Graffiti at Hashimoto Contemporary
May 10: Highlights from PULSE Art Fair New York 2014
May 11: Discovering the Art of Sara Cwynar at NADA New York 2014
May 12: Watch Lawrence Weiner and Jill Magid in Conversation at Frieze New York 2014
May 13: Kara Walker's "A Subtlety" Proves That Sugar Isn't Always Sweet
May 16: Highlights From Art Basel Hong Kong 2014
May 16: "Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case" Documents the Chinese Artist's Year Under House Arrest
May 19: "Art Truancy: Celebrating 20 Years of Juxtapoz Magazine" Brings Vibrant Works By Today's Top Artists Into Jonathan LeVine Gallery
May 27: Pharrell Talks About His Art Exhibition "G I R L" at Galerie Perrotin
Complex Art+Design Interviews and Portfolio Reviews:
May 5: Photographer Janette Beckman Talks Documenting the Origins of Rebel Cultures Since the '70s
May 8: Hugo McCloud Talks Inventing a Whole New Way to Paint
May 8: Jayson Musson Talks His New Comic-Inspired Exhibition at Salon 94 and the End of Hennessy Youngman
May 11: Gaia and Nanook Discuss Bringing Street Art to Baltimore With Open Walls Festival
May 12: Complex TV Interviews Shepard Fairey About His New Hennessy Artist Bottle Collaboration
May 13: Kara Walker Decodes Her New World Sphinx at Domino Sugar Factory
May 20: Sci-Fi Artist John Harris Talks Visual Imagination and His New Book "The Art of John Harris: Beyond the Horizon"
May 20: The Miaz Brothers Examine the Soul's Place in Portraiture
May 22: Yarrow Slaps Shares His Paintings of Rappers, Artists, and Cultural Icons
May 23: Little Dragon and Brian Butler Talk "Nabuma Comics" in Partnership With Tumblr IRL
May 27: Artist James Jean and Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn Talk Designing Art for "The Hunting Party"
Complex Art+Design Lists:
May 4: 20 Artists to Check Out If You Like Keith Haring
May 8: The Worst Designed Buildings by the Best Architects
May 9: 50 Must-See Works at Frieze New York 2014
May 15: Awesome San Francisco Murals by Female Street Artists
May 22: 10 Reasons Why Norwegian Design Is Awesome
May 26: The 20 Coolest Things Pharrell Has Done in Art and Design
May 28: Pictures on Walls: A Look at the Street Art and Graffiti Scene in Hong Kong
May 29: 15 Artists Supreme Introduced Hyebeasts To
May 29: A Look Inside Ai Weiwei's "Evidence" at Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin
May 30: 8 Artists Talk Selling Art on the Street in SoHo
Links Around the Web:
May 6: The Crisis in Art and What It Means To Write About It in artnet
May 7: The Art of Being Pharrell in W
May 7: Jonathan Levine and Carlo McCormick Talk "Art Truancy: Celebrating 20 Years of Juxtapoz Magazine" in Juxtapoz
May 8: Kara Walker & Larry Walker in BOMB Magazine
May 8: The Sugar Sphinx in The New Yorker
May 9: The Paradox of Art as Work in The New York Times
May 11: Sugar? Sure, but Salted With Meaning in The New York Times
May 13: Wade Guyton May Be Trying to Torpedo His Own Sales in Vulture
May 14: Larry Clark's new kids in Dazed
May 17: How to Understand New York's Gazillion-Dollar Auction Week in Artspace
May 19: Maverick Llyn Foulkes is finally inside the art world — at age 79 in LA Times
May 21: Sia on taking performance art to the masses in Dazed
RELATED: Monthly Review April 2014 on Art+Design
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