weekend links: Olafur Eliasson, Caroline Says, SX Foreplay
Olafur Eliasson, Reality projector (2018). Image courtesy The LA Times.
Los Angelenos are in for a treat, as Olafur Eliasson’s new installation, Reality projector, opened this month at the Marciano Art Foundation. By shining intense white light through monochromatic gels, Eliasson achieves a pureness of color that transcends typical visual experience. His large-scale installations are known for transporting viewers into heightened sensual spheres, and with Reality projector, the artist has done it again. [LA Times]
Independent, an experimental art fair made by and for art gallerists and collectors, opened this past week to a crowd atypical of a usual art fair. With its no-aisles, new-and-old artists approach, Independent has managed to create a space where you forget that the items are even for sale—a stylistic choice made by the fair’s creators. [Artsy]
Houston-based artist collective Havel Ruck Projects have debuted a new exhibition that reimagines a Houston bungalow. The project, titled Ripple, includes swirled cut-outs of walls and floors to create a three-dimensional sculpture that displays great respect for early preservationists, and the collective says that they intended to play with negative space. Here, you can read more of their rationale as well as admire the spiral-filled home the collective has reimagined. [Arts and Culture TX]
Austin-based folk act and fields friends Caroline Says release their highly anticipated sophomore album on March 16, but you can listen to the new album, No Fool Like An Old Fool, over at Stereogum. From the first song (titled, fittingly, “First Song”) the album pulls you into a delicate, lilting trance, and it keeps you there for the course of its ten songs. [Stereogum]
With a style that resembles Biggie, Fresh Prince, and various cartoons, Chicago-native Tobi Lou looks to forge his own path as a melting pot of creativity. His aesthetic is described as cartoonish, and his idiosyncratic rapping is bouncy and impossible to not repeat. Here, Tobi Lou explains his musical journey, why he moved from Chicago to LA, and the idea behind his crazy visual, “Troop.” [DJ Booth]
Although she’s only in her late 20s, Dominican writer Naima Coster is no newcomer to the nuances of race, gentrification, and family dynamics. In her debut novel, Halsey Street, Coster reckons with her feelings about her Brooklyn neighborhood, which has changed drastically since her childhood. In her novel, she navigates through these worlds using Halsey Street, the street she grew up on. Discover how her novel came to be, the pushback she’s received due to her use of Spanish and English, and her overall writing process. [The Rumpus]
Artists on a budget: Austin-based financial planner Lewis Weil has put together a comprehensive guide specifically made for the working artist. Weil details how to make art a full-time job no matter your status, and he throws in some advice about exponential thinking, budgeting, and saving. [The Creative Independent]
It’s officially SXSW season, and since thousands of people around the globe come to Austin for the event, you may be feeling left out if you don’t have the cash to go. But artist Jeff Brown has a festival in Dallas that’s a hell of a lot cheaper. The festival, titled SX Foreplay, features 10 up-and-coming artists, some of which were already coming through Dallas on their way to SXSW. Brown, with his collective King Camel, only charges a cover to help the artists with touring, and he always chooses bands he know will put on a great show. If you’re into folk, punk or garage rock and don’t have the funds (or patience) for SXSW, consider taking a road trip to Dallas for spring break. [Dallas Observer]
And we pause to honor the poet Lucie Brock-Broido, who passed away this week at the too-young age of 61. An author of four books, including 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Stay, Illusion, will be remembered by her many students at Columbia University and the rest of the poetry world for the way she fought against injustice through the beautiful language of her poems. [Melville House]
—Nia KB and Sean Redmond