News

Issue 50 Launch Party Pics

May 2, 2012

The staff of issues 50 and 51 joined an incredible group of contributors past and present to celebrate the arrival of the 50th Issue of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art.

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Issue 50 Launch Party May 1 in NYC

April 23, 2012

Issue 50 is about to launch and it’s time to celebrate! Come toast the new issue with us on May 1. Details: May 1, 2012, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm Pianos Bar 158 Ludlow Street (corner of Stanton), NYC Readings from Donald Antrim – Seth Fried – Robert Ostrom – Kimberly Grey – Scott Anderson [...]

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2012 Contest Winners

March 31, 2012

From our Poetry Editor, John Fenlon Hogan: Gale Marie Thompson’s poem, “Sigourney Weaver” was selected by Eileen Myles as the winner of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art’s 2012 Poetry Contest. “I have so much optimism / that when I look around me I squint. / All I want is for someone to let [...]

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New show of drawings by Hilary Berseth at Eleven Rivington Gallery in New York City
 

 

All images courtesy of Eleven Rivington Gallery

Hilary Berseth (SOA’ 2001) impressed with his first show at Eleven Rivington Gallery in 2008. He seamlessly blended nature with human agency; his honeycomb sculptures combined his own wood and wire armatures with wax and honey structures built by bee colonies. His manipulation of natural processes resulted in beautiful, subtle effects. The sculptures were cacti-like formations, with soft curvatures and elegant flowing lines; the poetic manifestation of mathematical formulas embedded in the natural world. Critic Karen Rosenberg, writing for The New York Times, described Berseth’s work as “a novel twist on process art.”

Berseth’s most recent show, at Eleven Rivington through February 5, 2012, is a slight departure. His graphite drawings feature some natural elements, such as plant life and clouds, but this time they are captured on a paper. The use of graphite lends the drawings an ethereal lightness, while the images, (juxtaposing a tree inside a room, or an eyeball with what look like vines or veins), masterfully blend the real and the surreal. Recurring themes are decay and impermanence; one particular drawing shows a room that could be a scene of either a demolition or a cataclysm. The floor is littered with wood pieces, and an entire wall has been ripped away, revealing a dark interior. The use of half-opened doors as an entrance into the composition suggests a psychoanalytic preoccupation, while the drawing of the eyeball references the technique of optical illusion.

Optical illusion is taken further in one of the paper sculptures, in which paper discs are conjoined to simulate a growing branch, and delicate buds are drawn onto the structure. The sculpture’s base features delicately drawn shadings, simulating shadows. The resulting effect evokes the play of light-and-shadow in a newly rigorous, artificial way. Other sculptures are pure geometric forms, more loosely referencing spirals and perforations, previously present in the honeycombs.

Berseth’s work was included in the 2011 Wax – Sensation in Contemporary Sculpture exhibition in Copenhagen, Denmark, featuring Vanessa Beecroft and Maurizio Cattelan, among others. He lives and works in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

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