Andrea Crespo | Blouin ArtInfo
Dec 17 2015
Here we present ARTINFO’s annual list of our favorite institutional exhibitions of the year, which, in 2015, took us from New York to Havana and Istanbul. The opening hang at the new Whitney Museum takes pride of place, with Scott Indrisek praising its “whirlwind tour of 100 years of art.” Two significant biennials percolate into our picks: Noelle Bodick singles out Istanbul Modern’s contribution to that city’s biennial, while Mostafa Heddaya lauds Wilfredo Prieto at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, an exhibition held in parallel with the Havana Biennial. Meanwhile, a singular showing by Andrea Crespo at the Swiss Institute earns the note of Thea Ballard, for whom Crespo “builds a language around multiplicity and desire.” Click on the slideshow to see all our picks.
New York-based Andrea Crespo had their first three solo exhibitions this year. At the Swiss Institute, building on visual tropes and thematics introduced in their body of work on view at Chinatown’s Hester this past summer — in which technological objects like data lock boxes and medical scanners met narratives and avatars drawn from oft-pathologized online subcultures found on DeviantArt and similar sites — the video “Virocrypsis,” accompanied by a pair of prints on silk, is narrated by the avatars Cynthia and Celinde, who share a body. Through Cynthia and Celinde’s dialogue, which is as much about a process of fracturing as it is about becoming, Crespo builds a language around multiplicity and desire — one which I found, in ways I’m still struggling to articulate, deeply emotionally affecting. —Thea Ballard