New talent is continually springing up in unanticipated places, approaching the world in unexpected ways. Instead of harkening back to the last 12 months in our year-end issue, we prefer to look forward. In that spirit, we present our annual list of the most compelling artists to emerge from around the globe. However, it is our conviction that artists are the best assessors of their peers. Thus, we’ve asked a select group of more established artists to let us know who among their younger colleagues they are excited about. We are thrilled to share their recommendations with you below.
Nathlie Provosty
Lives in New York
Describe your process
Recently in Mexico City I saw a well- dressed one- legged man standing within a busy street, holding an upturned white baseball cap. Was something missing? By answering no, I attempted to remove “normality” from my perception and the narrative from the story. The man with one leg embodied his history in the object of himself; how he ended up there is a different question. In the studio I work to refine these observations into misaligned, highly material images—that embody their history— while using dramatic subtleties to sharpen their impact.
What inspires you?
A Cycladic figure playing a lyre.
What’s on your cultural radar for 2015?
A trip to Peru to visit the old peak. Reading Eric Hobsbawm’sThe Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes. Working with a musician to create a sound space that tunes a viewer upon his or her entrance into the visual space.
What do you have coming up?
I have group shows at Berthold Pott in Cologne, in January 2015, and at Mihai Nicodim in L.A. in March. I will do a screen-printing project with Gary Lichtenstein Editions in the next few months. Also, The Color Mill, a collaborative image/poetry book with Robert Kelly was just published by Spuyten Duyvil, andGolden Age, an art theory book with an interview and images, was recently published by NurtureArt.
