Let's get metaphysical: for the latest Carnegie International, curator Laura Hoptman has sought a philosophical or spiritual dimension in the works selected

Art in America, March, 2005 by Gregory Volk

A recent traveling retrospective of American sculptor Lee Bontecou belatedly returned her to the spotlight after a long absence [see A.i.A., June/July '04]. The Carnegie includes two of Bontecou's looming wall constructions made from welded steel, iron, wood and canvas; a group of endlessly inventive drawings; and several bedazzling overhead assemblages made from a dizzying array of tiny parts--works that are mostly abstract but evoke intricate insects, science-fiction space stations and mythic creatures in flight. Bontecou as a source of inspiration for many younger artists is here vividly demonstrated by those navigating their way between nature, science, machines, abstraction and poetic vision.

The Croatian artist Mangelos is news to me, and I'm also willing to bet he's news to many others, as well. Mangelos, it turns out, was the pseudonym of art historian, theoretician and curator Dimitrije Basicevic (1921-1987). As Mangelos, he inscribed credos in multiple languages on painted globes, published various manifestoes and, in his paintings and sculptures, frequently used scientific and mathematical symbols as well as snippets of letters and words. A sampling of all such works is presented here. Mangelos's theory was that the artistic future, in these technologically advanced times, belongs to "functional thinking" (analytic approaches, a willingness to incorporate language and other systems of knowledge), while the past belongs to "naive," "metaphorical" approaches (namely woozy, not-to-be-trusted feeling). Clear-headed and analytical or not, Mangelos manages to be utopian, bewildering and ironic at the same time. Especially remarkable is that he generated his future-oriented, high-concept work in Tito's Yugoslavia, which was not exactly known as a hotbed of technological innovation and artistic freedom.

Yang Fudong, from China, presents the first two parts of what will eventually be the five-part, two-hour film Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, based on a folkloric Chinese story of seven intellectuals living in the third and fourth centuries who, seeking maximum freedom and transcendence of earthly limitations, go on a voyage of discovery into nature. In Part 1, seven hip, young, savvy, and artistic representatives of the new China leave their normal haunts for their own nature voyage, where they become pensive, contemplative, awed and a bit out of place, while in Part 2 the same characters return to the city. The black-and-white film is filled with captivating images, suggesting both inner contemplation and outward engagement, and it is one of the most gorgeous works in a show that in general is more about ideas than visual dynamism.

Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone's six-screen video Roundelay (2003), set to a score by composer Philip Glass and installed in a specially designed hexagonal room, involves a different kind of voyaging. You see a thoughtful young woman and man, always separate from each other and always alone, as they endlessly walk through Paris streets and architectural settings at night. Rondinone's sleek esthetic, replete with the cascading score, conjures music videos, fashion advertisements, television commercials and generic urban hipsterdom, yet what saves the work is its mood of raw, nagging loneliness. These figures walk with a purpose, but they get nowhere in particular, and while you sense they might be looking for one another, they never meet. Another--decidedly eccentric--video in which music is central is by Katarzyna Kozyra, from Poland (The Rite of Spring, 1999/2004). As Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring plays, one sees video projections on several screens of seemingly free-floating naked old people who twitch and shift about in herky-jerky movements inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky's notorious 1913 choreography for Stravinsky's ballet. The twist here, however, is that no one actually dances. Kozyra took photographs of old people lying on white backdrops, and then used these still photographs to make her animated video. Ultimately, there is something comical but also deeply disturbing about these exposed elderly people who resemble marionettes on strings.