Weekend

I didn’t expect to write about the new show from Mark Bradford, who has been called by Guy Trebay of The New York Times “if not the best painter working in America today then certainly the tallest,” when I walked into Sikkema Jenkins on Tuesday morning. Despite the whimsy of Trebay’s “best/tallest” assertions, a credible case can be made for the former.

This week, designing for catastrophes, Chelsea’s survival, Canada’s art biennial, Toronto’s take on street art, Jeff Koons and Basque separatists, and more.

An exquisite corpse of apposite quotes from the Hyperallergic Weekend Editors. The election, the aftermath, the game…

Susan Wheeler: God knows, as my mother would have said. I’m beginning to get an inkling, as I’ve been writing a series of poems that use her idiomatic expressions — she grew up in Topeka, and had a strong portion of Pennsylvania Dutch as well, but who knows where she got phrases like “busier than a cranberry bog merchant.” Other things, of course: a soft spot for “colorful speech,” attempts to “read” idioms in order to fit into a group or out of one, an awe of good talkers, especially those who use highly idiomatic speech, Catullus — (laughter) What does Armand Schwerner say? “Extension of the dramatic monologue into plurilogue.”

Tom Burckhardt’s current exhibition of paintings done on cast plastic molds expands upon the show he had at Pierogi in 2011. It is not a huge change, but it is a significant one as it further clarifies the artist’s intention.

CHICAGO — Inspired by Michael Tatum’s Downloader’s Diary, where Tatum has so far published two full-artist reviews, I tried my hand at this form, and this is where it got me. It’s a great excuse to extensively play records I otherwise wouldn’t have enough time for, not to mention a way to understand a type of chronological progression that most people listening to music retrospectively often miss. Why I picked this one specifically I’m not quite sure, but it was worth it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Run-DMC, the hardest-rocking band in hip-hop.