Curated Highlights: Wilson Tarbox's Selection from Art Antwerp

Wilson Tarbox is an art historian and critic based in Paris. His writing on art has appeared in Frieze, Artsy, ArtNews, Hyperallergic, l'Humanité, Cause Commune, Le Vent Se Lève, Documentations.art, Letras Libres, and Unlimited, among others. He is the Parsian editor of the Oxonian Review and a doctoral candidate at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and the École du Louvre. His doctoral thesis "La généalogie de Third Text, 1987-2011 : trajectoire d’une revue d’art et de critique postcoloniale" examines the influence of postcolonial theory on recent art history.

Good art is that which is able to move you in an ineffable way.

“I was delighted to explore the selection of galleries for this edition of Art Antwerp. This new fair presents an ideal opportunity to highlight one of Europe's cultural jewels. Like its sister art fair in Brussels, Art Antwerp demonstrates the great quality of the Belgian market and impressive taste of Belgian collectors. It was difficult to make a limited selection, as there was much great original art to choose from. My list of works, therefore reflects an important criteria that I apply to much of my criticism: That is gut instinct. At the end of the day good art is that which is able to move you in an ineffable way.”

––Wilson Tarbox

The odd wooden tools set into wall mounts and titled according to their number in the series “Synonyms for ‘Hammered Into’” have always struck me as beguiling oddities at once primitive and futuristic. If the mastery of tools signified humankind’s emergence from the primitive state of nature and a step on the long road toward civilization, these sculptures appear to question the grand notions of technical progress, whilst remaining quite fun and playful.

Painstakingly built up from thinly cut strips of surgical tape – a choice of material that hints at the therapeutic function artmaking holds for the artist – these collages move me very deeply.