Question: What's the most exciting show you've seen lately?

Paul Chan’s exhibition “My laws are my whores,” at the Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, perhaps because it countered my expectations. I’d seen Chan’s work a few times, and I was expecting an incredibly visual, somewhat poetic exhibition. Portraits of Supreme Court justices greeted viewers at the Ren, high on the entrance wall, and on the other side of the wall was a projection of vibrating naked bodies in sexual and tortuous postures.
It was a tough show, formally commanding and disturbing in a thought-provoking way.
­—Anne Wilson, artist, professor at the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago, Illinois.

My initial thought was not of a recent show but of an upcoming exhibition that I have been on the periphery of conversations about: “Call + Response” at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. The show pairs artists with historians who write about the work, and it includes many events to engage the public. What excites me is the emphasis on both “taking it to the streets” (in terms of the programming) and scholarly, critical interpretation of the work (made more accessible by its inclusion in the exhibition).
— JP Reuer, architect, chair, MFA program in applied craft and design, Oregon College of Art and Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland.

“Simon Starling: The Nanjing Particles” at MASS MOCA. I was captured by the austerity and simplicity of the installation on the one hand and, on the other, the absolute vividness of the artist’s concept. The allure of the highly polished and reflective surfaces coupled with the unusual shapes’ Herculean scale filled my visit with intrigue.
—Mark Richard Leach, executive director, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Alexander Calder’s jewelry and small works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I felt like a boy discovering what it means to be creative… stepping into the playful and creatively honest mind of Calder. I watched the video of his circus three times all the way through…. I have a poor attention span for videos in exhibitions, but seeing an aging man playing with these small circus acts reminds me that our own creations keep us young. The wire portraits were beautifully simple; if one line were taken away the composition would fall apart. This was the first show in a long time that gave me goose bumps along with a permanent smile.
—Matthias Pliessnig, furniture maker, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

One of my favorite events in Pittsburgh is a massive communal exhibition called “Art All Night.” About 800 local artists contribute a single piece of their work, which goes on display from Saturday evening through the night until about noon the next day. Thousands of people come to view the work, check out the bands and see friends. There are artists in every medium, from age 3 to age 90. With the incredible diversity of work, it’s a highlight of my art-viewing experience each year.
—Matt Eskuche, glass artist, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The most exciting show I’ve seen lately was Nick Cave’s “Meet Me at the Center of the Earth” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco. It was a beautiful riot of color, form and cast-off objects given
a bizarre second life. It makes you want to forget the art-versus-craft debate and dive headlong into the work.
—Erik Scollon, artist and writer, Oakland, California.

I saw the new American Collections Galleries at the Milwaukee Art Museum this spring and drove back the next week to look again. These installations frame the applied arts as vital, generative and embodying contemporary issues. Outstanding is the collaborative “Loca Miraculi/Rooms of Wonder,” a reinterpretation of the earliest kind of museum, the Wunderkammer, by Wisconsin artist Martha Glowacki, the Chipstone Foundation, the Madison cabinetmaker Jim Dietz and local collections.
— Kimberly Cridler, metalsmith and assistant professor at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

In March I saw a brilliant little show of postcard-size collages by Marcy McChesney. It was part of San Antonio’s “Luminaria” arts festival. They formed a continuous line at eye level on all four walls of the gallery space. The works were made when she didn’t have the time or space to make art, so she gave herself the charge to make one postcard a day using anything available. The result was compellingly fresh and personal.
— Paula Owen, president, Southwest School of Art & Craft, San Antonio, Texas.