From the politically-engaged, to the absurdly-outlandish, to the transcendentally-beautiful, here are the works that have stuck in artnet News’s mind as 2016 draws to an end.
Shaun Leonardo, I Can’t Breathe (2016), at Cooper Union
Shaun Leonardo’s performance brought together tragedy and urgency in a self-defense workshop-cum-performance that he’s staged at various other venues, including this past March at the Volta art fair as well as at community centers in African-American neighborhoods.
The title, of course, refers to the last words of Eric Garner, an unarmed African-American man who died in a police chokehold on Staten Island. Nationwide protests resulted when no indictments resulted from what a medical examiner ruled to be a homicide.
