Karthik Pandian
Betonsalon // April 9–June 7
The concrete- and glass architecture of the Betonsalon, a center for art and research in the south of Paris, is the perfect setting for Pandian’s site-specific research into history and architecture. This show is full of small hidden gestures, such as a skull underneath the darkbrown cherry-tree table. Apparently, it is the skull of Descartes, which can be found at the ethnological Musée de l’Homme—so says the story accompanying the exhibition.

Constant Dullaart
Xpo Gallery // April 25–June 15
This gallery’s international profile is rising through its shows of Internet-related artworks. Dullaart concentrates on the cultural and social impact of Photoshop and Apple’s hardware design, featuring fictionalized visual research into the aesthetic preferences of Photoshop’s developers, John and Thomas Knoll. Appropriated images by the brothers are presented as wallpaper or behind patterned glass. Gently pulsing mirrors, in the rhythm of the Apple Sleeping Light, display sunsets in Shenzhen, China, where most of the Apple hardware is produced.

Joanie Lemercier & Quayola
Galerie L.J. // April 17–May 10
France has a different relationship with the digital than most other countries: It created the designation 'art numerique' in the early 1980s. Seen here is art on the border of design that showcases software’s technical possibilities rather than asking questions about its implications. Lemercier has a background in VJ-ing and stage building, and Quayola claims to be fascinated by Renaissance painting. Their concern about the ambiguity of realism in the digital age is obvious, but we are all pretty much used to seeing large pixels by now.

Published in Modern Painters #June 2014