Durhamites and Chapel Hillvians should head to the Nasher Museum of Art tomorrow for the opening of the fantastic Barkley Hendricks retrospective. I got the chance to interview Barkley this week for the Independent, and I can attest that he's an awesome guy. No wonder the show is titled Birth of the Cool.

Romanian artists Lia and Dan Perjovschi (whose just-dismantled installation at the MoMA I was so impressed with this summer) are visiting the Nasher this week for the opening of their joint retrospective "States of Minds," and I was lucky enough to interview them for the Indy this week. Definitely one of my more exciting assignments. Here's the traditional taste:

Despite their aesthetic variation, on the level of politics the work of both Perjovschis always remains an outsider's stern critique of power. What has changed is their recognition of power's many insidious forms. "I will, all the time, be on the side of the weak one," Lia says. "Before the revolution, when I was thinking of the dictator [Nicolae Ceausescu], who was really stupid, I hated him. I wanted to kill him, and symbolically I think I killed him each day. But I learned something that's a little bit more complex: We cannot accuse only the guy on top. We all have a part."

"And also not the system in general, so nobody's guilty," Dan quickly interjects.

Lia goes on: "I don't believe that it's the time, in this moment, the time to be on a list or to make noise or yelling at people to wake up. [We need] to build, no matter how small, not only make scandal or destroy. It's too general—destruction is too general. If we don't want to be part of something, then somebody on top will take advantage of this.... On the whole planet, it is always the same story: We are part of something."

Don't miss the photos at the link.