DECEMBER 2017 Modern Painters 2122192166

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SELECTED PAINTINGS December 2, 2017 through January 27, 2018

This exhibition celebrates the publication of the new Lund Humphries monograph Lois Dodd and the launch of its new Contemporary Painters Series. This hardcover book, which includes 100 color plates and 144 pages, may be ordered online from the publisher at www.lundhumphries.com

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VOLUME XXIX, NUMBER 12

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CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

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THE D R AWI N G CENTER

Judith Bernstein Cabinet of Horrors OCT 13, 2017 – FEB 4, 2018 3 5 W O O S T E R S T R E E T N YC 10 013 | 212 219 216 6 D R AW I N G C E N T E R . O R G H O U R S : W E D S – S U N 12 – 6 P M | T H U R S 12 – 8 P M @ D R AW I N G C E N T E R

Cabinet of Horrors 3 (detail), 2017. Acrylic on paper, 41 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches.

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LETTER FROM THE EDITORS // DECEMBER

GETTING POSITIVE AFTER DISCRIMINATION We go to press with allegations of sexism, harassment and abuse swirling across the art world and beyond. Senior male figures from journalists to gallerists and more have quit or been pushed out after women revealed their unacceptable behavior. Whatever the future lies for artists, we applaud and empathize with those who had the courage to speak out. Modern Painters will be watching the latest developments with interest. This magazine has always been inclusive: we have always given space to artists regardless of their color, creed, sex, age or origin. Meanwhile this issue is our Power Issue, naming the world’s top curators. As it happens, a good number of them are women. From Nancy Spector at the Guggenheim to Christine Macel at the Venice Biennale or Claire Hsu at the Asia Art Archive – to pick a random few – the list goes on. Some of them open up in candid interviews with us, such as Sheena Wagstaff, curator of Modern and Contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She tells Nina Siegal that the names of those in the new Met Brauer program “has nothing to do with their gender specificity but because they happen to be really great artists who also happen to be women.” Elsewhere Anya Harrison looks at the Polish artist Monika Sosnowska’s show at Hauser & Wirth in London, and also interviews Iranian-born Shirazeh Houshiary about her first New York exhibition with the Lisson Gallery. Sarah Moroz speaks with Amy Sherald, who has been commissioned along with Kehinde Wiley to make official portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama. Finally, many of our readers will know a little of the story of how the Tate Gallery expanded into St. Ives, a fishing town turned tourist resort which has links to many artists who lived and worked there. Franca Toscano adds intriguing detail about the prominent coastal location. The former gas-works site was transformed into a gallery expected to get 70,000 visitors a year — and now has been given a massive makeover as it exceeds 250,000 visitors a year. Figures like that make us optimistic for the future, whatever the horrors of the past elsewhere.

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MODERN PAINTERS DECEMBER 2017 BLOUINARTINFO.COM

Elizabeth Catlett “Torso,” 2008, black marble, 23 1/2'' x 11 1/2'' x 8'', signed EC

Celebrating 30 Years Gallery Artists Drawings and Photographs

21 December 2017–30 January 2018

JUNE KELLY GALLERY 166 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012/212-226-1660

CONTENTS

D E C E M B E R 2 017

100

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004), Island Sheds, St. Ives, No. 1, 1940. Tate, presented by the artist, 1999

14

Ins & Outs

16

Going Strong at 90

modernpainters DECEMBER 2017

The new appointments shaking up art space

Age is just a number for Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky who is churning out new works by Tobias Grey

THE POWER ISSUE

CURATORS THAT MATTER

62

The Identity Card Jimmie Durham has dealt with the issue for long and his travelling retrospective throws fresh light on it

ON THE COVER: The world’s top curators, the brains steering the art world to newer horizons

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MODERN PAINTERS DECEMBER 2017 BLOUINARTINFO.COM

Power Players 30 The Very Best

As the year draws to a close and we look back at all those things that gave us reasons to be happy, provoked, disgruntled or simply moved, we have to give credit to those it is due — the curators. Meet the top brains of the art world who are changing the way art is created, understood and consumed.

Standpoint 68 Court Painters

We put spotlight on two artists — Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald — chosen to paint the Obamas for National Portrait Gallery by Sarah Moroz

Celeb Sculptor 86 The César, after whom the French cinema’s most coveted trophy is named, finally gets his due with a Centre Pompidou retrospective

©WILHELMINA BARNS - GRAHAM TRUST

Portfolio

CONTENTS

D E C E M B E R 2 017

68 LEFT:

F R O M L E F T: T H E C H A N C E L LO R S E G U I E R O N H O R S E B AC K © 2 0 0 5 , BY K E H I N D E W I L E Y. U S E D BY P E R M I S S I O N ; © S H I R A Z E H H O U S H I A R Y, C O U R T ESY L I S S O N GA L L E R Y; © S B J/ A DAG P, PA R I S 2 017. P H OTO © F R A N Ç O I S P O I V R E T

Kehinde Wiley The Chancellor Seguier on Horseback, 2005. Oil on canvas, 108 X 144 in

122 RIGHT:

Shirazey Houshiary, The Ebb, 2017. Glass and mirrorpolished stainless steel, 53 1/8 X 46 1/2 X 46 1/2 in (135 X 118 X 118 cm).

86

Portfolio 100 A Refurbished Tate

A $26 million renovation is befitting for Tate St. Ives that wasn’t given much of a chance at its launch in 1993 by Franca Toscano

122

Skin as Metaphor Shirazey Houshiary on her new works for Lisson Gallery in New York, the issue of identity, and why it was difficult being a woman artist in 1970s

Datebook

ABOVE:

César Hommage à Nicolas de Staël, 1958. Welded iron, 51 X 28 X 16 cm. Private collection, Brussels

Datebook

Observer 144 The Monika Sosnowska’s art

Color Red 162 The Tate Modern throws light on

examines changing urbanscape in Warsaw

distinct art that developed alongside Russian Revolution

148

Comic Fragments Christian Marclay’s Hong Kong debut with comic-manga collages

Murakami 156 Takashi Unique collaboration between the artist and Prof Nobuo Tsuji

168

Revisiting the Bass Miami’s Bass Museum restarts with a show by Ugo Rondinone, and others

169 The Pooh Stories

A V&A show salutes the celeb animation character Winnie the Pooh

by Anya Harrison Modern Painters, ISSN 0953-6698, is published monthly with combined Winter (December/ January/February), March/April, and June/July issues by LTB Media (U.K.) Ltd., an affiliate of BlouinArtinfo Corp, 80 Broad Street, Suite 606/607, New York, NY 10004. Vol. XXIX, No. 1. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER, Send address changes to: Fulco, Inc., Modern Painters, PO Box 3000, Denville, NJ 07834-3000.

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ROBERT CENEDELLA: ART BASTARD For more than five decades, New York artist Robert

His latest work is the culmination of years spent on the

Cenedella has been thumbing his nose at the art

frontlines protesting injustice in the world of big galleries

establishment. It’s earned him headlines in virtually every

and even bigger institutions. Early in his career, as Pop Art

publication of note, from the New Yorker to the New York Post.

was going mainstream, Cenedella took a shot at the flashy

Nevertheless, his provocative paintings of political figures —

playboys and models who had transformed the art scene

most recently Donald Trump – and his unwillingness to work

into one big party for the beautiful people – something rather

through what he considers to be a corrupt gallery system,

divorced from what he considered “art.”

have kept him, more or less, out of the mainstream.

His 1965 show “Yes Art!” at the Fitzgerald Gallery on

His latest work, however, is taking his protest public.

Madison Avenue satirized Andy Warhol and his ilk and

“We are going for the jugular,” Cenedella, a teacher at the

featured a “Brillo Mondrian,” “Brillo Descending a Staircase”

Art Students League of New York and former protégé of the

and “Souperman” — Warhol-esque soup cans featuring the

famed German Modernist George Grosz, says of his latest

man of steel.

piece. “It should be hung in every museum in America. This

That same year, he also mimicked Robert Indiana’s iconic

should be there for everyone to see before they walk into a

typographical sculpture “LOVE,” replacing the letters so it

contemporary art exhibition.”

spelled “SHIT.”

That sounds rather high-toned, until you realize that it is

Later in 1988, Cenedella lambasted the commercialization

a piece of word art -- a disclaimer intended for the nation’s

of Christmas with a painting of a crucified Santa Claus,

premier institutions. The piece, also entitled “DISCLAIMER,”

called “The Presence of Man,” which Saatchi & Saatchi

begins:

removed from its own show of sensational art after public

“While it is the intent of this MUSEUM (a business) to present WORKS of “ART” of the HIGHEST QUALITY, selected by our HIRED STAFF of “professionals,” WE as a MUSEUM Can Not Claim that the WORKS we display are necessarily GREAT WORKS OF ART…” The disclaimer compares the evaluation of art to stock

outcry. Last year, a documentary title “Art Bastard” was released about his life and career. Now, Cenedella is focused on challenging the art world and hopes his latest piece, “DISCLAIMER”, will force museums

speculations, and points to the museum’s complicity in that

to disclose and examine the criteria used to select works for

speculation.

display. He wants to force institutions to acknowledge their

“And in fact WORKS rejected may be of GREATER QUALITY than those SHOWN…” the piece concludes. “When I was growing up, I went to museums and I learned.

dual roles as public authorities on art and makers of fortunes in the multi-billion-dollar art auction market. “It holds you back,” Cenedella says of speaking out

I saw political art,” Cenedella says. “I saw people like Thomas

against the art world. “I am the most widely written

Hart Benton and Reginald Marsh. My heroes were all painting

about unknown American artist. I don’t worry about the

about breadlines and about the Depression and lynching,”

government censoring my work because galleries and

Today he sees Jeff Koons, Cenedella laments.

museums do it for them.”

CONTRIBUTORS // DECEMBER

12

Matthew Rose

Louisa Elderton

Tobias Grey

Nina Siegal

The artist, writer and musician Matthew Rose is an American, who has lived and worked and played his mandolin in Paris for some 25 years. Matthew’s exhibition of rooms layered with his wall-to-wall collage works have taken him across the US and Europe; and he’s recently published a catalog of his drawings — “evidence.” He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, Art & Antiques, and dozens of art publications. He has profiled the artists James Rosenquist, Richard Serra, Ray Johnson, Gilbert & George, Peter Schyuff and David Wojnarowicz among others. His columns for The Art Blog range from political art essays to profiles, street and ephemeral art and critical takes on some big guns in the art world.

Louisa Elderton is an independent Contemporary arts curator, writer and editor who has contributed to Artforum, Art Review, Frieze, Flash Art, Art Monthly, Elephant Magazine, Apollo, Metropolis M, Monopol, The Burlington Magazine, Vogue China, Berlin Art Link, Artsy, House & Garden, Harpers Bazaar and The White Review. She received a First-Class Bachelor’s degree in Art History and English from The University of Sussex and a Master’s degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she presented an exhibition about Christian iconography in historical and Contemporary art. After working for the Research department at Tate, she was Writer in Residence at Jerwood Visual Arts in London, and has curated solo exhibitions at public and commercial galleries for artists including Lawrence Weiner, Francesco Clemente, Wim Wenders, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Nasan Tur and Rachel Howard. A contributing author to numerous Phaidon publications including Vitamin P3: New Perspectives in Painting and Universe, she has also produced monographs on Rachel Howard, Tim Noble & Sue Webster and Francesco Clemente. Most recently, she has been Project Editor of Phaidon’s book Vitamin C: Clay & Ceramics in Contemporary Art, and is currently working on the next Vitamin book in the series.

Tobias Grey is a Paris-based arts writer and critic. He writes on art, literature, cinema and current affairs for the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, American Vogue and Newsweek. For this edition of MODERN PAINTERS, he has interviewed 90-year-old Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky, the last surviving member of the CoBrA art movement who is still experimenting. Even though Alechinsky claims that he had to wait until 90 to become famous, Grey feels it’s an exaggeration as fame started courting him many decades ago.

Nina Siegal is an American author and journalist who has been based in Amsterdam for 11 years. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times, writing about European museums, art crimes, and Dutch old masters, among other topics. She also writes for The Economist, Bloomberg News, and various art and culture magazines.

MODERN PAINTERS NOVEMBER 2017 BLOUINARTINFO.COM

Cody Delistraty

Sarah Moroz

Tina Xu

Anya Harrison

Based in Paris, Cody Delistraty writes profiles and cultural criticism for the deadtree and digital pages of The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Esquire, among others. He also works on art and editorial projects for Dior, and he was named one of the best young writers of 2017 by British Vogue. He holds a bachelor’s degree from N.Y.U. and a master’s in European history from Oxford.

Sarah Moroz is a FrancoAmerican journalist and translator; she has been based in Paris for the past decade. She writes about photography, art, fashion, and other cultural topics for The New York Times, the Guardian, New York Magazine, and i-D, amongst other publications. She is the co-author of a forthcoming illustrated guide to Paris, which will be published by Rizzoli in spring 2018.

Tina Xu is a writer-filmmaker drawn to stories about the fragmentation and evolution of culture in an interconnected world. She grew up between California and China and is currently based in Beijing and Boston. She is inspired by the ways in which artists serve as prophetic voices in the midst of frenetic change. Formally educated in political theory and international relations, she believes that art can contribute to a more peaceful world by luring viewers toward empathy and contemplation.

Anya Harrison is a writer, curator and consultant based in London who has contributed to Flash Art, The Calvert Journal, GARAGE Magazine, Performa Magazine, Moscow Art Journal and other publications, mostly covering art and film. After completing a Master’s degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art, she worked for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, from where she originally hails, and contributed to the publication “Frozen Dreams: Contemporary Art from Russia.” She is cofounder of The New Social, a curatorial platform that organizes film screenings, talks and other projects as a way to re-think today’s “New East” (post-Soviet and post-Socialist territories).

BLOUINARTINFO.COM NOVEMBER 2017 MODERN PAINTERS

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INS OUTS

F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y M A R L B O R O U G H GA L L E R Y, N E W YO R K ; P H OTO C R E D I T: D U S T I N A K S L A N D

YOUR RELIABLE CHEAT SHEET FOR ART WORLD NEWS

14

Gerard Mossé joins the roster of artists at Marlborough Gallery, which is planning an exhibition of his work in 2018. Born in Morocco, Mossé lived in Marseilles, Paris and Los Angeles during his youth. Starting his career in his early 20s, the artist obtained his MFA in painting from the Claremont Graduate School of Art before moving to New York in the 1980s. His paintings feature color-saturated abstraction and an intense luminosity. The writer Robert Knafo has written that “light, the VWXIIRISKRWRQVDQGVFLHQWLÀFLQYHVWLJDWLRQ becomes in Mossé’s paintings a metaphor for consciousness…inner illumination, epiphany.” Mossé has mounted solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, California; Munich, Germany; and New York during his 30-year career. His work has been featured in group exhibitions in Tokyo, Japan; Seattle, Washington; Boston, Massachusetts, and New York, New York. In addition, he has taught at Claremont Graduate Gerard Mossé

School of Art, Claremont, California; Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, and lectured at the University of Washington in Seattle and The New York Studio School. An entry by David Adjaye and Ron Arad has been chosen to design the UK Holocaust and Memorial Center, beating proposals from Daniel Libeskind, Norman Foster and collaborations between Rachel Whiteread and Caruso St. John architects, and Anish Kapoor who teamed up with Zaha Hadid architects. The 13-member jury included London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the former director of the Serpentine Galleries, Julia Peyton-Jones as well as the broadcaster Peter Bazalgette, Design Council executive Sarah Weir, Victoria & Albert director Tristram Hunt, and the holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott. The memorial will be constructed in the Victoria Tower Gardens, in a prime site next to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. More than 50 million pounds of public money has been set DVLGHIRUWKHSURMHFWVFKHGXOHGWREHÀQLVKHGE\ 2021. Adjaye Associates will collaborate with Ron Arad Architects to design the project. The team of architects envisions a ground-level memorial complemented by an underground learning center. The team includes architects Gustafson Porter + Bowman, the consultants Plan A as well as lighting specialist DHA Designs. The UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation launched the competition to commemorate the six million Jewish people massacred during the Holocaust as well as to remember all the other victims of Nazi persecution. After a decade working in New York as a curator and administrator, Bridget Finn joins the Reyes Projects gallery in Birmingham, Michigan, as managing director. Birmingham is near her hometown of Detroit. Reyes Projects was opened this year by Terese Reyes, the

MODERN PAINTERS DECEMBER 2017 BLOUINARTINFO.COM

Bridget Finn

former Marlborough Contemporary director. The new gallery, which plans to court local artists as well as artists from outside the region, is a nearly 5,000-square-foot space in a former jewelry shop. The gallery will participate for the ÀUVWWLPHLQWKH1$'$0LDPL%HDFKIDLU running concurrently with Art Basel Miami Beach. Before taking her new position, Finn directed the Contemporary arm of Mitchell,QQHV 1DVKLQ1HZ