JUNE 2018 Modern Painters
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Peter Schenck, Down in the Cellar, acrylic, charcoal, oil on canvas, 54 x 54 inches, 2017-18
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LETTER FROM THE EDITORS // JUNE
PASSION IN TROUBLED TIMES “I’m on the cusp,” Tracey Emin says in an exclusive interview for Modern Painters. Our reporter Amy Zion asks her: “the cusp of what?” And Emin replies: “Of the future. I have maybe 30 years to get it right.” The revealing conversation — which also takes in Emin’s recent work, criticism of “My Bed” and her most atypical “marriage” (to a large stone) is just one of the interview highlights of this edition. What unites all of our interviewees is a passion for art. After talking to Emin, one of the best-known British artists, we also sit down for an in-depth discussion with one of the most famous Indian painters, Jitish Kallat. His works sometimes surreally merge political concerns with philosophy. He warmly praises India’s rich art scene, while saying that the country still needs great museums and art schools. From there it is over to France to meet the veteran French artist Bernard Frize, who will have a retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou next year. Frize says that one of the secrets of his success is to work with galleries that have supported his work, “or else I would have messed up.” Such modesty is rare in an accomplished artist acclaimed for his work. Frize’s large-format square paintings celebrate color and geometry. Of course, Modern Painters also shares the thoughts of curators such as the orchestrator of the blockbuster Giacometti show at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Megan Fontanella speaks about how the great artist articulates themes of “isolation, alienation, how do we connect with each other on a deeper level.” Another top-level curator we speak to is André Magnin, who is working on the EVORAFRICA exhibition of African Contemporary art in Portugal. His message is that the current enthusiasm for African art is not a passing fad: “It’s not a trend. Or I’ve been on-trend for some 35 years.” One theme that keeps emerging is that of politics. Perhaps this is not surprising. In one sense or another all art is political, and in this sensitive age many works are direct or indirect comments on Trump-Putin, the Koreas or the Middle East. The issues of refugees, terrorism and Brexit all ind their place, as in the works of Ai Weiwei, Grayson Perry — and Adrian Ghenie, who rhetorically has asked “Can you be apolitical today?” Our writer Cody Delistraty assesses Ghenie’s latest show, themed around the environment, which has works loaded with symbolism, darkness and decay. The same theme of man and nature runs through the Fondation Louis Vuitton “In Tune With the World” exhibition, which we also visit. Tate Britain’s “Aftermath” show and “Undersong” in Riga both examine earlier watersheds 100 years ago: respectively the ending of the First World War and the independence of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Tracey Emin is right: we are probably all on the cusp again in 2018. The fragile state of the world is feeding through into inspired works of art. At Modern Painters we will continue to bring out the best and discover though the artists’ own words how they see the world ahead.
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44 Jitish Kallat, “Sightings,” 2017 -18, installation copy.
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The Cautious Rise of Thaddaeus Ropac The gallerist is not averse to growth, but insists that it must be driven by a holistic balance between artists’ needs and the right opportunities by Anya Harrison
modernpainters JUNE 2018
24 William Cordova’s Conscious Alchemy
JITISH KALLAT THE PHILOSOPHER ARTIST FROM INDIA
ART AFTER WAR THE TATE RE-EXAMINES HOW WORLD WAR I RADICALLY ALTERED PERCEPTION AND PERSPECTIVE
GIACOMETTI NOW
Curator Maria Elena Oritz of the Pérez Art Museum Miami talks about the ideas behind the retrospective she organized
34 “This is me: My Emotion, My Gut, My Heart”
As her light installation shines across St. Pancras station in London, Tracey Emin speaks about finding passion again, and that atypical marriage by Amy Zion
44 The Philosopher Artist
Indian artist Jitish Kallat showed signs of being out of the ordinary early on. With his new show at Sperone Westwater, New York, he pushes the envelope further by Archana Khare-Ghose
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A Singular Painter
The veteran French artist Bernard Frize discusses preparing for a show at Art Basel, a year ahead of a major retrospective at the Pompidou by Aymeric Mantoux
62 Rethinking the Baltics
A series of art events mark the 100th anniversary of the independence of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania — at a time of rising nationalism around the world by Louisa Elderton
MEGAN FONTANELLA ON THE RELEVANCE OF THE SCULPTOR’S WORK GUARDIAN OF A CIVILIZATION IN DURESS AT THE MUSÉE PICASSO PARIS
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On the cover: Curt Querner (1904 – 1976), “Demonstration,” 1930, oil paint on canvas, 870 x 660 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie.
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TO P : P H OTO G R A P H Y BY R O B E R T V I N A S J R ., 2 018 . C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D S P E R O N E W E S T WAT E R , N E W YO R K . C OV E R I M AG E: : B P K / J Ö R G P. A N D E R S
CONTENTS
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CONTENTS
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54 LEFT:
A portait of Bernard Frize.
F R O M L E F T: P H OTO : C L A I R E D O R N . © R I C H A R D YO U N G. C O U R T E S Y T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y M PA
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Tracey Emin in her studio, London, 2016.
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Giacometti Now Megan Fontanella, the curator of a blockbuster show at the Guggenheim, reflects on the relevance of the sculptor’s work by Amy Zion
in L.A.” 78 “Made The Hammer Museum Biennial Celebrates the Diversity of the City’s Emerging Artists by Richard Chang
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The Art in Artificial Intelligence The curator Jérôme Neutres and the artist Elias Crespin, key figures in the “Artists & Robots” show in Paris, talk about the role of technology in art and much more
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The Evolution of Michal Rovner With an exhibition at Pace, the Israeli artist once again shows works that stand “above time and culture” by Franca Toscano
MPA “Untitled Red #5,” 2015, inkjet print, 7 x 7 in. (17.8 x 17.8 cm).
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American Masters, Past and Present Ed Ruscha’s “Course of Empire” was an homage to Thomas Cole. At the National Gallery, each puts a twist on time by Franca Toscano
of a 134 Guardian Civilization in Duress The Fourth Plinth at the Trafalgar Square, London, is hosting the lamassu, symbol of Iraq’s ancient civilization by Archana Khare-Ghose
Modern Painters, ISSN 0953-6698, is published monthly by LTB Media (U.K.) Ltd., an affiliate of BlouinArtinfo Corp, 80 Broad Street, Suite 606/607, New York, NY 10004. Vol. XXX, No. 5. 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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JUNE //
Kimberly Conniff Taber Kim Conniff Taber is a group editor for the Blouin magazines and web sites, recruiting writers in Europe, Asia and the U.S. and commissioning irst-rate criticism and arts reporting. A journalist and editorial consultant, she advises organizations on ways to sharpen their content for maximum impact in the digital era. She was previously the culture editor of the International New York Times; and before that its senior editor of magazines and art special reports. Prior to joining the NYT company in 2003, Kim was a writer with Brill’s Content Magazine in New York and taught journalism at the University of Pennsylvania and the American University of Paris. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and is currently completing an executive master’s in digital management at Sciences Po in Paris.
Archana Khare-Ghose Archana Khare-Ghose is a group editor with the Blouin Artinfo magazines and websites, anchoring the editorial teams as well as commissioning and writing stories. She has been an arts journalist and writer for the past 19 years. Beginning with covering the South Asian art scene, she soon graduated to covering and writing about arts and culture at the global level, by reporting from key cultural capitals of the world. Prior to joining Blouin Artinfo Corp, she was the Arts, Culture & Books editor with The Times of India, the largest selling English language daily of the world. In 2012, she was chosen as a cultural leader from Asia by the US Department of State, to visit lesser-known cultural institutions across eight cities of the US, to get insights into the role of culture in bringing about social change.
CONTRIBUTORS
Mark Beech Mark Beech has been a journalist for more than 30 years and is the author of four books. He previously was Global Team leader for Bloomberg News’s arts and culture section, Bloomberg Muse. His experience includes spells working for Forbes as an entertainment correspondent; the Sunday Times; ITN; and as editor of Dante magazine. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and holds an MA from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford University, in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He writes about performing arts from music to theater - and auctions, from visual art to cars and wine. He has also written and lectured extensively, appeared on television more than 100 times and consulted on social media and management for many companies.
Chris Welsch Chris Welsch, a contributing editor for BLOUINARTINFO, is an editor, writer and photographer, based in Paris for the past seven years. A former staff editor at the New York Times, his photos and stories have appeared in the Times, the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Minneapolis Star Tribune (where he worked for 15 years as a travel reporter and photographer). He’s working toward an exhibition of his photographs of Paris.
Louisa Elderton 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. After working for the Research department at Tate, she was writer in Residence at Jerwood Visual Arts in London, and has curated solo exhibitions for artists including Lawrence Weiner, Francesco Clemente, Wim Wenders, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Nasan Tur and Rachel Howard. A contributing author and editor to numerous Phaidon publications she has also produced monographs on Rachel Howard, Tim Noble & Sue Webster and Francesco Clemente.
Cody Delistraty Based in Paris, Cody Delistraty writes proiles 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. He is currently completing his irst novel.
Anya Harrison 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 ilm. 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. She is co-founder of The New Social, a curatorial, and is part of the curatorial team for the 13th Baltic Triennial.
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CONTRIBUTORS // JUNE Tina Xu
Stephen Heyman
Tina Xu is a writer-ilmmaker 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.
Michael Prodger Michael Prodger teaches art history at the University of Buckingham and is an art critic for the New Statesman and Standpoint magazines. He is a former literary editor and judge of the Man Booker Prize. He writes on books and art for a number of publications including the Times, Sunday Times and the Guardian.
Mark Piggott
Constance Chien
London-based author and journalist Mark Piggott has written for the Times, Sunday Times and numerous other newspapers, and is author of four novels, with two more underway. He has a Master of Arts and has lectured in journalism and criticism. His website is at markpiggott.com.
Victoria Gomelsky Victoria Gomelsky is editor in chief of JCK, a 148-year-old jewelry trade magazine based in New York City. She joined the staff of JCK in 2010, after spending several years covering the ine jewelry and watch markets for both trade and consumer publications. Her freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, WSJ Magazine, AFAR, the Hollywood Reporter, and Waking Up American: Coming of Age Biculturally, an anthology published by Seal Press.
Warwick Thompson Warwick Thompson says that he often feels like the word “opera” runs through him like a stick of Brighton rock. He’s a critic for various outlets, including Metro newspaper and Opera magazine. He’s also got a novel about 18th -century London in the pipeline.
Stephen Heyman writes about culture, travel and design for the New York Times and other ine publications. He was formerly a features editor at T: the New York Times Style Magazine. His weekly column charting international culture “by the numbers” ran in the global edition of The Times from 2013 to 2015. He has also written for AD, Dwell, Esquire, Slate, Town & Country, Travel & Leisure, Vogue.com, W and The Wall Street Journal.
Constance Chien is a writer and educator currently based in Beijing. Her research interests include gender and sexuality studies, contemporary French poetry and cinema, and media theory. She graduated from Wellesley College, and has lived in cities in France, the United States, and China.
Zandie Brockett
Zandie Brockett 桂才 is a curator, researcher and writer based between Beijing and Los Angeles. She founded the cultural platform, Bactagon Projects, serves as the Editor-in- chief of its bilingual, literary journal, 八家 BaJia, and was the Associate Curator of the biennale, the Shanghai Project. Her research seeks to understand the relationship between social practice art and societies that are increasingly transformed by technology and urban life.
Richard Chang Richard Chang is a Southern California-based journalist, arts writer and educator. He has written for ARTnews, the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, Coast Magazine, Montage Magazine, Laguna Beach Magazine and a number of newspapers and arts and lifestyle publications. He served as arts reporter and chief visual art critic for the Orange County Register for more than 14 years. He recently served as arts and culture editor at L.A. Weekly. Richard received degrees from Brown University and UC Berkeley, and has taught journalism and writing at UCLA, Cal State Fullerton and Glendale Community College.
Annie Godfrey Larmon Annie Godfrey Larmon is a writer, editor, and curator based in New York. She is a regular contributor to Artforum, and her writing has also appeared in Bookforum, Frieze, MAY, Spike, Vdrome, and WdW Review. The recipient of a 2016 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for shortform writing, she is the editor of publications for the inaugural Okayama Art Summit and a former international reviews editor of Artforum. She is the co-author, with Ken Okiishi and Alise Upitis, of “The Very Quick of the Word” (Sternberg Press, 2014), and she has penned features and catalogue essays on the work of numerous artists.
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Nina Siegal 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, and she also writes for The Economist, Bloomberg News, and various art and culture magazines. For an art market report for Bloomberg in 2004, Nina traveled for the irst time to the Netherlands to cover the TEFAF fair in Maastricht, where she was able to see four Rembrandt portraits at the same time in the Robert Noortman Gallery, and later visited the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam. She became fascinated by Dutch Golden Age painting and in 2006, returned to the Netherlands with a Fulbright grant to write her second novel, “The Anatomy Lesson,” about Rembrandt’s irst large-scale group portrait. She ended up staying in Amsterdam, writing about art, museums, art crime, authenticity and attribution issues, and European cultural life.
Elin McCoy Award-winning journalist Elin McCoy is wine critic for Bloomberg News, where she has written a column since 2001; she’s also the New York columnist at the U.K.’s biggest wine magazine Decanter, and writes frequently for The World of Fine Wine as well as for her blog at www.elinmccoy.com. Her book, “The Emperor of Wine: The Rise of Robert M. Parker, Jr. and the Reign of American Taste,” garnered international praise. McCoy got her wine start at Food & Wine magazine, and has written several thousand articles for many other publications. She’s currently at work on a surprising true tale of a commune winery set in 19th century Sonoma County.
Matthew Rose The artist, writer and musician Matthew Rose is an American who has lived and worked in Paris for some 25 years. Matthew’s exhibition of rooms layered with his wall-to-wall collage works have taken him across the United States and Europe; and he’s recently published a catalog of his drawings – “evidence.” As a journalist, he has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, Art & Antiques, Art Review and dozens of art publications focusing largely on contemporary art. His twicemonthly columns for The Art Blog range from political art essays to proiles on emerging artists, street and ephemeral art as well as critical takes on some big guns in the art world.
Jessica Michault Jessica Michault is the editor of the member- only luxury website GPS Radar and the host of the podcast Fashion Your Seatbelt. She has been voted one of the Business of Fashion 500 Most Influential People in the World of Fashion. Over the past 20 years she has covered the industry for the likes of The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Italian Vogue, Antidote and Industrie. Born and raised in San Francisco, she is now based in Paris where she lives with her husband, three little girls and an ever increasing collection of vintage hair combs.
Tobias Grey Grey is a Paris-based arts writer and critic based in Paris. 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. Grey is equally adept at writing proiles of major creative igures as he is at writing criticism and lengthy features.
Joseph Akel Joseph Akel’s writings have been published in The New York Times, the Paris Review, Vanity Fair, and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. Most recently, Akel was the editor of V and VMAN magazine. He has contributed essays to several artists’ monographs, including the 2015 exhibition catalogue for Doug Aitken’s retrospective at Frankfurt’s Schirn Kunsthalle, as well as editing “Wolves Like Us” (2015), a monograph accompanying the Sundance award-wining documentary of the same name. Akel presently lives in New York City where he is working on his irst novel.
Sarah Moroz 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 “Paris in Stride,” a walking guide to the city, published this year.
Martin Gayford Martin Gayford is the author of books on Constable, Van Gogh, and Michelangelo. He writes proliically on the visual arts and is art critic of the Spectator. Last year he published “A History of Pictures,” co-written with David Hockney, a sweeping survey of visual images of the world, including paintings, photographs and ilm from the prehistoric era to the computer age which has been translated, so far, into 14 languages. Gayford’s most recent publication is a survey of the work of the abstract painter Gillian Ayres, published in April 2017. He lives in Cambridge.
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THE CAUTIOUS RISE OF THADDAEUS ROPAC W I T H F I V E SPACE S ACROSS EU ROPE , T H E GA LLER IST IS NOT AV ERSE TO GROW T H , BU T I NSISTS T H AT I T M UST BE DR I V EN BY A HOL IST IC BA L A NCE BET W EEN A RT ISTS’ N EEDS A N D T H E R IGH T OPPORT U N I T I E S BY ANYA HARRISON
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P H OTO BY P E T E R R I GAU D C _ O S H OT V I E W P H OTO G R A P H E R ’ S M A N AG E M E N T, B E R L I N
Thaddaeus Ropac
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I
n recent years, the top end of the market has seen an exponential growth of a handful of galleries — in terms of global footprint, artist representation and sales — while those on the lower echelons have been feeling the pinch. Among the former we can count Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. With over 100 employees in ive spaces across Salzburg, Paris and London, and an impressive roster of international artists and estates that currently totals around 60, the gallery has been steadily expanding since the Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac irst opened a space in Salzburg in 1983. Yet in conversation, Ropac does not sound the bullish “mega gallerist” one might expect. He cuts a composed and calm igure, carefully weighing his words, an approach that appears to extend to the manner in which he runs his international business. In London, the gallery has recently opened an ambitious
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show of Joseph Beuys, the artist’s irst major solo exhibition in Britain for over a decade. It’s a celebratory moment, not least because the gallery announced its representation of the artist’s estate days before the opening. It also must feel like a homecoming of sorts, given that the young Ropac irst caught the art bug thanks to Beuys. “In the early 1980s, I wanted to become an artist and was totally under the inluence of Beuys,” he said in a phone interview from his Paris ofice. “I went to his lectures in Vienna and Düsseldorf, and later interned for him while he was installing his studio in Berlin [for the “Zeitgeist” exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau] in the fall of 1982. Being in the presence of such a great artist, though, made me realize my own limits.” Having dropped the ambition of building an artistic career for himself, Ropac instead got the “naïve idea to open
London exhibition of Robert Longo, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, 2017.
P H OTO C H A R L E S D U P R AT
a small space.” Luckily, the contact with Beuys soon led to a meeting with Andy Warhol in New York, and through him an encounter with Jean-Michel Basquiat, then totally unknown in Europe, but with whom Ropac went on to have four shows between 1982 and 1986. So it’s of little surprise that some of the artists and estates that the gallery now represents, including David Salle and the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, hark back to those early days in the ’80s, when a new generation of artists was starting to make its mark on New York, and Ropac was there to witness it irsthand. The next step in the gallery’s growth was an expansion to Paris, where a new space was inaugurated in the Marais neighbourhood in 1990. Why Paris? “Everyone expected me to expand to Vienna or Berlin,” said Ropac, “but I wanted to move beyond the German-speaking world. London, at the time, still felt too far, and it was not yet the art city that it is today, it was only just starting to stir with the appearance of the YBAs. But Paris still had an allure for artists thanks to its history, the quality of its museums and
the critical mass of incredible art that’s to be found there.” It is only in more recent years that additional spaces have been added: the 2,500 square-meter Salzburg Halle, set in an industrial building close to the city center, in 2010; the ambitious Paris Pantin that opened in 2012 in the northeast of Paris; and, inally, Ely House in London, which opened to much fanfare a year ago with a quartet of exhibitions spread throughout the historic 18th-century mansion. For one of the world’s most powerful art dealers, Ropac has avoided the route of astronomic global expansion, a type of art world “risk” which has seen a number of mega galleries mushrooming to ensure a permanent presence in key markets around the world, notably in the United States and Asia. Ropac is the irst to admit that he’s not against growth per se — otherwise why the ive spaces? — but he insists that it must be driven by a holistic balance between artists’ needs and the right opportunities. In the year that the gallery has been operating in London, Ropac and his team have already remarked on differences between the
“Paris Pantin,” exhibition of sculptures by Antony Gormley.
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P H OTO C H A R L E S D U P R AT
Paris Pantin-Not Vital ”Moon”2017.
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Halle Wolfgang Laib, “Passageway Inside – Downside,” installation view, 2012, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg.
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Given the existential crisis that Europe is currently going through, though, does the future still reside there? For Ropac, it is both a question of personal loyalty and a selfawareness of where the gallery’s expertise lies. “I grew up in the nightmares of post-WWII… When I became a consciously political human being in the 1970s, Europe saved me. It was a vision we felt we could believe in, and art was a big part of it.” It is here too that Beuys reappears. “He was the most political artist of the time… and he reminded everybody of a political responsibility and that art has the power for change,” emphasized Ropac. The dealer has more than once questioned the viability of an artist being represented by a single gallery in all territories, but feels conident about being able to provide the best service within the European context. With strong links to museums from Scandinavia to Italy, the gallery’s
C O U R T E S Y GA L E R I E T H A D DA E U S R O PAC , PA R I S/ S A L Z B U R G © W O L F GA N G L A I B P H OTO U L R I C H G H E Z Z I
markets there and in Paris, despite the two cities’ proximity and similarities. Both, of course, beneit from the presence of collectors from the U.S., Asia and the Middle East, although Ropac said that “Chinese collectors, I realized to my surprise, were coming more to Paris than to London.” He admitted to some initial concerns about the opulence of Ely House, but the decision was a collective one: “We were lying in quite a few artists before we signed the contract. Only when the artists walked into the building and felt inspired, did I think it was the right decision.” Despite the deep upset that Brexit has caused — the announcement of the new London space came literally just as the UK had voted to leave the European Union — Ropac said he has no regrets, nor does he feel a rush to look beyond the borders of Europe, although he does hint that the gallery’s next move may well be on a new continent.
AGGLOMERATION
© Musée des Jacobins – Auch, Feathered panache, Perù
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“The great thing about the art world, despite all its negativity, is that over the years it’s become more inclusive and open. It’s easier to participate than ever before, even though the competition has never been as fierce as before” role increasingly extends to curatorial, consultancy and advisory work for public institutions, and private and corporate collections. With all this talk about growth and expansion, conversation naturally turns to the fragility of the gallery ecosystem as a whole. Only days before, David Zwirner made a well-publicized, and for some in the audience, radical, call at The New York Times Art Leaders Network conference in Berlin for blue-chip dealers like himself to face a “tax system” to help subsidize smaller galleries’ booths at art fairs. The remark was met with enthusiasm both by Pace Gallery’s Marc Glimcher and Hauser & Wirth’s Marc Payot. Others, meanwhile, like Art Basel director Marc Spiegler, are questioning whether this is the right “algorithm” to help smaller and mid-size galleries stay aloat. Ropac falls into the former camp. However, would this gesture be enough to maintain the necessary diversity? While there’s no doubt that we’re experiencing an age of extremes, Ropac is adamantly against deploring the state of the (art) world. “I’m convinced that there are more galleries opening than closing, at least if I look to cities like Paris or Berlin” he remarked. “The great thing about the art world, despite all its negativity, is that over the years it’s become more inclusive and open. It’s easier to participate than ever
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before, even though the competition has never been as ierce as before.” And when it comes to subsidies, while fairs are important, he said it is ultimately the bricks-andmortar traditional gallery model on which sustainability rests. “We have to do our best work in our gallery spaces, and make sure that people still visit them, because we cannot reduce ourselves to fairs alone.” Ropac’s own bricks-and-mortal model, in the meantime, is going from strength to strength. In the last year, the gallery also announced its representation of the estate of James Rosenquist and Valie Export, as well as the hiring of Julia Peyton-Jones as its Senior Global Director. With less restriction on its inancial capacities than when it was irst starting out, the gallery is growing internally too and Ropac says he would not be surprised if the staff numbers reached 120 within the next year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the content department that is the fastest growing, tending both to practical needs but also necessary research work, such as building an artist’s archive or seeding the idea for a catalogue raisonné. Activity never ceases; as Ropac concludes, “We’re producing more than 30 shows a year in our galleries alone and are involved in many external projects. Every single day, artworks are moving to institutions and there is an opening somewhere.” MP
William Cordova. “Untitled (geronimo),” 2009. paper bag, feathers, and plastic coin wrapper, 13 x 22 1/4 x 7 inches. Collection of Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design.
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© W I L L I A M C O R D OVA . I M AG E C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T
WILLIAM CORDOVA’S CONSCIOUS ALCHEMY
MARIA ELENA ORTIZ OF THE PÉREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI GIVES INSIGHTS INTO THE RETROSPECTIVE SHOW ON THE ARTIST, WHICH SHE CURATED
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26 MODERN PAINTERS JUNE 2018 BLOUINARTINFO.COM TO P L E F T A N D A B OV E: © 2 018 E S TAT E O F LO U I S E N E V E L S O N/A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y (A R S ) , N E W YO R K P H OTO G R A P H Y BY G. R . C H R I S T M A S ; L E F T: © 2 018 T H E L E W I T T E S TAT E / A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y (A R S ) , N E W YO R K P H OTO G R A P H Y BY K E R R Y R YA N M C FAT E
Maria Elena Ortiz
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he exhibition “william cordova now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy” is the first museum survey of works by William Cordova (b. 1969, Lima, Peru; lives in Miami, Lima, and New York), an artist who is inspired by cultural transmission, alchemy, and transcendence1. Cordova’s production transmits the realities of marginalized histories in order to challenge forms of cultural oppression and transcend them. His practice developed in direct response to how disenfranchised communities tend to be represented in negative ways in mainstream culture. His alchemy involves turning stereotypical derogatory representations into positive ones. He creates cultural transformations and generates new images to provide alternative representations informed by different topics, themes, and abstraction, instead of focusing on images of suffering. Engaging in actions that go beyond traditional studio work, Cordova is also known as a curator, teacher, and mentor to younger generations at a local, national, and international level. His work is multidisciplinary, as he produces drawings, sculptures, installations, and collaborative projects. Synthesizing symbols, artifacts, and languages interrelated to his own ancestral lineage and contemporary reality, Cordova makes connections with the politics of hip-hop, architecture and African, Andean, and Asian diasporas in the United States. Cordova considers his process as analytical, embracing the historical quotidian intersections shared by Western and Non-Western cultures, and collapsing linear notions of time and space. Cordova incorporates ephemeral and precarious materials to create elegant works that defy traditional Western notions of identity and offer a critical, flexible space to reflect on the cultural transformations of our time. Illustrating Cordova’s cosmology and philosophical process, this show presents the basic ideas and recurrent motifs that have inspired the artist for several decades. Each artwork on view embodies his interest in tracing his multifaceted culture and mapping his moment. Including a range of older and newer pieces, “william cordova now’s the time” presents more than 30 works showcasing his artistic range. Some of the earliest works in this exhibition are a series of postcards made between 1996 and 2000, overlapping with the time when Cordova was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. In this body of work, one can appreciate Cordova’s interest in geometric forms and his early fascination with abstraction in a small format. Using reclaimed paper, paint, tape, and ink, Cordova made collaged postcards referencing geometry, rhythm, and cosmograms — flat, geometric drawings depicting cosmology. “Till the morning after,” 1999, is a postcard split in two horizontally; on the top section, there is
Illustrating Cordova’s cosmology and philosophical process, this show presents the basic ideas and recurrent motifs that have inspired the artist for several decades
1 An extended version and analysis of this essay is published on the catalogue of this exhibition. 2 R. Alan Covey, “Chronology, Succession, and Sovereignty: The Politics of Inka Historiography and Its Modern Interpretation,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 1 (2006): 169–99. 3 In conversation with the artist, he mentioned that it is very important for audiences to also realize that he interprets Landrián Guillén’s films as revealing the synthesis of Cuban life, religion, politics, class and race. Cordova compares his work to the writings of Nicomedes Santa Cruz and Zora Neale Hurston. Most importantly, for Cordova this work is about the common synergy that we all share through sacred geometry, ritual, and language.
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a white triangle with a square inside traced in black ink. Each corner of the triangle has a numeral notation and an object traced in black ink: the top corner has the number 132 and a chandelier, the bottom left corner has the number 89 and a chair, and the third corner has the number 273 and what appears to be a pot. This triangle and its everyday objects and numbers can be interpreted as Cordova’s attempt to create his own cosmogram. The bottom half of the postcard has a red background and features the invented word “Huebon” — in Peru, huevón is a slang term used as a synonym of “stupid.” The viewer who understands the artist’s gesture is left wondering who is stupid: the artist or the spectator. Another work in the exhibition, “now’s the time (pachacuti),” 2009, in which Cordova collaged paper, gold, hair, and dust, depicts his interest in cultural transmission, in relation to ideas of transformation and transcendence. The work is characterized by an elegant white background in which one can recognize the artist’s subtle treatment of layering materials onto the surface. Upon closer inspection, one can recognize a tower of stacked vinyl records, speakers, a satellite, and other objects that relate to music surrounded by shimmering votive candles. Elements such as the speakers and vinyl records point to Cordova’s relationship to street culture and his experiences growing up in Miami. The use of gold, a motif seen recurrently in Cordova’s works, could be understood in relationship to pre-Columbian Incan gold sculptures, as well as his interest in alchemy. All of these elements embody different histories to signify the artist’s dedication to ideas of cultural transformation through oral histories and music. Approaching music similar to the way a traditional alchemist approaches gold, Cordova treats the motif of music as an important catalyst that expands the potential of culture. Here, the title of the work could be interpreted as a direct reference to Parker’s jazz hit, especially when considering the history of jazz music in the United States — a genre developed by black musicians in New Orleans in the 19th century within a racist and repressive society, which some people found morally questionable. The work’s subtitle relates to Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the ninth ruler of the Kingdom of Cusco (1438-1471-’72) who transformed the Inca Empire, expanding its rule from the valley of Cusco nearly to the western part of South America. In Quechua, the term pachakutiq means “he who overturns space and time.”2 By collapsing all of these different histories and times, Cordova expresses his own allegiances to movements and people that have used culture as a means to transcend, heal, and empower their own realities. Other works presented in the “william cordova now’s the time” show the impact of
1 An extended version and analysis of this essay is published on the catalogue of this exhibition. 2 R. Alan Covey, “Chronology, Succession, and Sovereignty: The Politics of Inka Historiography and Its Modern Interpretation,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 1 (2006): 169–99. 3 In conversation with the artist, he mentioned that it is very important for audiences to also realize that he interprets Landrián Guillén’s films as revealing the synthesis of Cuban life, religion, politics, class and race. Cordova compares his work to the writings of Nicomedes Santa Cruz and Zora Neale Hurston. Most importantly, for Cordova this work is about the common synergy that we all share through sacred geometry, ritual, and language.
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William Cordova, “Badussy (or macho pichu after dark),” 2003, digital color video, transferred from Super 8 film, with sound, 2 min., 45 sec.
C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D 8 0 M 2 L I V I A B E N AV I D E S , L I M A . © W I L L I A M C O R D OVA
The viewer who understands the artist’s gesture is left wondering who is stupid: the artist or the spectator
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© W I L L I A M C O R D OVA . P H OTO: K E V I N A R R O W
William Cordova, “Usual Shit,” 2001. ink and graphite collage on paper, 4 1/2 x 6 3/8 inches, Collection of Kevin Arrow, Miami.
TO P I M AG E: © W I L L I A M C O R D OVA . P H OTO: JA S O N W YC H E B OT TO M I M AG E: © W I L L I A M C O R D OVA . I M AG E C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T
ABOVE: William Cordova. “Can’t stop won’t stop,” 2016– 17. mixed media collage, 81 x 146 inches.
William Cordova. “daniel boone, pat boone y mary boone (and firestone, pero los Olmecas venceran),” 2008. gold leaf, paper collage, and spray enamel on reclaimed backdrop paper, 108 x 120 inches. Estrellita B. Brodsky Collection.
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Some works presented in the “william cordova now’s the time” show the impact of poetry, music, and the Latin American film movement Third Cinema on Cordova’s practice
poetry, music, and the Latin American ilm movement Third Cinema on Cordova’s practice. A work in the PAMM collection, “Untitled (The Echo in Nicolás Guillén Landrián’s Bolex),” 2008-’09, ig. 5) is an impressive installation of 100 drawings made with reclaimed paper, pages torn from books, reclaimed cardboard, and loose sheets from spiral notebooks. Similar to his postcards, each drawing is a delicate rendering that is highly detailed. In this work, Cordova used a combination of techniques and materials, including gold leaf, stenciling, watercolor, graphite drawing, erasure, and collage, and make references to different histories related to political movements of resistance and subversive subcultures. One can recognize several allusions to different themes including grafiti, hip-hop, experimental ilm, and poetry. The title of the work references Nicolás Guillén Landrián, an accomplished Cuban Third Cinema ilmmaker who was persecuted by the Cuban government in the 1970s and 1980s for his radical documentaries. Landrián’s works are critical of capitalism, exploration, and neocolonialism, often depicting the poor and the disenfranchised communities of Latin America. Inspired by Landrián’s contributions, Cordova pays homage to the ilmmaker, but also draws a parallel between the conditions of oppression that gave birth to Third Cinema in Latin America and the mechanisms of oppression experienced in the United States.3 By creating multiple drawings, Cordova makes a connection between his production and the video camera’s ability to create a scene with multiple shots and perspectives. “Untitled (The Echo in Nicolás Guillén Landrián’s Bolex)” embodies one way in which Cordova has been working toward illuminating the signiicance the Cuban ilmmaker had on future generations. Cordova has also presented ilm screenings and lectures about Landrián and this subject. “Now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy” illuminates Cordova’s commitment to bridging forth histories that have not been part of the mainstream, but speak to current social dynamics speciic to people whose traditions fall outside the conventional understanding of American culture. Inspired by the spirit of transformation embedded in alchemy, Cordova focuses on narratives related to marginalized, erased or forgotten groups to bind our human experiences. His works encourage a polylingual and multiethnic southern approach through a nonlinear understanding of history as a way to encourage a new transcendental space of empowerment. Cordova also exempliies the complexities of creative impulses in South Florida and how artists in Miami work in relation to a wider understanding of culture. “Now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy” presents his story as a cultural practitioner who weaves together different narratives to create a new language and bolster another worldview. MP
1 An extended version and analysis of this essay is published on the catalogue of this exhibition. 2 R. Alan Covey, “Chronology, Succession, and Sovereignty: The Politics of Inka Historiography and Its Modern Interpretation,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 1 (2006): 169–99. 3 In conversation with the artist, he mentioned that it is very important for audiences to also realize that he interprets Landrián Guillén’s films as revealing the synthesis of Cuban life, religion, politics, class and race. Cordova compares his work to the writings of Nicomedes Santa Cruz and Zora Neale Hurston. Most importantly, for Cordova this work is about the common synergy that we all share through sacred geometry, ritual, and language.
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GLOBAL. GROUNDBREAKING. NOW.
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Tracey Emin in her studio, France, 2017.
“THIS IS ME: MY EMOTION, MY GUT, MY HEART” AS HER LIGHT INSTALLATION “I WANT MY TIME WITH YOU” SHINES ACROSS ST. PANCRAS INTERNATIONAL IN LONDON, TRACEY EMIN SPEAKS ABOUT HER RECENT SABBATICAL, FINDING PASSION AGAIN, AND THAT ATYPICAL MARRIAGE … BY AMY ZION
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“ The Mirror,” 2017, gouache on paper.
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T H I S PAG E: © T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D X AV I E R H U F K E N S , B R U S S E L S FAC I N G PAG E © T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D X AV I E R H U F K E N S , B R U S S E L S . P H OTO : P R U D E N C E C U M I N G A S S O C I AT E S LT D.
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my Zion: So often, conversations about your work focus on its content, themes of intimacy, confessional material, or even salacious details. Perhaps we can begin this conversation by focusing on the role of painting in your work, on a formal, conceptual, and even emotional level. I was speaking with an artist in Canada recently who said: painting is like a specter that haunts you as an artist. Over the span of your career, from the ’80s to the present, how has painting igured into your work, how it has changed, and how is your relationship to painting inlected by various events in your life? Tracey Emin: Yeah, it is a specter. And this is what’s really interesting, ok, I can paint. And I’m so lucky; some artists can’t and so they stop painting. Actually, they didn’t really stop painting — painting left them. Painting said: “fuck it, I’m not coming back. You didn’t want me, that’s it, it’s over between us.” It’s like a love affair — I’m not coming back. And sometimes you think: I miss painting so much!! [laughs] After my abortion in 1990, I stopped painting completely, and it took me years and years to work all of that through. I know it sounds pathetic in a way but I’m really sensitive and all that stuff really touched me and got to me in a big profound way. I said that I wasn’t just going to make things, after understanding that the essence of real creativity about the inner self — I couldn’t just make an object or a thing. The abortion ilm that I made in ’95 was about being a failure as an artist, because I always felt that had I been more successful I
Tracey Emin, “This is life without you - you made me feel like this,” 2018, acrylic on canvas, 152 x 183 x 4 cm (59.84 x 72.05 x 1.57 inches).
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might have had a baby. Because I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have anywhere to live…. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t even look after myself, much less a child. From 2016-17, you took a sabbatical and you took out a fullpage ad in Artforum to announce it. How did that come about, and how did it affect your work? The irst time I took out an ad was in Parkett after 9/11 because suddenly people were canceling things all over the world, overnight. I thought to combat this, you had to show you aren’t afraid. That’s how I came to the idea of taking out an ad. At the time, there weren’t really any women with full page ads, it was all these big frilly men and big galleries. In those days there was nothing big about me at all. As a woman, because I can put a full-page ad in Artforum, I thought, yeah I’m going to do it. That ad for my sabbatical was a fun thing, and the sabbatical was brilliant. I didn’t do anything — no interviews, photographs, charity work, shows. It was strange that I planned the sabbatical four years in advance and it happened that was the year my mom died. Is there a direct impact of that experience and the sabbatical
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on the work you made after? I was struggling, wrestling with my conscience, dissatisied with my work. I thought my work was a big failure. I needed to step back and igure out why I was dissatisied, which was because I wasn’t focused enough on what was really important to me — my art. I love making work, the energy that it gives me; when I’m working that’s my identity. I really needed to get some distance from what I was doing before, and I did. Did you break through that by changing as an artist or through the sabbatical or both? Through the sabbatical. I was changing but not fast enough. It’s like doing a Masters or a Phd. You know what you want but you can’t achieve it quickly. Only time can do that. Showing, doing everything — I didn’t have time to do what I needed to do, to get my head in the right place. The only way you can do it is you cut off from everything, you say: no I won’t do the interview, I’m not having my photograph taken today, you have to deal with my ofice. Sabbatical means you couldn’t get me on the telephone. And I’m not telling you what I’m doing and if you call my studio, they just say: “Tracey is unavailable.”
© T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D X AV I E R H U F K E N S , B R U S S E L S . P H OTO : P R U D E N C E C U M I N G A S S O C I AT E S LT D
“Everything is moving nothing feels safe. You made me feel like this,” 2018, acrylic on canvas.
© T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y W H I T E C U B E . P H OTO : O L L I E H A M M I C K
Tracey Emin, “The stain of you,” 2017, acrylic on canvas, 182.5 x 121.8 x 3.4 cm, (71.85 x 47.95 x 1.34 in.).
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© T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y H A R R Y W E L L E R
“I Want My Time With You,” 2018, Terrace Wires Commission, St Pancras International.
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“You made me Feel like this,” 2018, gouache on paper.
© T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D X AV I E R H U F K E N S , B R U S S E L S
Maybe I’ll take another sabbatical in 2022… you have to be really planned and you have to be really strong. You can be offered the best thing in the world and you have to say no. And if these things are any good, they will come back to you. You have to be inancially solvent as well. Is it possible to elaborate on why you thought your work was failing and what you needed to reach that you hadn’t reached before? I’m a painter, and to paint, you need time, you need to sit sometimes for hours to stare into a void. You have to make lots of mistakes to understand what you’re doing. I’m not the kind of artist that just makes a picture. I’ve always said that. My mother’s death was a similar event to the abortion: one is future, one is past. I know I made the right decision about not having children but a few years ago I was scared about growing old alone. It really worried me to the point that I was frightened. Now I’m not frightened at all. And do you credit to that any event or was it something you worked through? I credit it to my mom’s humility in her life, how she lived, and didn’t expect anything at the end of her life. I learned a lot from her. My life is pretty amazing, why should I sit here sulking instead of getting on with it? When people criticized “My Bed” back in 1998, I said, if this was a painting you would not have been so critical. It really wasn’t a
conceptual piece of art, it was a wild crazy expressionistic moment. I recently showed it with a JMW Turner painting so similar to the bed. It even has this light blue in it, like the blue knickers on the bed. After my abortion I physically couldn’t paint. When I was pregnant I couldn’t paint because it made me physically ill. For a couple of years I couldn’t work. I did part-time philosophy courses in that period, writing and making ilms was a way to exercise another part of my mind. So that while one part of my mind was injured, I strengthened another part. Currently, you are painting a lot, can you speak about a recent work? I had my mum’s ashes in my studio and I didn’t want to leave them on their own overnight. So at 1:00am I carried the ashes home and walked passed the church near my house, I couldn’t believe how heavy they were and I realized that I was walking like this strange igure from my mind, not from reality. I knew I wanted to paint this feeling and that moment. The next day I went into my studio and I ended up painting this igure from my mind that actually looks like I’m on a strange scooter or what is it called? You stand on it… A segway?! Yes! I’m on some strange segway or something… this painting is just so wrong, but I love it. I’m not going to paint over it so then I decide to draw in the ashes, and suddenly it goes really crazy, then the painting just becomes something else completely. But all of that goes into it. You
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can tell that when you look at it. I can’t work completely loose and abstract, say like Joan Mitchell, but this is me: my emotion, my gut, my heart being poured onto this canvas. And if other people can’t see it, I don’t mind because I’ve got my painting. Does it feel good to access that again? The truth is, I wasn’t accessing it before. I didn’t know about it. Sometimes it frightens me. Because of the energy involved. You’re straining, trying to get something more to happen, and when it happens …. You don’t know where it’s going to go, it’s out of control. But if it’s 3 a.m. and I inish a really good painting, it’s such a high, I’m not afraid of anything. I go back into my house, I feel really good. I put the radio on, have a dance in the kitchen. But if I fail, I wash the brushes, and I can’t sleep. Once it’s daylight I go straight back to the studio because there’s a chance the paint isn’t completely dry, I can use sponges and pull it out. Then something completely different happens. That must be hard on your body though…. Really hard. Imagine if you’re pregnant or just had a baby and you have to climb up a ladder to prime a canvas? I’m currently working on 20 big paintings, if I get two good ones out of it I’ll be really happy. But before that I have been 1.5 times around the world in the last two months, I have to get really it, swim everyday, get in a good headspace or else I really can’t do it. On that note I wanted to ask you about your recent marriage-Not that recent, about two years ago now… So then are you no longer newlyweds, or is the feeling still there? When I see my stone, I am so happy. I really like the idea of psychometry in objects, objects having feelings. The stone is a metaphor for the fact that I’m connected to something. It makes me feel good. It’s primal. It has nothing to do with anything leeting or supericial… It’s a primal understanding of a place that makes me feel good. When I think about the stone I immediately relax and feel good. I feel solid. How did that story, your marriage to the stone, come about? I’m superstitious. I was cleaning out my house in France, when I
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found this tiny silver ring, and I put it on my wedding inger, and I went oh shit, that means that I’ll never get married! And I thought, what am I going to do? I said, instead of never getting married, I’ll get married right now. And I thought, what do I really like, that I could marry? I love this stone, so I ran upstairs, put some white clothes on. I was having so much fun, smiling and laughing, not feeling sorry for myself. When I went to Hong Kong for an exhibition in 2016 and did interviews, I spoke about the stone at this global press conference and they just ran with the story because it was uplifting. People understand it completely because it goes back to what I said before, that I was afraid of dying alone. And many things give us solace. And so what’s next for you, as you talk about going toward this potential you haven’t reached yet? How would you characterize that, where are you as an artist? I’m on the cusp. The cusp of what? Of the future. That means leaving the past and going to the future. I have maybe 30 years to get it right. When I die, I want to look back, I might have got things wrong at the beginning or at the middle, but at the end I got it right. And you have to work really hard to achieve that. And so the end is actually the most exciting chapter. That’s also a nice way of reframing the narrative of an artist, or of a woman’s life. I have a work called “Self-Portrait” at Château Lacoste, a beautiful winery in France. It’s a barrel installed on a lookout tower, and there is a tiny cat in the barrel. I went to Niagara Falls, and I was so impressed by the barrel rollers. Funny, I read a novel, a historical iction about them when I was growing up and they remained a fascination for me too — because they were women, right? Yes, lots of women, who were so destitute, their option was to join the saloon and be a prostitute or to be a barrel roller. For them, it was basically like, I can commit suicide or I can do this: go over the falls in a barrel; this could kill me but it’s better than being broke. I was fascinated by them: “I survived the Niagara Falls! I rolled down in that barrel and I survived!” MP
© T R AC E Y E M I N . C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D X AV I E R H U F K E N S , B R U S S E L S .
“You destroyed my mind You made me feel like this,” 2018, acrylic and pencil on canvas.
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ON E OF T H E MOST W ELL -K NOW N CON T E M POR A RY I N DI A N A RT ISTS , J I T ISH K A LL AT SHOW ED SIGNS OF BEI NG OU T OF T H E OR DI NA RY E A R LY ON. W I T H H IS N EW SHOW AT SPERON E W E ST WAT ER , N EW YOR K, H E PUSH E S T H E EN V ELOPE F U RT H ER BY ARCHANA KHARE-GHOSE Jitish Kallat during the installation of his show “Decimal Point” at Sperone Westwater, New York.
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C O U R T E S Y S P E R O N E W E S T WAT E R , N E W YO R K
THE PHILOSOPHER ARTIST
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he year was early 2001, and the moment was just after the Sanskriti Awards — India’s version of the Pulitzer — had been given to the country’s top cultural achievers, across the ields of art, music, theater and journalism. The revered O.P. Jain, a patron of Indian arts and founder-president of New Delhi-based Sanskriti Pratishthan (Sanskriti Foundation), had hosted the press conference to introduce the year’s winners. A group of journalists approached Jain to pick one winner for a quick interview and photo-op — they were in a hurry. Jain, a force in Indian culture like not many before him, did not like being rushed, and let them know it. But they persisted, and the stern Mr. Jain reluctantly chose one winner to stand at his side — the artist Jitish Kallat. Jain complained that it wasn’t right to make him choose from a
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ield of winners whom his foundation had honored equally, yet added that Kallat was the artist to watch out for. Kallat was only 27 at the time, but he had already generated enough buzz to become a star. Unlike many celebrity artists who lose sheen as they progress in their career, Kallat has only gone from strength to strength. One of the strongest names in Contemporary Indian art, he has also claimed a spot on the world stage. Born in 1974 and based in Mumbai, Kallat has shown immense lexibility with the media he has worked in. He has used painting, photography, drawing, video, and installations to convey his ideas on the themes that concern most individuals — life, living it daily with inherent dificulties, and death. He has received acclaim for turning common themes and ideas into deeply philosophical works of art. For
T H I S PAG E: C O U R T ESY J I T I S H K A L L AT. FAC I N G PAG E: P H OTO BY R O B E R T V I N A S J R., 2 018. C O U R T ESY J I T I S H K A L L AT A N D S P E R O N E W ES T WAT E R , N E W YO R K .
Jitish Kallat, “Forensic Trail of the Grand Banquet,” 2009, Single channel video, duration: 00:02:20. Installation view: Haunch of the Venison, London, 2010
“Sightings 2017-2018” (composite of 4 works).
“Wind Study (Hilbert Curve),” 2017, burnt adhesive, aquarelle pencil and graphite on paper, 89 x 55 1/8 inches /228,5 x 140 cm.
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P H OTO BY R O B E R T V I N A S J R ., 2 018 . C O U R T E S Y J I T I S H K A L L AT A N D S P E R O N E W E S T WAT E R , N E W YO R K .
instance, he used the image of roti (Indian lat bread) — the country’s staple food — to explore the cyclical nature of life in his series “Conditions Apply.” One of the irst works in the series had seven phases of the moon traced with waning and waxing images of roti, connecting the mundane to the celestial. His irst solo show in New York was in 1999 while his latest in the city — “Decimal Point” — is currently on view at Sperone Westwater through June 16. In the interim, he has had acclaimed solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art to name a few. He was the subject of a high-proile mid-career retrospective — curated by Catherine David — at India’s most prestigious venue, the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, last year. With more than 100 works across a variety of media, that retrospective showcased some seminal works by Kallat that have been turning points in his career and that have also placed him in the position to deine the course of Contemporary Indian art. These included works from the “Public Notice” series (featuring speeches by historical igures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru as installations), and “Covering Letter” (the installation of a personal letter by Gandhi to Adolf Hitler in 1939, written a few weeks before the beginning of the World War II, pleading him to reconsider his actions in light of the impact those would likely have) to name a few. But the artist has progressed beyond his most famous works, and has opened new areas of enquiry as is evident with the works on view at Sperone Westwater show. On the occasion of his latest solo show, Kallat spoke to MODERN PAINTERS on his new works, the underlying philosophy of his art, the state of Contemporary Indian art and more.
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LOUISE BOURGEOIS | The Red SkyMartin
HAUSER & WIRTH
The Art of Living, Curated by Our Editors
“Rain Study (the hour of the day of the month of the season),” 2017, graphite, acrylic epoxy on arches paper, 20 x 16 inches (50,8 x 40,6 cm), 23 x 18 3/4 inches (58,4 x 47,6 cm) .
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On the surface, your works on view at Sperone Westwater suggest an undercurrent of philosophy that has shaped man’s own understanding of his relation with cosmos, evidence of which is present since ancient times in various cultures. Have you also been inluenced by these issues as questioned by ancient philosophers? While philosophy is a means to arrive at a deeper understanding of the world through contemplative means, art provides a parallel means to arrive at an innate understanding of the world through observation. If philosophy and the various ancient wisdom traditions of the world converge with speculative image making in the arts or recent scientiic observations, it is not so much an overlap of disciplines but the fact that these varying
Is your current exhibition really a culmination of all the “areas of inquiry” you have pursued in your career so far, or the opening of a new area of inquiry? If it is the latter, what is it that concerns your mind currently the most, and how do you want to translate it further through your art? You are right, at one level the exhibition could appear to open several new areas of inquiry but having said that, particular bodies of work have evolved out of works made close to a decade ago. For instance the “Sightings,” one could say, are reincarnations of certain speculations that were part of works such as “Forensic Trail of the Grand Banquet,” 2009, or “Preamble,” 2013. “Forensic Trail of the Grand Banquet” is a large slow-moving video of what seems to appear like a journey through a cosmic ield, with the gradual passage of nebulae, asteroids, planets and stars. But each of these astral bodies are hundreds of X-Ray scans made of numerous food types in a doctor’s radiology lab wherein the Dicom medical iles become the drifting celestial bodies. The piece seems to draw forensic links between who we are and where we come from; interstellar dust restructured as sentient beings. In “Preamble,” a lenticular photographic work, the surface of a roti/ bread begins to unveil a dimension of the celestial. The “Rain Study’s” for instance emerged out of a small suite of rain studies I had made in the Laurentian mountains of Quebec, Canada in the year 2001. One element that has continued throughout from the earliest of works is this engagement with the skies; a place where it all begins, with light and energy and photosynthesis that becomes food, and the food that becomes our bodies. These inquires have continued from some early paintings in the ’90s.
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methods of probing the world lead to overlapping observations. To that extent, one could say that “Sightings” points our attention in a direction that would share afinities with philosophical probes in different parts of the world.
“As artists, the neighborhood, the city, or the country, where one resides becomes the culture medium of one’s experiences. It is after all one’s lived experiences as well as cultural and historical inheritances that become the work you make” Some of your most celebrated works — the “Public Notice” trilogy, “Autosaurus Tripous,” and “Covering Letter” to name a few, have been an artist’s reaction to or an interpretation of epochal, historical events. Do you think you would want to do an artistic expression of the times of distrust and fear — both globally and in India — that we are living in now? Works such as the “Public Notice” trilogy and “Covering Letter” returned to a historical utterance as a means to rethink the present moment through a super imposition of the historical words on to the present moment. As an artist, one draws from the world that one lives in and the questions that permeate one’s everyday thinking begins to ind voice within the work. So it is hard to predict or preimagine a response to anything happening now… this will only be revealed in time. You move between media with ease and it seems to be a tool for your expression instead of tailoring your expression to suit a particular medium. What remains your favorite medium to work with (perhaps because it helps you translate your ideas easily) and what are the other media that you are keen on trying in future? As such I don’t feel a hierarchy or preference of medium, a priori. I might say that the ideas
and inquiries have a seed of the medium embedded in them, and in pursuing the idea further it becomes clear what form it might take, whether it be a video or a drawing. So the “Wind Study” would have inlammable liquid, ire and wind as medium while “Covering Letter” is nothing but illuminated mist. I do often ind that working across varied scales and media assists a natural self-renewal of the studio process as, at a material level, one is shifting between different registers. Contemporary art is devoid of any geographic trapping. However, being a representative of Contemporary Indian art scene with a global name recall, have you ever felt any pressure to have some India in your art? Conversely, do you think Contemporary art from culturally rich countries like China and India must speak to their unique identities in some way? As artists, the neighborhood, the city, or the country, where one resides becomes the culture medium of one’s experiences. It is after all one’s lived experiences as well as cultural and historical inheritances that become the work you make. That said as an artist the location of one’s existence is a means of adjusting the focal length at which one views the world. While I could say that I am a resident of Mumbai, I could equally say I’m a resident of
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India, or Asia, the planet Earth or I could say, somewhat facetiously, that I am a resident of the Milky Way Galaxy. This last remark would completely alter the focal length at which I might view the location of my residence, my sense of identity or my limiting identiications, and my immediate neighbor then becomes the Andromeda Galaxy. And each of these focal lengths alter the perspective of how you view the world… and as an artist I feel it is important to function from each of these focal lengths. Contemporary art in India is headlined by a few artists, including you, and apart from the top few, the scene in general suffers from the lack of a strong idiom,
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which Modern Indian art of 1940s and after, exhibited. Do you think there is a need for any collective effort or individual trajectories of excellence such as yours, Subodh Gupta’s, Bose Krishnamachari-Riyas Komu’s, to name a few, would in the long term coalesce into a strong body of Contemporary Indian art? If one observes carefully there is a rich and exuberant art scene wherein artists of various generations are correspondingly doing insightful, thought-provoking work. If the Indian art scene is heavily lacking in something today, it would be the institutional dimension… the absence of great museums, art schools etc. MP
P H OTO BY R O B E R T V I N A S J R ., 2 018 . C O U R T E S Y J I T I S H K A L L AT A N D S P E R O N E W E S T WAT E R , N E W YO R K .
Main gallery’s installation view.
UNSEEN FORCES
ON VIEW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 2
Funk Dreamscapes from the Invisible Parallel Universe: Renée Stout installation view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 2018.
FEATURING ARTISTS
Emery Blagdon, Joy Feasley, Iris Häussler, Renèe Stout, Paul Swenbeck, and Stella Waitzkin.
FREE admission This exhibition series is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding was also provided by the Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, Kohler Foundation, Inc., and the Frederic Cornell Kohler Charitable Trust. The Arts Center thanks its many members for their support of exhibitions and programs through the year.
A SINGULAR PAINTER In a rare interview, the veteran French artist Bernard Frize discusses preparing for a show at Art Basel, a year ahead of a major retrospective at the Pompidou BY AYMERIC MANTOUX
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P H OTO: C L A I R E D O R N
Portrait of Bernard Frize.
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“Ubos,” 1993, acrylic paint and resin, ink and mother of pearl on canvas 150 x 132cm.
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How did you come up with this selection for Art Basel ? It was Emmanuel Perrotin’s — my gallerist’s — choice. Originally, we wanted to present a mix of older and more recent pieces. Afterward, when we really started to work on the show, we changed our minds. It’s not always easy to contrast different periods. In a fair like Art Basel, you need to be loud, obvious. It’s not really the place to explain things. Especially with this year’s setting, on two loors. On the irst loor, I was limited on the formats I could display, because the ceiling is quite low. Some of my older paintings are pretty big, so I imagined new pieces for that particular environment. Did you work in Paris solely for this project ? No. Even though I did some of the smaller pieces here, I have been living in Berlin for nearly a year now, and I mainly work in my studio there. I just built a new contemporary
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“It’s not always easy to contrast different periods. In a fair like Art Basel, you need to be loud, obvious. It’s not really the place to explain things”
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ince he began working in the 1960s the French artist Bernard Frize, 64, has been relentlessly questioning the artistic process and the role of the painter. To him, the notions of work, time, chance and creative tools are key, and the act of painting has to be demystiied. One year ahead of a major retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Simon Lee and Emmanuel Perrotin galleries will present a joint exhibition of his latest works at Art Basel 2018. We caught up with Frize in his Paris studio as he prepared for the show. (This interview was translated from French by the writer.)
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P H OTO : C L A I R E D O R N/C O U R T E S Y P E R R OT I N
“Aromal,” 2015, acrylic and resin on canvas, aluminum stretchers , 160 × 135 cm.
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“Dyade,” 2012, acrylic and resin on canvas, 176 × 207.5 cm.
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“Vernal,” 2014, acrylic and resin on canvas, 220 × 180 cm.
it’s unintentional. When I show my work, I give it away for people to see. At that point, the paintings have a meaning, which is not always the one I had imagined. From then on, the confrontation of viewpoints is more interesting. I can confront my vision with the public’s and get to better understand what I have been wanting to express.
© B E R N A R D F R I Z E / A DAG P, PA R I S 2 018 C O U R T E S Y P E R R OT I N
How do you envision the exhibition of your studio work ? I don’t think an exhibition is a way of giving a supericial meaning to a body of work or series of paintings. It just enables me to update the reasons for the choices I’ve made. There are so many reasons why I do what I do. Some of them even might not be good at all! Sometimes things happen on the canvas, because it’s just the act of working which has called them, or by coincidence.
house in Berlin, with a studio on the top loor. I drew it with the architect. To me, the best constructions are the result of a co-creation. Just like the program of a gallery is imagined between the gallerist and the artists.
Often when we are on site for the hanging, we decide to change this or that. It is important to take the architecture into consideration. But even more to tell a story. We have to take the visitor from one painting to another.
Do you always get deeply involved in your exhibitions ? Yes, of course. First of all, I study the loorplan of the gallery, the space, the volumes that will be devoted to my works. Then the team comes up with mockups where we position the artwork. It’s much better than working on a computer, because of the perspective distortions. I think about it a long time ahead.
Why is that so important to you ? I feel a need for coherence, though sometimes it might not be visible. That’s why I always ind it dificult to talk about an exhibition beforehand. On location you get to see how things articulate. You cannot imagine how dificult it is to switch from interior to exterior. In the studio I am at home. I paint, and work, and there is not necessarily a logic. If there is,
Chance, accidents, are words you often use when you describe the creation process. Why ? I jump from one series of paintings to another. Sometimes I go back to a series, because it resonates with something I have just done. Other times, working on a series is just a way of depleting a theme, a type of painting, until I ind a way out. There are also lonely paintings that are separate from the rest. I am never tired of experimenting. How do you add a painting to a previous series? When it comes, when it resonates with it. When I have inished preparing an exhibition, I can go back to complete a series, or open a
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You have never belonged to any movement and have always kept your independence. Is this a key to understanding your style ? When I started showing my work in the ’70s, minimalism was everywhere. Painting was banned. It was the context. I was never into this, and I’ve always painted my way. Nobody was expecting me, so I felt free to go wherever I chose to go. I remember putting together shows in some of my previous galleries, but nobody showed up for the opening. I am far from being a martyr, but for a long period of time, it was very complicated for me.
appreciate paintings, they understand them. Even the press is more supportive, less supericial. Why is that so ? After World War II, everybody understood culture was the best rampart against barbarism. Since then, each city in Germany has been given a cultural center. For a long time this led to glorious moments for German and American art. Now of course, people, especially outside of metropolitan areas, are becoming more conservative. There are also an incredible number of huge private collections in Germany. You can’t imagine for
getting involved? For now, I want to stay receptive to what she will suggest. Of course there will be discussions. We still have one year to work on it. Right now I’m focused on Art Basel. Some of the works I have not even painted. I don’t even know what they will be! Do you listen to what people say or write about your work? Not really. It really depends who’s talking. I also have an ability to isolate myself from the world when I work. Nobody can distract me from what I’m doing. I usually plan whole days of painting, and since I paint quite quickly, it’s generally pretty productive. When I paint, I can’t stop. I need at least four hours in a row. But it has to be every day.
“The confrontation of viewpoints is more interesting. I can confront my vision with the public’s and get to better understand what I have been wanting to express”
Do you feel things are easier today for painters ? For me yes, but not only me. Even for young painters, the whole environment has changed. Today, a painter does not have to prove he is a painter. A few years back, critics, journalists had put a ban on painting. The only thing that they cared for was conceptual art and installations. Intellectually we are still there, but commercially, painting is making a comeback.
Are these some of the reasons you chose to settle in Berlin? Yes but not only. What struck me in Germany is the fact that people don’t care about whether you paint or not. What interests them if whether good, or not. Exchanging ideas with other artists is easier too. In Germany people
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example the number of Warhol’s works that are kept in private hands there. How are you working on your exhibition next year at Pompidou in Paris ? In fact I’m not working on it at all. I have been very busy with other things, and so has the curator, Angela Lampe. What interests me in this retrospective is the vision of the curator, which is not a traditional one. I’m intrigued by her angle, how she sees my work. It’s quite dificult to imagine you not
How do you choose your different formats? They depend on what I intend to do with them. For each project comes a speciic canvas. But since I paint alone, I am relatively limited to the scope that my little arms can cover. Also when I lay the canvases on the loor, I need to use small ones, otherwise I can’t reach the middle. That’s why I don’t paint huge formats.
What do you consider key to the longevity of you career, your persistence? Mainly because I’ve had the chance to have galleries on my side that have always supported my work. Or else I would have messed up. Since 2000 I have been working with Emmanuel Perrotin, for instance. I was the irst painter in his gallery. Before me, he had never shown any paintings. His support has enabled my work to evolve. I am not the only one responsible. MP
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new one. Many opportunities lay ahead. I am not sure it’s calculated. It just happens. I am not interested in branding my work. I understand perfectly the need for some artists to always do the same thing. But I could never do this!
“Espacé,”2018, acrylic and resin on canvas, wooden frame, 225 x 170 cm.
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the
BALTICS A SERIES OF ART EVENTS, FROM THE BALTIC TRIENNIAL TO THE RIGA BIENNIAL, MARK THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF LATVIA, ESTONIA AND LITHUANIA — AT A TIME OF RISING NATIONALISM AROUND THE WORLD
BY LOUISA ELDERTON
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C O U R T E S Y O F B R I D G E T D O N A H U E , N E W YO R K ; A N G L I M G I L B E R T GA L L E R Y, S A N F R A N C I S C O A N D WA L D B U R G E R W O U T E R S , B R U S S E L S
RETHINKING
Lynn Hershman-Leeson, “Glo Cat,” 2012, digital archival print, 58 x 76 cm, From the installation Infinity Engine, 2011–18, video projections, DNA bottles, DNA, wallpaper, lab coats, interactive screens, genetics lab artefacts and files.
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tepping over slushy puddles of melting snow is a prerequisite of visiting Latvia’s capital city of Riga in early April. During this period, the Vilnius-based art center RUPERT curated the exhibition “Undersong” at Kim?, beginning the snowballing series of cultural happenings in the Baltic region this year to mark the 100th anniversary of the independence of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Kim? is Riga’s intimate Kunsthalle, occupying an unassuming, grey building on the corner of intersecting gridded streets found at the edge of Riga’s Old Town — a historical center of labyrinthine cobbled roads, churches and cultural monuments that was given UNESCO World Heritage status in the late 1990s. Its name is an abbreviation of “what is art?” (“kas ir maksla?” in Latvian), and the organization supports emerging artists,
curators and thinkers as an open platform for collaboration. “Undersong” brought together the works of two young Lithuanian artists, Lina Lapelyte and Indre Serpytyte, which sat in two separate but interconnected rooms. Working with performance and sound, Lapelyte’s installation “The Trouble with Time,” 2017, enveloped the listener in a composition influenced by sutartines, traditional Lithuanian multi-part songs. Serpytyte also explores tradition, though often with political undertones. Her presentation surrounded the viewer with ornamental patterns from the Baltic States’ customary woven sashes, individual panels set against a vast wall installation of interlocking gray geometric shapes. The exhibition’s curator Juste Jonutyte, who is the director of RUPERT, sees an affinity between RUPERT and Kim?, and believes “collaboration and finding common ground are certainly incredibly
C O U R T E S Y K AT R I N A N E I B U R GA
Katrina Neiburga, “Pickled long cucumbers,” 2017, two-channel video, color, sound, 11’ 44’’.
C O U R T E S Y K E R S T I N H A M I LTO N
Kerstin Hamilton, “A World Made By Science,” 2018, photos mounted on aluminum, variable dimensions.
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C O U R T E S Y J A M E S B E C K E T T A N D W I L F R I E D L E N T Z , R OT T E R DA M
James Beckett, “Palace Ruin,” 2016, public sculpture (powder-coated steel, accoya acetylated wood, multiplex, Indian ink, smoke), 7.2 x 3.5 x 5.7 meters.
C O U R T E S Y A S I ( T H E AG E N CY O F S I N G U L A R I N V E S T I GAT I O N S )
ASI (The Agency of Singular Investigations) “The Flower Power Archive,” 2018, multimedia installation.
important at this time of rising nationalism.” Both Lapelyte and Serpytyte will also feature in the numerous events taking place in the Baltics this year, including the 13th Baltic Triennial curated by Vincent Honoré, which takes place in Vilnius from May to August, Tallinn from June to September, and Riga (at Kim?) from September to November; and the Riga International Biennial for Contemporary Art (RIBOCA1) curated by Katerina Gregos, which opens in June. Titled “GIVE UP THE GHOST” and “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More,” respectively, both engage with the current political climate in which artists are working, choosing not to shy away from issues of rising nationalism in Eastern Europe and beyond. Honoré places the notion of belonging at the center of his exhibition and recalls that he was approached to curate the Triennial “at a time when Brexit and more generally populist movements were (and still are) jeopardizing
the European Union,” he said. “I was approached when Donald Trump was running for the American presidential elections. All these factors, and others including debates on gender, race, and socio-economical ruptures to do with class, encouraged me not to think of this anniversary in a nostalgic manner, but as a chance to rethink our presence within the world.” Intending the 13th Baltic Triennial to be a place of “disorder,” he said he believes that this “disorder is now more vital than ever,” allowing “us to think in a fluid way, outside of fixed, straight, binary norms.” He continued: “We need to disrupt — not necessarily the way others think — but the way we personally think, and to question our norms so they migrate, they evolve, they change, they mutate.” To avoid the exhibition becoming sprawling, the iterations (chapters) of the Triennial will take place in just one venue in each city, and will include new commissions, performances
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Maarten Vanden Eynde, “Cosmic Connection,” 2016, metal, recycled telephone and computer circuit boards, jute cloth and concrete, 8 × 3 × 8 m.
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C O U R T E S Y M A A R T E N VA N D E N E Y N D E A N D V E R B E K E F O U N DAT I O N , K E M Z E K E , B E LG I U M
ART CAN INFLUENCE ONE’S IDEAS ABOUT THE WORLD, IT CAN STIMULATE ONE’S INTEREST IN OTHER CULTURES AND VALUES. ART CAN TURN PREJUDICE AND INTOLERANCE INTO CURIOSITY AND COMPREHENSION and live events. Rooted in three main themes, the groupings have been organized so that Vilnius will focus on “notions of belonging to a (geographical, ecological or cultural) territory, with Sanya Kantarovsky, Rachel Rose, Augustas Serapinas, Laure Prouvost and Dora Budor being some examples,” Honoré said, while “Tallinn will focus more on the body (the moving body, the fragmented body, the expressive body, the political body) with Paul Maheke, Kris Lemsalu, Nina Beier, Hannah Black, Jesse Darling and a group of extraordinary historical works by Ulo Sooster, Pierre Molinier and Derek Jarman.” Finally, he said, “Riga will address more directly citizenship and our relation to the public sphere and social structures with an active public program, a major commission by Ben Burgis and Ksenia Pedan, as well as works by Pierre Huyghe, Sandra Jogeva and others.” Beyond the role of reflecting on our current socio-political environment, what agency can art have in enabling change? For Gregos, the curator of the Riga biennial, “while art cannot change the world, per se, it has the power to influence and change the way people think, and through changing people, it can change the world. Art cannot tell you what to do, but art can connect one to the world (indeed, multiple worlds) through one’s senses and through the power of the imagination. Art can influence one’s ideas about the world, it can stimulate one’s interest in other cultures and values. Art can turn prejudice and intolerance into curiosity and comprehension.” Taking place in 10 venues throughout Riga, RIBOCA1 coincides with the final leg of the 13th Baltic Triennial. While Gregos cites the increasing acceleration in our lives and the
importance of pausing to reflect, deceleration seems far from this city’s reach. Regardless, Gregos promises “it will be possible to see everything in two days, at a human pace and without rushing. I’ve also taken care not to have too many hours-long videos, which make enormous demands on the viewer. I’ve spaced the work and the media in such a way that one will get a chance to breathe inside the spaces and between them. The result will not be overload.” With a list that includes Latvian artists such as Vladimir Svetlov, Paulis Liepa, Kristaps Epners, Katrina Neiburga and Ieva Epnere, as well as a broad range of international voices from Sissel Tolaas (Norway/Germany), Nabil Boutros (Egypt/ France), Michael Landy (UK) and Mark Dion (USA) to Marina Pinsky (Russia/Belgium), Kerstin Hamilton (Sweden) and Marco Montiel-Soto (Venezuela/Germany), the grouping is certainly innovative. Gregos recognizes the hyperactive growth of the art industry, underlining how in the “last decades art has turned into a commodity, a luxury good even, and it has become a toy or trophy prize in the hands of the very affluent.” Arguably, the slew of recent biennales, triennials and exhibitions feeds into this. In the curator’s view, art has become “a tool for city marketing and an incentive for the enlargement of prestige and reputation of people and organizations,” she said. However, for Gregos, “art also needs attention in quietude, which is hard to expect with hundreds of people around you in a crowded museum. It is a question of pluses and minuses, and checks and balances, with, for the moment, uncertain results.” MP
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GIACOMETTI NOW
Alberto Giacometti’s “The Cat (Le Chat),” 1951, painted gypsum, 32.8 x 81.3 x 13.5 cm, Fondation Giacometti, Paris.
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M EGA N FON TA N ELLA, T H E CU R ATOR OF A BLOCK BUST ER SHOW AT T H E GUGGEN H EI M, R EFLECTS ON T H E R ELEVA NCE OF T H E SCU LP TOR’S WOR K I N OU R AGE OF A LI ENAT ION A N D A DVA NCEM EN T
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BY AMY ZION
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Alberto Giacometti’s “Women of Venice (Femmes de Venise),” 1956, gypsum and painted gypsum, height between 108 and 138 cm, Fondation Giacometti, Paris.
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n June 8, the Guggenheim Museum in New York opens the irst major museum presentation of the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti in the United States in 15 years. The exhibition is a collaboration between the museum and the Fondation Giacometti, based in Paris. In this conversation, the Guggenheim curator Megan Fontanella discusses how the show came about and how she — along with the foundation’s director and exhibition curator, Catherine Grenier — selected more than 200 sculptures, paintings, and drawings for the present show. Amy Zion: In 1950, MoMA staged the exhibition “New Images of Man,” which featured works by Giacometti among other artists, framed around this idea of how artists were responding in various ways (both igurative and abstract) to the sociopolitical moment through their representations of humanity. In the introduction to the exhibition catalogue, the philosopher Paul Tillich states: “One need only look at the dehumanizing structure of the totalitarian systems in one half of the world, and the dehumanizing consequences of technical mass civilization in the other half. In addition, the conlict between them may lead to the annihilation of humanity.” Do you ind resonance in the moment today in terms of political anxieties? How are you contextualizing Giacometti’s work
in this current exhibition? Megan Fontanella: Yes, I do think Giacometti’s work will resonate, although every era has its set of anxieties; technology is advancing rapidly, but this material is really relevant. With any historical material, I’m always interested in how Contemporary artists can look at it and it might be a catalyst for some mode of inquiry in their work. And so it’s always interesting to see if an artist like Giacometti, who is considered a major sculptor of the 20th century, can continue to catalyze different modes of art-making in the 21st century. Zion: Can you take us through how the exhibition came about — why did the museum decide to dedicate its rotunda to the work of Giacometti, why now, and what is your speciic interest in the artist and his work? Fontanella: The current Giacometti exhibition is irst and foremost a collaboration between the Guggenheim foundation and Fondation Giacometti (one of two foundations that represent the artist) and an opportunity for the Guggenheim to re-investigate our relationship with the artist and to show our continuing commitment. But it was really the foundation that approached us as part of their initiative to demonstrate the depth of their holdings and bring to America works that haven’t been seen here in many years. There are over 200 works in the exhibition — selections from the
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Zion: Can you speak more about the history of the Guggenheim’s relationship to the artist? Fontanella: The Guggenheim organized the irst museum presentation of Giacometti in the then-temporary space (before the Frank Lloyd Wright building opened in 1959), in 1955, under the director James Johnson Sweeney. When Sweeney came to the helm in 1952, he was interested in expanding our sculptural holdings, in particular. Up until that point, the museum had been founded on really this idea of investigating legacies of abstraction and non-objective painting. In 1955, there was already an appetite for his work among American audiences, but the Guggenheim exhibition really solidiied Giacometti’s career in America. And for the institution, it signaled its commitment to sculpture, and it did acquire a number of works including “Spoon Woman” (1926), which is included in the current exhibition. Then, in 1975, the Guggenheim mounted a posthumous retrospective in the Wright building. However, this 2018 exhibition will be the irst time Giacometti’s work will be exhibited in the full rotunda. Alberto Giacometti’s “Spoon Woman (Femme cuillère),” 1927, gypsum, 146.5 x 51.6 x 21.5 cm, Fondation Giacometti, Paris.
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Zion: And is this exhibition organized in a thematic fashion? Chronologically? Or around different bodies of work? Fontanella: It unfolds chronologically, which enables us to track his travels and encounters with other art movements throughout his career. He’s deeply
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foundation in Paris supplemented by some private and public US and European loans — so it’s not exclusively an exhibition of the foundation’s collection, but rather that’s the core of the show. The foundation was set up by Giacometti’s widow, Annette, who was the subject of so much of his work. Working with the foundation and my co-curator Catherine Grenier, its director and chief curator, the drawings, sketchbooks, and archives have all been available at our ingertips.
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“IN THIS NEW TECHNOLOGICAL WORLD WHERE EVERYONE IS SO INTERCONNECTED, GIACOMETTI ARTICULATES THE IDEA OF FEELING ALONE WITHIN A CROWD”
Zion: Thinking back over the last ive years, this was a very strange period in which to plan an exhibition with respect to how much has shifted in the political climate and how much has shifted in art discourses. Does that play into its creation, or do you feel like you have to disconnect slightly from those conversations in order to build something for posterity? Fontanella: That’s what makes the material so interesting. In the post-war era he was thinking about one’s position in the world and one’s humanity. In this new technological world where everyone is so interconnected, Giacometti articulates the idea of feeling alone within a crowd. Isolation, alienation, how do we connect with each other on a deeper level — these issues are perhaps more relevant than ever. Zion: From a curatorial perspective how do you draw out these themes of existentialism, alienation, the role of the artist in the post-war era in the exhibition itself as well as the catalogue? Fontanella: Giacometti was very interested in the viewer’s eyes meeting his sculptures and paintings. So we have been considering that in relation to our placement of works so that you do
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have that personal encounter. In those years leading up to World War II he is working in a smaller scale, paring things down until the works are say seven inches high. So that shift in scale will be really dramatic in the building because some of the works are quite intimate within the context of this austere building. Zion: Can you talk about one work in the exhibition that was perhaps a surprise to you or one work that exempliies what you are trying to do with the exhibition in greater detail? Fontanella: “The Nose” from the postwar era 1947 from the Guggenheim’’s collection is an iconic Giacometti work (of which he cast several versions); it came into the collection in the ’60s, though it was modeled in the late ’40s. At that moment, he’s coming out of the war, and I think the horrors of the war are coming to light in the larger public arena, in the news, while Giacometti is coming into maturity and deining himself as an artist. It has this kind of out-size pointy nose and it is trapped inside this cage — the cage will become a recurring theme that is evident in sculptures and paintings in the show. He is thinking about space, and how objects occupy space. The pointy nose is hanging from the top of the cage from this rope; it takes this menacing, rile-like form — and it comes out of this moment of grappling with where we igure in human existence and thinking about those existentialist themes. MP
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inluenced by his time spent in Paris, by Cubism, African and Egyptian Art plays a signiicant role in his art as well — that will manifest particularly in his drawings as well as in his sculpture.
Somogy Art Publishers since 1937 w w w. s o m o g y. n e t © Nancy, musée des Beaux-Arts / Cliché Michel Bourguet – Émile Friant, La petite barque, 1895
C O U R T E S Y M PA
MPA “Untitled Red #5,” 2015,inkjet print, 7 x 7 in. (17.8 x 17.8 cm).
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“MADE IN L.A.”
THE HAMMER MUSEUM BIENNIAL CELEBRATES THE DIVERSITY OF THE CITY’S EMERGING ARTISTS BY RICHARD CHANG
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Carolina Caycedo, “Cosmotarraya Yaqui,” 2016, hand-dyed artisanal fishing net, led weights, wood stick, cotton poncho, leather maracas, dry chile pepper, 35 7/16 x 21 21/32 x 3 15/16 in. (90 x 55 x 10 cm).
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n preparation for this year’s “Made in L.A.” biennial, Hammer Museum curators Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale ventured out to more than 200 artists’ studios over seven months and visited dozens of gallery and museum exhibitions. They narrowed a list of hundreds down to 32 artists. The result of their work is “Made in L.A. 2018,” the fourth iteration of the Hammer’s popular group exhibition, which focuses on emerging artists who represent a cross-section of the greater Los Angeles area, with some established, veteran artists sprinkled in. “When we started doing studio visits, we weren’t necessarily thinking of anything to drive the show,” said Christovale, a recently appointed assistant curator at the Hammer, which is afiliated with UCLA. “But nationally speaking, there’s been a major shift — the election of a new president and the new political climate that we’re all dealing with. It’s sort of a thread throughout the show. It’s not necessarily that that artists are reacting to it, but more so, they’re bringing in their personal stories.” Hammer senior curator Ellegood concurs. “In the end, we were drawn to work, or artists’ practices, that seemed to be contending with the current moment. We deinitely saw some shared interests emerge: issues of the environment, landscape, the histories of land and landscape in Southern California.” “Made in L.A. 2018” opens June 3 and is on view through Sept. 2. Artists range from Mercedes Dorame (b. 1981), a member of the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe of California, who explores her grandparents’ land in Malibu through photography; to Daniel Joseph Martinez (b. 1957), a conceptual provocateur who rocked the 1993 Whitney Biennial with admission badges that read, “I Can’t Ever Imagine Wanting to Be White.” Martinez, along with James Benning and Linda Stark, will exhibit works that represent their practices at mid-career. But the majority of artists are on the younger side, born in 1975 or later. Iranian American Gelare Khoshgozaran (b. 1986) has
C O U R T E S Y R O S H A YAG H M A I
Rosha Yaghmai, “Cave by fire (black awning),” 2016, cast fiberglass, enamel, silverleaf, tinfoil, 81 3/4 x 58 x 9 in., (207.6 x 147.3 x 22.9 cm).
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Linda Stark, “Self portrait with Ray,” 2017, oil on canvas over panel, 36 x 36 x 2 in. (91.4 x 91.4 x 518 cm).
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T H I S PAG E: C O U R T E S Y L I N DA S TA R K FAC I N G PAG E: C O U R T E S Y E A M O N O R E - G I R O N
Eamon Ore-Giron, “Top ranking,” 2015, flashe on linen, 66 x 56 in. , (167.6 x 142.2 cm), private collection.
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C O U R T E S Y D I E D R I C K B R AC K E N S A N D S T E V E T U R N E R GA L L E R Y, LO S A N G E L E S
Diedrick Brackens, “Sleep don’t come easy,” 2016, woven cotton, nylon, chenille yarn, cotton fabric, 61 × 52 in. (154.9 x 132.1 cm).
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C O U R T E S Y L U C H I TA H U R TA D OA N D PA R K V I E W/PAU L S OTO, LO S A N G E L E S A N D B R U S S E L S P H OTO: C O L E R O OT
created a ilm that explores the physical similarities between California and her home country of Iran. A portion of the ilm was shot at Medina Wasl, a national Army training center in the California desert that’s used to simulate a Middle Eastern town. “It’s supposed to look like Iran or Afghanistan and it speaks to the ongoing wartime effort,” Christovale said, “which is weird. Super weird.” The artist who calls herself “MPA” (b. 1980) will install a sculpture, “Faultline,” which will meander through the museum’s outdoor courtyard and terrace and into the galleries, conjuring a symbolic space in which oppositional and complementary positions intend to meet. GOING BEYOND PAINT ON CANVAS Relecting the nature of art today, the artworks in the LA biennial span a broad range of mediums, from painting, sculpture and photography to textiles, performance, video, assemblage and installation. Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989) combines European tapestries, African textiles and
Southern American quilting techniques to trace the trajectories of African American histories and experiences. He will have three large-scale wall tapestries on view — they’re structured like a play in three acts. Flora Wiegmann (b. 1976) is a dancer who will perform live in the galleries ive times during the biennial. A 6-part video of her performance, called “Reduction Burn,” will play on monitors throughout the run of the exhibition. “I was really excited that additionally, once we got to talking, to make sure I had gallery space as well, instead of just a performance,” said Wiegmann, who lives in Venice. “I like to perform in the same space as the audience. I like to interact with the bodies and show how dance can be an object. It can have a weight to it.” Wiegmann’s recent work is inspired by the 2017 California wildires and their resulting destruction and degradation on the landscape. Naotaka Hiro (b. 1972), like a few other artists in the biennial, focuses on the body and actually uses his body to make humanscaled paintings and sculptures. His
inluences include Bruce Nauman and Gutai, the Japanese avant-garde art collective active from 1954 to 1972. “I started to draw this image I had,” said Hiro, a Pasadena resident, about the germination of his latest series. “I had a storyboard and I drew movement and poses. Then I place my body directly onto the paper. I used the shape of my body, or even movement — that’s how I started the work on paper. And with my life-cast sculpture, it’s the same idea. I wrap myself with plastic silicon to get my body double. I paint inside a bag in the canvas. I wrap myself — the medium is always in direct contact with my body.” Carmen Argote (b. 1981) of LA’s Lincoln Heights neighborhood makes installations out of everyday objects — coffee makers, coffee, paper, muslin fabric circles and acrylic paint. Her “Platform with Mobile Unit,” 2017, made a splash at the Panel.LA group exhibition in 2017. “I’m really happy to be included in this group,” said Argote, 36, who was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and moved to the United States when she was 5. Through
Luchita Hurtado, “Untitled,” 1970, oil on canvas, 30 x 50 inches, (76.2 x 127 cm).
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college, grad school and the LA art scene, she knows several of her fellow artists in the biennial. “The conversation between the artists is especially exciting for me. It’s great to have that discourse across time.” John Houck (b. 1977) borrows from his background as a computer programmer and IT guy to make a new kind of photography. “It’s more akin to painting,” said the Silver Lake resident. “With each subsequent photo I can change the direction of the light. Through re-photographing and printing, I can make something new. For me, it kind of speaks to this iterative feedback nature of making a picture. You get the same kind of feeling writing a few lines of code, seeing how it works, then writing a few more.” Houck’s work, “The Creation Of,” 2016, caught the attention of the Hammer curators with its theatrical and painterly elements, and its photographic depiction of two hands entering the right side of the image and touching the needles of two cacti. “Each image is a new input,” he said. “So the output gets sent back in as an input.” Houck says being a part of “Made in L.A. 2018” is “a tremendous honor,” and the biennial itself is a great barometer of artistic talent in Los Angeles. “It’s the best place for an artist to live, no question,” he said of Los Angeles. Houck has also lived in New York City and was born and raised in South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “Perceptual experiences are so LA — thinking about the way in which color and the light of LA inluences one’s perception,” he said. “Space here is much better. In New York, you have to hustle so hard to be able to afford a tiny studio. There’s something a little more at-ease (here) and laid back that I really appreciate.
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C O U R T E S Y L AU R E N H A L S E YA N D S T U D I O M U S E U M I N H A R L E M , N E W YO R K P H OTO: T E X A S I S A I A H
Lauren Halsey, “Kingdom Splurge,” 2015, gypsum, plaster, pigment, acrylic paint, 264 x 72 x 10 in. (670.6 x 182.9 x 25.4 cm). Installation view, “Everything, Everyday: Artists in Residence 2014 – 2015,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, July 16- October 26, 2015.
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Houck also believes that the LA art world is growing, and offers breathing room and privacy for developing artists. “You don’t have people constantly looking at your work and being so on display all the time. In LA, you can carve out your own private space as well.” ORIGINS OF A BIENNIAL “Made in L.A.” started in 2012, with a second version in 2014 and a third in 2016. The biennials stem from the Hammer’s invitational exhibitions, which occurred every two years and included “Snapshot” in 2001, “International Paper” in 2003, “Thing” in 2005, “Eden’s Edge” in 2007, “Nine Lives” in 2009 and “All of this and nothing” in 2011. The irst “Made in L.A.” was organized by a team of curators from the Hammer
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Museum and LAXART, an independent, nonproit art space in West Hollywood that features contemporary and experimental art, lectures and events. Participants in this biennial will not leave empty handed. Each artist receives an honorarium for his or her work. In addition, three awards will carry cash prizes, funded by Los Angeles philanthropists and art collectors Jarl and Pamela Mohn. The Mohn Award of $100,000 and the Career Achievement Award of $25,000 will be selected by a professional jury. The Public Recognition Award of $25,000 will be determined through a public vote. All the artists in the exhibition are eligible to receive the awards. The biennial’s curators want to
emphasize the diversity of the artists included in the show, as they hail from Tehran, Mumbai, Guadalajara, San Salvador, Osaka, Caracas and many other cities and countries. Two-thirds of the participating artists are women. “Artists from this particular show are from all over the place, and have continued that conversation with their homeland in interesting ways,” Christovale said. “LA is also very much an international city. That’s something that also comes out in this show.” MP
COURTESY SUNÉ WOODS
Suné Woods, “Still from falling to get here,” 2017, single-channel video installation, dimensions variable, color, sound, 9:39 min.
C O U R T E S Y C E L E S T E D U P U Y- S P E N C E R A N D N I N O M I E R GA L L E R Y, LO S A N G E L E S C O U R T E S Y M A L B O R O U G H C O N T E M P O R A R Y, N E W YO R K
Celeste DupuySpencer, “Cajun Navy,” 2016, 2017, oil on canvas, 19 x 16 in., (50.8 x 40.6 cm).
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“Grand HexaNet,” 2018, view from below, aluminium tubes, red anodized finish, nylon, motors, electronic interface, 4,39 x 5,02 meters, height: 10 meters Artistes et Robots, Grand Palais RMN, Paris.
P H OTO BY C R I S TO B A L O C H OA
THE ART IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The curator Jérôme Neutres and the artist Elias Crespin, key figures in the “Artists & Robots” show in Paris, talk about the role of technology in art, and the new frontiers that A.I. portends BY JÉRÔME NEUTRES
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J
érôme Neutres — director of strategy and development for the conference of national museums in France, and also a critic and writer — was one of the curators of the “Artists and Robots” exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, which is on view through July 9. In this conversation with Elias Crespin, a Venezuelan-born artist who builds kinetic sculptures using complex algorithms, they discuss the evolution of Crespin’s work and the future of Artiicial Intelligence as it pertains to art.
Jérôme Neutres
“If you are an artist and have access to some technology and you find a way to use it to give birth to your work, it’s going to happen. Technology has always been used by artists” 92
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P H OTO D E M I R C O M AG L I O C C A
You started your career as a computer engineer. When and how did you start creating art? As a teenager I wanted to be an architect. I loved to draw blueprints. Invent houses. I also had art inluence from my family tradition. And then, both my parents are mathematicians. So listening about how to approach a theorem solution happened once in a while. Then came computers. My father brought home an Apple II. I learned to program with the programmer’s tutorial, which taught you how to generate numbers and use them to place lines, pixels or dots on the screen. You changed the generation rules and the result changed in speed, pattern. … This was in the late ’70s. This way I fell in love with programming and decided to go for computer science at the UCV in Caracas and not architecture. During my time there, I developed more visualization programs and experiments, even functions in 3D. It was fun. I graduated in 1990. And although working in the computer ield to make a living turned out to be possible, it also came clear it was much less fun than visualizing number sets. That is probably why, 10 years later, in 2000, when I found myself face to face in front of a Jesús Soto “Cubo Vibratorio,” I got fascinated with a new idea. It was, I
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“Grand HexaNet,” 2018, (detail view) aluminium tubes, red anodized finish, nylon, motors, electronic interface 4,39 x 5,02 meters, height: 10 meters, Artistes et Robots, Grand Palais RMN, Paris.
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P H OTO BY C R I S TO B A L O C H OA
Elias Crespin and “Grand HexaNet,” 2018, Artistes et Robots, Grand Palais, Paris.
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“Grand HexaNet,” 2018, (view from the balcony), Artistes et Robots, Grand Palais, Paris.
think, the most important moment of inspiration for starting my artistic work. The inspiration process was this: This is a wonderful and beautiful sculpture — I was really in shock — based on thousands of precisely colored vertical nylon strings, organized in a X,Y plane, creating a colored volume. If I use a program similar to my early 3D visualization experiments, to move an object like this one, I may have an evolution opportunity for the art scene at the tip of my ingers. But how to do it? Two years later I had spare time and was able to play with computers and disquette and printer motors to develop a multi axis computer system which would be the basis for a dancing articulated object. Two years of development to have the irst work ready. I was invited to show it and from there followed another exhibition invitation, then a new scaled up art work. From there one work brings up new ideas or variations and other exhibitions and so on….
P H OTO BY R A FA E L B O N E T
What is your vision of Artiicial Intelligence in the ield of arts? Do you see the new tech as a medium of expression, a tool, or a topic in itself? And do you still feel acting as an engineer, or only as an artist? Or can we say you act as a “scientiic artist”? The new tech is clearly a new medium. So is A.I. If you are an artist and have access to some technology and you ind a way to use it to give birth to your work, it’s going to happen. Technology has always been used by artists. And we are talking about technology we see now and have seen, maybe not yet used on the art scene. We don’t even imagine what is going to be the available tools in 10 years from now…. The thing is that with suficiently evolved A.I., the A.I. as a being can start exploring new technologies by itself and who knows maybe expressing itself in ways we wouldn’t imagine. Or maybe such an intelligence would ind it useless to be an artist and stop making art...[he laughs]. Myself, I think I act as an artist with the technology I have at hand, not as a scientiic artist. Although sometimes I have to pass through research and results collection as a research project. Born Venezuelan, do you feel a special relationship with the legacy of an artist like Soto? We cannot not think of kinetic art looking at your mobiles… As I mentioned before, I was very strongly inspired by Soto and his kinetic cubes. But I agree, my work is something else. It has kinetic basis but it has a whole development and thought process, together with hardware and software which evolve in versions, etc. which make my work be something else. I am still looking for the correct terminology to categorize my mobiles.
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Don’t you think that the auto generative system driving your sculptures bring an unlimited time of the work of art, and therefore questions the ininity? I believe numbers themselves call for thinking of ininity. Also the randomly generated sequence of metamorphosed conigurations in my work makes one think of ininity. But the engineer in me immediately thinks of the life time of the components. What’s going to be left in a million years? Who are the Contemporary artists you admire the most? Are you collecting digital art yourself? I very modestly collect digital art. So far I have a Miguel Chevalier. My favorite contemporaries? Marco Maggi , Leandro Erlich, Gladys Nistor, Bruce Shapiro, Olaffur Eliasson. I’m also inspired by Gianni Colombo, Shohei Fujimoto, Joanie Lemercier and Fred Sandback.
After our Astana initial show in 2017, and now the Grand Palais in Paris, are you ready for an “Artists & Robots” part III? Any idea for the show? I would love to see “Artists & Robots” travel to more geographies and share the experience. I think you have done a great job putting all these works together as part of the bigger idea Artiicial Imagination and Creation. It is both interesting and worrying. In any case it makes you think and maybe act, which is so important. MP Jesús Soto’s “Cubo Virtual,” 1984, wood, nylon, acrylic paint, 230.00 x 66.00 x 66.00 cm.
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P H OTO BY S A N T I AG O M I JA N G O S H I DA LG O - S A AV E D R A
After the monumental and sublime “Grand HexaNet” you made especially for the Grand Palais “Artists & Robots” (everybody says it is a high spot of the show), do you think you can go further in this research? What are your upcoming artistic challenges? I would like to try sideways moving of suspended elements in addition to the vertical movement. Increase the scale and the number of elements. Higher resolution. New media. Integrate daily common objects — can’t give details…. Some years ago I thought of locks of drones but now Intel has done it…. Flock behavior like interacting beings in Bruno Latour “Gaia” models. Elastic dynamic volumes. New generative algorithms. Evolve “Grand HexaNet” behavior — it’s all in the to-do list.
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THE EVOLUTION OF MICHAL ROVNER W I T H A N E X H I BI T ION AT PACE , T H E ISR A EL I A RT IST ONCE AGA I N SHOWS WOR KS T H AT STA N D “A BOV E T I M E A N D C U LT U R E” BY FRANCA TOSCANO “Tmuna,” 2008, Stone with video projection, 51 X 39 X 22 cm.
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“Broken Land,” 2007, Stone with video projection, 133 X 119 X 13 cm.
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n the spring of 2011, two large cubic structures appeared in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Positioned near the glass pyramid, they were made up of more than 1,000 stones collected from various spots in Israel and the Palestinian territories — East and West Jerusalem, Haifa, Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah — and constructed using traditional methods by a mix of Israeli Arab, Jewish, Palestinian and Druze masons, who were made to work side by side. The structures looked inviting from afar. Yet as you came closer, you realized that one was all but sealed shut, and the other was uninished, as if abandoned in midconstruction. Those stone shelters are part of a series of sculptures titled “Makom” by the Israeli artist Michal Rovner, whose art addresses themes of boundaries, displacement and the human condition. Rovner sprang to international fame with a 2002 Whitney Museum mid-career show and an eye-catching exhibition at the 2003 Venice Biennale. She has been represented ever since by the Pace Gallery, and this spring has staged an exhibition for the gallery in Palo Alto and in New York (until June 23). Rovner is also busy producing a work of art for one of the stations on London’s Crossrail transport line, which opens at the end of the year. “Evolution” (the title of the Pace exhibition) included video works and prints that bear Rovner’s signature motif: rows of horizontal lines that look like ancient scripture, but are in fact miniature representations of human igures. Like ant colonies, these tiny igures move across the
“Data Zone 1,” 2003, Steel table, eight Petri dishes and video projection, 84 X 301 X 80 cm.
C LO C K W I S E F R O M TO P : R OV N E R S T U D I O | TO P R I G H T: A H M E T KO C A B I Y I K | B OT TO M T W O : C O U R T E S Y M I C H A L R OV N E R A N D PAC E W I L D E N S T E I N , N E W YO R K
“Broken Time,” 2009, Stone with video projection 200 X 110 X 70 cm.
“Data Zone, Cultures Tables,” 2003, Steel table, eight Petri dishes and video projection, 84 X 301 X 80 cm.
“Data Zone, Cultures Tables,” 2003, Steel table, eight Petri dishes and video projection, 84 X 301 X 80 cm.
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surface of the artwork, making circular or crisscrossing shapes. “Nilus” (2018), one of the works in the Pace show, is the silhouette of a jackal in the night. The creature is shown in proile, spread across two screens that look like the pages of a book. The backdrops to it, once again, are Rovner’s signature rows of miniature igures. “My work is dealing, all in all, with questions of identity of place and time,” the artist said in an interview. While that identity is universal and not particular to
her region of the world, she explained, her birthplace underpins whatever she does: “As much as I’m always looking for a non-speciic person in the nonspeciic place, which could be anywhere, the reality and undercurrent is always there.” Rovner’s 2003 exhibition at the Venice Biennale arguably did the most to put her on the international art map. The centerpiece, “Time Left” (2002), consisted of a wall-to-wall video representing rows of tiny silhouettes marching silently and
purposefully towards an unidentiied destination. And on a landing between two loors, Rovner showed “Data Zone” (2003), a set of long tables covered with petri dishes in which, once again, those same ant-like igures were projected. “Superb” was the word used in Venice by the critic Laura Cummings of The Observer. “Rovner works with tiny groups of igures, black against snowwhite, a human race that forms and reforms itself in columns and wheels and crowds that circle
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Michal Rovner’s “Cipher (Mechanism / R),” 2018, LCD screen and video, 57-1/8” x 32-5/8” x 3-3/8” (145.1 x 82.9 x 8.6 cm).
COURTESY GEORGE FOK
“3 Color Rock,”2006, Steel vitrine with glass, stone and video projection, 145 X 81 X 51 cm.
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Rovner said in the interview that even at the time, she realized she was experiencing an important milestone. “I would say I was discovered at that moment as an artist worldwide,” she said. “People stood in line and looked at it — this kind of remote look that brought up questions like: ‘Is this the way God sees us?’ ” While Rovner already had her mid-career retrospective at the Whitney by that point, she was still not represented by a prominent U.S. gallery. The Venice installation was a game
changer. She was approached on the spot by the American dealer Arne Glimcher, founder of the Pace Gallery, who told her his gallery wanted to show her work. Rovner’s immediate response was startling. “Let me think about it,” she said she replied, “like a woman playing hard to get.” Glimcher was not deterred, and invited her to Harry’s Bar that night for a gallery dinner. There, she said he stood up, clinked his glass and said, “Years ago, we were here in Harry’s Bar, and we signed up Rauschenberg
“Shichva,” 2005, Steel vitrine with glass, stone and video projection, 145 X 81 X 51 cm.
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round and round until individuals start to break away,” she wrote. “Set to very beautiful music, with a heartbeat of its own, these igures, in their long black clothes, can look like soldiers retreating from Moscow, or Eisenstein crowds, or prisoners in a Polish ghetto. Projected on screens, on Petri dishes or directly on all four walls, these ilms hauntily evoke the diaspora. But they also tell an epic tale of mankind creeping onwards, a chain forever renewing itself.”
COURTESY AR DON BAR - HAMA
“Makom II,” Israel, 2007, Stone structure, 5 X 5 X 3.6 meters.
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“Broken Book”, 2005, Steel vitrine with glass, stone and video projection, 145 X 81 X 51 cm.
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“Pasmelach,” 2005, Steel vitrine with glass, stone and video projection, 145 X 81 X 76 cm.
FAC I N G PAG E: TO P G E O R G E F O K|B OT TO M T W O K L E I N F E N N T H I S PAG E: C O U R T E S Y M I C H A L R OV N E R A N D PAC E GA L L E R Y
“3 Color Rock,” 2006, Steel vitrine with glass, stone and video projection, 145 X 81 X 51 cm.
Michal Rovner’s “Nilus,” 2018, LCD screens and video, 145 X 166 X 8.6 cm.
“Data Zone, Cultures Table #2,” 2003
“In Stone,” Installation View, PaceWildenstein, New York, 2004.
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P R E V I O U S PAG E: E L L E N L A B E N S K I T H I S PAG E: C O U R T E S Y K E R R Y R YA N M C FAT E
to work with Pace. I’m so honored at this moment to tell everybody that we are, tonight, signing up Michal Rovner.” Everyone got up and clapped. “I said, ‘Arne, if that’s the way you do business, I’m joining the gallery!’ ” she recalled telling the dealer. Her stone sculptures appeared in the courtyard of the Louvre seven years later. Rovner deines the “Makom” series as another important moment. She described how the structures came about. They were composed of “real stones from real houses” — the demolished houses of Israelis and Palestinians, located in areas near the farm where Rovner lives. She collected the stones either herself or sent trucks to places she couldn’t physically reach. Her requirement: that none of the stones be cut or changed, and that they it together naturally and organically, creating “a mosaic of times and places and unknown biographies, and also testimonies of displacement.” The artist cautioned against attributing political meanings or agendas to any of her works, saying that would be overly simplistic. “I never start the work with an idea of what I’m going to express,” she said. “I’m not trying to convey a message: I’m asking questions. The best thing that art can do is to give you another
viewpoint on something.” Yet to the Israeli curator Hadas Maor, who has known the artist from the start of her career and wrote a text about her in a 2008 book on Israeli art, “Makom” is a work of conceptual art that “stands above time and above culture” – and is “politically charged.” Even the title has layers of meaning, Maor said. “On an immediate level, it translates into the word ‘place,’ but it is also the term used to describe the entity of God, which according to Jewish belief, is an entity without form, present anywhere and everywhere at all times,” she said. Referring both to a speciic place and an abstract place, it demonstrates the “duality between the speciic and the fundamental, the concrete and the sublime” that typiies Rovner’s work, the curator added.
“Makom” is considered such an artwork of our time that the historian Simon Schama included it in one of his episodes of the new nine-part BBC documentary on visual culture, “Civilisations.” “Civilization presupposes a settled city population, but Rovner’s is an art of the human condition of migration, being forever between places,” said Schama in the episode narration. “The“Makom” series are “works which speak to contemporary fears of homelessness, but which are also imprinted with memories of ancient habitation. We are, after all, in the place where the earliest civilisations made their dwellings. These are, in every sense, our primal building blocks.” The tiny moving inscriptions in the Pace exhibition can be considered the other primal building blocks in Rovner’s work.MP
“Darkglow,” 2004, Steel vitrine with glass, notebook and video projection, 145 X 81 X 51 cm.
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AMERICAN MASTERS, PAST AND PRESENT ED RUSCH A’S “COU RSE OF E M PI R E” WAS I N A WAY A N HOM AGE TO A19T HCEN T U RY COU N T ER PA RT, T HOM AS COLE . TOGET H ER AT T H E NAT IONA L GA LLERY, E ACH PU TS A T W IST ON T I M E BY FRANCA TOSCANO Thomas Cole’s “The Course of Empire: Destruction,” 1836, oil on canvas, 99.7 × 161.3 cm.
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C O U R T E S Y O F T H E N E W -YO R K H I S TO R I C A L S O C I E T Y © C O L L E C T I O N O F T H E N E W -YO R K H I S TO R I C A L S O C I E T Y, N E W YO R K / D I G I TA L I M AG E C R E AT E D BY O P P E N H E I M E R E D I T I O N S
hen the Venice Biennale opened to VIPs and members of the press in the spring of 2005, all eyes were on the American pavilion, and on the artist chosen to represent the United States that year: the painter Ed Ruscha. Even before the show’s public opening, all of the new works had been sold to museums (according to the New York Times), and a dinner for 400 in honor of
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Ruscha was organized by the Gagosian Gallery in a 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal. Inside the pavilion, Ruscha presented two sets of paintings. The irst featured ive black-and-white views from 1992 — four of them showing box-like industrial buildings, and the ifth, a phone booth. The second pictured the same sites roughly a decade later. “Course of Empire” was the title that Ruscha gave the 10 paintings. He named
them after a series by the 19thcentury American painter Thomas Cole (1801-1848). “They relect my feelings about American industry,” he told the New York Times. “It’s about then and now.” The 10 Ruscha paintings are now in a standalone, one-room display at the National Gallery in London (through Oct. 7). They have been brought together to coincide with an exhibition of Thomas Cole, previously at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
C O U R T ESY O F T H E N E W -YO R K H I S TO R I CA L S O C I E T Y © C O L L E CT I O N O F T H E N E W -YO R K H I S TO R I CA L S O C I E T Y, N E W YO R K / D I G I TA L I M AG E C R E AT E D BY O P P E N H E I M E R E D I T I O N S © C O L L E CT I O N O F T H E N E W -YO R K H I S TO R I CA L S O C I E T Y, N E W YO R K / D I G I TA L I M AG E C R E AT E D BY O P P E N H E I M E R E D I T I O N S
Thomas Cole’s “The Course of Empire: The Consummation of Empire,” 1835–6, oil on canvas, 130.2 × 193 cm.
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Thomas Cole’s “The Course of Empire: The Savage State,” 1836, oil on canvas, 99.7 × 160.6 cm.
“Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire.” The Ruscha paintings are presented the way they might have been in the 19th century: in a double hang (two rows of ive paintings each). That makes it easy to compare the buildings from each era and observe what happened to them over the course of a decade. The purpose of showing the Ruscha and Cole exhibitions simultaneously is to demonstrate “that there is a continuity: that
artists will deal with similar issues,” explained Christopher Riopelle, curator of post-1800 paintings at the National Gallery, who organized both shows in London. “They continue to derive direction from the art of the past, and at the same time, continue to comment on it.” Ruscha’s original title for the irst set of paintings, the black-and-white ones, was “Blue Collar.” They represent box-shaped buildings emblazoned with logos that all start
with the letter T — Tech-Chem, Tool & Die, Trade School, and Tires — as well as Telephone, the top of a phone booth. They’re painted from below, so that the eye of the viewer is pulled upward: di sotto in su, to use arthistorical lingo. Fast-forward to the second set of paintings a decade or so later, and the buildings have either disappeared or been repurposed, their new function no longer all that clear. Tech Chem has been replaced
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turn-of-the-millennium California. “Deterioration is an ongoing thing, and it could be viewed negatively of course,” Ruscha is quoted as saying in the exhibition catalogue. Yet it’s “kind of awesome” to “visualize everything that it might encompass, and to know that nothing lasts.” At irst glance, Ruscha seems to be doing the opposite of what Cole does: chronicling various stages of progress by offering snapshots of
modern-day reality. Cole appears, instead, to turn his back on the present by glorifying nature and the landscape and turning away from all that is manmade. And yet the two painters are ultimately saying the same thing — a century and a half apart. Cole, as it turns out, grew up in an environment where he was surrounded by the machinery of technological and industrial progress. He was born in 1801 in Bolton,
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by Fat Boy (no explanation as to what that might be). Tool & Die has been taken over by a Korean concern, with Korean inscriptions running across the top. The trade school has been boarded up, a sign that bluecollar worker training is no longer a priority. And the telephone booth is long gone, replaced by the ubiquitous cellphone. The only building that exists in expanded form is the Tire building, a sign of cars’ uninterrupted prevalence in the urban landscape of
Ed Ruscha’s “The old tech-chem building,” 2003, acrylic on canvas, 123.2 × 278.1 cm.
AT FIRST GLANCE, RUSCHA SEEMS TO BE DOING THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT COLE DOES: CHRONICLING VARIOUS STAGES OF PROGRESS BY OFFERING SNAPSHOTS OF MODERN-DAY REALITY
northern England, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, and he and his family were employed in mills. His childhood years were spent in squalor and ilth; even the air he breathed was thick with factory fumes. “He went to work in the dark satanic mills as a child in the cotton industry at a point of great political and social agitation. So that poverty and a pretty dismal view of economic reality were his formation,” said Riopelle.
When circumstances led him as a young man to move to the United States with his family, he jumped on the opportunity. “America must have seemed this extraordinary opening up of possibilities once he got there: all that air, all that space, the landscape still pristine,” Riopelle added. Cole made the most of it. After getting art training from a portrait painter and at an academy, he started placing his landscape
paintings in the vitrine of a New York shop, where they were spotted by two men who became his mentors. Thanks to their patronage and that of others, Cole was able to make a lengthy study trip back to Europe, meeting J.M.W. Turner and John Constable along the way, and traveling up and down the continent to observe the works of other landscape painters. His famous vistas are a product of those European inluences and of his
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RUSCHA “SUCCEEDS IN USING HISTORY NOT JUST AS SUBJECT MATTER, BUT AS AN ARTISTIC TOOL, MASTERING IT FOR HIS OWN MEANS”
own vision and gift. Cole’s bestknown painting, the 1846 “The Oxbow” (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art), shows the Connecticut River Valley after a storm. There is also a ive-part series of paintings, “The Course of Empire,” that was acquired by the New York Historical Society in 1858, its home ever since. Cole irst makes reference to the series in 1829-30, on a return trip to England, when he notes in writing
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that he envisages a cycle of paintings on the rise and fall of a great city. The resulting paintings show a metropolis with a strong resemblance to Rome, and they seem to be some kind of cautionary tale. “Cole is worried that the hubris that brought down Rome could bring down America, which is not taking care of the natural paradise it is being granted by God,” Riopelle said. “There is nostalgia and a warning that America will have to take care
or the same thing that happened to ancient Rome will happen to it.” By contrast, Ruscha, in his riposte to Cole, “consciously avoids any kind of overt political statement,” according to Riopelle. “He doesn’t want to make any glib comparisons. He is pointing out that things are changing and becoming more ambiguous.” As Daniel F. Herrmann writes in the catalog: “In contrast to his artistic predecessors in the
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eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, the Contemporary artist Ruscha is describing history neither as trajectory nor as a narrative cycle,” but “as a process.” In effect, Ruscha “succeeds in using history not just as subject matter, but as an artistic tool, mastering it for his own means.” The Ruscha show in London was hung by the artist
himself, who traveled over especially beforehand. What was he like to work with? “Easy,” said Riopelle. “He’s quite laconic, doesn’t necessarily say much, and doesn’t waste time either. He just turned 80, but you’d swear he was 50.” As for his contribution to the hang, “he’s been at this game for a long time, so he’s used to solving practical problems. When I presented the space, he igured out how to use it in a very clever way.” MP
Ed Ruscha’s “The old trade school building,” 2005, acrylic and fabricated chalk on canvas, 137.5 × 305.3 cm, Whitney Museum of American Art 2005.
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Somogy Art Publishers since 1937 w w w. s o m o g y. n e t © Luc Fournol, Cyril Clément, Estate Luc Fournol ‘A few carefree moments in a life otherwise devoted to work. Bernard never realised how elegant and handsome he was. Seductively wrapped in solitude and modesty-that’s how I knew and loved him’, Château l’Arc, 1958
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Art After
WAR
T H E TAT E R EE X A M I N E S HOW WOR LD WA R I R A DICA LLY A LT ER ED PERCEP T ION A N D PERSPEC T I V E
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BY ANYA HARRISON
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889 – 1946), “Paths of Glory,” 1917, oil paint on canvas 457 x 609 mm.
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Curt Querner (1904 – 1976), “Demonstration,” 1930, oil paint on canvas, 870 x 660 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie.
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P H OTO C R E D I T: B P K / J Ö R G P. A N D E R S
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n Flanders ields the poppies blow/ Between the crosses, row on row.” Every year in November, a small brooch, in the form of a red poppy lower, appears on the lapels of ordinary men and women. Inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” penned by Lt. Col. John McCrae during the First World War, it has since been taken up as a universal symbol of remembrance of those who died on the battleields of WWI and makes an annual, quiet reappearance to mark Armistice Day on November 11. To mark this year’s centenary since the end of the First World War, Tate Britain revisits this seminal conlict of the 20th century through the major exhibition “Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One,” on view until September 23, that presents over 150 works from 1916 to 1932 aiming to explore the immediate impact of this trauma on art across Britain, Germany and France. Considering the war’s sheer impact on European society, with around 17 million lives lost and many more millions of casualties, “Aftermath” brings together both the new avant-garde art forms that came into being in these interwar years, but also the battleield landscapes and memorial sculptures that were specially commissioned to remember the war, and which have traditionally been viewed as separate to their
THE EXHIBITION PRESENTS OVER 150 WORKS FROM 1916 TO 1932
women’s suffrage. Yet closer inspection reveals the inclusion of images of soldiers, patriotic slogans from commemorative ribbons, as well as a depiction of the German Vice-Chancellor, Matthias Erzberger, who had signed the armistice on Germany’s behalf, suggesting a more complicated relationship to and representation of the years that followed the signing of the peace treaty. The armies may have retreated, but as Höch implies, the war on paper (in the media), for the right to images and struggle for memory, carried on. Meanwhile, in Otto Dix’s stark pen and ink drawing “Prostitute and Disabled War Veteran. Two Victims of
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Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889 – 1946), “Paths of Glory,” 1917, oil paint on canvas, 457 x 609 mm.
more radical artistic counterparts. Dada was one of the more radical consequences that rose from the ashes of World War One, its delight in nonsensical linguistic forms, in provoking shock and communicating anger and despair were a natural way of dealing with the psychological traumas that long outlived the physical manifestations of the war proper. In Hannah Höch’s “Dada Rundschau (Dada Panorama),” 1919, the artist has recourse to her signature medium of collage to offer a commentary on the post-war situation, speciically as experienced by the female population and especially following
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William Orpen (1878 – 1931), “To the Unknown British Soldier in France,” 1921-8, oil paint on canvas, 1542 x 1289 mm.
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Georges Rouault (1871-1958), “Arise, you dead! (War, plate 54),” 1922-27, photo-etching, aquatint and drypoint on paper, 800 x 630 x 30 mm, Fondation Georges Rouault.
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WILLIAM ORPEN, A COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL PORTRAIT PAINTER, WAS OFTEN SENT BY BRITAIN TO THE WESTERN FRONT DURING THE WAR PERIOD, TO CAPTURE IMAGES OF ORDINARY SOLDIERS, GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR, GENERALS AND POLITICIANS
Paul Nash (1889 – 1946), “Wire,” 1918-9, watercolour, chalk and ink on paper 486 x 635 mm.
Capitalism,” 1923, a new world order that holds zero promises stares out from the page in the form of an emaciated, topless woman — haggling what’s left of her looks — and a male (a client?), with a wild-eyed stare in his one, open eye, and half his face ripped open. Even among oficially-sanctioned commemorative work, the physical, psychological and moral pain inlicted by the war seeped into paintings and sculptures. William Orpen, a commercially successful portrait painter, was often sent by Britain to the Western Front during the war period, to capture images of ordinary soldiers, German prisoners of war, generals and politicians. In 1919, he was sent to document the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles. Alongside two of three paintings he was commissioned to make, Orpen produced “To the Unknown British Soldier in France,” 1921-’28, a Union Jack-draped cofin resting on the loor of the ornate and gilded Hall of Mirrors. In its original form, Orpen had included two ghostlike igures of soldiers, naked and dead, on either side of the cofin, suggestive of the experience of remembering the casualties of war by re-invoking their presence. Yet this direct allusion to the war dead troubled oficials so much that it was not until 1928, when Orpen removed the dead soldiers from the composition, that the painting was sanctioned to hang in the Imperial War Museum next to its two earlier counterparts. For artists who had experienced the war irst-hand as soldiers, like Paul and John Nash, images from the front, having seared themselves on their memories, reappeared on canvases, like in Paul Nash’s watercolor, chalk and ink painting “Wire,” 1918-19.
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Everlasting Beauty for the Never Ending Universe, 2016
William Roberts (1895 -1980), “The Dance Club (The Jazz Party),” 1923, oil paint on canvas, 762 x 1066 mm, Leeds Museums and Galleries.
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© E S TAT E O F J O H N DAV I D R O B E R T S . BY P E R M I S S I O N O F T H E T R E A S U R Y S O L I C I TO R
DESPITE EVERYTHING, POST-1918 MARKED THE BIRTH OF A NEW ERA, WHICH THE ARTISTS IN TATE BRITAIN’S EXHIBITION DID NOT SHY AWAY FROM DEPICTING
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Edward Burra (1905-1976), “The Snack Bar,” 1930, oil paint on canvas, 762 x 559 mm, Tate.
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George Grosz (1893-1959), “Grey Day,” 1921, oil paint on canvas, 1150 x 800 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie. Acquired by the Federal State of Berlin.
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Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), “Torso in metal from the rock drill,” 1913-14, bronze, 705 x 584 x 445 mm,Tate.
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Devoid of human presence, it reeks of destruction and death, foregrounded by a still-standing but half-dead tree trunk, its lack of branches substituted by a knotted tangle of barbed wire that engulfs what’s left of the natural landscape. The ground looks like a roiling sea, its trenches and shellmarks open wounds, and a wash of a light brick-red in the background hints at a blaze somewhere further aield. Yet despite everything, post-1918 marked the birth of a new era, which the artists in Tate Britain’s exhibition did not shy away from depicting. Whether George Grosz’s “Grey Day,” 1921, Edward Burra’s “The Snack Bar,” 1930, or Fernand Léger’s “Mechanical Ballet,” 1924, a new potentiality was also awakening, carrying the ghosts of the recent past but also ushering in a new socio-political conscience and reality. MP
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Michael Rakowitz’s “The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist,” at the Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London.
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GUARDIAN OF A CIVILIZATION IN DURESS The Four th Plinth at the Tra falgar Square, London, is currently hosting the lamassu — a symbol of Iraq ’s ancient civili zation and a witness to the violent swings in destiny that the land has endured BY ARCHANA KHARE-GHOSE
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Michael Rakowitz
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hen the body of 3-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed ashore near a Turkish town in September 2015, as a result of a botched attempt by his family to reach a safer territory in Greece, the photo of his lifeless body sent shockwaves around the world, underlining the severity of the global refugee crisis. What if Aylan Kurdi — and his brother and mother, who also drowned — had survived? He and his family may have become Greek citizens, or found a safe home elsewhere. But, would the Syrian inside him have been dissolved by his adopted identities? Or would his Syrian roots been chiseled more deeply, given the hostile climate of the world he was likely to have grown up in? These seemingly facile questions often defy all attempts to be answered with any certainty. The consequences of many historical migrations aren’t really resolved for decades, with dificulties passing from one generation to another. But some of those who survive traumatic migrations, and who ind a home in their adopted countries, try to ind ways to help or signal those who would like to follow. Michael Rakowitz, 44, a Chicago-based conceptual artist who is also a Professor at Northwestern University, is such a person, and his latest work speaks to the aspirations of those who seek shelter from the ravages of war and poverty. The Lamassu — an Assyrian protective deity with a bull/ lion’s body, bird’s wings and human head and an important symbol of ancient Iraq — currently residing on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square, London, is Rakowitz’s potent commentary on displacement, loss, immigration, the idea of homeland, and of course, the endless power struggle that is at the root of it all. Rakowitz’s Lamassu, about 14 feet long, is made up of 10,500 tin date-syrup cans. It’s a contemporary twist on an ancient symbol. One of the lamassu stone statues guarding the ancient city of Nineveh in Mosul, Iraq, since circa 700 B.C., was destroyed by ISIS in February 2015 and the destruction was broadcast in a video. Rakowitz has a personal connection to this symbol and to the plight of refugees in general; his grandfather, an Iraqi Jew, arrived in the US in 1946
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The date syrupcan lamassu on the Fourth Plinth, titled “The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist.”
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The work under fabrication with date syrup cans.
seeking a safer future for his family. The lamassu is part of Rakowitz’s long-term project, “The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist” that he began in 2006 as an attempt to recreate more than 7,000 archaeological artifacts looted from the Iraqi Museum during the war. The colorful, empty datesyrup cans, that compose the statute are symbolic of Iraq’s once-thriving date-syrup industry, which has suffered during years of war. Rakowitz won the Fourth Plinth Commission last year, and his work will stay there for two years. “The idea for ‘The Invisible Enemy...’ really came about when I watched the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of the country,” Rakowitz said. “That irst opened a moment of pathos when everybody agreed — no matter which side they supported — that it was a catastrophe. For me, it pertained to my own relation with the US. I’m the son of an Iraqi émigré — my mother’s family had moved from Iraq to the US, and she was born in Mumbai. I had irst seen the lamassu as a 10-year-old visiting the British Museum with my mother. She told me that it came from the place where her family came from and it was the world’s very irst comic book. That was very cool for a 10-year-old. So, the lamassu is a way for me to connect with my ancestors.” In addition to the “Invisible Enemy” project, Rakowitz has also been running “Enemy Kitchen,” a food workshop, to open up a new way to discuss Iraq. As part of the workshop, Rakowitz has compiled recipes from Baghdad with the help of his mother to teach people about Iraqi food (a cookbook is likely to be released in September). “Iraqi culture is invisible in the US,” the artist, who has never been to Iraq, said. “There is no restaurant in New York serving Iraqi food. In Chicago, those who do, are likely to call themselves Mediterranean. It’s a very precarious situation. Last fall, the US deported a signiicant number of Iraqi Christians from Michigan who were seeking citizenship. What I try to track in my project is what happens to people who identify themselves as Iraqi.” His identity, however, has not been an impediment in his existence as an American, he says. “I grew up as an American citizen and truly don’t feel in danger. With a surname like Rakowitz, of Jewish émigrés, it’s
been different. Besides, I think the teaching profession protects me. I do get some hate mail sometimes, and sometimes there’s an element of discomfort, but the most vulnerable are the irst generation immigrants. And those wearing a hijab or those who speak with an Arabic accent are vulnerable in ways I can never know.” Rakowitz admits he didn’t particularly pay attention to much of this before 2003. “It’s an awful situation for the refugees in the US. The idea is not to spectacularize things but it’s not something that just began in 2017. It’s important to understand what it means to be elsewhere, where people don’t generally understand you — that would be traumatic,” he says. It’s this empathy that makes so much of his work
“THE IDEA FOR ‘THE INVISIBLE ENEMY...’ CAME ABOUT WHEN I WATCHED THE LOOTING OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRAQ IN 2003” speak to issues such as displacement, and raises questions that are generally considered uncomfortable and brushed aside in pure political terms. One of these uncomfortable conversations that he would like to push to the forefront is about the Western entitled sense of relief that the artifacts that were looted from Iraq and Syria and transported to museums in the West are safer now. “The whole attitude of cultural patrimony is arrogant,” he says. “The National Museum of Iraq was supposed to be the second site secured by the American military during the 2003 invasion. That didn’t happen. We know for a fact that there was a wish list from collectors on the redistribution of the artefacts from the museum after its loot,” he says. For this reason, he has worked closely with the late Dr.
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“ONE HAS TO LOOK AT THE SOURCE OF THE TRAUMA. IT’S ABOUT THE ARROGANT ATTITUDE OF CIVILIZING THE SO-CALLED SAVAGE CULTURE”
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Donny George Youkhanna, the museum’s director when the looting took place, and McGuire Gibson, one of the world’s leading authorities on Mesopotamia, and a professor at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Rakowitz was on a panel discussion on the topic with these two authorities in 2008, and was in frequent contact with Dr. Youkhanna until his death in 2011. “In the irst place, it’s so much to do with colonial presence of the West,” Rakowitz said. “Yes, so much of Iraq is outside of Iraq but it’s not about artifacts being safe elsewhere. It’s not even about right or wrong. The nation state has been disrupted, people’s lives have been disrupted but it’s not so simple. One has to look at the source of the trauma. It’s about the arrogant attitude of civilizing the so-called savage culture. I want to talk about it because it’s uncomfortable and only when we speak about it would we understand its depth.” Rakowitz’s anguish surfaces when he says that if the whole idea of loot is to make some museums in the West more complete, then “there should be a fragment of Stonehenge in the Iraqi Museum too. I don’t think it’s a bad idea, to get intimate proximity to an artifact from one of the earliest civilizations.” For the emotions that the lamassu signiies, it is only beitting that this epitome of the sophistication and complexity of the culture of Iraq, past and present, stands on the Fourth Plinth facing south-east, toward its ancient home. To where it belongs. MP
Date syrup cans during fabrication.
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Albert Oehlen’s “Woman in the tree II,” 2005, oil, acrylic, paper on canvas, 290 x 230 cm, Private collection.
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THE CALM AND THE STORM IN HIS “OPEN SERIES,” NOW ON VIEW AT GALERIE DANIEL TEMPLON IN PARIS, ROBERT MOTHERWELL EXPRESSED THE SUBTLER, MORE RESTRAINED SIDE OF HIS WORK BY MATTHEW ROSE
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early four decades ago, Robert Motherwell sat with a group of Brown University studio art students to talk about painting. I was lucky enough to be one of them. An icon of Modernism, Motherwell (1915 - 1991) casually launched into stories about his ventures into Surrealism, Automatism and his travels in Europe, where he once witnessed Picasso arranging objects on a café table in the 1950s. “You could have cut out his table setting as an artwork,” he said, remembering the simple but stunning performance by the Spanish master. Chain-smoking throughout the twohour gathering, Motherwell regaled us with stories of his own “New York School” contemporaries — Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollack and others — as we took it all in. This season, Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris is presenting 20 of his “Open Series” canvases (until July 21), a selection soaked in robust reds, acid oranges, rich ochres and storm-cloud grays. The large canvases on view, produced between 1974 and 1975, recall not just the minimalist-drenched 60s and 70s New York art world, but remind us that Motherwell was also a philosopher who mined paint and canvas and color for all lavors of truth. At that Brown gathering, the artist described painting in the most unusual terms. It wasn’t blue paint he brushed on a canvas but a “piece of blue.” The artist talked about “building” paintings with both ideas and material. So it is no wonder that his less well known “Open Series,” begun formally in 1967 and continued throughout his life, were manifestations of the play of color, space, line and their ambiguous relationships on canvas. The series began by accident in his
Albert Oehlen
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Robert Motherwell, 1969.
P H OTO G R A P H BY D A N B U D N I C K . C O U R T E S Y O F T H E D E DA L U S F O U N DAT I O N A R C H I V E S , N E W YO R K .
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“Dover beach no.III,” 1974, acrylic on canvas, 195,5 x 243,8 cm.
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calmness as opposed to the violent more emotionally engaged aspect,” he said. “These paintings express a shared universal harmony with the world.” Motherwell began his career studying philosophy — irst at Stanford, then Harvard, then Columbia. It set the ground for a world view based upon a critical assessment of existence and morality. In New York in the 1940s, it wasn’t long before he fell in with “expat” European painters and artists and began an intense exploration of all aspects of art making from Surrealism to Automatism, the latter a method of creating art without conscious thought. As a young painter in the early 1940s crowd of newly-minted “Abstract Expressionists,” Motherwell shared their concerns about where abstraction could
“Untitled,” 1973, acrylic on paper, 31.13 x 41.88 inches / 79.1 x 106.4 cms.
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New York studio, when Motherwell noticed a smaller rectangular canvas leaning against a larger one. He traced the edges of smaller canvas onto the larger canvas in charcoal. The effect created a “door” or a “window.” It was a simple but powerful act: The spatial ambiguity and overt metaphor for emotional balance resonated with the artist. “Motherwell’s works consistently express two poles of his inner being,” said Jack Flam executive director of Motherwell’s New York-based Dedalus Foundation, in a phone interview from his ofice in New York. “One was calm and centered and the other unpredictable and wild.” “The ‘Opens’ speak to and from part of himself that is about a mysticism, a
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“Open study in charcoal on grey #1,” 1974, acrylic, charcoal on paper, 46 x 76 cm. 229 cm Private collection
go — exploring the unconscious, particularly its emotive power. Matisse and Mondrian played important roles for Motherwell, explained Flam, as color became the raw material to generate an architecture of form for a twodimensional surface. The “Opens” are in many ways the result of a decades-long exploration. Unlike Motherwell’s emotionallycharged and overtly masculine “Elegies” that pay homage to the hundreds of thousands killed in the Spanish Civil War, the “Opens” belong to a different frame of mind and temperament. The “Elegies” mourn the loss of life with stark black-and-white forms and monumental shapes while the “Opens,” with their simple charcoal-drawn windows or doors,
are remarkable for their conciseness, restraint and color. They explore formalism, space and painting itself, and almost always portend a subtle joy and wisdom. The “open” metaphors are literally doors or windows, a spiritual and philosophical passage. “The surface texture doesn’t come across in reproduction,” said Flam about the series. “They are not color ields, but translucent; they radiate light.” The orange “Opens,” said Flam, are built with layers of blue or cool gray, “over which Motherwell layers orange. That surface is a critically important aspect of the series.” In post-war America the painted surface became a stand-in for consciousness. Motherwell’s
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“The Mexican window,” 1974, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 194.3 x 243.8 cms/ 76 1/2 x 96 ins.
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“Great Wall of China n°4,” 1974, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 183 x 213,4 cm.
contemporaries worked the ields of the unconscious in unexpected ways. For example, Rothko’s plunge into parcels of stacked, vibrating color seeped spirituality; Pollock tore open the violent dance of the mind-body schism, while Barnett Newman extracted a purity from stripping away the emotionalism from painted surfaces, producing some of the very irst color-ield works. As Motherwell plunged into the production of these new “Open” series canvases in the late 1960s, the art world of that time was careening toward a stark formalism. Minimalism, Color Field painting and a more conceptual tilt towards the activity of painting were soaking the New York art world in the 1960s, pointing toward geometrical structure. But, said Flam, those movements gave artists like Motherwell permission to “move radically in a certain direction.” Motherwell found his own portal through one of his irst painted gestures — those initial hand-drawn charcoal lines. They were key to his aesthetic; he structured his tense ields of color with them, indicating “openings,” and pointing toward the barest kind of content with the fullest immersion into space. There are in excess of 180 “Open” canvases, some numbered and others with names referring to their colors or more personal incidentals. The paintings are by far the most minimalist-looking works in Motherwell’s oeuvre and relect the ongoing reduction of painting toward pure abstraction begun almost half a century earlier in Europe. For Flam, Motherwell consistently plumbed the subconscious to reveal something quite positive. And it came almost at the beginning of his career as a painter. “Look at his earliest canvases,” said Flam. “There are quite a few that look like the ’Opens’ — the geometrical strain is there in some of those works from 1941 and 1942.” MP
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“Xindiro Companhia” by Mauro Pinto.
AFRICA, CENTER STAGE A N DR É M AGN I N, C U R ATOR OF T H E ‘A F R ICA N PASSIONS’ E X H I BI T ION I N PORT UGA L , TA L KS A BOU T HOW T H E CON T I N EN T’S A RT ISTS A R E CL A I M I NG T H EI R PL ACE I N T H E CON T E M POR A RY M A R K ET BY SARAH MOROZ
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A portrait of André Magnin by Malick Sidibé, “Bamako,” 2010.
VORAFRICA kicks off an inaugural celebration of African heritage in the Portuguese city of Évora, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A vast program of free concerts and performances, through August 25, is completed with the exhibition “African Passions.” Spread throughout the Cadaval Palace — itself a blend of Mudéjar, Gothic, Manueline and Medieval styles — are Omar Victor Diop’s photographs from his series “Diaspora,” Billie Zangewa’s elegant embroidered silks, and Houston Maludi’s Chinese ink-drawn geometries. The exhibition is curated by André Magnin. Formerly the director of the Pigozzi Collection in Geneva, he founded MAGNIN-A in 2009 to promote Contemporary African art within the international art market. He’s also an independent curator who has overseen exhibitions of African art at the Dia Art Foundation in New York, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Tate Modern, and many shows at Paris’s Fondation Cartier. Interviewed at his home in Paris’s 11th arrondissement — which features a meticulously-catalogued record collection, stacks of “Jeune Afrique” magazine, and Alighiero Boetti’s “Map of the World” — Magnin genially discussed, between drags of Benson & Hedges and sips of Zubrówka (a vodka
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that “doesn’t give you a headache”), his career and his thoughts about African art. How did you become associated with this new festival in Evora? There’s a character named Alain Webber: We’re the same age, we’ve done the same thing for the same length of time, but he’s in music. He created music festivals in Fez, Jaipur, Paris — and in Portugal. With Alexandra de Cadaval, they wanted to do a wider event dedicated to Africa, which gathered Contemporary music as well as art. I said yes right away. How did you make your selection of artists? There are about a dozen rooms in the Cadaval Palace. Rather than bringing together 70 artists and seeing one work of each, we preferred to dedicate an entire room to one artist, or have two artists in dialogue within one room, because many of the artists are unknown in Portugal — and throughout the world, in fact. I wanted to show several generations, whose works are profoundly anchored within their culture but, at the same time, resonate with the world at large. Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, from the Ivory Coast, is a monument of thinking and writing. He’s profoundly Ivorian, but his oeuvre has
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“Garcia de Resende (Italian Style) theater,” Évora.
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an international echo. There are historical photos by Malick Sidibé, like the ones shown at the Fondation Cartier earlier this year. Amadou Sanogo from Mali, who uses a lot of local savoir — he has a dedicated room. Anselm Kiefer has said if he wasn’t German, his work couldn’t have existed. It’s the same for Sanogo. If he wasn’t from Mali, he would never have created this work. I like to think that all the artists I work with create works totally anchored in their own history, their own culture, their own light. What makes great artists compelling is they invent: Artists in Africa invented themselves outside of art history, without the arrogance of Europe or the United States, and that’s what’s fascinating. They’re writing their own art history. All these artists bring new consciousness and beauty. I chose 16 artists — it could have been 16 others. It’s subjective — but not completely. I can explain why I chose one artist over another. You were part of an iconic Parisian exhibition, “Magiciens de la Terre,” in 1989 as assistant curator — which had a similar mission to that of EVORAFRICA, to reveal other parts of the world to its audience. How did that come about? During the Biennale de Paris in 1986, people were talking about an exhibition intended for 1987. Jean-Hubert Martin — he was brilliant, he was the curator at Centre Pompidou then moved to the Kunsthalle Bern but then came back to Paris — intended to do the irst worldwide exhibition, searching for artists from every continent, looking at art outside of Europe and the US. I did everything to meet this guy, and got a job with him. We divided up the map and I went to Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. There were two camps: “it’s extraordinary!” — or they
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didn’t get it. People didn’t understand how you could show Aboriginal Australian art alongside Claes Oldenburg or Lawrence Weiner. Two things happened that overshadowed the exhibition at the time: the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Tiananmen Square. This idea of seeing value in every culture corresponded perfectly with these world events. The last day of the exhibition, a very rich man came by to see it. He had Basquiats and Warhols, because he knew the artists — but when he saw this exhibition, he didn’t know the artists and asked questions; he was redirected to me. Thanks to him, I was able to research art in the entire African continent for 20 years. This is Jean Pigozzi. Yes. He inanced all my trips to Africa, and I constituted his collections. The Pigozzi collection prolonged the life of the exhibition. Pigozzi didn’t care what was popular — he wanted a collection that was unique in the world. It has been exhibited, in parts, everywhere. In France, it was mostly at the Foundation Cartier — I’ve done 14 exhibitions there, starting with Seydou Keïta in 1994 — they were key in the transmission of the work we did. There are 12,000 works in the collection, accumulated over 20 years. The African continent has 54 countries. Africa didn’t have museums, galleries, foundations, or art market, except for South Africa. And yet! In every country, there were working artists, because they “Almendres Cromlech at night,” Évora.
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15th century fountain in Giraldo Square.
But the appreciation you had for African art was unique at the time. Now institutions like the Louis Vuitton Foundation dedicated an exhibition to African artists. Are you worried this newfound reverence is ickle? It’s not a trend. Or I’ve been on-trend for 35 years. Today, there’s a lot of money in Contemporary art; it’s extraordinarily popular. A lot of fortunes have happened quickly and there’s a lot of consulting about what to invest in. Millions towards a Jeff Koons or Maurizio Cattelan or Murakami, that’s easy. However, if you decide to collect something more unique and not like every other rich person, for €10,000 or a €100,000 maximum, you can collect artists who are extraordinary. And they might become as important, in pecuniary terms, relative to American artists. A lot of collectors who went to Frieze then came to 1:54 and said: “we’re glad to be here, because we see things that amaze us. Artists don’t resemble each other.” We were arrogant and closed off — people are starting to open up. There are enthusiasts who invest in things they like; there are nouveaux riches who invest in African or Indian art because it’s cheaper. They accompany what’s happening in the world. It’s no longer just Europe and the US creating history, creating the story. There’s no center anymore. For the “Magiciens de la Terre” catalog, we had geographers create maps where the center of the world was where the artist was living. For each artist, there was a map, and the localization of the artist on the map was its center. From our point of view — political too — there’s no center. An artist can be the center.
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In 2009, I decided to try to build a Contemporary African art market, so that the artists weren’t just in one person’s hands, but could become accessible to everyone. The continent is enormously rich — it’s the future of the world. The younger artists understand that. They could invent anything, and add to world art history. It’s an extraordinary moment. I’ve been interested in art since the mid-’70s, when I was 20 years old. I knew Western art, and I had my truths, but it was through travel… When you meet great artists in Africa, who have other savoirs, it’s a joy. I traveled to Africa to remove my vérités — to open myself to others, to learn. So it’s more of an awakening than a trend. We’re saying “Africa is à la mode” — but it’s not because we’re talking about it a lot, it’s because it’s a gigantic continent that we’ve always wanted to be mysterious and remote. All of a sudden, it’s not so mysterious or remote. And inally, it will play a crucial worldwide role. It’s evident. A billion people! The resources underground, in the forest, in agriculture. It’s creative and inventive, it changes swiftly. There are still problems of education and health and transportation. But there are projects. Everyone wants to be in Africa, not for colonizing, but for partnerships. There’s too much money to be made. I think Africa could save Europe as it’s collapsing. This is a rather extraordinary moment. I didn’t see this coming 20 years ago. So for Evora, at this small scale, it’s a irst event in Portugal, even though Sindika Dokolo wanted to start a museum here. But I created the irst event, a white guy. Do people get mad about you, as a white man, exporting African art? Of course. Sindika Dokolo in fact! He’s the husband of Isabel dos Santos, one of the richest women in the world. He’s
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felt the necessity to work, not for business. We supported these artists and little by little… Touria El Glaoui created the irst fair, 1:54, which spread to London and New York. There’s AKAA here in Paris. International art fairs are opening up to African artists.
ABOVE: Aqueduct in Évora.
S. João Evangelista Church, with the city museum and cathedral.
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“Cathedral and roof tops in the city,” historical centre, Évora, (World Heritage).
“The continent is enormously rich, it’s the future of the world. They could invent anything, and add to art history. It’s an extraordinary moment”
What’s your response to that? That it’s stupid! Why would his skin color enable him to have a superior eye to someone who is passionate about art, especially since he grew up in Europe? Does one’s skin color confer a superior understanding through the pretext that he’s from somewhere? By that logic, an African could never discern whether an American is a good artist? Why would a Qatari buy a van Gogh? Today, the art market is international. I’ve been to Africa 300 times, and no one can speak about it the way I can — and African artists can attest to this. Romuald Hazoumè said as much in the press. Given this growing openness and curiosity, how do you see the evolution of African art? The next step needs to be awareness by
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Congolese of origin, his father was banker, he grew up in Europe. He has a fortune and is a collector. But his collection is based on that of Hans Bogatzke, whose collection is similar to mine, but mine pre-dates it. Sindika Dokolo has long said that it shouldn’t be a white person who decides which artists in Africa are good.
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Ireja Sao Joao Evangelista in Evora.
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“Africa will change the face of the world. It will take years, it will take money. But art will follow” the African government that African art has the power to federate people. There are still no museums in many countries, or budgets to buy Contemporary African art. The only art initiatives are private — foundations in Morocco, Benin, Cameroon. Artists deserve to be considered in their own countries, because for the most part, they don’t have a single work there. Africa is becoming conscious of its importance. It will change the face of the world. It will take years, it will take money. But art will follow. We have to listen to young artists who are saying: we don’t want to take the road that has been indicated for us, but create the paths that we want ourselves. It’s no longer about copying the West. That’s over! It’s not that Jeff Koons is more interesting than Chéri Samba. It’s that there are 30 rich people who want Jeff Koons, so it costs €10 million. But when there will be 50 rich people who want a beautiful Samba, it will cost €10 million. What makes the value of a work — a good work can cost €50,000, not €10 million — is determined by people who buy not only with their ears. So for Evora, a irst exhibition dedicated to African art, it’s a start.MP
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DATEBOOK Not-to-be-missed shows this month PA R I S
The Fondation Louis Vuitton calls itself a “resolutely forward-facing” institution, and, at least insofar as visitors can see a Maurizio Cattelan horse hanging over a video game installation next to an Yves Klein painting, this certainly seems an accurate description. The latest exhibition to be put on at the foundation is an appropriately curious patchwork. “In Tune with the World,” on until August 27, is split into two parts, the irst of which is dedicated to the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, the second of which, is about “man living in the universe” and includes 28 French and international artists. In its entirety, the show takes up four loors and the outdoor grotto. Chiely curated by Suzanne Pagé (with curatorial help from Angéline Scherf, Ludovic Delalande, and Claire Staebler, and art advice and set design from Marco Palmieri), the show questions the human relationship to the environment, “highlighting the interconnections between humans, animals, plants, and even inanimate objects.” In a conversation with the scholar and curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist on the evening of the exhibition’s opening, Murakami discussed his interest in how humans have carved out their space in the universe. “What most interests me is the structure of a society, how a society is founded,” he said in Japanese, which was translated to French. In this exhibition, as always, Murakami’s work looks like a demented, animated Disneyland — fantastical beasts with manga-esque proportions, allusions to Buddhist and Taoist icons, ancestral versus modern technologies. Here, especially, his works speak to Japan’s historical traumas — to the Second World War, to
Kiki Smith, “Annunciation,” 2010.
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© K I K I S M I T H © DAV I D E B O R D E S
‘In Tune with the World,’ at Fondation Louis Vuitton
© M AT T H E W B A R N E Y, C O U R T E S Y R E G E N P R O J E C T S , LO S A N G E L E S
devastating natural disasters. On show for the irst time as well is his “The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg,” a twisted, psychedelic take on 18th-century Japanese paintings. Murakami is the perfect it for a show that wants to get at the deepest, most existential questions, while also being housed in the opulent Frank Gehry-designed Fondation. Murakami is the ultimate sellout and is well aware of it. He’s helped make shameless capitalism an art form in itself, like a Supreme bag or a Gucci graphic tee. “The theme my generation explored was the relationship between capitalism and art,” Murakami has earlier said. “In that sense I couldn’t use that many narrative motifs. So Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and myself, we were trying to link art, which fundamentally has no value, with capitalism to show how it can be seen as valuable.” The second part of the exhibition — “man living in the universe” — is inspired by Roland Barthes’ quote in “Camera Lucida,” “I have determined to be guided by the consciousness of my feelings.” The three loors of works are structured around ideas of emotional kinship. For instance, the irst loor is dedicated to “irradiances,” with the works of Matthew Barney, Mark Bradford, Christian Boltanski, Trisha Donnelly, Jacqueline Humphries, Pierre Huyghe, James Lee Byars, François Morellet, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Shimabuku, Anicka
Yi, and Klein, all tied together by Dan Flavin’s “Untitled.” One of his earliest luorescent-tube artworks, “Untitled” taps into the idea of the Sun, of light, and of the most primal of human forces. On the loor below, the ground level, the section is titled “Here, Ininitely” and includes works by Cyprien Gaillard, Wilhelm Sasnal and Adrián Villar Rojas. Rojas’ marble “Untitled” sculpture stands out most. From his 2017 series “Theater of Disappearance,” the sculpture is made to look like the last-remaining remnant in a post-apocalyptic universe. Sasnal’s “Bathers in Asnières” complements it, looking closely at destructions not of the future but of the present, re-interpreting Georges Seurat’s pointillist paintings to question memories of a decimated post-war Poland. But it’s the inal sequence, at the Fondation’s pool level, that’s the most powerful. With works by a both Contemporary and Modernist giants — Giovanni Anselmo, Ian Cheng, Andrea Crespo, Alberto Giacometti, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe, Mark Leckey, Henri Matisse, Philippe Parreno, Bunny Rogers, Kiki Smith, Klein, and Cattelan — the section is called “The Man Who Capsizes,” which explores the humans’ ability — and inability—to mesh with the world we’ve created. Anselmo’s “Entrare nell’Opera,” for instance, is an altered
photograph that shows the silhouette of a person disappearing into an ininite landscape. Gonzalez-Foerster’s “Fitzcarraldo” shows the lickering hologram of a person, and Matisse’s “Blue Nude with Green Stockings” is a body made of paper cutouts, fêting the transcendental nature of dance. “In Tune with the World” is far from a typical exhibition. At times it can seem like too much of a hodge-podge. Even with four curators (perhaps because there are four curators), its arguments sometimes become convoluted, lost, or simply prove too vague to hold everything together. But with 29 artists over four loors, it’s an impressive lassoing together of bold ideas. Murakami, especially, is not to everyone’s taste. But this is a show most especially about the current and future state of the world, and few encapsulate that as well as a capitalist-obsessive who’s made a fortune off of buyers unsure whether to take his work as an ironic wink, or, more distressingly, as prescient relection of where we’re all ultimately headed. “In Tune With the World” is on view through August 27 at Fondation Louis Vuitton, 8, Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi Bois de Boulogne, 75116, Paris. http:// www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr
Matthew Barney, “Water Cast 6,” 2015.
— CODY DELISTRATY
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ZURICH
More than any other part of her practice, Roni Horn’s works on paper bear a distinct “craft” element; they are like intricate embroideries that have been painstakingly stitched on to the support over hours. Known for her work across photography, sculpture and installation, drawing has nevertheless formed a deining area of Horn’s artistic practice since 1980, and one that is no less attuned to the intricacies, demands and constraints of space. She has previously spoken about the act of drawing as a form of delineation, a construction of material and physical reality that doesn’t give up its shapeshifting ways. And Horn’s drawings certainly have a chameleon-like edge to them. Not quite collages, they appear in a constant state of lux, a tug-of-war between the expansive whiteness of the paper and the turbulent forms and lines that explode from it. For her solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, “Wits’ End Sampler | Recent Drawings,” on view June 10-September 1, Horn presents large-scale drawings from the series “Yet,” alongside a new installation that extends the artist’s long-held interest in wordplay, and the treatment of language and text as just another physical material, cutting and splicing it across the page with ease and glee. Extending her drawing practice into physical space, the exhibition also includes the titular “Wits’ End Sampler,” for which Horn invited strangers and associates to write down idioms and clichés of their own choosing. This exercise accumulated more than 1,000 individual, handwritten phrases by multiple authors and contributors, which now ind themselves hosted on the gallery walls, the latter silkscreened with these idioms to create a constructed linguistic environment, a miseen-abîme in which texts explode beyond the frame of the drawings to envelop the viewer. Throughout her work, Horn muddies the clean aesthetics of Post-Minimalism, although there’s always an order inherent in the apparent madness. The large-scale
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drawings from the “Yet” series are indicative of this. An initial layer of powdered pigment, graphite and varnish has been worked into irst-phase drawings, called “plates,” which are then meticulously cut apart. These paper shards are subsequently rearranged and reassembled, harboring a potential for further cycles of splicing and stitching together before they can rest in their ultimate form. With each layer, pencil marks, numbers and words accrue as Horn annotates the joining of the plates in each drawing. Hers is a work that delights in the tiniest of permutations. It is drawing as sculpture, like a child’s kaleidoscope, that invites you in and demands a constant shift in position. “Yet 1,” all works 2013/2017, might, from afar, be a sheaf of golden wheat thrusting upwards, but a close examination reveals hundreds of cryptic abbreviations
Roni Horn, “Yet 5,” 2013/2017, powdered pigment, graphite, charcoal, coloured pencil and varnish on paper, 246.4 x 325.1 cm / 97 x 128 in.
and shreds of words caught mid-utterance: “Jane Fonda”, “Derekk Walco” (Walcott?), “WITCHCRAFT,” “RUST.” Elsewhere, “Yet 5” is a looping tangle of lines that creep in ever so subtly from one corner of the paper before sprawling across it and into the middle. Language, in all its malleable glory. Roni Horn’s solo exhibition “Wits’ End Sampler | Recent Drawings” is on view June 10-September 1, at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, Hauser & Wirth Zürich, Limmatstrasse 270, 8005 Zürich. More information: www. hauserwirth.com — ANYA HARRISON
P H OTO : TO M P O W E L I M AG I N G. © R O N I H O R N C O U R T E S Y T H E A R T I S T A N D H AU S E R & W I R T H
Roni Horn at Hauser & Wirth
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Joseph Beuys at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac “Kunst ist wenn man trotzdem lacht,” reads a black chalkboard stationed in the ground-loor hallway of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in London, one of several that lank the walls as an entryway into the gallery proper. Dating from 1979, the eponymous work also includes the same phrase written out in its original Italian, a quote taken from Dante, which can be translated as, “Art is when you laugh despite everything.” Placed as it is, as an introduction to the irst major solo exhibition of Joseph Beuys’ work in the UK since a 2005 show at Tate Modern, it injects a dose of humor and dispels, at least momentarily, the sacrosanct aura that as a rule accompanies any display of the artist’s work. For an artist whose work reaches esoteric levels that can prove a challenge to decipher even to the most erudite of publics, this nod to a more light-hearted sensibility is a welcome one. It can also be detected in “Brustwarze (Nipple)”, 1963, a small plaster panel with crushed and glued plant matter that slyly suggests this sensual bit of anatomy. Or in “Braunkreuz,” 1964, a perfect circle of brown oil paint and fat that sits on a piece of card. So when we get to the self-avowed centerpiece of the show, “Stag Monuments,” which was irst shown in the atrium of the Martin-GropiusBau in Berlin in 1982 as part of the “Zeitgeist” exhibition, where metal, felt and fat — the materials so emblematic of Beuys and his self-mythology — make themselves known, we are poised to be more receptive to the occasional comedic touch. Take “Hirsch (Stag),” 1958/1982, two sets of teak wood across which is balanced a wooden ironing board that once belonged to the artist’s
mother. It is signature Beuys, the prosaic object that has been instilled with an alchemical power of potentiality, creativity and change. Yet this sense of gravitas doesn’t stop the work from eliciting a small laugh, imagining the artist coaxing this most functional of household items from his mother’s stern look. “Hirsch (Stag)” sits in the middle of the Library Gallery at Ely House, surrounded by sculptural elements and works on paper, all exuding animalistic symbolism and virility. When irst shown in Berlin, where the exhibition was curated, as is the current iteration, by Sir Norman Rosenthal, Beuys constructed a mountain of clay around which the contents of his Düsseldorf studio, including his workbench and tools, were arranged. Here too, 38 clay sculptures, each one containing a work tool, are dispersed around the gallery. “Urtiere (Primordial Animals),” 1958/1982, like the rest of the “Stag Monuments” environment, is an amalgamation of the fundamental concerns that Beuys practiced and preached throughout his career, bringing together his
belief in the power of Social Sculpture with the transformative potential inherent in base materials and elements. If this may not necessarily spell out anything new to anyone vaguely familiar with Beuys’ practice, one of the smallest galleries at Thaddaeus Ropac is devoted to some fascinating early works from the 1940s and 1950s that offer a hint of the artist’s future trajectory. A series of small crosses dating from 1949 are a mixture of Christian and Teutonic traditions, rendered in a crude, almost primitive aesthetic that Beuys would go on to make his own, while “Bleifrau (Lead Woman),” 1949, could be a somewhat elongated Venus of Willendorf. It is moments and gestures like these, scattered as they are throughout the galleries, that offer some unexpected surprises among the better-known and tobe-expected exponents. “Joseph Beuys: Utopia at the Stag Monuments” is on view through June 16 at Thaddeus Ropac, 37 Dover Street, London W1S 4NJ. More information: https://www. ropac.net
Joseph Beuys, “Utopia at the stag monuments,” April – 16 June 20, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London 18.
— ANYA HARRISON
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PA R I S
In one sense or another, all art is political. Some art, of course, is more subtle or more explicit about it than others, but every piece of art comes out of a certain time and historical context and is therefore coded with its own unique politics. The balance to be had, therefore, is between complexity and originality of message as well as, especially, maintaining aesthetic value. In Andreas Gursky’s arresting retrospective that just showed at the Hayward Gallery in London, for instance, the German photographer achieves these balances, pointing his camera towards and arranging his images to underscore contemporary political challenges — everything from the environmental changes wrought by humans (once-green hills speckled with black solar panels) to the creation of nature-like order under capitalism (the perfect proportions and colors of the workers in an Amazon.com shipping warehouse). All the while he keeps the aesthetics of the works closely tied to their politics, perhaps best evidenced by a photographic manipulation of a perfectly symmetrical, many-windowed modern ofice building that drives home the ways in which architectural and quotidian repetition combine to create an aggregated mundanity. Adrian Ghenie, the 41-yearold Romanian artist based between Cluj and Berlin, is likewise enraptured by the mixture of aesthetics and politics, believing that you cannot have one without the other. “Can you be apolitical today?” he rhetorically asked Artnews. “Could you be apolitical after the French Revolution? Was Rothko apolitical and Rauschenberg political? Was Goya a political painter? This is a fake
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concept.” Ghenie represented Romania at the 2015 Venice Biennale, but just a year before, he’d made his art-market breakout, selling “Sunlowers in 1937,” a canvas painting that imagines Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunlowers” with Nazi overtones, at Sotheby’s in London for about $4.5 million, quintupling its estimate. When he sold “Nickelodeon,” which depicts eight blurry igures in coats, the year after for about $9 million at Christie’s in London, the art world started to wonder whether Ghenie’s youthful talent could really match his prices. Some experts speculated that wealthy Asian buyers were pushing prices up; others thought
that collectors, spotting a rising talent, were trying to get in on the artist while he was still young. But what made his art stand out — and what, perhaps, best explains his impressive sales record — was his fresh aesthetic combination of palette knives and stenciling married with a complex, subtle politics. Explorations of historical memory, Eastern European fascism, the difference between truth and remembrance — these have all been a part of his repertoire. It’s no surprise that “Sunlowers in 1937,” which directly investigates this overlap between art and politics, and does so largely through texture, remains one of his
Adrian Ghenie, “Study for antelope attacked near gas pipe,” 2018, collage on paper Image, 27,9 x 25,4 cm. (10,98 x 10 in), Frame: 36,5 x 34 x 3,5 cm, (14,37 x 13,39 x 1,38 in) .
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Adrian Ghenie’s ‘Jungles in Paris’
most expensive works. He found a sweet spot between art, history, and politics that few Contemporary artists have achieved. So when, earlier this year, the Thaddeus Ropac Gallery in Paris announced Ghenie’s latest exhibition, “Jungles in Paris,” on view through June 16, as a show that would investigate “the presence of mankind and urbanization that disrupts the wilderness,” there was a mixture of apprehension and optimism. What could be said that’s original about humans and environmental degradation? How would Ghenie take on this tired idea? The exhibition’s premise sounded banal, but Ghenie’s previous works all point toward a subtle handling of even the most on-the-nose
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political explorations. Surely, he would ind a fresh angle, a clever mixture of ideas. Unfortunately, any possibility of an inventive or even worthwhile take on human destruction disappears upon walking into the gallery. The exhibition opens with a roomful of paintings that play with his usual color scheme of yellows, greens, browns, and purples to create the colors of the “urban jungle.” Bits of cadmium yellow and vermilion red jump out from the backgrounds of the canvases. Wild animals, carcasses, exotic lora — they’re all nestled in the paintings next to old gas pipes, broken iron fences, desperate slums, and gray smoke. The works are painfully obvious. Mushrooms that look like nuclear mushroom
clouds. Wilting lowers that look like laccid penises. His heavy, Anselm-Kiefer-like strokes, which usually provide a textural complexity, traficking in palimpsests and layered connotations, are here rendered meaningless next to the heavy-handed symbolism. In an adjacent room, nine collages combine images “sourced from the Internet” of animal furs, the gills of mushrooms, and decaying ish. Upstairs, a small group of charcoal drawings act as studies for the paintings in the main room. What is he saying with all of these works? We, as humans, destroy the environment, and we, too, will probably soon be destroyed? O.K. And? That’s the trouble — there’s nothing else. He labors the same, vague point again
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Adrian Ghenie, “Antelope attacked near gas pipe,” 2018, oil on canvas, painting: 250,5 x 240,5 cm (98,62 x 94,692 in.), frame: 253,9 x 243,9 x 7 cm (99,96 x 96,02 x 2,76 in).
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Adrian Ghenie, “A zebra attacked by a lion,” 2018, charcoal on paper, image: 130 x 150 cm (51,18 x 59,06 in), frame: 141,5 x 161,5 x 5,5 cm (55,71 x 63,58 x 2,17 in).
and again, like a comedian telling different versions of the same joke, and while it’s distantly intriguing the irst time, it quickly loses its capacity for fascination. There are a few positives, of course. His use of “paper texturing,” in which he paints over scraps of paper, takes them away, and, in doing so, creates a look and texture of layering without actual layering adds a sense of technique. So too do the colors he inds — the utter darkness of his canvases, the bright grays of the rotting carcasses. But any viewer who knows Ghenie’s earlier works and walks
Adrian Ghenie, “Self-portrait with animal mask,” 2018, charcoal on paper, Image: 150 x 92,5 cm (47,24 x 59,06 in), frame: 161,5 x 105 x 5,5 cm (63,58 x 41,34 x 2,17 in).
in with an implicit trust that he will ind a subversive angle on the subject will be ultimately disappointed. Stepping back, perhaps it’s unfair to hold Ghenie to such a high standard, to expect shining originality on every canvas. But, then again, he’s delivered it before. It was what led to the cult of his youthful celebrity. In fact, it was only two years ago that the president of the Pace Gallery, Marc Glimcher, told the New York Times that Ghenie’s works were so popular that “134 people think they’re irst in line” to buy his work. Even the gallerist
behind the current exhibition — Thaddaeus Ropac — wanted Ghenie’s market to come down, just two years ago, saying, “The market is overreacting. We would be happy if everything were strong but not crazy.” But perhaps they now regret their excitement. If Ghenie continues in the vein of this latest exhibition, Ropac’s wishes will come alarmingly true. “Jungles in Paris” is on view through June 16 at the Thaddeus Ropac Gallery in Paris. More information: www.ropac.net —CODY DELISTRATY
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ISelf Collection: ‘Bumped Bodies’ at Whitechapel Gallery The body is a tricky, messy thing. At once a physical manifestation of self and egocentred cry of “I,” it is as much vulnerable and open to be subjected to all manner of internal and external conditions. A new display at the Whitechapel Gallery in London is full of these oddly shaped limbs, bits and bobs that, according to the accompanying press materials, propose a challenge to any form of “physical and material cohesion.” Titled “Bumped Bodies,” on view until August 12, and featuring work by 23 artists, the exhibition is the fourth and inal display that borrows works from the ISelf Collection, a private collection which was established in 2009 by Maria and Malek Sukkar. Although small in size, it’s a cohesive constellation of individual bodies — or partial bodies — that refuse to be contained by, or reduced to, the usual framework of bone, skin and muscle. More often than not, the works on display pervert the relationship between material and image. Maria Bartuszová’s sculpture, “Untitled,” 1966, a rounded doughnut shape with a globule — both made of plaster — sprouting from its middle, begs to be squeezed and caressed; the softness and apparent pliability of its curves overwrites the petrifying nature of the medium. This is the body reduced to a hint, the merest whiff of a suggestion. Along an adjacent wall, Sarah Lucas’ “Oral Gratiication,” 2000, is a wooden ofice chair, the vacuum left by an absent body offset by a pair of cigaretteencrusted rugby balls that pierce the chair’s back. It bears Lucas’ trademark humor: we are either facing some anthropomorphic creature eyeballing us, or this is a stand-in for one matron-esque igure, the body itself having gone out for a sneaky smoke. More ephemeral still are the wisps of human hair that lutter softly, caught in the branches of
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Paloma Varga Weisz, “Bumped Body,” 2007, lime wood, copper plated ,94 × 42 × 40 cm.
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Berlinde De Bruyckere, “Quan,” 2009-10, wax, epoxy, iron, cushion 50 × 155 × 80 cm.
John Stezaker, “Untitled” (5 Nudes), Circa 1980, silkscreen on linen, 100.3 × 219.7 cm.
a tree in Bojan Šarevi’s “Presence at Night,” 2010. These are near imperceptible indexes of activity, a bodily presence, of passing time. Even when the body has not fully disappeared from the premises, it is either disjointed or not quite master of its own self. Paloma Varga Weisz’s “Bumped Body,” from which the current display takes its title, is a copper-plated arm- and leg-less torso, the stomach curved with a bulging pregnancy, the body transformed into a vessel, at the service of another. Only the face of this undeined, androgynous igure is left uncovered by the copper sheen, but no matter, this is not about the individual ego, but about the functionality of the body as object. In a similar vein, Berlinda de Bruyckere’s “Quan,” 2009-’10, made of wax, epoxy and iron — is all sinuous limbs and mottled lesh, the wax igure sinking and melding itself into the cushion that semi-
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Sarah Lucas, “Oral gratification,” 2000, office chair, cigarettes, rugby balls, 95 × 68 × 58.5 cm.
swaddles it. De Bruyckere has in the past delineated her attachment to the igure — with or without a head — as embodying a mental state. This emphasis on the body’s capacity to capture and express emotion and psychology might very well apply too to a small photograph by the Hungarian artist Kati Horna, whose work brings together a strange amalgamation of documentary and surrealist tendencies. In “Prestado,” 1962, a (death) mask lies on a pillow, its face carrying a benign smile, while the white, rumpled bed sheet suggests an imprint of a physical body only recently departed. The pristine whiteness is offset by a human igure kneeling next to it, all shrouded in black, with only a lone hand exposed, clutching at its head. “Bumped Bodies” is on view at the Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High St, in London, through August 12. More information: http://www. whitechapelgallery.org/ — ANYA HARRISON
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Tony Cragg, “Big head green,” 2009, bronze, 100 × 85 × 60 cm.
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B R USS E LS
Joris Van de Moortel at Galerie Nathalie Obadia upheavals of 1968. The title is an extract from the thesis of the book, which describes the Middle Ages as an uninished mythical world. Taking a cue from this thought, the gallery says, the artist uses Medieval throught to better illustrate the excesses of today’s society. The new works on display relect the artist’s philosophical and historical researches, which he sees a journey through both time and spirituality. “Highlighting the vanity and the paradoxes of our contemporary world the artist brings to life a farcical, at times frightening, bestiary in the manner of Tim Burton’s heroes,” the gallery says. More information: https://www. nathalieobadia.com/exhibitions.php
C H I CAG O
‘Helen Frankenthaler Prints’ at the Art Institute of Chicago The American pioneer of Abstract art Helen Frankenthaler is best known for her vivid and broad canvas paintings, almost seeming to glow from within with brilliant hues. But later in her career she discovered printmaking, and these smaller, more intimate works allowed her to experiment and expand on previous themes. Fifty works on paper, many drawn from the museum’s collection, are included in “Helen Frankenthaler Prints: The Romance of a New Medium.” These include never-before-exhibited proofs as well as rare and important loans from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. The selection highlights Frankenthaler’s creative process and experimentation in printmaking. The artist’s signature canvases were made beginning in the 1950s. She used her signature “soak stain” technique to create energetic images that bridged
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Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. In the 1960s and 1970s, Frankenthaler discovered printmaking. At the Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) workshop on Long Island, New York, she experimented with lithography, etching, aquatint, and woodcut techniques. She made her irst print in 1961 (“First Stone”), working with master printer Robert Blackburn on her irst print. She went on to produce more than 30 editioned prints. She also created woodcuts — such as “Savage Breeze,” 1974 — which were later recognized as contributing to the revival of woodcut techniques in American printmaking. The show narrates the story of Frankenthaler’s project to redeine the medium of printmaking. It also highlights the artist’s extensive body of work that still inspires Contemporary art and artists.
The exhibition demonstrates how Frankenthaler continuously pushed the boundaries of the medium, developing innovative printmaking techniques at a time when few of her contemporaries took to the technique. The exhibition will be on view through September 3, 2018. More information:http://www.artic.edu/
Helen Frankenthaler, printed by Robert Blackburn, “First Stone,” 1961, published by Universal Limited Art Editions.
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Joris Van de Moortel, “The Mariage of Heaven and Hell,” 2018, wood, plexiglass, photographic collages, neon, black varnish and steel, 137 x 130 x 13 cm., (53 x 51 3/16 x 5 1/8 in.).
Joris Van de Moortel’s “This incomplete mythical world whose perfection lay outside it” is on view at Galerie Nathalie Obadia through June 9. This is the artist’s fourth solo show with the gallery. On view are paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations which include videos. These play with and relect upon a repertoire of forms and images from the Flemish 14th and 15th century. Both religion and music play a signiicant role in the exhibition. The title of the exhibition was taken from “The Society of Spectacle,” published in 1967 by Guy Debord. It is a reference book in contemporary thinking that had a major signiicance after the
Sandra Eleta (born Panama, 1942), “Edita (la del plumero), Panamá (Edita [the one with the feather duster], Panama),” 1977, from the series ‘La servidumbre’ (Servitude), 1978– 79. black-and-white photograph, 19 × 19 in. (48.3 × 48.3 cm).
C O U R T E S Y O F GA L E R Í A A R T E C O N S U LT S . A ., PA N A M A . © S A N D R A E L E TA .
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‘Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-85’ at Brooklyn Museum “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985” at the Brooklyn Museum, on view through July 22, “is the irst exhibition to explore the groundbreaking contributions to Contemporary art of Latin American and Latina women artists during a period of extraordinary conceptual and aesthetic experimentation,” the museum says. The show includes works by 123 artists from 15 countries, focusing on the use of female body for political and social critique and artistic expression; the museum warns sensitive patrons that some of the
material is explicit. “The artists pioneer radical forms and explore a female sensibility with overt or, more often, covert links to feminist activism,” the museum says. “Many works were realized under harsh political and social conditions, some due to U.S. interventions in Central and South America, that were complicated or compounded by the artists’ experiences as women.” The works on view include paintings, sculptures, photography, video, performance, and other new mediums, created by eminent names such as Lygia Pape, Ana Mendieta,
and Marta Minujín; as well as lesser‐known artists such as Cuban‐ born abstract painter Zilia Sánchez; Colombian sculptor Feliza Bursztyn; Peruvian composer, choreographer, and activist Victoria Santa Cruz; and Argentine mixed‐media artist Margarita Paksa. The show also includes Nuyorican portraits by photographer Sophie Rivera, as well as work from Chicana graphic arts pioneer Ester Hernández, Cuban ilmmaker Sara Gómez, and AfroLatina activist and artist Marta Moreno Vega. More information: https://www. brooklynmuseum.org/
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Werner Büttner’s ‘All Sorts of Happiness’ at Marlborough Fine Art Marlborough Fine Art in London is showing “Plenty of Room for All Sorts of Happiness,” new works by Werner Büttner and a selection of his well-known paintings from the 1980s, through June 23. Büttner gained worldwide popularity during the ’80s as part of a new generation of German artists. Before his last show with Marlborough in 2015, he hadn’t had a major exhibition in London since 1986. “Imbued with a dark humor, Büttner’s work has for nearly four decades pursued one essential underlying theme: the pursuit of lucidity as a tool for survival in a sordid world,” the gallery says. “The works from 1981-1989 — now instantly recognizable as emblematic of their time — still seem as fresh as the new paintings that will be exhibited alongside them,” the gallery says. “Continuities as well as differences will be evident: Then and now, Büttner is above all an inventor of images, a painter always looking for new ways to convey a response to the world.” Büttner (b.1966) studied Law at the Freie Universität Berlin, and became a social worker at the Berlin-Tegel Prison. The artist was the subject of a major retrospective at ZKM, Karlsruhe in 2013. The show travelled to the Weserburg Museum of Contemporary Art, Bremen in 2014. He has been Professor of Painting at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg since 1989. More information: http://www. marlboroughlondon.com/
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Werner Büttner, “Viel Raum für allerlei Glück (Plenty of room for all sorts of happiness),” 2017. oil on canvas, 240 × 190 cm.
C R E D I T S : W E R N E R B Ü T T N E R , P L E N T Y O F R O O M F O R A L L S O R T S O F H A P P I N E S S , 2 5 M AY – 2 3 J U N E 2 018 , M A R L B O R O U G H F I N E A R T S , LO N D O N , M A R L B O R O U G H LO N D O N .C O M
LONDON
Kai Schiemenz, “Once Over Easy,” exhibition view, 2018, Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig.
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Kai Schiemenz at Galerie EIGEN + ART Galerie EIGEN + ART in Leipzig is hosting an exhibition of sculptures by the German artist Kai Schiemenz titled “Once Over Easy” through June 16. Schiemenz is known to work with a wide range of materials from wood and steel to mixed materials. In this show, the gallery says, “Schiemenz shifts to yet other materials and other forms of presentation, to artiicial marble bound in crystal resin and poured into cardboard; remnants remain attached, torpedoing the smooth wholeness. These compositions are not strictly geometrical, but free abstractions of the volumes. But added to this is a series — no, a whole collection — of more
sculptures that pose riddles. Here a hand, there a head, in the back an arm fragment. What is this, what drives these searching movements in material and arrangement?” For the artist almost everything is a subject, and these are given shape of installations, large constructions, and objects. Schiemenz (b.1966) studied at the Kunsthochschule Berlin and at the Universität der Künste, Berlin. In addition to sculpture, he has built stage sets and other structures out of wood or unused steel beams. Schiemenz lives and works in Berlin. More information: http://www. eigen-art.com/index.php
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Adrian Piper retrospective at Museum of Modern Art
Adrian Piper, “Catalysis III.” 1970, documentation of the performance, two gelatin silver prints and text mounted on colored paper.overall 8 1/2 × 11 in. (21.6 × 27.9 cm).
The Museum of Modern Art in New York presents an exhibition on the works of American conceptual artist and philosopher Adrian Piper (b. 1948), “Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965–2016,” on view through July 22. The show was conceived through a four-year collaboration between Piper, the Museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The museum says that with more than 290 works, including paintings, photos, drawings, performances and videos, this is the most comprehensive display of her works to date. In 1996 Piper wrote, “It seemed that the more clearly and abstractly I learned to think, the more clearly I was able to hear my gut telling me what I needed to do, and the more pressing it became to do it.”
The museum says of her work, “since the 1960s, this uncompromising artist and philosopher has explored the potential of Conceptual art — work in which the concepts behind the art takes precedence over the physical object — to challenge our assumptions about the social structures that shape the world around us. Often drawing from her personal and professional experiences, Piper’s inluential work has directly addressed gender, race, xenophobia, and, more recently, social engagement and selftranscendence.” The show is also the irst by the artist since she received the Golden Lion Award for Best Artist in the 56th Venice Biennale of 2015 and Germany’s Käthe Kollwitz Prize for 2018. More information : https://www.moma.org/
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Mel Bochner, “Forgetting Is The Only Continuum,” 1970/2018, acrylic paint and oil pastel on wall, 180.3 x 121.9 cm, (71 x 48 in.), edition 1 of 3.
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“Towards Ininity: 1965-1980,” a group show featuring major works by artists from the Conceptual art movement, is on view through June 23 at Simon Lee Gallery in New York. The exhibition focuses on works in the period between 1965 and 1980 — an era marked by signiicant political and social upheaval, including civil unrest and war. “During the 1960s and 1970s a disillusionment with pervasive movements in art and the inluence of radical European theoretical thought inspired a re-evaluation of long-held attitudes towards formal and material conventions,” the gallery says. “Taking its title from Giovanni Anselmo’s seminal work of the same name, “Verso l’ininito,” 1969, the exhibition explores the dematerialization of the art object and the dismantling of concepts that had bolstered the deinition and context of traditional art-making well into the 20th century.” Conceptual art arrived as a critique, and it questioned traditional forms of representation. “The 1969 exhibition, ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ at the Kunsthalle Bern, curated by Harald Szeemann, and the publication of Lucy Lippard’s book, ‘Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972’ four years later in 1973 indicated a sea change in artists’ approaches to the role of their medium in society,” according to the gallery.
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The exhibition explores these “disintegrations/reintegrations of concepts and art objects from this vital era of art history.” The works on view, including photography, ilm, video, performance and installation, demonstrate this radical rethinking of what art is and can be. Among the featured artists
are Daniel Buren, Luciano Fabro, Pier Paolo Calzolari, André Cadere and others. Each “demonstrated an anti-hierarchical approach to both subject and material, positioning idea ahead of form,” the gallery says. More information: https://www. simonleegallery.com/
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‘Towards Infinity 1965-1980’ at Simon Lee Gallery
Azzedine Alaïa
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‘Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier’ at the Design Museum The Design Museum in London presents “Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier,” on view through October 7. It’s the irst time the Tunisian-born couturier and shoe designer has had a solo show in the UK. “Conceived and co-curated with Monsieur Alaïa before his death in November 2017, the exhibition charts his incredible journey from sculptor to couturier, his nonconformist nature and his infectious energy for fashion, friendship and the female body,” the gallery says. “Unlike many of his contemporaries, Alaïa personally constructed each garment by hand and refused to bow to the pressures of fashion week deadlines, instead working to his own schedule. His collaborative approach earned
him an esteemed client list, including Greta Garbo, Grace Jones, Michelle Obama and Rihanna,” the gallery says. The show isn’t strictly speaking a retrospective. It’s organized around life events and garments that the designer chose to exhibit for their signiicance to them. The outits range from rarities to works from his last collection in 2017. Dubbed “couture’s rebellious outsider” by The Guardian, Alaïa followed an unusual path. Born in a farming family, far from the world of couture, Alaïa was drawn to the world of glamour, probably inspired by his beautiful twin sisters. Alaïa was a non-conformist and a character of determination from the very beginning; he
even lied about his age to get a formal education from École des Beaux-Arts in his hometown Tunis. He started as a dressmaker’s assistant and later went on to win prestigious awards like the Best Designer of the Year in 1984 and the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 2008. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he continued to make his creations by hand, and held an esteemed client list. “My obsession is to make women beautiful. When you create with that in mind, things can’t go out of fashion.” The show is on view through October 7, 2018. More information: http://designmuseum. org/
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‘Picturing the Masses’ in Germany at LACMA
Magnus Zeller, “Agitator (Volksredner),” c. 1920, lithograph on wove paper, 12 3/4 × 14 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Fishman.
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The Perlstein Collection at Hauser & Wirth Spread across three loors of Hauser & Wirth’s 22nd Street gallery in New York, “A Luta Continua. The Sylvio Perlstein Collection” is on view through July. “Over the course of more than ive decades, Perlstein has assembled an intensely personal collection rooted in a passion for the work of groundbreaking artists; a commitment to self-education; and an afinity for a wide range of mediums,” the gallery says. “Remarkably diverse, the Collection traces the course of 20thcentury art, from Dada and Surrealism to Abstraction, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Minimal Art, Pop Art, Op Art, Arte Povera, Nouveau Réalisme, and Contemporary Art. But above all, ‘A Luta Continua’ testiies to the power of connoisseurship and to collecting as a talent — an art in itself — that must be honed through sustained, sometimes courageous, and
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often joyful personal effort.” This is the irst time that the Sylvio Perlstein Collection is being exhibited in the US. The title of the show comes from a neon sculpture by the South African artist Thomas Mulcaire. It translates from Portuguese as “the struggle continues,” and hangs on the façade of Perlstein’s home. The exhibition features more than 360 works by some 250 artists, such as Josef Albers, Carl Andre, Diane Arbus, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and others like Man Ray and Walker Evans. Indeed, this “collection within a collection” of 20thcentury photography is by itself signiicant. On view are over 150 works
by pioneering photographers such as Eugène Atget, Brassaï, Claude Cahun, and Moholy-Nagy apart from other photographers. More information: https://www. hauserwirth.com/
René Magritte, “The Rape,” 1942, gouache on paper, 30.3 x 49 / 11 7/8 x 19 1/4 in.
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Drawing from the collection of the museum’s Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies, Prints and Drawings, and Photography, “Picturing the Masses: Germany, 1900-38” consists of a range of imagery of mass movements, from protest to depictions of assembly lines. It’s on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts through August 26. “Mass movements are a modern phenomenon and became a popular subject of early 20th-century German art, a time of political revolutions, popular entertainments, proletarian workers, and mobilized citizen armies,” the museum says. “Soldiers marching to the front during World War I, political forces activated by the energy of the German Revolution, and later, the spectacle of Nazi rallies were all mass movements, marshalled for different ends. The masses also came together for pleasure to enjoy popular entertainments such as the cinema, or were mobilized for industrial labor.” “The masses are both plural and singular,” LACMA says. “The concept of masses suggests countless individuals merging into a single, homogeneous body. As a subject of art, masses are therefore often depicted using formal strategies of abstraction, such as repetition and abbreviation, to suggest the countless, deindividualized bodies that constitute the mass.” More information: http://www.lacma.org/
BERLIN
Andro Wekua at Sprüth Magers
P H OTO G R A P H Y: T I M O O H L E R
Sprüth Magers in Berlin presents an exhibition of work by the Georgian artist Andro Wekua through September 8. The show is centered on a life-size sculpture made of nickel silver, a silver-like alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc, framed in the gallery by a group of paintings. “The untitled sculpture recalls Wekua’s earlier mannequin igures and continues their subtle formal vocabulary,” the gallery says. “The androgynous igure appears situated between the sexes; its body has a prepubescent, almost childlike look. On the back of the sculpture sits a small, black bronze Pegasus with purple wings — a futuristic element, childish toy and mythical reference in one. The physical proportions of this igure are realistic only at irst glance; they are unthinkable in real life. The igure is a composite of various, non-related body parts. Before casting, it was composed of miscellaneous models of real limbs. Even the sculpture’s body posture probes the limits of what is physically possible.” The paintings, made with a process that included photography and collage, provide a certain context for the otherworldly sculpture. “The process of creating these paintings follows the same self-relective, abstracting and sometimes effacing process that our memory does,” the gallery says. “Wekua succeeds in compressing several levels of time into one image while countering the past with a poetic reality of his own. These works are not to be understood as commentaries on the past and certainly not as its reconstruction. Rather, they are aimed at its complete, aesthetic transiguration. “ More information: http://www. spruethmagers.com/home/
Andro Wekua, “Installation view,” Sprüth Magers, Berlin, April 28 September 8, 2018.
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Seung-taek Lee, “Untitled,” 1966/1990, gelatin silver print, 73.8 x 95 cm.
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White Cube gallery in Mason’s Yard, London is hosting an exhibition of work by the South Korean artist Seung-taek Lee through June 30. The show is a survey of Lee’s work, and it’s his irst comprehensive solo show in the UK. The exhibition features recreations of his major installations from the 1960s alongside sculptures and drawings. “As one of the irst generation of South Korean artists to embrace radical experimentation in art, Lee has been at the forefront of the Korean avant-garde since the 1960s,” White Cube says. “Although formally trained as a sculptor, Lee is best known for his practice of negation, which he has alternatively conceptualized as ‘nonsculpture’, ‘non-material’ or ‘anti-concept.’ As an acute response to and reaction against rapidly transforming conditions in South
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Korea — from its emergence as a divided nation following three decades of Japanese colonialisation (1910-45) and the Korean War (1950-53), to its development into a modernized, global nation — Lee’s work has persistently unsettled established forms of Contemporary Korean art.” The focus of the show is the recreation of the artist’s early colorful sculptures. These will be shown publicly for the irst time since their destruction. “Reconiguring earthenware jars known as Oji, which were traditionally used in Korean households to store condiments, Lee constructed a series of emphatically abstract structures that seem to protrude from the ground,” the gallery says. “Removed from the pedestal, Lee’s Oji series are placed directly on the ground and have occupied multiple
sites, ranging from the gallery loor to sculpture gardens and remote wilderness. He incorporated everyday objects, folk materials and even intangible elements such as wind and sound to subvert their intended function and meaning.” Also on view are an untitled series of ropes on canvas. “At times referring to them as ‘canvas drawings’, Lee employed the sinuous quality of the ropes as an alternative means to realize the lines traditionally drawn on paper,” the gallery says. “The tactile quality of otherwise smooth, twodimensional planes is emphasized by the repetitiveness of cut and glued ropes, their knots and loose ends exposing strands of threads.” Lee (b.1932) lives and works in Seoul. More information: http://whitecube.com/
© S E U N G - TA E K L E E C O U R T E S Y GA L L E R Y H Y U N DA I A N D W H I T E C U B E
Seung-taek Lee at White Cube
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Mernet Larsen at James Cohan Gallery “Situation Rooms,” featuring works by artist and Professor Mernet Larsen (b. 1940, Houghton, Michigan), is on view at James Cohan Gallery in the Chelsea location in New York until June 16. This show, her second solo with Cohan, sees the artist returning to a favored theme: people at tables. “Throughout a career spanning nearly sixty years, Mernet Larsen has developed a painting practice that reconsiders the spatial conventions of narrative painting,” the gallery says. “The vertiginous spaces she renders using altered perspectives, offer familiar versions of reality that are analogous yet alien to our own and take inspiration from the geometric abstractions of El Lissitzky and the narrative stylization
of 12th-century Japanese and early Renaissance paintings.” The title of the show refers to spaces where people make decisions, and places where important things happen. “In some of these works, the trappings of governance are apparent,” the gallery says. “Hands, often involved in simple games, feature prominently in paintings such as ‘Cup Tricks,’ ‘Drawing Hands,’ ‘Hand Slap Game’ and ‘Scissors, Rocks, Paper.’” “In addition to these new paintings, three works from Larsen’s series of paintings depicting faculty meetings, which began her experimentation with reverse perspective, will also be included in the exhibition,” the gallery says. The artist herself says, “I have always
wanted to do a painting of an art department faculty meeting — having spent 35 years of my life attending them. But I couldn’t ind a way to make it interesting… I didn’t want a collection of portraits, but a kind of psychological essence of particular moments in meetings.” These works experiment with reverse perspective, emphasizing the relationship between the igures and the physical space they inhabit — something the artist considers as the “essence” of narrative painting. The exhibition also includes Larsen’s “studies,” in essence visual notes and plans for her inished, large canvases. More information: http://www. jamescohan.com/
C O U R T E S Y M E R N E T L A R S E N A N D J A M E S C O H A N , N E W YO R K .
Mernet Larsen, “Drawing hands,” 2017, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 67 1/2 x 36 1/4 in.
Mernet Larsen,“Cabinet meeting,” 2017, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 61 x 65 1/4 in.
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Oscar Tuazon, “Blueprint Window (LAWS),” 2018, powder print on glass, milgard window, plywood, books, oak, aluminum, photographs, variant of 2, 70 1/2 x 47 1/4 x 13 in., (179.1 x 120 x 33 cm).
Oscar Tuazon, “LaDonna Brave Bull Allard (Camp of the Sacred Stones),” 2018, powder print on glass, JELD-WEN window, kerto plywood, books, dirt, variant of 2, Window: 34 1/4 x 22 1/2 x 2 3/4 in. Bookshelf: 73 3/4 x 24 1/8 x 13 3/4 in.
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An exhibition of new sculptures by the Los Angeles-based artist Oscar Tuazon is on view through June 16 at Luhring Augustine’s Chelsea location in New York. “Tuazon (b. 1975) identiies primarily as a sculptor, though his practice occupies a position between architecture and activism,” the gallery says. “His large-scale sculptural installations consist of structures that foreground their own means of construction, most notably through his use of industrial materials. … He considers a sculptural installation as being homologous to a house, as both are continuously built, repaired, and maintained. By extension, the act of inhabiting or occupying a space functions as
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a kind of artistic production, serving as the undercurrent of his predominantly sitespeciic practice.” The show marks his irst presentation with Luhring Augustine since the gallery announced his representation in 2017, and will showcase a series of sculptures whose dimensions derive from the architectural openings of one of Tuazon’s most ambitious projects — “Zome Alloy,” modeled after “Zome Home” — a solar powered house in New Mexico designed by innovators Steve and Holly Baer. “One of the deining features of the Baers’ home is a double-paned glass wall that utilizes water as a heating and cooling mechanism,” the gallery says. “Though
passive and sustainable, the system must be manually operated by the home’s residents, an aspect that circles back to Tuazon’s views on sculpture and the way inhabitation actively maintains it.” Many of the works on view are silkscreened with maps and text outlining controversial pipelines, highlighting environmental risks and the fact that many of these pipelines cross native reservations, an issue of social justice. Through these works, Tuazon advocates for the preservation of clean and sustainable water sources, an element that has been an integral part of his recent works. More information: http://www. luhringaugustine.com/
P H OTO : FA R Z A D O W R A N G
Oscar Tuazon at Luhring Augustine
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A L L I M AG E S : C O U R T E S Y O F T H E A L H E L D F O U N DAT I O N . I N C . A N D C H E I M & R E A D N E W YO R K / L I C E N S E D BY A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y (A R S ) N E W
‘Al Held: Paris to New York, 1952-1959’ at Cheim & Read Cheim & Read in New York presents “Paris to New York, 1952−1959,” an exhibition of the American artist Al Held’s pioneering work in pigment and wax that led to his better-known large scale paintings of geometric abstraction. “In these paintings, Held sought to fuse the improvisational, expressive freedom of Jackson Pollock with the order and geometry of Piet Mondrian; his goal, as he put it, was “to give the gesture structure.” This show of 27 works is actually going to be displayed in two galleries. Nathalie Karg Gallery is taking paintings that Held made in Paris. They’ll be on display there until June 15. Cheim & Reid will be showing work from the years 1954 to 1959, after he moved back to New York. They’ll be on view there until July 6. “The works at Cheim & Reid belong to a
series known as the ‘Pigment Paintings,’ so named because they were made with paint that Held mixed from 100-pound sacks of pigment discarded by the Museum of Modern Art, where he worked as a custodian,” the gallery says. “In these monumental paintings, some of which measure as much as 9 feet in width, Held heightened the smoldering intensity of the raw pigment by thickening the paint with wax and other extenders, then applying with a trowel.” Al Held (1928-2005) attended the Art Students League in New York. Between 1951 and 1953 he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris under the G.I. Bill. In 1960, the artist had his irst solo show in New York was at the Poindexter Gallery. More information: http://www.cheimread. com/
Al Held (1928 - 2005),“AF-43,” 1953, ink on paper,18 x 24 in., 45.7 x 61 cm.
Al Held (1928 - 2005), “Untitled,”1959, oil on canvas, 90 1/4 x 72 1/2 in., 229.2 x 184.2 cm.
Al Held, “Untitled,”1954, oil on canvas, 95 1/2 x 59 in., 242.6 x 149.9 cm.
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Mimi Lauter, “Sensus Oxynation (Moonrise),” 2017, soft pastel, oil pastel on paper, eight parts; two parts: 87 x 60 in. (221 x 152.4 cm), two parts: 21 7/8 x 94 in. (55.6 x 238.8 cm), two parts: 14 3/4 x 25 3/4 in (37.5 x 65.4 cm), 67 x 117 1/2 in. (170.2 x 298.5 cm), 43 1/4 x 34 in. (109.9 x 86.4 cm).
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Mimi Lauter, “Sensus Oxynation (Apocalyptic Flood Allegory),” 2017, soft pastel, oil pastel on paper, two parts; 35 1/4 x 115 1/2 in (89.5 x 293.4 cm), 72 x 115 1/2 in (182.9 x 293.4 cm).
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Blum & Poe will present the exhibition “Sensus Oxynation” by Mimi Lauter from May 12 through June 23, 2018, in Los Angeles, marking the artist’s irst solo with the gallery. The name of the show was inspired by the phrase “prison of my senses,” which came to Lauter (b. 1982, San Francisco) in a dream. The 24-part installation replicates the interior of a chapel, with each wall displaying a grouping of lush, highly chromatic oil and soft-pastel works on paper. These arrangements of layered colors and swirling textures assemble abstracted narratives drawn from subconscious memory, literature, sociopolitical surroundings and classical mythology. The chapel itself addresses a secular relationship to spirituality in painting. Lauter continuously explores the tension between drawing and painting, and even sculpture. In the adjacent galleries, Lauter’s “Devotional Landscape” and “Devotional Flower” series, with their vibrant pastel colors, aim to convey the artist’s belief and devotion in painting itself, rather than to any traditional devotional paintings or sculptures used for religious worship. The intensely colored imageries of lowers, vases, the four elements, and other examples of iconography, trace the history of painting. More information: https://www.blumandpoe.com/
© M I M I L AU T E R , C O U R T E S Y O F T H E A R T I S T A N D B L U M & P O E , LO S A N G E L E S/N E W YO R K / TO K YO
Mimi Lauter at Blum & Poe
BERLIN
Monika Baer’s Solo ‘Die Einholung’ at Galerie Barbara Weiss
B OT H I M AG ES: C O U R T E SY T H E A R T I S T A N D GA L E R I E B A R B A R A W E I S S . P H OTO S A R E TO J E N S Z I E H E
Monika Baer’s (b.1964) sixth solo with Galerie Barbara Weiss, on view through June 16, 2018, in Berlin showcases a group of yellow pictures and a series of large-scale pigment paintings that continue the German artist’s exploration into the history and possibility of painting. The yellow paintings vary in tonality and scale, with furrows and traces in some of them, that render them into discreet reliefs; the polished aluminum mountings, which are attached directly into the wall and on the side of the canvases, also mark a new direction in Baer’s work. The large-scale pigment paintings embody a watery application of metal and stone pigments, and these three-dimensional singular drops appear as reliefs on the canvas, reminiscent of Baer’s earlier works. A selection of the artist’s pencil-on-paper drawings are also on display. More information: http://www. galeriebarbaraweiss.de Monika Baer, “Untitled,” acrylic, pigment, quartz on canvas, aluminium, screws, 88 x 83.5 cm, 34 2/3 x 32 3/4 in.
Monika Baer, “Untitled,” 2017, acrylic, pigment, quartz on canvas, aluminium, screws (180 x 118 cm | 70 3/4 x 46 1/2 in).
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The New York-based painter and printmaker Pat Steir will present her third wall drawing at Galerie Thomas Schulte, “Self Portrait,” along with her other paintings created since 1987, on view from April 28 through June 16 in Berlin. Steir is known for her speciic concept-oriented approach to painting, reminiscent of Jackson Pollock, and combining that approach with her expertise in Chinese painting tradition. This show will also include her largescale works such as “Dusk” (2007) and “The Dark” (2007), which are examples of her subtle method-driven practice of paint-dripping to create delicate interwoven curtainlike surface textures. “So Long Black, Silver and White” (2009) and “So Long Black, Red, Yellow and Blue” (2009) also take this approach into her so-called Split Surface Paintings. “Self Portrait,” which was irst realized in 1987 and subsequently presented, in modiied form, in venues across the world, embodies multiple facial features taken from Renaissance sample books, but abandons any sort of conventional selfregard and promotes the Buddhist notions of non-self. More information: https://www. galeriethomasschulte.de/ Pat Steir, “Self Portait Installation,” 1987-2018, and paintings, Installationsansicht / installation view, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin.
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P H OTO : H I E P L E R , B R U N I E R . C O U R T E S Y PAT S T E I R U N D/A N D GA L E R I E T H O M A S S C H U LT E
‘Pat Steir: Self Portrait Installation 1987-2018 Paintings’ at Galerie Thomas Schulte
Somogy Art Publishers since 1937 w w w. s o m o g y. n e t © Musée du Louvre, dist. R M N – Grand Palais / Hervé Lewandowski / Laurent Chastel / Thierry Le Mage / Adrien Didierjean
Tony Cokes, “On Non-Visibility,” installation view, Greene Naftali, New York, 2018.
Tony Cokes: ‘On Non-Visibility’ at Greene Naftali
Tony Cokes, “Evil.12. (edit.b): Fear, Spectra & Fake Emotions,” 2009, digital video, color, stereo, 11:43 minutes.
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The artist Tony Cokes makes his debut gallery solo in a show that runs through June 9, 2018. Cokes’s creations are marked by a visual style that includes excerpts from popular media such as news, advertising and Hollywood cinema, while challenging their modes of representation. His videos, juxtaposed with animated text, found images, color slides and pop music extracted from their various sources, bring together social elements that often clash and highlight the nuances with which media operate and manifest power. “On Non-
Visibility” includes the early work “Black Celebration” (1988), a video about the urban black riots in the 1960s, and the “Evil” series, which looks at the way culture is created and framed in a post-9/11 America that is deined increasingly by internet usage and consumption. The works in the “Evil” series feature mostly monochromatic videos coupled with texts quoting government testimonies, speeches, pop lyrics, excerpts from stand-up comedy and other sources. More information: http://www. greenenaftaligallery.com/
A L L I M AG E S : C O U R T E S Y TO N Y C O K E S A N D G R E E N E N A F TA L I , N E W YO R K
N EW YO R K
C O U R T E S Y Y U N H E E M I N A N D S U S A N N E V I E L M E T T E R LO S A N G E L E S P R O J E C T S P H OTO C R E D I T: J E F F M C L A N E
UP Left: Wilde, “Painting 5,” 2018, acrylic on linen, 72 x 76” [HxW] (182.88 x 193.04 cm).
CA L I FO R N I A
Yunhee Min’s ‘Wilde Paintings’ at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects The latest works by the Korean artist Yunhee Min will be on display through June 1, 2018, at the gallery based in Culver City, California. The title of the show is a reference to the artist’s irst body of work created in her new studio on Wilde Street in Los Angeles. The works also mark a new creative direction for the artist; Min has added brushes and rollers to her tools as well as expanded her techniques to include movements like short and long brush-strokes, swirls, twists and turns. This departure from using squeegees and water-based paints on canvases results in a variety of new visual outcomes, where the movement of paint takes center stage. Min’s new paintings, however, remain consistent with her commitment to the exploration of material possibilities of paint, surface, and color. More information: www.vielmetter.com
Above: Wilde, “Painting 9,” 2018, acrylic on linen, 55 x 55” [HxW] (139.7 x 139.7 cm).
UP Right: Wilde, “Painting 4,” 2018, acrylic on linen, 72 x 76” [HxW] (182.88 x 193.04 cm).
Right: “Movements (impulse 3),” 2017, acrylic on linen, 45 x 45” [HxW] (114.3 x 114.3 cm), signed and dated on reverse.
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Pino Pascali, “Quattro bachi da setola (Four Silk Worms),” 1968.
Lucio Fontana, “Venezia Biennale,” 1964.
LONDON
This exhibition explores the relationship between postwar Italian art and the economic miracle in the 1960s. The show, which uses Vittorio De Sica’s 1963 ilm “Il boom” as a starting point, focuses on how artists reacted and envisioned this boom through the works of Carla Accardi, Franco Angeli, Lucio Fontana and Mimmo Rotella among others. Flavia Frigeri, a teaching fellow at University College London, curated the exhibition as part of the gallery’s new annual curatorial fellowship, which aims to create new connections to the artworks in the gallery’s vast collection. More information: http://www. tornabuoniart.com/tornabuoni-artlondon.html
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Mimmo Rotella, “La rapina (The Robbery),” 1964.
C O U R T E S Y TO R N A B U O N I A R T
‘BOOM: Art and industry in 1960s Italy’ at Tornabuoni Art
From left to right: Marlene Dumas, “Amazon,” 2016, “Spring,” 2017, “Adonis,” 2017, “Amends,” 2018.
A L L I M AG E S : © M A R L E N E D U M A S . C O U R T E S Y DAV I D Z W I R N E R , N E W YO R K / H O N G KO N G
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Marlene Dumas: ‘Myths & Mortals’ at David Zwirner In her irst solo exhibition in New York since 2010, Marlene Dumas introduces a new series of works on paper that were originally created for a recent Dutch translation of William Shakespeare’s narrative poem Venus & Adonis (1593) by Haid Bouazza. Dumas’s new creations, which are on view through June 30, 2018, are tender and erotic with a hint of violence. Alongside these, new paintings ranging from monumental nude igures to intimately scaled canvases depicting details of the body and face are also on view. In the past four decades, Dumas has highlighted the complexities of identity and representation through her work. More information: https://www.davidzwirner.com
Marlene Dumas, “Venus praises the pleasures of love,” 2015-2016.
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Jiro Yoshihara, “Sakuhin,” 1955, colored iron, 48 7/8 x 12 1/4 x 1/8 inches (124 x 31.2 x 0.3 cm).
N EW YO R K
‘Gutai: 1953–1959’ at Fergus McCaffrey The show is a survey of Japanese avant-garde collective Gutai, which was active from 1954 to 1972 and known for its bold and experimental work. The show, which runs through June 30, 2018, is the irst to focus on the founding generation of Gutai artists and on the period from 1953 to 1959. The display features over 70 large-scale works by 11 artists. The Chelsea gallery has been especially extended for this exhibition to 15,000 sq. ft to accommodate these works. Many of the artworks on view are being exhibited in the United States for the irst time. The exhibition features loans from the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Dallas Museum of Art. More information: http:// fergusmccaffrey.com/
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Sadamasa Motonaga, “Flying,” 1954, oil on canvas, 23 3/4 x 28 1/2 inches, (60.4 x 72.5 cm).
TO P L E F T: © K A Z U O S H I R AGA . TO P R I G H T: © J I R O YO S H I H A R A . B OT TO M : © M OTO N AGA A R C H I V E R E S E A R C H I N S T I T U T I O N LT D.
Kazuo Shiraga, “Torimono,” 1958, oil on paper, mounted on canvas, 181.9 x 242.9 cm (181.9 x 242.9 cm).
TO P : C O U R T E S Y S I O B H Á N H A PA S K A A N D K E R L I N GA L L E R Y, D U B L I N . B OT TO M : C O U R T E S Y D O R OT H Y C R O S S A N D F R I T H S T R E E T GA L L E R Y, C O M M I S S I O N E D BY T H E N E W A R T GA L L E R Y WA L S A L L P H OTO : J O N AT H A N S H AW
Siobhán Hapaska, “Snake, apple, tree,” 2018, aluminium, artificial snakeskin, fibreglass, two-pack acrylic paint, oak, lacquer, edition of 3, 146 x 65 x 66 cm, 57.5 x 25.6 x 26 in.
Per Kirkeby’s“This is an Dorothy Cross Everest Floor,” 2017, marble slabs, 200 x 320 cm, 78.7 x 126 in. installation view, The New Art Gallery Walsall. DUBLIN
New Work From 5 Contemporary Irish Artists at Kerlin Gallery This is an intergenerational exhibition featuring ive Irish Contemporary artists at different stages in their careers. With an innovative approach to displaying sculpture, all artists are presenting new or recent work for the show. Dorothy Cross’s sculptures feature tips of ingers and mountains; Aleana Egan’s wall works offer her signature style, cast in the chalky patina of untreated bronze; Isabel Nolan’s linear steel sculptures are suspended from the ceiling; Siobhán Hapaska’s work features a glossy iberglass apple ready to burst squeezed between snakeskin girders; and Kathy Prendergast’s construction resembles a garden shed that has been built taking into account the approximate dimensions of a human igure. The exhibition runs through June 23, 2018 More information: http://www.kerlingallery.com/
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Anton Kern Gallery will host an exhibition of works by London-based Contemporary artist Francis Upritchard (b. 1976, New Zealand) from May 24 through June 30, 2018, marking her third presentation with the New York gallery. The show will include a series of clay pot sculptures created during Upritchard’s last winter residency at the Californian museum Lux Art Institute, as collaboration between her and the artisans from the museum. Created on the pottery wheel, these sculptures embody faces emerging from the smooth surface of clay, augmented by painted marks, patterns and glazes. Alongside these sculptures, a selection of small scale works on paper will also be on view. Sketched in washy volumes of watercolors, these loose freehand representations of vessels, igures and luorescent lizards foreshadow many of the marks and patterns of her ceramic works. More information: https://antonkerngallery.com/
Francis Upritchard, “Purple Urn,” 2018, bmix clay with purple exterior glaze and hippy white interior, 15 x 9.5 x 8.5 inches.
From left: Francis Upritchard, “Grey Urn,” 2018, bmix clay with no exterior glaze and amber celadon field, 12.25 x 8.5 x 9 in. (30 x 23.5 x 23 cm). Francis Upritchard, “Tall Toothpaste Jar,” 2016, long beach clay with hippy white exterior and amber celadon, interior glaze, 15 x 11.5 x 8 in. (37.5 x 29 x 24 cm), Francis Upritchard “Mustache Jar,” 2018, bruce clay, hippy white with celadon decoration and celadon interior glaze, 9.25 x 7.5 x 7 in (23 x 18.5 x 17 cm).
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A L L I M AG E S C O U R T E S Y F R A N C I S U P R I TC H A R D A N D A N TO N K E R N GA L L E R Y, N E W YO R K A R T W O R K © F R A N C I S U P R I TC H A R D
‘Francis Upritchard: Pots’ at Anton Kern Gallery
LONDON
TO P : P H OTO G R A P H Y BY © H A S S A N H A J J A J 2 013/14 3 4 . C O U R T E S Y O F T H E A R T I S T A N D V I G O GA L L E R Y, LO N D O N U K . P H OTO C R E D I T: R O B E R T B E A M
‘Talisman In The Age Of Difference’ at Stephen Friedman Gallery The show explores the power of magic and looks at the subversive beauty in the artworks of emerging and established artists of African origin. A number of artists deal with identity politics in the show, while others take an alternative path in their search for originality, material transformation, spirituality and the sublime. The artists selected all create work that suggests a subversive and political message and does not always conform to a Western vision of art. The show was curated by the award-winning British artist Yinka Shonibare MBE and runs through July 21, 2018. More information: http://www. stephenfriedman.com/home
Deborah Roberts, “Political Lambs in a Wolf’s World,” 2018, mixed media on paper, 96.52 x 99cm (38 x 39 in).
Hassan Hajjaj, “Afrikan Boy Sittin’,” 2013/1434, Edition 1 of 5 142 x 97.5 cm.
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GALLERY LISTINGS DC Moore Gallery
Galerie Buchholz
Galerie Hans Mayer
535 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10011 +1 212 247-2111 [email protected] dcmooregallery.com Robert Kushner: “Reverie: Dupattatopia,” through June 16 Katia Santibañez: “A Timeless Gaze,” through June 16
Fasanenstraße 30, 10719 Berlin +49 30 88 62 40 56 [email protected] galeriebuchholz.de Florian Pumhösl, June 8-July 28 Atsuko Tanaka, June 8-July 28
Grabbeplatz 2, 40213 Düsseldorf +49 211 132 135 [email protected] galeriehansmayer.de
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi Schöneberger Ufer 61, 10785 Berlin +49 30 26 39 49 85 [email protected] bortolozzi.com Danny McDonald: “Search Parameters,” through June 23
David Nolan Gallery
ROBERT KUSHNER Small Pink Cosmos, 2017, oil, acrylic, gold leaf, embroidery and sequins on panel, 24 x 18 inches at DC Moore Gallery, New York
Acquavella Galleries 18 E 79th St, New York, NY 10075 +1 212 734 6300 [email protected] acquavellagalleries.com Modern and Contemporary Masters
Casey Kaplan 121 W 27th St, New York, NY 10001 +1 212 645 7335 [email protected] caseykaplangallery.com Matthew Brannon: “Concerning Vietnam,” through June 16 Jason Dodge, June 21-July 27
Cheim & Read 547 W 25th St, New York, NY 10001 +1 212 242 7727 [email protected] cheimread.com Al Held: “Paris to New York 19521959,” through July 6. Catalogue available with text by Matthew Israel “All over the moon:” Laurel Sparks, Lily Stockman, Richard Tinkler, curated by Jack Pierson, July 12August 30
527 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001 +1 212 925 6190 [email protected] davidnolangallery.com Jorinde Voigt: “Integral,” through June 23 “Parentheses: The David Hartt Class of Graduating Students from the Penn MFA Program,” June 28-July 26
Di Donna 744 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10065 +1 212 259 0444 [email protected] didonna.com Surrealist , Modern, Post-War Art “Moon Dancers: Yup’ik Masks and the Surrealists,” through June 29
Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art 37 W 57th St, New York, NY 10019 +1 212 517 2453 [email protected] edwardtylernahemfineart.com Modern, Post-War and Contemporary Masters
Edwynn Houk Gallery 745 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10151 +1 212 750 7070 [email protected] houkgallery.com Erwin Blumenfeld, through June 2
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
ROBERT MOTHERWELL California Window, 1975, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 72 x 84 inches at Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris
Galerie Daniel Templon 30 rue Beaubourg, 75003 Paris +33 142 72 14 10 [email protected] danieltemplon.com Robert Motherwell: “Open Series,” through July 21
Galerie Eigen + Art Auguststraße 26, 10117 Berlin 49.30.280 6605 [email protected] eigen-art.com Carsten Nicolai, through July 7
78 Rue Julien Lacroix, 75020 Paris +33 1 42 03 05 65 galeriewolff.com William Anastasi: “Conic Sections, 1968-2018,” through June 16 “Summer Show,” June 23-July 28
Galerie Karsten Greve Drususgaße 1-5, 50667 Cologne +49 221 257 1012 [email protected] galerie-karsten-greve.com Pierre Soulages: “Peinture,” through June 23
Galerie Krinzinger Seilerstätte 16, 1010 Vienna +43 1 5133006 [email protected] galerie-krinzinger.at Marina Abramović, through June 9
Galerie Greta Meert 13 Rue du Canal, 1000 Brussels +32 2 219 14 22 [email protected] galeriegretameert.com Jean-Luc Moulène, through June 30 Carlos Caballero, through June 30
Galerie Lelong & Co. 528 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001 +1 212 315 0470 [email protected] galerielelong.com Ursula von Rydingsvard: “Torn,” through June 23 To be included in Modern Painters’ Gallery listings, contact [email protected]
Somogy Art Publishers since 1937 w w w. s o m o g y. n e t © Fonds Kandinsky / Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne Boris Lipnitzki, Wassily Kandinsky dans son atelier à Neuilly-sur-Seine devant Courbe dominante
Galerie Lahumière
Hauser & Wirth
Luhring Augustine
17, rue du Parc Royal, 75003 Paris +33 1 42 77 27 74 [email protected] lahumiere.com “Weaving Braiding: Villa Datris Islesur-la-Sorgue,” through November 1
23 Savile Row, London W1S 2ET +44 207 287 2300 [email protected] hauserwirth.com “Spiegelgasse:” Curated by Gianni Jetzer, through July 28 August Sander: “Men Without Masks,” through July 28
531 W 24th St, New York, NY 10011 +1 212 206 9100 [email protected] luhringaugustine.com Oscar Tuazon, through June 16 Phillip King, June 29-August 10
Galerie Martin Janda Eschenbachgasse 11, 1010 Vienna +43 1 5857371 [email protected] martinjanda.at Benjamin Butler: “Recent Trees and Monochromes,” through June 2 Sven Stilinovic, through June 2
Howard Greenberg Gallery
ROE ETHRIDGE Tulips from the Juice Place, 2018, dye sublimation print on aluminum, 40 x 30 inches at Gladstone Gallery
Galerie Max Hetzler Bleibtreustraße 45, Berlin Goethestraße 2/3, Berlin +49 30 34 64 97 850 [email protected] maxhetzler.com Loris Gréaud: “Ladi Rogeurs: Sir Loudrage - a still life,” on view at Goethestraße 2/3, thru July 21
Galerie Nagel Draxler Weydingerstraße 2-4, 10178 Berlin +49 30 40 04 26 41 [email protected] nagel-draxler.de Sayre Gomez, through June 2
Galerie Nathalie Obadia 3 rue du Cloître Saint-Merri, 75004 Paris +33 1 42 74 67 68 [email protected] galerie-obadia.com Cloister Saint-Merri: Benoît Maire, June 8-July 21
Galerie Nordenhake Lindenstrasse 34, 10969 Berlin +49 30 20 61 48 3 [email protected] nordenhake.com Eva Löfdahl, June 2-July 28
41 E 57th St, New York, NY 10022 +1 212 334 0010 [email protected] howardgreenberg.com Arnold Newman: “One Hundred,” through June 30 Saul Leiter: “In My Room,” through June 30 Staff Picks, July 12-August 30
Lehmann Maupin 536 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10011 +1 212 255 2923 [email protected] lehmannmaupin.com Cecilia Vicuña: Surrealist style paintings from the 1970s, her ‘quipu’ works and installations of ‘precarious,’ small sculptures made of found detritus, through July 14
Marian Goodman Gallery 24 West 57th St, New York, NY 10019 + 1 212 977 7160 [email protected] mariangoodman.com John Baldessari: “All Z’s (Picabia/ Mondrian),” through June 16
Marianne Boesky Gallery 509 W 24th St, New York, NY 10011 +1 212 680 9889 [email protected] marianneboeskygallery.com Julia Dault: “More Than Words,” a new series of sculpture and paintings, through June 16 “The Mechanics of Fluids,” curated by Melissa Gordon, June 21August 3
To be included in Modern Painters’ Gallery listings, contact [email protected]
Galleria Continua #8503, 2 Jiuxianqiao Road Chaoyang District 100015 Beijing, China +86 10 5978 9505 [email protected] galleriacontinua.com Carsten Höller: “Method,” through June 2
Gladstone Gallery
SAYRE GOMEZ Thief Painting in Black and White and Red Oxide, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 213 x 185 cm at Galerie Nagel Draxler
515 W 24th St | 530 W 21st St New York, NY 10011 +1 212 206 9300 [email protected] gladstonegallery.com Carroll Dunham, through June 16 Huang Yong Ping, through June 16
LORIS GRÉAUD Ladi Rogeurs: Sir Loudrage - a still life, installation view, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, 2018, Photos: def image. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin | Paris | London
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Matthew Marks Gallery
Pace/MacGill Gallery
Sprüth Magers
523 W 24th St, 522 W 22nd St, 526 W 22nd St New York, NY 10001 212-243-0200 [email protected] matthewmarks.com Charles Ray: “three rooms and the repair annex,” through June 16 Terry Winters: “12twelvepaintings,” through June 16
32 E 57th St, New York, NY 10022 +1 212 759 7999 [email protected] pacemacgill.com “Pairs,” through August 24
Oranienburger Straße 18, 10178 Berlin +49 30 28 88 40 30 [email protected] spruethmagers.com Andro Wekua, through September 9 Senga Nengudi, through September 9 Kara Walker, through September 9
Metro Pictures 519 W 24th St, New York, NY 10011 +1 212 206 7100 [email protected] metropictures.com “Evidence: “Organized by Josh Kline, June 7-July 28
Peter Blum Gallery 176 Grand St, New York, NY 10013 +1 212 244 6055 [email protected] peterblumgallery.com “Excavation:” Zahoor ul Akhlaq, N. Dash, Josephine Halvorson, Corin Hewitt, Erik Lindman, Stanley Rosen, June 7-July 27
Stephen Friedman Gallery BERNARD FRIZE Der, 2018, acrylic and resin on canvas, 70.875 x 63 inches on view at Simon Lee
Paula Cooper Gallery
Simon Lee Gallery
4 E 77th St, New York, NY 10075 +1 212 988 1623 [email protected] michaelwerner.com A. R. Penck, through July 3
534 W 21st St, 521 W 21st St, New York, NY 10011 +1 212 255 1105 [email protected] paulacoopergallery.com Charles Gaines, through June 9 Carl Andre, Lynda Benglis, through June 16
12 Berkeley St, London W1J 8DT +44 20 7491 0100 [email protected] simonleegallery.com Bernard Frize: “Blackout in the Grid,” through June 30
Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Regen Projects
534 W 26th St, New York, NY 10002 +1 212 744 7400 [email protected] miandn.com Justine Kurland: “Girl Pictures, 1997-2002,” through June 29
6750 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038 +1 310 276 5424 benthornborough@ regenprojects.com regenprojects.com Marilyn Minter, through June 23
Mnuchin Gallery
Richard Nagy Ltd
45 E 78th St, New York, NY 10075 +1 212 861 0020 [email protected] mnuchingallery.com “Post War and Contemporary Highlights,” June 18-Aug 31
22 Old Bond Street, Mayfair, London W1S 4PY +44 20 7262 6400 [email protected] richardnagy.com
Michael Werner
Skarstedt 8 Bennet St, London SW1A 1RP +44 207 499 5200 [email protected] skartstedt.com David Salle: “Paintings 1985-1995,” through June 23
Sperone Westwater
PACE 32 E 57th St, New York, NY 10022 +1 212 421 3292 [email protected] pacegallery.com Robert Irwin, through June 23
Sadie Coles HQ 1 Davies St, London W1K 3DB 62 Kingly St, London W1B 5QN +44 20 7493 8611 [email protected] sadiecoles.com Paloma Varga Weisz: “wild,” June 9August 18 Urs Fischer: “soft,” June 8-August 18
257 Bowery, New York, NY 10002 +1 212 999 7337 [email protected] speronewestwater.com Jitish Kallat: “Decimal Point,” the exhibition delves into ideas of time, sustenance, sleep, vision and perception along with a compelling interplay of scales and proximities, and evocations of the celestial and the cosmological; preoccupations that have recurred across his wideranging work, through June 16
25-28 Old Burlington St W1S 3AN London +44 20 7494 1434 [email protected] stephenfriedman.com “Talisman in the Age of Difference,” June 5-July 21
Van de Weghe Fine Art 1018 Madison Avenue, 3rd flr, New York, NY 10075 +1 212 744 1900 [email protected] www.vdwny.com Modern and Contemporary Art
Victoria Miro Gallery Gallery I and II: 16 Warf Rd, N1 7RW London Mayfair: 14 St. George St, W1S 1FE London +44 20 7336 8109 victoria-miro.com Mayfair: “Surface Work,” an international, cross-generational exhibition of women artists who have shaped and transformed, and continue to influence and expand, the language of abstract painting, through June 16
White Cube 144-152 Bermondsey St SE1 3TQ London +44 207 930 5373 [email protected] whitecube.com Beatriz Milhaze: “Rio Azul,” on view through July 1 Seung-taek Lee, through June 30
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FRANCIS BACON | Study for Portrait of John Edwards
RICHARD NAGY
The Art of Living, Curated by Our Editors
THROUGH AUGUST 12, 2018
SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
LOCAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer is organized by the Denver Art Museum. It is presented with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Bank, the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign, and the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine, CBS4, Comcast Spotlight, and The Denver Post. YOU CAN FEEL IT ALL OVER, 2015. Repurposed punching bag, glass beads, artificial sinew, steel; 41×14×14 in. From the collection of Teresa and Lorenzo Fertitta; I PUT A SPELL ON YOU, 2015. Repurposed punching bag, glass beads, artificial sinew, and steel; 40×14×14 in. Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Museum purchase, 2015.11.1; All artworks by Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Band Choctaw/Cherokee). All images courtesy of Jeffrey Gibson Studio and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California. All photography by Peter Mauney.