ART NEWS:June 02

The group exhibition “Picnic” features a smorgasbord of work representing our full roster of gallery artists. The show offers a sampling of Lesley Heller Gallery’s program, with artworks by 23 artists in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography, and works on paper. “Picnic” offers the chance for gallery goers get an overview of the entire gallery program, which has been historically focused on process-based artists—where the presence of the artists’ hand and the actions used to create their work play a large role in the finished piece. To encourage this understanding of our program, we will be exchanging some of the artworks each week during the show. The artists will stay the same, but the works representing them may change, so be sure to come back more than once during the month long exhibition to get a full tasting of each artist. Info: Lesley Heller Gallery, 54 Orchard Street, New York, Duration: 12/7-17/8/18, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 11:00-18:00, Sun 12:00-18:00, www.lesleyheller.com

Andrew Kerr in solo exhibition presents a series of intimately-scaled works on paper that offers its own distinct form of representation, dictated by the nuances of acrylic paint and established studio habits. Beginning with a succession of scattered marks on blank sheets, these slow compositions accrue dense layers of paint over the course of many months. Kerr employs improvisational compositional methods in an effort to achieve a distinct pictorial structure and mood—always light and vulnerable, sometimes coherent or dissonant. Soft fields of pale pinks and powder blues variously meet with strong strokes of vermilion and alternating textures. A shared atmosphere ties together these abstracted forms into a visual vernacular of chariots, shelters, industrial machinery, insects, robes, and a stage. Some of the works in this presentation hover just above the gallery walls by pins; others are framed by Kerr’s own whimsical wooden constructions. Influences from art history old and new reverberate through this body of work, from late-19th century decorative painting, to mid-20th century British painters Carel Weight and Prunella Clough, to Glasgow-based peers, tutors, and forebears Tony Swain, Victoria Morton, Cathy Wilkes, and Merlin James. Info: Blum & Poe Gallery, 19 East 66 Street, New York, Duration: 12/7-17/8/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.blumandpoe.com

The exhibition “Fresh Paint / New Construction” provides an extensive survey of some of the newest and most interesting work coming out of the art programmes of fourteen Canadian universities. Young artists have a global platform upon which to showcase the fruits of their creative labour, but nowhere will you find as many inspiring works in the flesh, than Montreal’s Art Mûr. Now in its fourteenth edition, “Fresh Paint / New Construction” is testament to Art Mûr’s commitment to exhibiting Canada’s top emerging talents, and is an ongoing project that has proven to be the launching pad for many artistic careers over the past decade and a half. Among the largest private contemporary art galleries in Canada, Art Mûr is one of the few commercial galleries, if not the only one, to hold such an exhibition, and on such a scale. Info: Art Mur, 5826 rue St-Hubert, Montréal, Duration: 14/7-25/8/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed 10:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 12:00-20:00, Sat 12:00-17:00, http://artmur.com

Liverpool Biennial, the largest festival of contemporary visual art in the UK, mark its20th anniversary this year with the 10th edition under the title “Beautiful world, where are you?” More than 40 artists from 22 countries participate in the program responding to the theme set by the curators. As an additional strand, “Worlds within worlds” invites audiences to explore the rich histories and stories evoked by objects and artefacts from the city’s civic collections and architecture. Also showing as part of Liverpool Biennial 2018 are partner exhibitions John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Gallery, Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2018 at Liverpool John Moores University’s School of Art and Design, and the Biennial Fringe.Biennial is underpinned by a program of research, education, residencies and commissions. Founded in 1998, the Biennial has commissioned over 340 new artworks and presented work by more than 480 artists from around the world. Info: Curators: Kitty Scott and Sally Tallant, Liverpool Biennial 2018, Various locations, Liverpool, Duration: 14/7-28/8/18, www.biennial.com

The “Log-O-Rithmic Slide Rule: A Retrospective” is the first UK survey of the work of the Swiss architects and designers Trix & Robert Haussmann. Their work spans buildings, product design and furniture, as well as textiles, poems and models. Bringing together works from the 1960s to today, the exhibition explores the husband-and-wife duo’s playful innovations and speculations. Embracing irony and ambiguity, artifice and illusion, the Haussmanns deal in what they have called “disturbed reality.” Often turning to historical models, they blend pop culture with techniques borrowed from 16th century mannerism, such as trompe l’oeil painting. Since founding their Zurich office in 1967, called the General Design Institute, the duo has realized some 650 projects across Europe, from Zurich’s railway station to interiors for bars and boutiques. In the Haussmanns’ work, furniture often morphs or malfunctions, becoming enigmatic and hybrid. This exhibition brings together early pieces, such as modified chairs from the 1960s, with maquettes, fragmented columns, elements from shop displays and mirrored objects. Info: Curators: Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen, Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham, United Kingdom, Duration: 14/7-7/10/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, Sun 10:00-17:00, www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

Working with textile installation, ceramics and video, Pia Camil highlights the shortcomings of consumerism and globalisation through works that are playful, interactive and participatory. Pia Camil’s first solo exhibition in the UK titled “Split Wall” brings together a series of new commissions with existing work. The Mexico City-based artist’s practice explores the shortcomings of consumerism and globalisation, exposing the traces it leaves on our day-to-day and our built environment. Working with textiles, ceramics and video, Camil reconfigures these urban failures into works that are both playful and socially critical. Conceived as an immersive installation across two of Nottingham Contemporary’s galleries, the solo exhibition features a series of textile works, forming spaces for communal interaction. A 100-metre-long curtain sewn from black and white t-shirts, titled “Fade into Black” (2018), theatrically divides the exhibition, establishing a soft architecture that connects the body with the built environment. The work repurposes t-shirts that were originally manufactured in Mexico for export and then illicitly sold back to be resold in Mexican street markets. Camil is also be presenting a video produced in collaboration with writer Gabriela Jauregui, a usable hammock made from discarded jeans, and a series of ceramic masks. Info: Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham, United Kingdom, Duration: 14/7-7/10/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, Sun 10:00-17:00, www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

This year the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Art has its 30-year anniversary. The prize of 100.000€ is awarded biannually to a prominent Dutch artist. The 2018 laureate is Erik van Lieshout. The exhibition “30 Year of Dutch Contemporary Art” celebrates all the laureates and includes more than 75 works by the 16 artists, giving a unique opportunity to look at the development of Dutch artistic practice over three decades. The selected works are drawn from all the laureates and offer  a unique overview of the Dutch artistic landscape, full of both contrast and unexpected connections and continuity. Of the two most recent laureates, Erik van Lieshout re-created a new, room-filling reinstallation of his work “Die Insel”, and Yvonne Dröge Wendel presents new work made specifically with the support of the award. Info: Van Abbemuseum, Bilderdijklaan 10, Eindhoven, Duration: 14/7-30/9/18, Days & Hlours: Tue-Sun 11:00-17:00, https://vanabbemuseum.nl

“FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art” is an exhibition comprised of artist commissions, performances, films, and public programs that launch its inaugural edition in 2018, titled “An American City”. In collaboration with museums, civic institutions, and alternative spaces across Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin, the Triennial will showcase an ambitious roster of projects, including performance and theater throughout the landscape and built environment. With a roster of national, international and area-based artists at all points in their career, “FRONT” examines the ever-changing and politically urgent conditions of an American city. A few of the projects include “Canvas City”, a mural program across nine Downtown blocks, and new art installations on the campus, Info: Artistic Director: Michelle Grabner, Curator: Lisa Kurzner, Assistant Curators: Rose Burlingham and Sarah Liska, FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Various Venues in Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin, Ohio,  USA, Duration: 14/7-30/9/18, https://frontart.org

The exhibition “In Pursuit of Elusive Horizons” brings together five artists whose practice is expressive of this emergent sensibility, all of whom use landscape as a platform for exploring larger ideas. Each of the artists, in their own way, occupies the border between emotional experience and objective reasoning, often fluctuating between multiple and contradictory positions, drawing on a wealth of art historical languages. Through shared concerns for meta-narratives of scale, time and perceptual relationships to landscape, the artists here have found ways of combining languages, from the scientific to the sublime, that generate both ambiguity and intellectual clarity. The exhibition articulates a sense of exploration and curiosity, demonstrating that ultimately, our need for wonder is part of the human condition and affective experiences cannot be dismissed as being mutually exclusive to critical rigour. Instead these artists, through a variety of strategies and a diverse range of media, incorporate and embrace the contradictions and uncertainties of our time. Info: Curator: Rebecca Partridge, Parafin, 18 Woodstock Street, London, Duration: 20/7-15/9/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 12:00-17:00, www.parafin.co.uk

Bringing together performance, video, sculpture and sound “Nocturnal Creatures” is a new, free festival, for one night only. Cultural and historic venues within walking distance of Whitechapel Gallery are transformed, opening their doors late into the night. Highlights include a range of immersive installations, visuals, performances and sound elements from The London Open 2018 artists. Op view is an immersive audio-visual environment created by Tom Lock with Fernanda Muñoz Newsome, Manuela Barczewski and Rudi Schmidt. Larry Achiampong will provide a multi-media experience which brings together film and performance with a live soundtrack at the White Chapel Building.  In association with Sculpture in the City, artist-led tours of artworks around the East End will also take place. New audio compositions will be made accessible for the first time as part of the launch of Sculpture in the City x Musicity, linking music and architecture together as new way of seeing and hearing the area. Situated around the city are 18 works from internationally renowned artists. Info: Nocturnal Creatures, London, Duration: 21/7/18, Hours: 18:00-23:00, www.whitechapelgallery.org

Since inaugurated in 2000, Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale has been held throughout the Echigo-Tsumari region (Tokamachi City and Tsunan Town) in Japan, known for its heavy snowfall and distinctive Satoyama agricultural landscape, which has been suffering rapid ageing and depopulation. Under the overarching principle of “human beings are part of nature”, the festival aims to reveal the latent values of the region using art as a catalyst, communicate these to the world, and find a way to revitalize the region. For the 7th edition of the Triennale about 160 new works will be created in addition to over 200 existing works created by global artists. In total, about 360 works by the artists, architects, and performers from 44 countries are unfolded over 760 square kilometers of the land, terraced rice fields, mountains, forests, empty farming houses, and closed school buildings. The visitors interact with the works, and more broadly with the region and local people, while traveling from one work to the next. The pilgrimage allows the visitors to reexamine global environmental approaches, and expand the dialogue of how people relate to nature. Info: Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2018, Tokamachi City-Tsunan Town, Echigo-Tsumari region, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, Duration: 29/7-17/9/18, www.echigo-tsumari.jp