ART NEWS:April 01

The exhibition “The Unexpected Subject. 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy” is proposing for the first time a wide-ranging investigation and a precise reconstruction of the relationship between visual arts and feminist movement in Italy, identifying in 1978 the catalyst year of all energies in play (not only in Italy). 1978 marks the closing of some important experiences related to art and women’s movement. In 1978 the group Cooperativa Beato Angelico in Rome, the first artistic space entirely run by women, interrupted its activities. This group was fueled by Carla Accardi. But 1978 is also the year of the international feminist seminar Comrade Woman: Women’s Question – A New Approach? in Belgrade and the first feminist exhibition in Wroclaw, Poland, First International Women’s Art Exhibition organized by Natalia LL. Many international women artists worked in Italy in those same years: Marina Abramović, Sanja Iveković, Gina Pane, Rebecca Horn, etc. The exhibition criticizes the mainstream historical-critical view that relegates women artists to a marginal position. The selection will privilege artworks that demystify gender stereotypes and reflect on the role of women in society and in late capitalist culture. Info: Curators:  Marco Scotini and Raffaella Perna, FM Center for Contemporary Art, Frigoriferi Milanesi, Via Piranesi 10, Milan, Duration: 4/4-26/5/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 17:00-21:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.fmcca.it

When you enter the Matt Mullican exhibition “Banners” at the Skulpturenhalle, you are immediately surrounded by huge, colorful banners of nylon fabric suspended from the walls and the roofbeams, spanned across the ceiling and spread out over the floor. Visitors find only a narrow pathway between these hanging screens, meandering from the entrance through the hall, and have to follow it in order to walk deeper into the forest of banners. The first impression is that of entering a constructed world rather than just another exhibition. For the colours and signs repeat and seem to relate to each other according to some law of their own. At the same time, this is no real, tangible world presented in an exhibition space; it is an abstract world to be deciphered. It seems accessible, because the signs appear familiar, and yet at the same time hermetic and legible only to those who know the code. Info: Curator: Dieter Schwarz, Thomas Schütte Foundation, Skulpturenhalle, Lindenweg, Junction Berger Weg (Near Raketenstation), Neuss/Holzheim, Duration: 5/4-11/8/19, Days & Hours: Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://thomas-schuette-stiftung.de

For the exhibition “Silence” Anna Bjerger used a square format as a starting point. The format has been essential for Bjerger’s search for both subject and composition through the series. The restriction of the format allowed Bjerger to approach composition from a different point, removing the conventions suggested by a rectangle. The men and women inhabiting these images both in movement and stillness, direct their gaze away from the viewer or inwards towards themselves as if in a moment of self reflection. This deliberate lack of contact is perhaps the reason these images offer a more contemplative feeling that shifts the focus between subject and medium. The brush marks become as important as the images it describes. The title, refers to presence and focus. The thought of a painting making a sound might seem odd. But there is quietness in the moment one experiences the work – this is very true for the viewer experiencing Anna Bjerger’s paintings.  Info: Curator: David Risley, Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Flæsketorvet 85 A, Copenhagen, Duration: 5/4-15/6/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 13:00-18:00, Sat 12:00-16:00, www.bjerggaard.com

Leda Bourgogne’s solo exhibition “In the Feelings of My Shadow” is a complex installation with atmosphere spread between the gym, the theater stage and a BDSM studio. In her intricately built objects, Leda Bourgogne works with allusions of historical painting and assemblage techniques, moving between handicraft and ready made or found objects. The frame and canvas serve for her as a means of pointing out power relations and the contingency of identity constructions. In her work she thematizes the objecthood of the image, the surface and sharp edges of which are covered fetishistically with layers of torn fabrics, latex or fishnet stockings. She lovingly cares for her objects as suffering non-normative bodies, at the same time hurt by desire, the impact of social wrongdoings and the tense emotions washed out from the subconscious, what Leda Bourgogne’s texts and poems also talk about. Info: Curator: Lumir Nykl, Jiri Svestka Gallery, Janackovo nabrezi 5, Prague, Duration: 9/4- , Days & HoursL Wed-Fri 14:00-19:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.jirisvestkagallery.com

Images is an artist driven festival that expands traditional definitions and understandings of media art by experimenting with a multiplicity of artistic forms. The festival  presents, promotes and pushes the boundaries of contemporary moving image culture. Images raises the profile of independent media art to develop critical engagement for Canadian and international artists and audiences. Images Festival showcases artistic excellence in contemporary moving image culture through 14 gallery exhibitions, 73 on-screen works, and eight live performances happening throughout the city. The 2019 program calls attention to our histories, solidarities, and collaborations, providing vivid perspectives that further challenge and uproot the dialogue surrounding experimental media art. The Images Festival was established by the Northern Visions Collective to look closely at the dynamics of accessibility. Images began as Toronto’s only alternative to the Toronto International Film Festival, integrating film and video from its inception, and later expanding to include installations, performances and new media. From the beginning, Images has been at the forefront in identifying and supporting work that has been marginalized or unrecognized by existing exhibition venues, and was crucial in opening up dialogue in the media arts community around issues of race, culture, gender and sexuality. Info: Images Festival, Various locations, Toronto, Duration: 11-18/4/19, www.imagesfestival.com

Comprised exclusively of mixed media paintings, her solo exhibition furthers Vivian Suter’s singular style of installation, in which canvases flood the gallery space, creating an enveloping mise-en-scène of visual characters that intermingle, juxtapose, and cavort with one another. Composed individually, the works on view inevitably become an interconnected painterly biome, openly inviting gallery-goers into the artist’s cosmos. A testament to Suter’s decades-long career, these paintings run the canonical gamut, from Abstract Expressionist to Color Field to Art Informel. However, eschewing any artistic predecessors, Suter draws her inspiration directly from her natural surroundings, most deeply the Guatemalan rainforest where the artist has lived and worked for more than thirty years. The visual manifestation of this environmental stimulus is manifold: not only does Suter gesturally reference the sun, rainstorms, wind, and trees throughout her paintings, but eroded dirt, animal life, rain water, and plant matter also find their way onto the untreated surfaces of her canvases. A disruption of material hierarchy, Suter places the components of her studio on equal footing with the biological world. Info: Gladstone Gallery, 530 West 21st Street, New York, Duration: 11/4-8/6/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://gladstonegallery.com

“Moving women” is a 100% video art exhibition that brings together top artists in the medium. The theme of this new exhibition is how are women portrayed in 2019 by artists working in films and videos. The eight artists on this project (Laurent Fievet, Shaun Gladwell, Dana Hoey, Clare Langan, Erwin Olaf, Yapci Ramos, Mario Rizzi and Lee Yanor), are presenting an array of multifaceted women, depicted in all their complexity. “Moving Portraits”, the iconic piece by Erwin Olaf from his latest series “Shanghai”, takes a perspective both sensible and unsettling on the passing of time, and constructs a complex portrait of feminity by presenting together women of different ages. Olaf uses video as a second language. He sets his photographs in motion, and his models come to life one after another, talking to the viewer: “Love me, look at me…”. Deeply human desire. Mario Rizzi represented Tunisia at the last Venice Biennale; Shaun Gladwell, also represented Australia at the Venice Biennale on two occasions. Info: Curators: Magda Danysz and Barbara Polla, Danysz gallery, 78 rue Amelot, Paris, Duration: 13/4-16/5/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, http://magdagallery.com

Lili Dujourie’s exhibition “Ballade” focuses on her relationship with nature, specifically the poetry and art it evokes. The exhibition features sculptures made from clay, the essence of the earth, as well as a recent series of papier-mâché sculptures that explore the artist’s long-standing interest in plants and their healing qualities. The series “Ballade “consists of twenty sculptural imitations of flowers known for their association with ancient medical knowledge. Since antiquity, plants such as Linum, Trifolium and Calendula, amongst others, have been used as herbal remedies to cure a great variety of ailments.  Images of such flowers were collected by Dujourie from old medieval codices as well as botanical studies, like “Hortus Sanitatis”, the first encyclopaedia of natural history printed in 1491. Here she references the relationship between knowledge and power, pointing to how the empirical understanding of plants’ medicinal qualities was kept hidden in monasteries, where illustrated herbal guides or oral lore represented the only means through which such information was transmitted from one generation to the next. Info: Richard Saltoun Gallery, 41 Dover Street, London, Duration: 18/4-25/5/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.richardsaltoun.com