MIRAGES LIX
This month begins with two new and promising Media Partnerships with International Art Fairs in Spain: Art Madrid 2020 and JUSTMAD 2020 (International Emerging Art Fair).
ART MADRID 2020: In its 15th anniversary promises to be the most dynamic in its history and be full of “novelties, action and movement”. The fair brings together 27 Spanish and 14 foreign exhibitors from 9 countries. The art critic and independent curator Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta, under the title of “Salvajes” Art Madrid will go a step further in Art Madrid’s ONE PROJECT program, turning it into a sphere of dialogue (but also of conflict) where nine artists will share the space face to face presenting specific projects to the fair.
JUSTMAD 2020 (International Emerging Art Fair) is the fair in which to begin to collect and to get close to the most contemporary art, in which to discover quality and judgement from the beginning, and in which to get acquainted with the most interesting work in emerging art each year. Directed by the independent curator Semíramis González, JUSTMAD launches its eleventh edition and restates its commitment to the promotion and dissemination of emerging art through curated sections. The fair brings together 46 from 8 countries.
February continues with a series of very interesting exhibitions in the Great Museums around the world, like: “Six Songs, Swirling Gracefully in the Taut Air” at Gropius Bau, brings together works from various long-term series composed by Berlin-based Nigerian photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi, who has captured intimate scenes and communal life in cities such as Lagos, Berlin, Johannesburg, Bamako and Chicago, among many other locations. “Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures” is the first major solo exhibition at the MoMA of the photographer’s incisive work in over 50 years. The exhibition includes approximately 100 photographs drawn entirely from the Museum’s Collection. The exhibition also uses archival materials such as correspondence, historical publications, and oral histories, as well as contemporary voices, to examine the ways in which words inflect our understanding of Lange’s pictures. Conceived as a polyphony of voices and viewpoints on contemporary artistic production, the 34th Bienal de São Paulo “Faz escuro mas eu canto” (Though it’s dark, still I sing] asserts the right to complexity and opacity, both in expressions of art and culture as well as in the identities of individuals and social groups. To this end, this edition of the event has adopted a new format, aimed at creating a multiplicity of distinct situations in which the encounter between artworks and the public can take place. Steve McQueen creates work that addresses the urgent issues of representation, identity and history. Next spring, Tate Modern presents the first survey of his work in the UK for over 20 years, offering a timely moment to reflect on these themes. Featuring 14 major works spanning film, photography and sculpture, and his recent film “End Credits” (2012- ), McQueen’s homage to the African-American singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. Walid Raad’s retrospective “Let’s be honest, the weather helped” at Moderna Museet, features documents and scenarios that he either wishes existed or fears are already in existence. We also meet the artist himself in a comprehensive performance work. Part of the exhibition is ”Kicking the Dead and/or Les Louvres”, a 75-minute performance, which Raad refers to as a “walkthrough”. The exhibition “Countryside, The Future” at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum addresses urgent environmental, political, and socioeconomic issues through the lens of architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal, Director of AMO, the think tank of OMA. The project presents investigations by AMO, Koolhaas, with students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; Wageningen University, Netherlands; and the University of Nairobi. For his solo exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, Ulla von Brandenburg has imagined a total, evolving project, inspired from the theatre, as well as its imaginary and conventions. Around the notion of ritual, understood as the possibility to explore the relationships between individuals and groups, and to create or not to create something in common, the artist invites the public to take part in an immersive and renewed experience of the themes, forms and motifs that feed into her work. Richard Long in “Being in the Moment” explores the relationship between people and the natural world, the exhibition features work from 1966–2006, starting with early experiments in the south-west of England.
Finally, do not forget the artists and the architects whose names are interwoven with this month, at the column “Traces” the artists: Olafur Eliasson, Gerhard Richter, Laurence Weiner, Sigmar Polke, Yoko Ono, Franz West and Martin Kippenberger. As for the Architects they are: Alvar Aalto, Luis Kahn and Frank Gehnry.
Good Month (!)
1/2/20
Efi Michalarou