ART NEWS:Sept. 02

A formidable painter known for her deployment of illusionistic trompe l’oeil effects and architecturally-scaled installations, Lucy McKenzie quickly established herself as one of the most exciting artists of her generation. Developed in close collaboration with the artist herself, and featuring over 100 works dating from 1997 to the present, the exhibition “Prime Suspect” for the first time examines the full scope of her oeuvre. It will bring together examples from all of the artist’s significant bodies of work, including early paintings relating to pop music and Cold War-era Olympic games; her subsequent engagement with the traditions of Scottish and Eastern European muralism and Belgian illustration; and large-scale paintings based on historic architectural styles. Also included are the collaborative fashion label and research bureau Atelier E.B.; recent works blurring the lines between painting, sculpture, and furniture; as well as new works commissioned especially for the exhibition. Info: Curator: Jacob Proctor, Museum Brandhorst, Theresienstraße 35a, Munich, Duration: 10/9/20-21/2/21, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu 10:00-20:00, www.museum-brandhorst.de

The exhibition “Readings From Below” explores how artists engage us in new readings of our complex present by making use of the virtual potentials of archives. While the traditional institution of the archive with its sense of permanence and timeless solidity, its physical location and architecture continues to exist, in today’s world of digitized information, archives are becoming radically temporalized, multimodal, and detached from any specific space in line with a dynamic user culture. Any materials retrieved from these heterogeneous archives can be reused, recontextualized, or restaged, with the possibility of reconfiguring them in any conceivable arrangement. Artists today, more than ever before, are working with archive documents, research, information, and data, processing their material in innovative ways and opening it up to our collective memory for retrieval and reinterpretation. Readings From Below brings together works that offer less obvious, unconventional suggestions as to how to read our world, often starting with a subjective perspective, a daily environment, a particular location, or a contextual detail, only to engage us in broader social and political constellations. Info: Curator: Ariane Beyn, Times Art Center Berlin, Brunnenstraße 9, Berlin, Duration: 10/9-12/12/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-19:00, www.timesartcenter.org

On Liste’s new online format, “Liste Showtime”, 72 galleries from 35 countries will each present one artist who is an out-standing representative of their generation, collectively showcasing the latest devel-opments and trends in contemporary art. The concept behind “Liste Showtime”, follows in the footsteps of Liste’s primary concern, which is to present new artistic positions in great depth year after year. As such, each gallery will showcase one artist and will be able to individualize and independently design their online presentations through the use of various modules and media. In addition to the digital platform for galleries, “Liste Showtime” also encompasses a poster project titled “Rewriting Our Imaginations”, which was inspired by an essay written by science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson for The New Yorker magazine and was created in collaboration with artists selected by the participating galleries. Info: Director: Joanna Kamm, Duration: 11-20/9/20, Days: Fri-Mon (11-14/9) VIP Preview (only with Access Code) , Mon-Sun (14-20/9/20), https://showtime.liste.ch

“Aah” is  Austin Lee’s second solo exhibition with Peres Projects. The exhibition presents new paintings and sculptures. The works stage a collapse in the distinctions between real and imaginary, digital and physical. In our everyday lives, we move between online and offline space in an increasingly seamless way, in his translation between mediums, Lee’s practice becomes the conduit for bringing the digital into reality. As Lee assumes this role of transmutator, the paintings and sculptures that comprise this exhibition are concerned with our ways of seeing and being in the world which now also includes the digital lived experience. Lee’s practice plays with how a work can be limited and defined by the tools and technologies that compose it, reflecting on our own experiences of mediation and how these same tools shape and construct our subjectivities. Info: Peres Projects, Karl-Marx-Allee 82, Berlin, Duration: 11/9-9/10/20, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00-18:00, https://peresprojects.com

“Afgang (MFA Degree Show)” is the annual exhibition for the graduates from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ Schools of Visual Arts. The exhibition celebrates and presents works created by the new talents from The Art Academy and is the culmination of their education and an insight into the latest six years working process. This year’s 28 graduates contribute individually to the exhibition, and all the works have different expressions and are a presentation of the individual artists’ work. The audience can therefore encounter everything from painting over complex media installations to text statements and sculptural objects. At the same time, the exhibition present a very unique image of what is happening on the stage of contemporary art. Info: Curator: Helga Just Christoffersen, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Kongens Nytorv 1, Copenhagen, Duration: 12/9-18/10/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-20:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-17:00, https://kunsthalcharlottenborg.dk

The Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera’s solo exhibition title “Ndakavata pasi ndikamutswa nekuti anonditsigira” translates from Shona to English as “I took my rest in sleep and then I awoke for He sustained me”, and is her first solo presentation in Europe. In her paintings, Zvavahera gives form to emotions that manifest from other realms and dimensions beyond the domains of everyday life and thought. Her vivid imagery is rooted in the cornerstones of our earthly existence—life and death, pain and pleasure, isolation and connection, and love and loss. These deeply personal visions are realised through layers of vibrant colour and ornate, veil-like patterns that the artist builds up into palimpsestic surfaces through a combination of expressive brushwork and elaborate printmaking techniques. Zvavahera’s compositions draw on particular traditions of figuration in past and present Zimbabwe, first expressed in the work of Thomas Mukarobgwa in the 1960s, while also pointing to postwar artistic practices that probe the nature of the human condition. Info: David Zwirner Gallery, 24 Grafton Street London, Duration: 15/9-31/10/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com

In the  exhibition “Hypotetic”  Rudolf Polanszky continues to evolve the Reconstructions by introducing copper foil into his material repertoire. Interspersed between fields of white corrugated cardboard and silvery aluminum, these gently creased, gleaming metal sheets add an entirely new tonal and textural dimension to the surface of each painting. Also on view are sculptures where Polanszky translates the rough-hewn edges of these repurposed materials into three dimensions. In two large freestanding sculptures, he shapes segments of flexible ribbed aluminum tubing into gently curving forms, while in a suite of smaller tabletop works, he deftly manipulates angular strips of metal and acrylic glass into dynamic abstractions. In the early 1990s, Polanszky began examining the formal potential of sculpture and mixed-media paintings. To make these richly textured works, he uses salvaged industrial materials such as acrylic glass, aluminum, mirrored foil, resin, silicone, and wire, recombining them into purely aesthetic forms divorced from their original uses and contexts. Inspired by his father’s profession as a jazz musician, Polanszky’s process of “ad hoc synthesis” produces compositions that oscillate between concrete objects and symbols of subjective perception. Info: Gagosian Gallery, Rheinsprung 1, Basel, Duration: 15/9-28/11/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://gagosian.com

The first retrospective dedicated to Cindy Sherman since her 2006 solo exhibition at the Jeu de Paume.  “Cindy Sherman at Fondation Louis Vuitton” (initially scheduled for April 2 to August 31, 2020) brings together some 170 works by the artist produced between 1975 and 2020, more than 300 images from series including “Untitled film stills”, “Rear Screen Projections”, “Fashion”, “History Portraits”, “Disasters”, “Headshots”, “Clowns”, “Society Portraits”, “Murals” and “Flappers”, as well as a new set of images presenting male figures and couples.  In a scenography designed in close collaboration with Cindy Sherman, this presentation covers her entire career while also focusing on works she has created since the beginning of the last decade, including a series of very recent and previously unseen works. To coincide with this retrospective, Fondation Louis Vuitton will present “Crossing Views” a selection of works from its Collection, chosen together with Cindy Sherman. Echoing her work, the installed artworks will be centered on the theme of the portrait and its interpretations across different disciplines and mediums: painting, photography, sculpture, video, installation.  The exhibition brings together some 20 French and international artists of different generations and backgrounds through some 60 works. Info: Fondation Louis Vuitton, 8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, Bois de Boulogne, Paris, Duration: 23/9/20-3/1/21, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr