ART NEWS:Sept.04

Michel François’ practice often recycles forms and materials as a means of foregrounding how we  make and unmake our world, reflecting how we transform matter into meaning. For “A Very Brief Eternity”, François presenta his installation “Retenue d’encre” [Ink Retainment] alongside the work “Instant Drawing”. A suspended sculpture featuring nearly three-hundred ink-filled bags counteracts a cube of charred wood fixed to a white wall, which blocks the end of a thick charcoal line. With their humble materials, which  contain fleeting traces of human action, these works articulate latent spaces of possibility and transformation. Michel François’ works form an elusive alphabet, the syntax of which shifts according to the site of exhibition and their confrontation with other objects. His practice thereby articulates a web of ever-fluctuating connections and connotations—a permanent work in progress. A rhizomatic logic pervades his artistic production, which resists hierarchies among objects and instead privileges moments of encounter, relation, and contingency. Info: carlier | gebauer,  Calle San Lorenzo 11, Madrid, Duration: 10/9-31/10/20, Days & Hours: Thu-Fri 15:00-19:00, Sat 11:00-14:00, www.carliergebauer.com

Peter Fischli’s exhibition in Kunsthaus Bregenz begins with a paradoxical intervention. Black furniture is usually to be found in the KUB lobby. Fischli has covered the elegant surfaces that Peter Zumthor designed using precious birds-eye maple with whitewashed particle board constructions. Holders hang on the wall on all the floors, containing a leaflet designed by Fischli. Such fixtures would usually be made of wood or plastic, but Fischli has cast them in bronze. He is, once again, provoking a reversal in hierarchy – albeit, this time, in the opposite direction. These objects have been upgraded, from simple exhibition fixtures to elaborate unique pieces, that is, works of art. On the first floor there is collection of sculptures on white plinths, consisting of cans, bags, and boxes, the packaging industry’s three basic categories. Most are painted, while some are trimmed, appearing as if modernist works of art. Originally created for an exhibition in Los Angeles, they are reminiscent of the production of mock-ups for the film industry. They could be regarded as either mock-ups on the way to becoming real sculptures or vice versa. Info: Kunsthaus Bregenz, Karl-Tizian-Platz, Postfach 45, Bregenz, Duration: 12/9-29/11/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu 10:00-20:00, https://kunsthaus-bregenz.at

The group exhibition “Artifices instables, Stories of ceramics” presents a journey through inventions and experiments highlighting the diversity of shapes and decorations of ceramics, as well as its production processes. These different stages of production – the selection and preparation of clay, the shaping, the finishing, the decoration, the cooking and the enamelling – reveal, also, the « recipes » and the almost alchemic preparations which vary from one creator/inventor to the other. Through a selection of more than 120 pieces by international artists, the curator envisioned a set-up which is a crossover between atelier and a cabinet of curiosities and chose to investigate ceramics as a heterogenic and unstable material, able to tell transversal stories. The Swiss designer Adrien Rovero who conceived the tables where some of the works will be exposed, and Cypriot designer Michael Anastassiades for the lighting, with his lamps produced by Flos. The exhibition path involves both floors of Villa Sauber, and the works are displayed following the idea of affinity and visual references. Info: Curator: Cristiano Raimondi, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Sauber, 17 Av. Princesse Grace, Monaco, Duration: 18/9/20-31/1/21, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-18:00, www.nmnm.mc

The main focus of Namsal Siedlecki’s exhibition “Mvaḥ Chā” is made up of five bronze sculptures, realized by Siedlecki in 2019 during the various residency periods in Kathmandu, where he had the opportunity to experiment and elaborate on the Nepalese lost-wax methodin some of the most relevant local foundries. The title of the sculptures derives therefore from the daily practice of shops, from the very moment the wax model is covered in various layers of “Mvaḥ Chā” (a type of mortar obtained by mixing clay, cow manure, and chaff, the casing of rice grains), creating a shell so thick to hide the original shape. The result of this unusual process is a series of sculptures of indefinite mass, ‘non-mocks’, forms given a powerful, primal expressivity, escaping conventional canons of proportions and precise anatomical reference points, which, however, preserve a thin but powerful association with Hindu and Buddhist religious iconography, referencing at the same time the archaizing aesthetics of the early ‘900. Sculptures creating a dialogue between past and present, East and West, highlighting how the fascination for the unknown and spiritual has always been escorting mankind, with no regards to époques nor latitudes. Info: Curator: Marcello Smarrelli, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Via degli Ausoni, Rome, Duration: 22/9-30/11/20, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 15:00-19:00 (reservation required), www.pastificiocerere.it

In her exhibition “Train Yards”, Mary Weatherford presents her homonymous series (2016–20) that pursues Weatherford’s foundational interest in the poetics of place, especially sites of mass transportation and locations where the conditions of urban life reveal themselves with especial intensity. She has described these large-scale canvases abstracted interpretations of the titular site after dark, in which irregular gaps in the works’ deep purple and black grounds evoke flashes and flickers of white light—as visual embodiments of environmental noise. Weatherford began using neon in 2012, inspired by the illuminated signs that lined the streets of Bakersfield, California, where she was then working as a visiting artist and educator. Casting an intense industrial light onto the modulated fields of color beneath them, the tubes (which sometimes extend beyond the edges of the painting) read as hand-drawn lines, their trailing power cords adding a further graphic and dimensional aspect. Info: Gagosian Gallery, 20 Grosvenor Hill, London, Duration: 22/9-19/12/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00 by appointment, https://gagosian.com

John M Armleder is invited to take over the Showroom areas of the former Citroën garage in Brussels for seven months: on the six rough floors, Armleder proposes, in dialogue with a series of new monumental installations that he specifically designed for the site, a constellation of exhibitions, live events and workshops, offering the opportunity to dive into his world and the one of those he loves. Organized in two large sequences (Sept. – Dec. 2020 & Feb, – Apr. 2021), between invitations to other artists and nods to his influences, discoveries of forgotten figures and unexpected retrospectives, out-of-the-ordinary performances and concerts of experimental music, the exhibition “It Never Ends” is a multidimensional and lively artistic proposal in constant movement. Including works by John Giorno, Peter Halley, Gregor Hildebrandt, Peter Schuyff, Blair Thurman among others.  This is the most ambitious project Armleder has been asked to design to date. “It Never Ends” is a paradoxical proposition: it is a solo exhibition, but composed by multiple authors. It is, in a sense, a portrait of its creator, for whom questions of hospitality, collaboration and friendship have always been central. Info: Curator: John M Armleder, KANAL – Centre Pompidou, Square Sainctelette 21, Brussels, Duration: 24/9/21-25/4/21, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-19:00, Thu 11:00-22:00, https://kanal.brussels

The exhibition “Becoming Alluvium” continues Nguyen Phan’s ongoing research on the Mekong River, which runs through Tibet, China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Composed of two elements: a single-channel film and a series of lacquer and silk paintings, the works simultaneously explore real and imaginary worlds. The video installation tells stories of destruction, reincarnation and renewal in three chapters, centred around the ebb and flow of the Mekong River. Combining self-shot footage, animation and found imagery, the work weaves narratives concerning industrialisation, food security and ecological sustainability with folklore and myth. The accompanying series of paintings titled “Perpetual Brightness”, made in collaboration with artist Truong Cong Tung, further uncovers the cultural, agricultural and economic significance of the river. The watercolour on silk paintings depict characters in various states—from insects playing musical instruments to a young boy caressing an endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. The exhibition maps the past, present and future of the Mekong River, questioning what Phan describes as a “state of collective amnesia” in relation to the threat posed by the excessive consumption of the Earth’s resources. Info: Chisenhale Gallery, 64 Chisenhale Road, London, Duration: 26/9-6/12/20, Days & Hours: Thu-Sun 12:00-18:00, https://chisenhale.org.uk

Following his participation in the Asian Art Biennial “The Strangers From Beyond the Mountain and the Sea” in Taiwan last year, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe is holding his latest solo exhibition “Burmese History X”. Counter-historiography and the discourse against Burmese-centric narratives from a localized, non-Burman perspective have always been the core of Sawangwongse Yawnghwe’s artistic practice. Yawnghwe’s work interweaves reality and fabrications from historic scenes, family photos, and his father’s notes left behind. With his meticulous research, he interacts with scholars of Burma, human-right activists, journalists, and writers. He employs research methodology to draw on philosophical discourses, reflecting upon the validity of history when ethnic minorities’ narratives are dissolved and eradicated. Meanwhile, he criticizes the merging of modernism with capitalism. His work depicts the paradoxical contradictions as well as political fluidity and its aftermaths. Yawnghwe’s painting can be defined as post-structuralism, which claims the impossibility for a neutral, omniscient point of view to exist outside a text. Based on the collection of family photographs and the archives he has compiled, he allows Burmese iconography and contemporary art to coalesce. Info: TKG+, B1F, No.15, Ln. 548, Ruiguang Rd., Neihu Dist., Taipei, Duration: 26/9-21/11/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.tkgplus.com

For his solo exhibition “O’ Ti’ Lulaby”, David Douard transforms the exhibition space by integrating architectural elements -railings, net curtains, screens, partitions and blinds – rather reminiscent of the surfaces of screens in a quasi-virtual relationship with space and playgrounds fenced with certain urban interstices. These multiple spaces play on superimposition and transparency, rich in frameworks and layers that accentuate the undulating and moving effect of the images, objects and bodies. The site is therefore covered with a patchwork of sensitive and architectural epidermises, like a body with vital areas that are alternatively dormant or awake and activated by a myriad of flows. Combining several language registers, everyday objects and materials, from low-tech, popular and mainstream culture, David Douard’s works create shifts in meaning that generate poetry and fiction. Bits of poetry from the Internet coupled with whimsical, damaged, cut-out and patched up forms result in hybrid sculptural pieces. Indifferently garnering junk, his installations – composed of materials whose organic and anarchical characteristics reflect those of social movements – yield changing bodies. Info: Le Plateau (Frac Île-de-France), 22 Rue des Alouettes, Paris, Duration: 27/9-13/12/20, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 14:00-19:00, www.fraciledefrance.com

Zheng Yuan’s solo exhibition: “Forward, Backward” ” is the artist’s first presentation of the final chapter for the “China Northwest Airlines” project, which has been the main focus of Zheng’s work since 2017. Working primarily with time-based media, Zheng Yuan’s work often operates at the intersection of fiction, documentary, essay, and investigative studies. His practice focuses on identity and evaluation and it’s ever-shifting relationship with history, power and representation. By introducing archival material, found footage and situations Zheng’s work acquires an interleaved complexity within imbricated contexts. Since 2017, the artist has carried out complex and in-depth investigations starting with the “China Northwest Airlines” project. The core of this project is to revisit and rethink about contemporary China’s tremendous changes in the fields of economic reforms, diplomatic relations and geopolitics as well as the complex relationship between the subject and its external, during the time period from China’s Reform and Opening Up to joining the World Trade Organization, by using the history of civil aviation in China since 1950s as a clue perspective. From here, the artist continues to create and completes a number of works with different aspects and threads. Info: MadeIn Gallery, L1-03&04, One Museum Place, 388 Shan Hai Guan Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai, Duration: 30/9-1/11/20, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-22:00, www.madeingallery.com