ART NEWS:Oct.02

Doug Aitken explores the impacts of technology on individuals and society In his  first solo exhibition in Finland, “I Only Have Eyes for You”. The exhibition highlights Aitken’s recurring interest in transitory actions, emotions, locations and states, which together translate a human experience grounded in tensions such as motion and stillness or connectivity and isolation. With a strong immersive dimension, the exhibition underlines overlooked psychological processes at play in one’s relationship with social environments, where personal memories are employed to decode implicit contents and narratives. A central artwork in the exhibition is “SONG 1” (2012/2015) the iconic video installation originally commissioned for the facade of the Hirschhorn Museum. In its reconfigured version for an indoor setting, the eight-channel video invites the audience to be fully surrounded by its aural and visual landscape. Info: Curators: Leevi Haapala and João Laia, Kiasma-Museum of Contemporary Art, Mannerheiminaukio 2, Helsinki, Duration: 18/9/20-10/1/21, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-20:30, Sat 10:00-18:00, Sun 10:00-17:00, https://kiasma.fi

The group exhibition “Notes on Entropy” questions what it means to view the instability and degradation of entropy as a constructive process: one that destabilizes capitalist ways of being in relation and offers new ways for envisioning the world; one that embraces ‘non-useful’ work. Writing on imprisonment and disability, the anti-carceral scholar Liat Ben-Moshe has discussed abolition as a ‘disepistemology’, that necessitates letting go of certain ways of knowing, including even the need for and possibility of knowledge. This exhibition is interested in examining entropy as a dis-epistemology—a process of disorientation that, as Ben-Moshe suggests, is profoundly generative. Many artworks in the exhibition critically recognise that their environment has been formed by long-standing processes of exploitation and extraction. Participating Artists: Jamika Ajalon, Renata Boero, Jesse Darling, Alina Perez, Ser Serpas, Cameron Spratley and Frieda Toranzo Jaeger. Info: Arcadia  Missa (Marylebone), 35 Duke Street, London, Duration: 9/10-1/12/20, Days & Hours: Thu-Sat 12:00-18:00, https://arcadiamissa.com

Yan Pei-Ming’s new series of works that are on show in the exhibition “Against the Light”  explore the complexities of current global developments and their multilayered impact, on a societal as well as a personal and emotional level. While in recent years Yan Pei-Ming’s practice has been characterised by his engagement with the works and legacies of other painters, including Gustave Courbet, this exhibition marks the artist’s return to the self. Created during the last few months, the self-portraits and still-lifes of this exhibition are pervaded by feelings of constriction and solitude experienced during the artist’s confinement. In these diverse paintings, Yan Pei-Ming examines the unprecedented inner conflicts of the present moment in an intimate and piercingly direct way. Deeply rooted in the tradition of European painting, Yan Pei-Ming’s works are interrelated by their shared preoccupation with the passing of time. The key themes of his paintings have long concerned history or the history of art and classical pictorial themes remain prevalent in this new series. Yan Pei-Ming’s still-lifes depicting skulls are reminiscent of vanitas paintings of the seventeenth century, but also of modernist artists like Paul Cezanne. Info: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Villa Kast, Mirabellplatz 2, Salzburg, Duration: 10/10-23/12/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 10:00-14:00, www.ropac.net

Isaac Julien’s ten-screen film installation and photography exhibition “Lessons of the Hour” explores the life of the visionary African American writer, abolitionist, statesman, and freed slave Frederick Douglass. Incorporating excerpts from Douglass’ speeches and dramatizations of his private and public milieus, the centerpiece of the exhibition, “Lessons of the Hour – Frederick Douglass” (2019) offers a contemplative, poetic journey into Douglass’ zeitgeist and a forceful suggestion that the lessons of the abolitionist’s hour have yet to be learned. The narrative unfolds across multiple screens of different sizes, hung salon-style, to create what Julien describes as a “horizontal montage”. The presentation not only echoes the picture-hanging conventions of the era but allows the artist to draw connections between many images at once without relegating any particular detail to the background.  The exhibition is accompanied by Julien’s tintype portraits and mise en scènes photographs of the film’s subjects as well as a complementary grouping of works from the McEvoy Family Collection. Info: McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, 1150 25th Street, Building B, San Francisco, Duration: 14/10/20-13/3/21, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.mcevoyarts.org

Mabi Revuelta’s works reflect on universal topics present in her works since she started out, i.e. real-fictitious relationships, the permeability of genres (literature, performing arts, sculpture, drawing, audio-visual arts), research into artistic education and the search for teaching strategies to assess the artistic deed as a driving force of social change. Taking chess as the guiding thread, her exhibition “Acromática. Una partida inmortal”  reviews the artist’s career and presents “Acromática” her unpublished project that gives title to the exhibition. The journey begins in a first space housing the installation “Naturaleza muerta con perlas Negras” a reviewed sculptural piece which sets the poetic tone of the exhibition. In the second space the diverse works that make up the project have been inspired by one of the most artistic chess games in history, namely, the Immortal Game, disputed between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851. Finally, in the last space (Fin de partida / Endgame) we have “Línea del Tiempo”, a summary of the artist’s career inspired in the four eras of chess, i.e. romantic, scientific, hyper-modern and dynamic. Info: Curator Susana Blas, Azkuna Zentroa, Arriquíbar Plaza, 4, Bilbao, Duration: 14/10/20-24/1/21, Days & Hours: Daily 9:00-21:00, www.azkunazentroa.eus

In the exhibition “A Stranger’s Hand”, through about 30 works created over the past two years, Gideon Rubin once again transports us into his universe inhabited by figures made anonymous through his use of framing, posture and the systematic erasure of all individuality. The exhibition’s title alone evokes all the ambiguity that is typical of Gideon Rubin’s work, particularly in the series of ten paintings including two diptychs that pay tribute to the 20th century artists whose influence has been so crucial to his work, including Philip Guston, Willem De Kooning and Richard Diebenkorn. Behind this series is a photo of the wife and daughter of the painter Balthus by the Italian photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. The composition, the placement of the bodies and the elegance of these female figures echoed Balthus’ own painting in Gideon Rubin’s eyes, so he naturally chose that image for his diptych In the Grand Chalet, the first painting of his new series. Info: Galerie Karsten Greve, 5 rue Debelleyme, Paris, Duration: 16/10-21/11/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, https://galerie-karsten-greve.com

Apostolos Georgiou presents twenty recent works in “Hello Dog, Hello Sir!” his first personal exhibition in an institution in France. Georgiou’s characters live an extraordinary existence, taking part in situations that are often unexpected and incoherent. The imaginary world is conjured up in little scenes offering as many personal stories as there are viewers. Georgiou likes to talk, to describe details in his paintings, but does not want to impose his own rhetoric or narrative – his works never have a title in order to avoid any parasitic linguistic influence. As a lover of metaphor, he compares a work of art to a lover: there is a unique charm in the relationship between the viewer and the painter. Each painting, except for rare exceptions, is constructed as a ‘case dismissed’, without any characteristics of its own, accentuated by lifeless grey backgrounds. It is in this very lack of points of reference that this painting asserts its form while still appearing disconcerting. It is therefore impossible to describe a precise context and the characters themselves are interchangeable, marked by bold yet ordinary features. Info: Curator: Loïc Le Gall, Passerelle Centre d’Art Contemporain, 41 rue Charles Berthelot, Brest, Duration: 16/10/20-16/1/21, Days & Hours: Tue 14:00-20:00, Wed-Sat 14:00-18:30, www.cac-passerelle.com

Twenty-four years ago, Lordy Rodriguez started using a visual lexicon of map-based forms as metaphors for defining an individual’s position within a culture or society. For his exhibition “Polar Democracy”, Rodriguez utilizes this ever-developing, cartography-inspired vocabulary to ruminate on issues about the immutable appeal of democracy and its very precarious existence. The first series memorializes historic and contemporary efforts at peaceful demonstration. These include the 1930 Salt March, led by Mohandas Gandhi challenging British rule over India; the Langa March of 1960, in which between 30,000 and 50,000 demonstrators marched in opposition to apartheid; the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery; and recent pro-democracy protests against Mainland China’s oppression in Hong Kong. The second group of drawings represents efforts by those in power to manipulate the boundaries of voting districts in order to favor a political party or racial group, thereby diminishing the voting power and political voice of others.  Info: Hosfelt Gallery, 260 Utah Street, San Francisco, Duration: 17/10-25/11/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sat 10:00-17:30, Thu 11:00-19:00 (Schedule an appointment here), http://hosfeltgallery.com

The exhibition “The Light House” invites the public to experience a succession of personal and collective experiences with light, mostly immersive, through the works of 21 major contemporary artists, spanning nearly 60 years of artistic production. Apart from the neon works, each of the guest artists, from Japan, South Korea, Palestine, Morocco, the United States and Belgium, has produced pieces or installations specially designed for this exhibition. The “The Light House” offers a circuit which revolves around five themes: celestial light, murky light, the experience of color, in praise of shadow, neon lights and light bulbs. Finally, to defend the idea that culture is the image of light, the very essence of which is to lead us out of darkness, the exhibition also expands beyond the museum’s walls. Networking with public and private partners, in Belgium and across the world, the exhibition fans out symbolically to other leading cultural sites, and will include hopefully public spaces. Info: Curator: Louma Salamé, Boghossian Foundation – Villa Empain, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 67, Brussels, Duration: 21/10/20-31/1/21, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.villaempain.com

Bojan Sarcevic’s exhibition “L’Extime” consists of a series of new sculptures comprised of massive marble blocks. Each marble block is scored with geometric cuts and hosts a functioning industrial freezer inserted into or placed atop of it. Like alien sarcophagi, the marble blocks in a deeply veined blue, green, or rose tone seem to engulf the machines. And where you might expect to find food preserved in them, a polar topography instead forms along the walls of the freezers with an abstract noise-composition resonating through the thick of frost and ice crystals. Three slightly larger-than-life muscular figures surround and engage with the marble sculptures. Their distinct postures and carved stone heads create an eerie unison. Contrasting with their seemingly unbridled masculinity, the figures are draped in delicate silk blouses cut in characteristically 1980’s silhouettes, while shibari rope bondage dresses their hips and feet. The title of the exhibition, L’Extime, sets a stage. The term denotates how even our most intimate feelings can be strange and foreign to us. Info: Galerie Frank Elbaz, 66 rue de Turenne, Paris, Duration: 22/10/20-7/2/21, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.galeriefrankelbaz.com