ART NEWS:March 03
Titled “Enter Paradise”, Zandile Tshabalala’s opulent acrylic paintings are built around that very theme and a shared, fantasized conception of it. An imagined state often envisioned as lush and tropical, the term gradually acquires an entirely different meaning for the artist. In choosing it as the heart of her series, she both calls it out as yet another construct and reviews her understanding of it – and that of her viewer. Moving away from perceptions of the Black female figure as an inferior, undesirable symbol, the figurative canvases depict confident, steady women, controlled and empowered in their beauty, intelligence and subtle allure, affirming ownership over their own body and sexual nature. Highly intuitive, she reimagines this fierce yet composed Black woman within the very canons of sensuality and its representation. Combining a vibrant color scheme and luxurious animal print patterns, her semi-abstract backgrounds are at one with her highly pigmented skin-toned figures as they fuse into a unique sensual dreamscape. Yet, ultimately, Tshabalala’s portraits take center stage as they powerfully and unapologetically face the viewer. Entirely composed of self-portraits, the painting series moves away from accurate depiction, calling instead to the symbolism behind the artist’s repeated presence in her works. Info: ADA \ contemporary art gallery, Ground Floor, ALTO Tower, Villaggio Vista, North Airport Road, Airport Residential Area, Accra, Duration: 4/3-18/4/2021, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 11:00-18:00, Sun 12:00-17:00, www.ada-accra.com
Moataz Nasr creates works of art that offer a contemporary look at Egyptian society and explores often-exoticized and romanticized perceptions of the country. Via paintings, sculptures, videos, and installations, Nasr addresses current sociopolitical norms, and problems, in Northern Africa. In the installation “Delicate Balance”, two videos explore alternating concepts from Nasr’s home country. “The Mountain” (2017) is a cinematic narrative about a young woman’s clash between her modern life and her village’s conventional expectations. This work was presented by Egypt in its national pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale (one among ninety national pavilions in this world-famous biennial exhibition). “Merge and Emerge” (2011) is a meditative, hypnotic presentation by three Sufi dancers, inviting us to experience ecstatic prayerfulness. In each video Nasr highlights traditions and values often associated with Egypt and other Middle Eastern/North African nations—especially female submissiveness and mystical beliefs. Nasr invites contemplation of the delicate balance between past and present, tradition and innovation. Info: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, North Carolina, Duration: 6/3-25/7/2021, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 10:00-17:00, https://ncartmuseum.org
For 2021, the theme of the Artists’ Film International programme is “care” and for this year’s participation Crawford Art Gallery has invited Irish artist Clare Langan to present her powerful and timely film “Flight from the City” (2015). The film is about connection, love, separation and transition. Starkly shot in “black” water—in the hot springs at Fludir, Iceland—Langan focuses on the profound bond between a mother and daughter. Whilst the film powerfully addresses universal concerns of humanity in the intimate relationships between a child, a parent or a partner, the title of the film alludes to a potential flight from the safety of a home through adulthood or because of an impending confrontation or armed conflict. The projection of our experiences become part of the film’s narrative and the entwined and distanced bodies, which we view on screen, ultimately become our own. The film was shot at Fludir, Iceland especially for Jóhann Jóhannsson’s composition “Flight from the City” and was used to launch his 2016 album Orphee. Langan had experienced personal loss prior to making the film and she has written: “It was only when Jóhann released the album and I read the byline for his new work, that I realised the music was also about his experience of love, loss and transition”. Info: Crawford Art Gallery, Emmet Place, Cork, Ireland, Duration: 12/3/2021-23/1/2022, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Fri-sat 10:00-17:00, Thu 10:00-20:00, Sun 11:00-16:00, https://crawfordartgallery.ie
Under the title “LOST & FOUND or How to turn an ostrich egg into a unicorn”, a series of works are gathered that deal with topics such as reuse, sustainability or appropriation. In recent years, aspects like these have become even more prominent in people’s consciousness. However, it is apparent that art has been dealing with these social challenges for much longer than the (political) public has. Athena Vida, Saâdane Afif, John Armleder and Mathieu Mercier, for example, use found objects of various origins for their works and show that materials can be subject to constant change. Sylvie Fleury with bulging shopping bags from an extensive shopping trip and Hans-Peter Feldmann with a collection of magazine and newspaper photos gathered over years reveal how strongly personal influences affect art and what different forms of representation emerge. Finally, Isabell Heimerdinger produces the fragmentary found objects on purpose and thus questions the omnipresent perfection. Info: Mehdi Chouakri Gallery, Fasanenstrasse 61, Berlin, Duration: 16/3-17/4/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, https://mehdi-chouakri.com
The projects by Antoni Muntadas include multimedia installations, photographs, publications, performances and urban interventions, and they represent one of the most important contributions to international conceptual art practices. The artist is also a touchstone in the use of video and the new technologies in Spanish art from the early 1970s. His oeuvre addresses topics related to politics, social issues and communication, always with one foot in anthropology, sociology and cultural history. In “The Empty City”, Bilbao and its current urban plan, as well as its historical context, are the point of departure for a broader inquiry into public space and architecture. Curated by Guadalupe Echevarria, the outcome is a project comprised of several components, as is common in Muntadas’ works. The videos succeed one another in time and do not seem put together by accident: they address the city, the landscape and the region, topics that Muntadas specifically examines. The effect produced by the combination of the Bilbao river and these other rivers and cities, either empty or full, silent as in Venice or vacated as in Bilbao, beckon us to think about the world in which we live. Info: Curator: Guadalupe Echevarría, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Museo Plaza 2, Bilbao, Duration: 18/3-5/9/2021, Days & Hours: Mon-sat 11:00-20:00, Sun 11:00-15:00, www.museobilbao.com
Yoshitomo Nara’s career survey entitled “I Forgot Their Names and Often Can’t Remember Their Faces but Remember Their Voices Well” bring together a large selection of paintings, drawings and sculptures from 2006 to the present, many of which are being exhibited for the first time. Since rising to global prominence in the 1990s, Nara has used his signature style to portray subjects in complex and ambiguous emotional states, ranging from rebellion to loneliness and quiet contemplation. Inspired by music, current events, and his childhood memories, among other subjects, his internationally celebrated works critically fuse contemporary issues with longstanding artistic traditions from East Asia and Europe. The survey explores how Nara’s art conjures a realm rich in feeling while referencing the artist’s autobiography as well as broader cultural issues. In the newest works exhibited at Dallas Contemporary, Nara adopts a markedly introspective attitude. He uses his creative process to explore and express his place in today’s world, while channeling his views on a broad range of urgent topics, such as nuclear disarmament, environmental activism, and the tragic ramifications of Japan’s 2011 earthquake. Info: Curator: Pedro Alonzo, Dallas Contemporary, 161 Glass street, Dallas, Duration: 20/3-22/8/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, Sun 12:00-17:00 (by appointment only, book here), www.dallascontemporary.org
Emanuel Rossetti’s solo exhibition “Actualities” consists of fish-eye photographs taken throughout the year of 2019 in New York City. The works presented are framed color prints, organized into typological grids and further divided into four series: “Signs”, “Halls”, “Gardens” and “Streets”. The use of the fish-eye format accentuates the perception of a gradual close-up movement by offering the sensation of glancing through an eyehole. However, another particularity of Rossetti’s photographs is the depiction of a wide 180-degree angle, representing everything that was in front of the camera during the time a picture was taken. There is no image framing in the photographic sense, even the black inner borders of the camera lens itself are represented, and the “portrait” or “landscape” formats are made irrelevant. One therefore progresses through this exhibition by being pushed from the universal to the specific and then pulled from the detailed to the general again. The grid arrangements presented in the exhibition could resemble scientific classifications in adhesion to the logic of Dr. Lotfi A. Zadeh’s 1965 “fuzzy sets” – a theory which introduced the idea of categories with unsharp and ambiguous boundaries, providing a new qualitative approach to the analysis of complex systems. Info: Jan Kaps Gallery, Jülicher Strasse 24a, Cologne & Roonstrasse 108, Cologne, Duration: 23/3-9/5/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00 (by appointment only, book here), https://jan-kaps.com
As a draftsman, sculptor, teacher, politician, and activist, as well as action and installation artist, Joseph Beuys fundamentally changed the art of the 20th century. His influence can still be felt today in artistic and political discourses. His centennial in 2021 is an occasion to rediscover and critically question both his complex work and his international appeal. The exhibition “Everyone Is an Artist. Cosmopolitical Exercises with Joseph Beuys” provides profound insight into the cosmopolitical thinking of Joseph Beuys as manifested in his actions. More than any other artist of his time, Joseph Beuys connected art with social processes, presenting it within a universal claim to politics, science, philosophy, and economics as a creative, transformative force. In the exhibition, contemporary artists, along with representatives from the most diverse areas of society, enter into a multi-layered, transcultural dialogue with Beuys. From today’s perspective, they confirm, question, and expand his theses on the possibilities of a future conceived in terms of art. Info: Curators: Isabelle Malz, Catherine Nichols and Eugen Blume, K20-Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Grabbeplatz 5, Düsseldorf, Duration: 27/3-25/8/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.kunstsammlung.de