ART NEWS: June 01

The occasion for the project “Blind Date / Sculpture Exchange” with the pupils of the blind and visually impaired school BUSO Sint-Rafaël in Ghent was Ronny Delrue’s exhibition “Correspondances”. BUSO Sint-Rafaël is a special school offering full-time education to visually impaired adults. The students learn echolocation and Braille, amongst other things, but also follow regular education and there is an art class. Since 2018, S.M.A.K. has organised regular projects with the people who follow these classes. In 2019, for example, we initiated a new artistic exchange with the Sint-Rafaël school in collaboration with BLANCO/NUCLEO and SLAC Academy Leuven. Ronny Delrue’s exhibition inspired the start of a correspondence between the pupils, students and artists connected to the aforementioned organisations. The participants did not know with whom they would be in dialogue, and small sculptures were the only means of communication. Contact was made in this way, three times per person. Whenever someone received a creation from a fellow participant, they were asked to make a new sculpture in response. In so doing, their answer not only needed to be visually interesting but also provide a captivating tactile experience. The sculptural correspondences are shown here together for the first time. Info: S.M.A.K., Jan Hoetplein 1, Gent, Belgium, Duration: 29/5-4/7/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30-17:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://smak.be 

The Architecture Film Festival London launches its third festival edition, offering a programme that fits personal spaces and shared fascinations without stealing needed offscreen time but rather enriching it. With this purpose in mind, the 2021 festival programme presents two sections: The International Film Competition and a collection of diverse, thematic screenings, essays and events entitled “Capsules.” The programme innovation for the 2021 version comes in the shape of the “Capsules” section, aiming to give space to many curatorial voices by freeing them from a single, binding festival theme. Each Capsule will follow a predefined format, including films, essays/articles, photography, drawing, interviews, etc. These capsules will combine quality content with reduced screen time and the possibility of enjoying offline content in a printable format. The international film competition [OPEN CALL] received over 270 submissions from 40 countries worldwide, competing for awards in six categories, resulting in 18 shortlisted films featuring the festival programme. Awarded films will be announced in an online ceremony on June 25, 2021. Info: Architecture Film Festival London, Kemp House 160 City Road, London, England, Duration: 2-27/6/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, https://archfilmfest.uk

The group of artists, shown together in the exhibition “In Longing”, for the first time are united by their grappling with the emotionally and politically charged power of longing. A central question of the exhibition asks: how is desire affected by the oppressive systems of patriarchy and white supremacy? With diverse practices of performance, installation, text, and movement, the artists engage with the restlessness of longing while closely drawing us into the profundity of inner and outer worlds. The exhibition features eight artworks and premieres two new performances by Xirin and Raymond Pinto, accompanying their installations in the exhibition.  The artists of the exhibition help us examine how we can begin to touch our deepest urges, reminding us that these moments of the extraordinary may be found in the ordinary. Participating Artists: Alison Chen, SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, Raymond Pinto, Marie Ségolène, and Xirin. Info: Curator: Anna Cah, CUE Art Foundation, 137 West 25th Street, Ground Floor, Between 6th and 7th Avenue, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 3/6-14/7/2021, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 12:00-18:00, https://cueartfoundation.org

New paintings, ceramics and bronze sculptures and by Tjorg Douglas Beer are on show on the exhibition “New Compositions”. In his recent series of paintings, Beer focuses on the process of painting itself. The development of the paintings is an intense ongoing process of interaction and improvisation. The results are paintings composed of abstract forms; some still carrying titles that refer to narratives that subsequently appear throughout the paintings’ development. Beer uses acrylics, oils and spray paint, with the acrylics predominantly providing the background. Beer then uses spray paint and oils to cover larger areas with geometric shapes. The use of neon colors and metallic spray paints, and the resulting texture of these materials, contribute to a contemporary palette that Beer perceives to be somewhat evocative of sounds in electronic music, i.e. The bronze sculptures featured in the exhibition are in part inspired by classical Greek sculptures and their idealized versions of the human form. The bronze sculptures are utopian / dystopian Statues. They are composed of plastic Ken or Barbie dolls, and other plastic objects, such as fast-food containers, cutlery, bottles, and other small plastic objects cemented to their bodies. The figures are then cast in bronze and patinated. Info: Galerie Mikael Andersen, Bredgade 63, Copenhagen, Denmark, Duration: 3/6-14/8/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-15:00, http://mikaelandersen.com

The exhibition “JR: Chronicles” traces JR’s career from his early documentation of graffiti artists as a teenager in Paris to his large-scale architectural interventions in cities worldwide and recent digitally collaged murals that create collective portraits of diverse communities. The exhibition is featuring recent projects, including “The Secret of the Great Pyramid” (2019), JR’s large-scale collaborative piece created in occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, and “Tehachapi” (2019) which follows JR’s experiences with inmates of a maximum-security prison in California. The international projects on display include “Women Are Heroes” (2008-9), which honours the contributions of women to public life by installing large-scale images of their eyes and faces in their own communities and “The Gun Chronicles: A Story of America” (2018), a video mural that visualises the complex spectrum of views on guns in the USA. Info: Curators: Sharon Matt Atkins and Drew Sawyer, Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London, England, Duration: 4/6-3/10/2021, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.saatchigallery.com

Leon Keer’s solo exhibition “Forced Perspective” shows a colorful selection of new paintings, sculptures, installations, anamorphic artworks and Augmented Reality (AR). The two floors of the gallery will be transformed into a surreal universe. Leon Keer is one of the world’s leading artists in anamorphic art. By playing with perspectives he creates incredible new worlds. He is inspired by pop surrealism and new technology. With the use of Augmented Reality he is able to show an extra dimension in his art. A message seems to be present. Current issues are reviewed, such as environmental concerns, social inequality and the livability of this world. The artworks reflect a fascination for old materials and a timeless longing for unspoiled beauty. The artist has executed numerous 3D murals and street paintings in Europe, the United States, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Info: Wanrooij Gallery, KNSM-laan 301, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Duration: 5/6-28/8/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-17:00, www.wanrooijgallery.com

The 11th edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, entitled “The Ghost Ship and the Sea Change”, coincides with the 400-year anniversary of the founding of the city of Gothenburg. In response to the occasion, this year’s biennial will have an extended format and open in two stages, transforming along the way. The Biennial relates to the historical layers of the city, asking how different ways of narrating its past might affect its future. Placed at the intersection between the historical and the fictive, the biennial explores the potential of artistic practice as a method of critical historiography and change. The so called “Franska Tomten,” a plot of land in the city’s harbor that was exchanged for the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy as part of an 18th-century trade deal between Sweden and France, is used as the narrative starting point of the biennial. Info: 11th Edition of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Part one: Duration: 5/6-22/8/2021, Venues: Röda Sten Konsthall and Franska Tomten,, Part II: Duration: 4/9-21/11/2021, Venues: Konsthallen Blå Stället, Göteborgs Konsthall, Franska Tomten, Museum of World Culture, the Garden Society of Gothenburg, Röda Sten Konsthall, Stenpiren, online, and other venues in the city, hwww.gibca.se

The exhibition “All That Was Solid Melts” takes us on a journey from isolation through the multiple anxieties of life and catastrophe, something New Zealanders are particularly familiar with, and along the way offers moments of historical sympathy, solace, and discovery. When, finally, we step beyond the itinerary we will have travelled through metaphors and emotions, realising that we too are simply passing through time, which is but a small moment in a longer plan; that we are but a spec in the cosmos; that things come before and will come after our moment; that we will be deconstructed to reconstruct ourselves. The exhibition contemplates deep and long time, close and cosmic. It travels through the evidence of temporality (fossil, geological, ruins and cultural fragmentations) in which all life and humanity is tested and reasserted, emerging as resilient and rejuvenated and set free from worry. It encounters the unquiet and unrest, the geopolitical and the environmental cataclysms that shape and reformulate our societies and terrain. Info: Curator:  Juliana Engberg, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Corner Kitchener and Wellesley Streets, Auckland, New Zealand, Duration: 5/6-10/10/2021, Days & Hours: Mon-Thu & Sat-Sun 10:00-17:00, Fri 10:00-21:00, www.aucklandartgallery.com