ART NEWS: Oct.02
Barbara Chase-Riboud presents “Infinite Folds”, her first UK solo exhibition, that features a focussed selection of large-scale sculptures alongside works on paper dating from the 1960s to the present day. The show marks the UK debut presentation of some never-before-seen pieces, as well as some of the most celebrated works in the artist’s expansive oeuvre. The exhibition features a focused selection of large-scale sculptures alongside works on paper from the 1960s to the present day. The earliest piece in the show, “Walking Angel” (1962), depicts a hybrid being replete with wings that resemble leaves or an oyster shell. This work is emblematic of the artist’s experimental approach to casting techniques, which in the early years of her practice involved casting figurative sculptures in bronze from an assemblage of found animal bones and vegetable matter. “Walking Angel” also draws on the artist’s interest in ancient myths and surrealist influences that would occupy her later pieces which progressively moved towards abstraction. Also on display are Chase-Riboud’s early pieces “Sejanus” (1966) and “Meta Mondrian” (1967), a scale-model of the artist’s first public sculpture commission “Wheaton Plaza Fountain” (1960, now destroyed) constructed from polished aluminum and cascading silk that emulates water. Info: Curator: Yesomi Umolu, Assistant Curator: Chris Bayley, Serpentine Galleries, Serpentine North, West Carriage Drive, London, England, Duration: 11/10/2022-29/1/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.serpentinegalleries.org/
Axel Salto in his solo exhibition “a study of vases, Drawings from 1944-1957” shows more than 25 completely unique drawings/gouaches, all of which originate from his daughter Naja Salto’s collection. In the drawings, you clearly can see Salto’s conception of the form and style that later will be expressed in the three-dimensional works. In addition to the drawings, several vases are displayed, which have been lend from a private collector for the occasion. Finally, a selection of completely unique Salto books will be shown, and there will also be an opportunity to see other of Salto’s works on paper. Nevertheless, using pen and brush, Salto has prepared us for the effects he dreamed of creating once he had put down both his pen and brush, using instead the undoubtedly clever fingers of his surely warm hands to shape the surfaces of his pots, while considering both the whole and the detail. For, of course, his pots needed a rich and distinctive structure capable of testifying to the life, momentum and growth of the form, and thus appeal to the sensitive human being who observed them carefully. Info: Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Flæsketorvet 85A, Copenhagen, Denmark, Duration: 11/10-5/11/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 13:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-16:00, https://bjerggaard.com/
Gregory Crewdson in his exhibition “Eveningside” among other works premieres a brand new series of photographs, “Eveningside” (2021-22) that were envisioned by the artist as the final movement of a trilogy spanning ten years of work. The exhibition is a survey of that trilogy, beginning with “Cathedral of the Pines” (2012-14) and “An Eclipse of Moths” (2018-29,) as well as Crewdson’s earlier minimalist “Fireflies” (1996) pictures. Additionally, Making “Eveningside”, a behind the scenes video projection set to original music by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and Stuart Bogie, the American multi-instrumentalist-composer will be on view in a state of the art multimedia room within the museum, adjacent to the exhibition. In contrast to the slightly haunted, lonely, and remote forests of “Cathedral of the Pines”, and the vast, bleak, post-industrial landscapes in” An Eclipse of Moths”, in “Eveningside”, Crewdson explores moments of contemplation within the confines of quotidien life, in places of employment, and in moments just outside of those work structures. The figures populating the pictures are sparse, and are often seen through storefront windows, in mirror reflections, or positioned underneath the mundane proscenium found in the midst of their everyday routines. Bringing his vantage point closer to the figures, using a heightened range of light and darkness, special effects such as fog, rain, smoke, and haze, and for the first time using his now ubiquitous full production and lighting team in a monochromatic palette, the result is a rich gothic atmosphere, evocative of film noir and classic cinema, but with the capabilities and clarity of the most current technology available in digital photography. Info: Curator: Jean-Charles Vergne, The Gallerie d’Italia – Torino, the museum of Intesa Sanpaolo, Piazza San Carlo, 156, Turin, Italy, Duration: 12/10/2022-22/1/2023, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Sun 9:30-19:30, Wed 9:30-22:30, www.gallerieditalia.com/
Terry Winters in “Signs, Games, Messages” shows seven new paintings, each measuring 44 x 34 inches, and each made with oil, wax, and resin on linen. The strict parameters of this group of paintings – both in its dimensions and in its materials – in fact has the effect of drawing out difference and singularity. Each painting depicts its own scale-free network, both cosmic and molecular. The disorienting scalar associations of Winters’ work has persisted since its beginning, testifying to his enduring interest in the imaging of patterns and systems that undergird the natural world. This new body of work describes a dynamic landscape of shifting dimensions and locations. A range of spatial demarcations are described in each title: “Field”, “Centre”, “Cluster”, “Ring”, “State”, “Area”, and “Section”. While the organisation of forms on the canvas continue – however loosely – to derive from a gridded structure, their configurations invent new spatial perspectives, appearing to bulge, bend and warp. And although the straightforward nature of their titles connote something prosaic, Winters’ paintings are anything but. With their complex colours, experimental forms, and spirited application of paint, Winters’ works contain within themselves sets of possibilities: calculated and spontaneous, restrained and emotional – both technically determined and lyrically improvised. Info: Modern Art, 7 Bury Street, London, England, Duration: 12/10-17/12/2022, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 11:00-18:00, https://modernart.net/
This new body of work presented in “SCENES” consisting mostly of paintings on linen canvas reflects Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s enduring love for movies and in particular, memorable scenes that resonate with me. It is also influenced by the seemingly “thematic nature” of social media, and more specifically the tales or narratives discussed and dissected on Instagram and YouTube. The process carried out is not defined by consciously duplicating any given scene or narrative but instead is governed by a present, subconscious, and visceral response to visions that reflect memories and ideas as they unfold in the very making of each piece, allowing for further discovery. Within the general context of her current studio practice, and related to processes of painting and drawing, she has been deeply informed by the Francis Bacon exhibition at The Royal Academy of Art in London this past April which left an indelible mark on her. It was Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s first time seeing so many of his paintings and she was brought to tears. Info: Almine Rech Gallery, Grosvenor Hill, Broadbent House, London, England, Duration: 11/10-12/11/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.alminerech.com/
Between 1918 and 1955, people in Germany were confronted with a series of historical turning points. The exhibition “Art and Life 1918-1955” brings into focus the lives and fates of artists during the Weimar Republic, under National Socialism, and in the young Federal Republic of Germany. The diverse works of art and biographies tell stories of careers that were thriving, and others that were temporarily disrupted or cut short, of resistance and adaptation, of persecution, exile, and murder. The period under consideration was defined by the coexistence of diverging tendencies. The presentation examines contemporary events and the institutional contexts in which they played out in conjunction with the artists’ lives; the output of artists who sympathized with Nazi ideologies aren’t disregarded. Numerous experts help us shed light on specific subjects such as left-wing artists’ groups of the 1920s, the relationship between proscribed and state-sanctioned art in the expositions held in Munich in 1937, the meaning of the “inward emigration,” the so-called “Divinely Gifted List” of 1944, and the reception of modern art in Germany after 1945. Info: Curators: Karin Althaus, Sarah Bock, Lisa Kern und Melanie Wittchow, Lenbachhaus, Luisenstraße 33, München, Germany, Duration: 15/10/2022-16/4/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu 10:00-20:00, www.lenbachhaus.de/
Majd Abdel Hamid’s exhibition seeks to construct a personal, intimate and collective memory of a particular day. “800 meters and a corridor” projects different fictions to evoke this moment. The first one is built from a postulate after the deadly explosion of August 4, 2020 in Beirut: If we add it all up, how long was the thread that was used to stitch people up? The exhibition unrolls the meters of thread needed for the artist and the population to stitch up, to repair bodies and minds, to regain sanity after the unthinkable. The second narrative is built from the request he made to friends to draw on the plan of their home the part they consider the safest. Majd Abdel Hamid then isolates, on a piece of fabric, the space that is safe from danger, according to each person’s drawings. Corridor refers to the space within his apartment in which, from now on and following the August 4 explosion, the artist would feel protected. Corridor brings together works that question this notion of security, all relative Info: gb agency, 18 rue des Quatre Fils, Paris, France, Duration: 15/10-19/11/2022, Days & Hours: tue-Fri 10:00-13:00 & 14:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-19:00, https://gbagency.fr/
Bani Abidi is a Pakistani artist working with video, photography and drawing. She studied visual arts at the National College of Arts in Lahore and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her most recent film, “The Song”, premiers in Salzburg. The film draws on her interest in sound and migration, and on what it means to be acoustically displaced. An old man who is a recent arrival to Europe, confronts the silence of his allotted Neubau apartment, finding his own way to settle down. Alongside is the sound installation Memorial to Lost Words (2016), with voices of Indian soldiers from the Great War. In many European streets, one is exposed to countless languages. Conversations between people, street market vendors selling wares, TV sounds from curtained rooms, music playing in cars, or phone conversations of people on the move. When one listens closely, one might actually hear a voice from another time zone, muffled and incomprehensible but another addition to the aural-urban landscape. For those engaged in these acoustic exchanges, these sounds are not just textural, but essential, a life line. They are immersive clouds of sorts, the magic that helps make ‘foreign’ familiar. Info: Salzburger Kunstverein Künstlerhaus, Hellbrunner Straße 3, Salzburg, Austria, Duration: 15/10-4/12/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 12:00-19:00, www.salzburger-kunstverein.at/
Rayane Mcirdi produces a video work in which the actors are members of his family or close friends. His films capture intimate or collective events rooted in daily life. The artist becomes an ethnographer, collecting these micro-stories. In his first solo exhibition he will present three of his films: “Le Croissant de feu” (2021), “Love will come later” (2019), made during his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which has never yet been presented in France, as well as a new film that he will shoot this summer. The lost city of Samir, the recurring protagonist of Rayane Mcirdi’s films is called Les Mourinoux. Its high towers could still be seen on the edge of Asnières-sur-Seine and Gennevilliers at the beginning of the 2010s. The marvelous golden city is no more; the concrete has exploded, reduced to a huge cloud of dust that the Trojan horse of redevelopment has blown. The war ended a long time ago; but did it really happen? With the beginning of “Le Croissant de feu”, you must soon leave everything and go. But if Ithaca is no more, where can Ulysses try to go? Info: Anne Barrault Gallery, 51 rue des Archives, Paris, France, Duration: 15/10-26/11/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, https://galerieannebarrault.com/
Ed Ruscha presents in “Tom Sawyer Paintings”, artworks, that take inspiration from Mark Twain’s American classic “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1876). Eschewing the gnomic texts for which he is best known, Ruscha here focuses instead on naturalistic images of simple wooden slats. These familiar surfaces, with their distinctive grain, allude to an incident in Twain’s novel in which Sawyer, depressed by the thought of having to spend a Saturday whitewashing a fence, cons his friends into completing the chore for him. Wood appears throughout Ruscha’s oeuvre as image, subject, support, and container, as well as in miscellaneous projects, The project is also consistent with the artist’s long-standing absorption in Americana, which has famously found expression in his images of gasoline stations, the Sunset Strip, and the Hollywood sign. While “Tom Sawyer Paintings” may not, then, incorporate text (aside from the subtle rubber stamp reproduced in a few works), the series alludes nonetheless to the potential for and of verbal expression; the wooden slats might even be thought of as suggestive of type in their regular horizontal, vertical, and diagonal configurations. Info: Gagosian Gallery, 4 rue de Ponthieu, Paris, France, Duration: 19/10-22/12/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 0:00-18:30, https://gagosian.com/