ART NEWS: May 01

“Principle of Equivalence”, is the first major retrospective and largest monographic exhibition to date of the work of Virginia Jaramillo. Tracing the artist’s practice from the mid-1960s through the present, Principle of Equivalence features more than 40 abstract paintings and handmade paper works that reveal her longstanding preoccupation with the relationships between the earthly and metaphysical realms. Taking shape in New York and Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s—amid mass political movements and debates around representation and the relevance of painting—Jaramillo’s work has long engaged with abstraction’s formal and social potentials. Alongside her iconic Curvilinear series, the exhibition features works made during her decades-long collaboration with the Dieu Donné Papermill in New York, as well as recent paintings in which Jaramillo redoubles her interests in quantum physics, geography, and the passage of time. Together, these works reach for the fundamentals of comprehension: how our experience of the physical forms the basis of ideas, and how abstraction can offer alternate ways of understanding our world. Info: Curator: Erin Dziedzic, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E Chicago Ave, Chicago, IL, USA, Duration: 4/52024-5/1/2025, Days & Hours: Tue 10:00-21:00, Wed-Sun 10:00-17:00, https://mcachicago.org/

The exhibition “Forms of the surrounding futures” responds to the current state of permanent crisis by embodying and celebrating plural narratives beyond a normative dominance for a tomorrow in the exhibited works and performances. The exhibition bypasses prevailing paradigms that uphold the status quo and anticipate possible futures to conceive of our present time as a moment of transformation full of potentiality. An expanded notion of “queer” forms the starting point for questioning prevalent paradigms and power structures and rethinking and reshaping the construction of bodies, spaces, and times. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the crucial activity of feminists, LGBTQ+ and racialized voices had an unparalleled place in dismantling longstanding structures of inequality, manifesting as beacons of alternative scenarios. Change regularly results from the struggles of the oppressed: sexualized and racialized others’ have been imposed a proximity to critical situations that place them at the forefront of social dissent. Their aim to dismantle dominant structures entails an intersectional struggle for equal and nonconforming forms of existence, one that echoes the mutually dependent and entangled life-systems on the planet. Info: Curator: João Laia in dialogue with Merle Radtke, Kunsthalle Münster, Hafenweg 28, 5th floor, Münster, Germany, Duration: 4/5-4/8/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 12:00-18:00, www.kunsthallemuenster.de

Na Kim has continuously engaged the questions that arise when a designer adopts artistic terms or visual language. In this way, Kim has consistently challenged the boundaries between design and art and expanded the definition of each. Moreover, Na Kim persists in her self-referential practice—based on her own design work—continuing to redefine the language of visual arts and exhibitions. Marking the artist’s first-ever solo presentation at Kukje Gallery, the exhibition features nearly 40 works, including paintings, collages, hanging sculptures, and wall paintings, all of which explore the expressive potential and utility of graphic design elements within an exhibition space. “Easy Heavy,” the title of this exhibition, refers to a collection of objects that appear light but are far from superficial. Graphic design is often perceived as dispensable due to its role in production and advertising. However, Na Kim presents the role of image culture differently, through sampling and editing. She also utilizes images as a visual language that evokes various elements related to the exhibition environment, thus making them perform as a thought-provoking catalyst. The gallery is divided into two spaces: the front space showcases the artist’s representative series of works, while the rear introduces her more recent work that attempts new forms of conversation with everyday visual languages that have been re-edited. Info: Kukje Gallery, F1963, 20 Gurak-ro, 123 Beon-gil, Suyeong-gu, Busan,Republic of Korea, Duration: 8/5-30/6/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.kukjegallery.com/

After Rachael Tarravechia starts her laptop, she opens a new tab on her browser and directs it to zillow.com. She zooms out from her apartment in Brooklyn and pans west, gliding over the seamless digital map until she arrives in the arid terrain of the southwest United States. Descending from her bird’s-eye perspective, Tarravechia in her solo exhibition “Water on Velvet” enters homes she will never see in a part of the world she has never visited. Virtually walking through these homes she seeks out their bathrooms, clicking until the camera stands in their center. Looking around, Tarravechia delights in the ability to act as a voyeur in another’s space but cannot shake an underlying feeling of dread. After years of intentionally restricting her eating and constantly bodychecking herself in bathroom mirrors, these spaces, which should prioritize hygiene and self-care, have become tainted with malice and discomfort. Endlessly repeating tiles are a symbol of the daily rituals performed to abstain from eating. The privacy of bathrooms becomes a shame screen for the eating disorder. The overwhelming focus on mirrors is an inescapable invitation to examine and criticize her body. Info: Ceysson & Bénétière, 956 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 8/5-14/6/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.ceyssonbenetiere.com/

The group exhibition “The Myth of Normal. Chronic Contradictions” explores the standards of ‘normalcy’ that define and confine us. Drawing inspiration from the work of Dr. Gabor Maté, a renowned figure in the study of health cultures, the exhibition challenges and interrogates the pervasive norms and dichotomies that shape our understanding of well-being and being well within societal integration, inviting us to reflect on the complex interplay between individual health and collective socio-political norms. By intertwining themes of trauma and illness, the artistic works presented in the exhibition, scrutinise the notion of ‘normal’ as synonymous with societal functionality, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging and addressing the pain inflicted by societal standards. The works also provoke contemplation on the pressures for bodily perfection and the intersection of health and care systems with individual experiences. Works by: Cat Chong, Jeamin Cha, Itamar Gov, Perel, Benoît Piéron, Marianna Rodziewicz, Finnegan Shannon, Anastasia Sosunova, Julischka Stengele, Imogen Stidworthy, Julia Zöhrer. Performances by; Benoît Piéron and Perel. Info: Curator: Mirela Baciak, Curatorial Assistance: Temitayo Olalekan, Salzburger Kunstverein, Hellbrunner Straße 3, Salzburg, Austria, Duration: 9/5-30/6/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 12:00-19:00, https://salzburger-kunstverein.at/

Working in a small mountain village outside Verona, the Italian artist Elisabetta Zangrandi has toiled over the past year to create a portrait gallery that reflects the labors of nine hundred years of artist-women. In her distinctive figurative style, Zangrandi has reinterpreted an array of female artists’ self-portraits, transforming these art historical icons into her own personal canon of predecessors—and Keyes Gallery into an alternative feminist museum. The earliest work referenced is by the 12th century German monastic Guda of the Weissfauen Convent, who included her own likeness in an illuminated manuscript; her image is believed to be the earliest signed self-portrait by a woman in Western Europe. Among other highlights of the exhibition are Zangrandi’s homages to the 17th century Baroque prodigy Artemisia Gentileschi (whose allegorical depiction of herself as the personification of painting has become a posthumous landmark of Old Mistress painting) and such 20th century trailblazers as Alice Neel and Frida Kahlo. With this pantheon of artists, Zangrandi reflects upon the vitality and continuity of women painters throughout recorded visual culture—and claims her own place within this genealogy of feminist art history. Info: Curator: Alison M. Gingeras , Keyes Art, 45 Main Street, Sag Harbor, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 11/5-26/6/2024, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.juliekeyesart.com/

Born in Kolkata and based in New York, Rina Banerjee creates shamanistic sculptures and vibrantly sensuous paintings-exploring the complexities of identity, the aftermath of colonialism, the nuances of migration, and what it means to be human-through the lens of a transnational woman of color. Banerjee’s approach is characterized by its defiance of traditional hierarchies-be they cultural, material, or linguistic. Her multifaceted artistic practice includes crafting fetishistic assemblages from a mix of antiques and tourist-market trinkets; painting and collaging evocative images of women in states of ecstatic transformation; and composing poetic titles that draw viewers into the emotional atmosphere of her creations. Her fourth solo exhibition at Hosfelt Gallery focuses on the fundamental human rights to freedom from oppression: to live in safety, to move freely, and to have hope. Banerjee contends that when governments fail to protect these rights, they become illegitimate. This exhibition is a plea for the rejection of injustice and the hope for more ethical world order. Info: Hosfelt Gallery, 260 Utah St, San Francisco, CA, USA, Duration: 11/5-29/6/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sat 10:00-17:30, Thu 11:00-19:00, https://hosfeltgallery.com/