ART NEWS: Sept.02

mocaThe exhibition “Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor” includes Pipilotti Rist’s early single-channel videos dating to the mid-1980s, which established her critical appropriation of techniques drawn from popular culture and commercial advertising; her absorptive, architecturally-scaled installations brimming with blasts of color and lush textures, accompanied by hypnotic, lyric musical scores; as well as sculptures which merge everyday objects, video and digital images, and decorative forms. Rist expanded video into large-scale installations beginning in the mid-1990s. Equal parts technological and sensual, Rist’s installations explore relationships of the body and technology; exterior environments and interior psychological landscapes; and reason and instinct. In Rist’s audio-video installations, the external, visible world is of equal importance to dreams and that which we see when our eyes are closed. Her work fully realizes and joyfully explores the capaciousness of the video medium—its possibilities for vivid color; sweeping views and extreme close-ups; the expression of emotion and contradiction; introspection and cultural critique; and, importantly, the creation of shared, common experiences within the public space of the museum. Info: Curators: Anna Katz and Karlyn Olvido, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Geffen Contemporary, 152 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA, Duration: 12/9/2021-6/6/2022, Days & Hours: Thu-Sun 11:00-17:00, https://www.moca.org

HUSER&WIRTHThe exhibition “Appearance” celebrates Günther Förg’s longtime experimentation with painting through a focused presentation of his “Grid” Paintings that highlights the scope and evolution of this iconic series. At the end of the 1980’s Förg developed an interest in the work and life of Edvard Munch. After meeting the Norwegian Munch specialist Per Bjarne Boym in the early 1990’s Förg’s interest was fueled once again. As a result of this experience Förg began making his first Grid Paintings. His attention was not drawn to Munch’s captivating figures as one might expect, but rather to Munch’s treatment of non-figural elements and flat areas of color. When comparing Munch’s “Death of Marat” (1907) with Förg’s work in this exhibition, an unequivocal correspondence can be observed between these two artists as evidenced by their painterly treatment of the canvas, their layered lines of like colors, and the unorthodox way in which they threaten to dissolve distinctions between negative and positive space. In 1994, Förg and Rudi Fuchs, Director of the Stedelijk Museum discussed Förg’s first unveiling of the Grid Paintings at the museum. Förg expressed his desire to push his painting practice to the next level and resist the temptation to get stuck with the success of his earlier series such as lead paintings and colorfield works. Info: Hauser & Wirth Gallery, 901 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles CA, USA, Duration: 14/9/2021-9/1/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:30-14:30 & 17:30-22:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-14:30 & 17:30-21:00, www.hauserwirth.com

maclyonThe exhibition “Marina Abramović & Ulay Collection: performances 1976-1988” is on show at Mac Lyon. In 1986, the Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon hosted an exhibition by performance-art pioneers Marina Abramović and Frank Uwe Laysiepen, a.k.a. Ulay.  It was an opportunity for the two artists to present and bring to a close the cycle of performances that brought them international recognition, “Nightsea Crossing”. The work having taken on its final form with the Lyon performance was acquired by the museum: photographs and objects preserve the memory of the (sometimes extreme) moments they record. The work of the two artists, which is well represented in the collection of the Musée d’art contemporain  de Lyon, touches on fundamental issues that today would be described as anthropological: the couple, gender issues, awareness of corporeality and challenges to the body, the mental management of pain and endurance, exposure to danger, links with the environment and other cultures, and indeed social and political criticism. Info: Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (Mac Lyon), Cité Internationale, 81 Quai Charles de Gaulle, Lyon, France, Duration: 15/9/2021-2/1/2022, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.mac-lyon.com

Anna LaudelArdan Özmenoğlu’s first solo exhibition in Düsseldorf is titled “Alles wunderbar” (All Is Wonderful) eshowcases the nine-year creative journey of the artist, covering different topics of her artistic career. With endless creativity and the capability of addressing both simple and complex issues in a playful and joyful manner, Özmenoğlu comprises a broad range of themes using different materials such as paper, glass, or neon light tubes in her works. She creates three-dimensional sculptural works with a series of painted glass layers, depicting flowers or trees as a sort of comment on the fragility of nature and human vulnerability. The exhibition pays attention to the artist’s long-standing relationship to Germany, particularly to the city of Berlin, her main production site after Istanbul, where she lives. The exhibition includes her latest pieces named after the first German words the artist learned. Info: Curator: Katerina Valdivia Bruch, Anna Laudel Düsseldorf, Mühlenstraße 1, Düsseldorf, Germany, Duration: 16/9-13/11/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-15:00, https://annalaudel.gallery

annkakultisKate Bickmore in his solo exhibition “In Season” presents   seven immersive oil paintings that seductively interweave the surfaces, depths and desires of the artist’s experiences as a queer woman using Bickmore’s chosen visual language of florascape.  While simultaneously presenting as both hyperrealistic and fantastical, the artist uses her florascapes to explore new modes of perception, unconscious urges and systems of meaning.  While Bickmore’s paintings exhibit elements of classic feminist critique in their opposition to the objectification of the beautiful under the de trop male gaze, as well as queer theory in their celebration of the plant kingdom and the heteronormative-challenging multiplicity of sexual and reproductive permutations that abound in it, there resides a far more immediate and visceral air of carnality within the works.  This atmosphere is reflected in the artist’s mischievous choice of title for the exhibition.  In Season is at once a reference to the cyclical nature of flowering plants and the successful growing periods for crops and yet is also synonymous with the period when a female (mammal usually) indicates it is ready to mate. Info: Annka Kultys Gallery, Unit 9, 472 Hackney Road, London, England, Duration: 17/9-16/10/2021, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 12:00-18:00, www.annkakultys.com

gagosian“NOT FAR FROM HOME; STILL FAR AWAY” is the title of the exhibition with paintings and works on paper by Nathaniel Mary Quinn. In composite portraits rendered in charcoal, gouache, oil paint, oil stick, and pastel, Quinn probes the relationship between perception and memory. Bringing together visual fragments from a variety of sources—including online media, fashion magazines, comic books, and family snapshots—he conjures hybrid faces and figures that are neo-Dadaist in their fractured appearance, yet realist in their carefully painted details and overall psychological effect—a divide that speaks to the intensity of in-person encounters. With these portraits, Quinn furthers his dynamic take on the Surrealist strategy of the cadavre exquis. Working without preliminary sketches, he produces near perfect simulations of torn-paper collages. Rough-hewn yet precisely realized, these disjunctive visions are consistent with the complicated personalities and social issues they represent. Info: Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, USA, Duration: 17/9-30/10/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://gagosian.com

LISTEListe Art Fair Basel has been one of the most important places for discovering young international art since its founding. The current artistic voices in interna-tional discourse, presented primarily by young galleries, not only reflect our pre-sent but also help create it. It is therefore all the more important to guarantee the galleries and their artists the best possible presentation, both through a physical presence at the fair and through digital formats. Thus, in conjunction with the physical fair in Basel, the digital edition Liste Showtime Online (15-30/9/2021) will take place for the second time this year. Furthermore, Liste Expedition Online will launch in December 2021 as a research forum and artist index that will be freely and perm-nently available to all. Under the premise of promoting young international art, the Liste Committee selected 81 galleries from 33 countries to participate. 21 galleries have been selected for Liste Art Fair Basel for the first time. A total of 50 solo presentations will be on view. For the first time in its 26-year history, Liste Art Fair Basel will not be held in Werkraum Warteck pp, but at Messe Basel in Hall 1.1. A completely new exhibition space will be created with the Sculpture Piazza, located at the centre of the circular fair architecture. Based on the idea of a public square, 11 large-scale sculptures will define this space and invite visitors to dis-cover, meet and linger.  Info: Liste Art Fair 2021, Messe Basel, Hall 1.1, Entrance behind Art Unlimited, Maulbeerstrasse / corner Riehenring 113, Basel, Switzerland, Duration: 20-26/9/2021, Days & Hours: Mon (20/9) 18:00-20:00, Tue-Sat (21-25/9) 11:00-20:00, Sun (26/9) 11:00-16:00, Admission: Regular CHF 20, Reduced CHF 10 )from 19:00 / scholars / students / seniors), www.liste.ch

ΚalfayanMaro Michalakakos in her solo exhibition “IN ORBIT” presents a new body of work (sculptural installation, watercolors), an immersive environment that engulfs visitors and asks for a simultaneous departure and return to levels of experience beyond and beneath speech, to a place where space, time and bodies stretch and bend as much as our imagination allow them. The exhibition maps a journey that challenges our earthbound existence, it articulates worlds colliding internally or far away, it follows species fusing as they form future networks, it launches a mission of fantasy across corporeal and disembodied universes. A mission is being prepared. A journey to the future with fragments from the past. A sentient network of life is being formed, a new form of existence that navigates the trajectory of the cargo ship. Michalakakos invites us on a course around our cosmos, to collide with stardust and planetary rings, to travel the universe by spinning around the foundations of the self. In anticipation of a future without our planet, Michalakakos delves on the ground to reach for the stars, so that space, as a place of deep ecology, can be explored without leaving the Earth. Yet. Info: Curator: Kostas Stasinopoulos, Kalfayan Galleries, 11 Haritos Street, Kolonaki, Athens, Greece, Duration: 22/9-30/10/2021, Days & Hours: Mon & Sat 11:00-15:00, Tue-Fri 11:00-19:00, www.kalfayangalleries.com

ropac“Hotel garni” is the exhibition of new works by Georg Baselitz, whose historic connection with Seoul dates back to his first institutional solo exhibition in Korea at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in 2007. On view for the first time, the twelve paintings and twelve drawings were created specifically with the opening of the new gallery space in Seoul in mind. One of the most important artists of our time, Baselitz shaped a new identity for German art in the second half of the 20th century and has had a profound influence on international art since 1960. The new works show the multipartite figure of Elke, abstracted yet sensuous, suspended in isolation in an undefined space. Baselitz abstracts and defamiliarises his subject, yet the representation preserves the composition’s expressiveness. In order to empty the form of its content, the artist has been inverting his compositions since 1969, thereby revolutionising a medium that was regarded as conventional. Through this novel format, his works navigate between abstraction and figuration. When painting Elke, this gesture also serves to disrupt any harmony or beauty that was likely to seep into the portrayal of a figure so familiar to him. Info: Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, 2F, 122-1 Dokseodang-ro, Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea, Duration: 7/10-27/11/2021, https://ropac.net