ART NEWS: Oct.04

The exhibition “Temporal Echoes” brings together the works by Omar Barquet and Carlos Aires, conveying the complex interplay of human emotions, time, nature, and memory. Following a thread of music, and poetry, the exhibition invites viewers to explore the profound depths of human experience and the enduring quest for meaning. Carlos Aires unveils the contemporary through the lens of catastrophe, thrusting it into the spotlight with the gaze of historical and anonymous figures. His practice unfurls societal complexities through a contemporary narrative, decoding the very “cultural” codes that shape our knowledge. Within his works, individual memories, music, material culture, consumer habits, cinema, and the emotions of fear and love intertwine, inviting contemplation of their intricate dance. Omar Barquet’s art delves into the essence of space, time, and memory, exploring the internal human tumult. His distinctive approach lies in his analytical understanding of space, blending movement and repetition, visibility and invisibility. Through a ‘collage’ method, he synthesizes diverse inspirations, employing a ‘symphony’ as a unifying system for his projects. Barquet’s work is rooted in collecting and recycling, breathing new life into materials marked by time and use, such as flotsam and driftwood. Info: Zilberman Gallery, 25 NE 39th St Miami, FL, USA, Duration: 13/10-17/11/2023, Days & Hours: Mon-Sun 11:00-20:00, www.zilbermangallery.com/

Tarek Atoui presents “The Drift” his first major solo exhibition in Europe. This project includes existing works and new productions, and is structured around three axes: the exhibition, the educational spaces and the planned performances. Far from a simple alternation, the artist has imagined this exhibition as a living organism in which sound and human porosities become entangled and intertwined. With no hierarchy of influences or genres, Tarek Atoui’s instrument-works weave networks and are constructed by association. They are constantly evolving, learning from themselves, from the space they occupy and from the hand that plays them. Against the work as an immutable entity, the artist highlights the faculties of improvisation and arrangement inherent in music. His works reinvent themselves, assemble themselves and respond to each other like so many cells open to disturbance and capable of integrating the other – the musician, the visitor, the space… – into their structure. This is what makes “The Drift” so special. Throughout his career, Tarek Atoui has oscillated between creating instruments and creating listening devices. Projects such as “WITHIN” and “The Reverse Collection” imagined new ways of generating sound. Info: Curators: Nathalie Ergino and Sarah Caille, IAC (Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, 11 rue Docteur Dolard, Villeurbanne, France, Duration: 13/10/2023-28/1/2024, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 14:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-19:00, https://i-ac.eu/ 

Idun Baltzersen presents “The Bathers”, a shell-shaped installation of a series of frame-mounted textile collages, meets the viewer in the first room. In the second room, the same motifs return in larger, more elaborate collages and painted woodcuts. Idun Baltzersen has previously explored themes connected to identity and self-fashioning focusing on a young generation’s relationship to each other and the contemporary world. The interest in these topics is still present, but Baltzersen is now shifting towards more timeless compositions. The imagery of the new works art history, with motifs of bathing people with the sea as a common backdrop. The sea, in both its physical and mythical form, has interested generations of artists throughout history. As a symbol of the unexplored and untamed nature, beautiful and romantic as well as dramaticreminiscence and terrifying. In the preparations for this exhibition, Baltzersen studied Swedish painter Eugène Jansson’s and Edvard Munch’s paintings depicting bathers from the early 20th century. The inspiration from Munch has been with Baltzersen from the beginning both thematically and technically, while Jansson is a recent acquaintance. Info: Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Fredsgatan 12, Stockholm, Sweden, Duration:14/10-18/11/2023, Days & Hours: tue-Fri 12:00-17:00, Sat 12:00-16:00, www.gallerimagnuskarlsson.com/

From the earliest times to the present day, water has always been a source of fascination and inspiration due to its vital and spiritual dimension. Indeed, the relationship between living beings and the world is formed by water. The exhibition “Water” is a poetic and emotional exploration into the oeuvre of South Korean artist Kim Tschang-Yeul, renowned for his depictions of water droplets. The exhibition tackles the various manifestations of water through 50 contemporary artworks and in situ installations by artists from all backgrounds. Set in the breathtaking Art Deco walls of the Villa Empain, “Water” invites 26 artists to explore this timeless and universal theme. From the smallest droplet of water to the vastness of the ocean, Water explores the ever-changing states of water and the different ways it is used by artists summoning different aesthetic, poetic, sensory or political approaches. With the intention of restoring intimacy into the heart of the visit, the exhibition calls on visitors to create sensitive, cellular emotions and memories. Info: Curator: Louma Salamé, Boghossian – Villa Empain, Centre for art and dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, 67 – 1050 Brussels, Belgium, Duration: 19/10/2023-10/3/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.villaempain.com/

Jorge Queiroz presents his solo exhibition “Shape the Echo”. For over thirty years, Jorge Queiroz has been creating dreamlike worlds in which the realms of the spirit and the real world intertwine. The forms are free and floating, at times morphing into hybrid bodies, emerging from the very depths of abstraction. The colour palette used is vivid and contrasting, with colours flowing freely: purples blend with yellows, blues with reds, and also various shades of green spread across the entire surface of the painting. The five new works in the exhibition are based on an earlier drawing by Jorge Queiroz. They have been created ‘like a theatre of memory’ or ‘an exercise of time’, as the artist puts it. In each work, the succession of strokes and colours appears to resonate from one painting to another, carried forward by a sense of momentum, a dynamic continuity of shapes and reliefs. Together or individually, they are composed like imaginary landscapes. Info: Galerie Nathalie Obadia, 8 rue Charles Decoster, Brussels, Belgium, Duration: 23/10-16/12/2023, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, https://www.nathalieobadia.com/

The two photographs that open and close Torbjørn Rødland’s exhibition “Oh My God You Guys” at the Consortium Museum represent a baby and an old man, respectively. The exhibition is designed as a journey leading from one to the other, namely from childhood to old age. It is therefore a highly narrative project, and for Rødland, an unusual approach to the concept of exhibition. The exhibition highlights Rødland’s photographs in which two contradictory characters are featured. The artist often employs this type of “disruptive casting” to emphasize the oddness in the photographed scenes. The “scenario” created by the curator for this exhibition – titled “Oh My God You Guys” as agreed with the artist – takes the viewers on a journey from the dawn to the dusk of life, exploring sophisticated and troubled human relationships. The exhibitionunfolds across eight different rooms, with each featuring increasingly older characters – starting with the baby and progressing through children, teenagers, adults, and ultimately the elderly – and producing a large fresco reminiscent of Edward Steichen’s 1955 landmark exhibition “Family of Man” at MoMA. Info: The Consortium Museum, 37 rue de Longvic, Dijon, France, Duration: 27/10/2023-31/3/2024, Days & Hours: Wed-Thu & Fri-Sun 14:00-18:00, Fri 14:00-20:00, www.leconsortium.fr/