ART NEWS:July 02
The group exhibition at Praz-Delavallade Gallery brings together artists who call into question those systems that in art organize a hierarchy of materials and urban zones. These artists have set up their studios in the suburbs, by choice or for financial concerns, and their surroundings are often at the very core of their artistic practice. They exhibit their work successively in neighbourhood art centers and prestigious locations at the heart of the metropolis. They work with poor materials as opposed to more noble ones. They question volumes and the place of art in the public space by bringing it face to face with its problematics, not just artistic, but also architectural or sociological. They extol the virtues of street culture in various prominent places of popular culture, from Paris to Los Angeles, via Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Berlin. Info: Praz-Delavallade Gallery, 5 rue des Haudriettes, Paris, Duration: 7/7-24/9/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.praz-delavallade.com
“Everglow”, Laurel Holloman’s solo exhibition in Amsterdam, continues in the thematic area of science and nature. Laurel Holloman decided to combine the large scale murals of The Fifth Element to create a visual journey that interplays the abstracts work with newer slightly figurative landscapes of animals and plants. The main emphasis is still science and nature but also the show reflects our connectivity to the earth and our environment. While the abstracts hint at elemental imagery, earth, wind, fire, and water, the newer Everglow paintings capture actual images of nature, woods, plants, animals in their natural environment. Also The Everglow series of back paneled LEDs is representative of our current global warming issues. Each piece is a combination of ice and fire, representing the inevitable melting we have witnessed in our farthest reaching climates. Info: Museum Jan van der Togt, Dorpsstraat 50, Amstelveen, Duration: 8/7-28/8/16, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 11:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 13:00-19:00, www.jvdtogt.nl
“665 km” the title of the solo exhibition by Katrin Korfmann is referrs to the distance between her studio in Amsterdam and her former hometown Berlin, the title sets the tone for the exhibition, that of travel, of journey. The exhibition starts with Berlin, with analogue images taken with a plate camera of the city’s firewalls and named after the streets they were shot in. Interested in their status as non-spaces, Korfmann made a study of these so-called “Brandmauern”, structures built for the public good, but invisible to most citizens. Yet this is not a chronological tour through Korfmann’s oeuvre, instead we see a dynamic exchange between works from different years developing, works that were created in two distinct cities. Info: BERLINARTPROJECTS, Potsdamer Str. 61, Berlin, Duration: 9/7-13/8/16, Duration: Mon-Fri 11:00-19:00, Sat 12:00-18:00, http://berlinartprojects.com
The multimedia installation “Poppy-Trails of Afghan Heroin” by Robert Knoth and Antoinette de Jongis a striking documentary revealing a dark side of globalization as reflected in the faces of smugglers, prisoners, prostitutes, border guards, children, and farmers. For over 20 years, the artists followed the trails of the heroin trade from Afgha-nistan across Central Asia, Russia, and the Balkans, through East Africa, Dubai, and Western Europe, to where the traces finally disappear in the concrete jungle of London. The exhibition consists of a 45-minute installation with four video projections and additional photographs and information panels. “Poppy” is a kind of kaleidoscope visualizing the chaos, violence, and opaque relations that prevail along the heroin trade route. Viewers are immersed in multi-layered parallel worlds where different events and developments overlap and interconnect. Info: C/O Berlin Foundation, Amerika Haus, Hardenbergstraße 22–24,, Berlin, Duration: 15/7-25/9/16, Days & Hours: Daily 11:00-20:00, www.co-berlin.org
Sophia Al-Maria is part of an emerging generation of international artists who are mining the intersections of technology, culture, and identity. In 2016, she has her first solo museum exhibition in U.S.A entitled “Black Friday”, with the premiere of a new series of videos at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her exhibition is inspired by the Gruen Transfer, a phenomenon in which a controlled environment, combined with visual and auditory stimuli, is used to distract and manipulate consumers. Over the past nine years, Al-Maria has been finding ways to describe 21st Century life in the Arabian Gulf through art, writing, and filmmaking. Info: Curator: Christopher Y. Lew, Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, Duration: 26/7-31/10/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Thu & Sun 10:30-18:00, Fri-Sat 10:30-22:00, http://whitney.org
Jill Kroesen was an essential figure in the ‘70s New York Performance milieu, working at the intersection of experimental music and then-emerging performance art. The theatrical performance “Collecting Injustices, Unnecessary Suffering” features original songs, dance, and the participation of many of her past collaborators,including an elaborate sculptural set designed and constructed by Jared Bark and costumes by Mary Kay Stolz. In this new performance, Kroesen articulates for herself and for her audience an allegory that animates the structures of parenting, socialization, and control that shape individual lives and collective society. Employing Kroesen’s own unique approach to portraiture, this performance coincides with the Whitney’s collection exhibition Human Interest. Info: Curator: Jay Sanders, Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, Days & Hours: The Theatrical Environment: 27-31/7, Wed-Thu & Sun 10:30-18:00, Fri-Sat 10:30-22:00, Installation: July 27-28, 10:30-15:00, 29-31/7 10:30-16:00, Performance 29-31/7 20:00, http://whitney.org
Jo Spence’s exhibition in the context of Edinburgh Art Festival 2016 showcases two different aspects of Spence’s photographic output. A presentation of documentary images from the ‘70s illustrates the educational workshops that she developed with her long-term collaborator, Terry Dennett, through their “Children’s Educational Work”, “The Secret World of Children” and “Adventure Playgrounds” projects. Also on display are examples of self-portraiture from Spence’s use of photo therapy, a technique that she developed with Rosy Martin and began in 1984 in order to work through a number of personal histories relating to issues of sexuality, family and class. Info: Stills Centre For Photography, 23 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh, Duration: 28/7-28/8/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 11:00-18:00, http://stills.org
For her solo exhibition “Resonating of Space” at Scotty Enterprises Katinka Theis created an installation that extends akin to the phenomenon of how sound spreads out in space, and that thus becomes space itself. Each element of the installation refers to monumental architecture and landforms and yet manifests itself into independent and abstract structures in space by relating to one another. Such as the formation recalling somewhat a mountain landscape does, when transforming into a honeycombed architecture consisting out of hundreds of rods, further anchored to the floor, thus shapes connect to the projection of a rotating disco ball. And, in turn, such object functions similar to a visual sound object by sending back sound in multiple directions. Info: Scotty Enterprises, Oranienstrasse 46, Berlin, Duration: 30/7-13/8/16, Days & Hours: Thu-Fri 15:00-19:00, Sat 14:00-18:00, www.scottyenterprises.de