ART NEWS:Nov.01
The exhibition “Medardo Rosso: Experiments in Light and Form” showcases the ways in which Medardo Rosso, a critically important, if under-recognized artist who played a crucial role in the development of Modern sculpture, employed innovative methods of modeling in order to animate the surfaces of his works, in a way perhaps even more radical than his contemporary and admirer Auguste Rodin. The exhibition emphasizes Rosso’s unorthodox foundry techniques, in which he returned to the same subjects repeatedly, casting them in plaster, bronze, and wax, and frequently leaving behind evidence of the casting process that is traditionally removed. By intervening at various stages of the process, as well as with the finished sculptures, he rendered his highly worked surfaces sensitive to subtle illumination—effects that will be given new meaning by the mutable natural light in the Pulitzer’s galleries. Info: Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 3716 Washington Boulevard, St. Louis, Duration: 11/11/16-13/5/17, Days & Hours: Wed & Sat 10:00-17:00, Fri-Sat 10:00-17:00, http://pulitzerarts.org
The group exhibition “Once More, with Feeling” investigates the gendered economy of emotional expression and its relationship to contemporary art. Exploring the gaps between fantasy and reality, labor and leisure, free and working time, the artists in this exhibition, grapple with how changing definitions of work have informed their own processes as artists, workers, and women. Projects by Rasha Asfour and Katya Grokhovsky transform daily practices into artistic process. Grokhovsky explores the smile as a form of non-verbal communication, emotional translation, and the migrant female body. In The Book of Everyday Instruction, Chapter One: you + me together, Bass invited Cleveland residents she did not know to share an activity with her that they would typically engage in with a friend or partner. Partisipating artistsArtists: Rasha Asfour, Chloë Bass, Shadi Harouni, Katya Grokhovsky, Jana Kapelová, Allison Kaufman, Hilla Toony Navok, Jasmeen Patheja, Megan Snowe. Info: Curator: Curator: Chelsea Haines, EFA Project Space, 323 West 39 Street, New York, Duration 11/11-23/12/16, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 12:00-18:00, www.projectspace-efanyc.org
Eric van Hove’s solo exhibition “Atchilihtallah-On the Transformation of Things”, presents a selection of the artist’s most crucial works as well as pieces specifically designed for Frankfurter Kunstverein. Sculptures, photographs, and current video works also are on view. In his mechanic sculptures, large-scale exhibits and films Eric van Hove puts the spotlight on global economic coherencies. The concept artist takes a close look at social transformations in the context of increasing automation. What role does local production play in a globalised economy? What ramifications does growing industrial fabrication have on the individual and his/her technical knowledge? In his work, artist and activist van Hove enters the terrain of the entrepreneur—and gains new aesthetic insights. Info: Curator: Franziska Nori, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Steinernes Haus am Römerberg, Markt 44, Frankfurt, Duration: 11/11/16-12/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Fri-Sun 11:00-19:00, Wed-Thu 11:00-21:00, www.fkv.de
The title of Rabih Mroué’s solo exhibition “Between Two Battles”, targets the pause, the (brief) intermission between two battles. The artist is all too familiar with both conflict and ceasefire. Born in Lebanon in 1967, he lived throughthe country’s civil war from 1975 to 1990. He experienced his own family members being threatened and even injured. These existential experiences have shaped his thinking and art up to the present day, with his works exploring political developments in Lebanon and the Middle East. Images of war and terror, personal experiences and their effect on the individual all remain recurrent themes. The resulting works are anything but documentary-like in style; he takes the facts he has gathered and develops complex tales, interweaving fictitious elements with real-life events and personal experiences. Info: Curator: Stefanie Böttcher, Kunsthalle Mainz, Am Zollhafen 3-5, Mainz, Duration: 11/11/16-2/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Fri 10:00-18:00, Wed 10:00-21:00, Sat-sun 11:00-18:00, http://kunsthalle-mainz.de
“Storm Deities (Maruts)” is on presentation as part of the 11th Shanghai Biennale. In the belly of a 165 metre tall industrial chimney of an old defunct thermal power station in Shanghai, Vishal K. Dar reimagines Maruts, the storm deities (the Rig Veda describes Maruts as a troop of young warriors, companions of Indra). Seven oscillating beams of light set to varying metronomic meters create a hallucinatory zone, each beam of light an object with a distinct time-code. The base of the chimney is transformed into a reflective pool and viewers experience Maruts from a spiral ramp inside the chimney, accessed through the main building of the Power Station of Art. Info: Power Station of Art, 200 Huayuangang Rd, Shanghai, Duration: 12/11/1-12/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-19:00, http://powerstationofart.com
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster explores the relationship between fiction and reality, using film, performance, installation and photos. The artist created “Opera-house” especially for Sonneveld House, but the work can be connected to her recent work, such as “M.2062”, a prospective and fragmented opera, taking place as a series of performances all around the world. It also relates to her collaborative work with Ari Benjamin Meyers, such as “T.451”, a performative work inspired by Fahrenheit 451 (made into a film by Truffaut in 1966), taking place in several spaces and environment. “Opera-house” is a domestic opera based on the Sonneveld family’s arrival in their new home. By means of several soundtracks and objects, Gonzalez-Foerster transforms the static environment of the museum house into a theatrical space for active exploration. Info: Sonneveld House, Jongkindstraat 12, Rotterdam, Duration: 13/11/16-/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-17;00, Sun 11:00-19:00, www.sonneveldhouse.com
Jitish Kallat’s “Covering Letter”, is an immersive installation and the first work by the artist that enters the Museum’s collection. Covering Letter fills an entire gallery with a video projection onto a curtain of mist created by a ceiling-mounted fog machine. It features Mahatma Gandhi’s historical letter written to Adolf Hitler on 23/7/39. In Kallat’s installation, the movement of the visitor’s passing body through the fog diffuses Gandhi’s text, echoing the fate of a plea that went unheeded. The artist describes the letter as a petition from a great advocate of pacifism to one of the world’s most vicious dictators. It is also an open invitation for self-reflection, as Gandhi’s utterances speak to the increasing manifestations of violence in the world today. Info: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Duration: 13/1116-/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-17:00, www.philamuseum.org
The group exhibition “Never Leave Me: Photographic Images in Germany Today” explores how Germany’s rich photographic past still influences artists today. The show also demonstrates how coming of age after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and in an unprecedented era of image saturation has simultaneously strengthened and challenged the artist’s position to photography. The title of the exhibition, suggests the complicated dynamic between humans and photographs. Some images can haunt us forever. On the other hand, Never Leave Me is a bittersweet declaration of our dependence on photographs, and a surprisingly deep and addictive desire to look at them. Participating Artists: : Nina Beier, Louisa Clement, Buck Ellison, Lindsay Lawson, Alwin Lay, Roman Schramm, Mark Soo and Tobias Zielony. Info: Curator: Renee Preisler Barasch, On Stellar Rays Project Space, 1 Rivington Street, New York, Duration: 15/11-12/12/16, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat-Sun 12:00-18:00, http://onstellarrays.com
Since 2007, “Playground Live art festival” has been a meeting point for the performing arts and visual arts. Artists freely combine elements from installation, text, film, sculpture, architecture and choreography in their practice, bringing objects and bodies together in challenging live performances. For this 10th edition, the STUK Arts Centre and museum M are once more presenting several premieres, co-productions and collaborations. Some of the performances staged during Playground look for unique ways to translate texts, situations or experiences to a live event. “Elma” is a site-specific work made by Alex Reynolds for the galleries at museum M. The visitor experiences the space through a story that presents a museum employee as the protagonist of the story. Info: Curators: Eva Wittocx and Steven Vandervelden, Playground Live art Festival, Stuk Kunstencentrum, Naamsestraat 96, Leuven, Duration 17-20/11/16, www.playgroundfestival.be, www.stuk.be, & www.mleuven.be
“From Source to Poem” Rosa Barba’s solo exhibition at the CAPC is an entrancing account of the main motives that gear her practice. The presented works, which include two new productions, establish a tight dialogue with the context in which they are displayed at both an architectural and at a conceptual level. “From Source to Poem” (2016) is a 35mm film extending the artist’s recent filmic explorations of cultural storage spaces. Filmed in the United States, in various historical archives, the film is shaped by the artist’s predilection for uprooting the places from their pragmatic circumstance in order to suspend them in a space-time limbo and deploy their poetic density. The exhibition confronts us with expanded and embodied cinema as a means to think of the museum not so much as an accumulator of still traces but as an agitator of their possible stories. Info: Curator: María Inés Rodríguez, CAPC Contemporary Art Museum Bordeaux, 7 rue Ferrère, Bordeaux, Duration: 17/11/16-26/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Sun 11:00-18:00, Wed 11:00-22:00, www.capc-bordeaux.fr