ART NEWS:Dec.02

“Donald Judd Writings”, the most comprehensive collection of writings by Donald Judd, is now available. Co-published by Judd Foundation and David Zwirner Books, this publication examines Judd’s robust writing practice over the course of four decades in which he composed pieces that challenged conventional artistic, critical, and political standards.
In his reviews and essays, Judd discussed in detail the work of more than 500 artists showing in New York in the early and mid-‘60s, and provided a critical account of this significant era of art in America while addressing the social and political ramifications of art production. In more than 1,000 pages, this volume features seminal essays, such “Specific Objects”, first published in 1964, remains central to the analysis of the new art developed in the early ‘60s. It also presents an extensive selection of unpublished writings, including three essays written while Judd was a
 student at Columbia University, letters, and his daily notes. These writings have been organized chronologically.

Throughout its duration the group exhibition, “House of Commons” changes constantly and thus sees itself less as a static group exhibition than as a dynamic project. Art works are added, swapped out, and rearranged weekly. The exhibition arose in response to the political events of recent months in Europe and the United States. A general change in mood can be sensed, events such as the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump call into question the basis of democratic action and reveal the importance of constructive debate over different opinions and views. Against this backdrop, the exhibition presents both artistic works that deal explicitly with political or social issues as well as works dealing with more fundamental questions inherent in art itself. Info: Curators: Fabian Schöneich and Vivien Trommer, Portikus, Alte Brücke 2 / Maininsel, Frankfurt, duration: 3/12/16-29/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Sun 11:00-18:00, Wed11:00-20:00, www.portikus.de

“A Fine Line” ART100’s inaugural exhibition features works by Olivier Catté, Mahmoud Hamadani, Alan Sonfist and Wang Huangsheng, whose distinctive use of simple materials evokes cityscapes, landscapes, and the terrain of the senses. Wang Huangsheng’sv establishes a foothold in tradition but finds self-expression in a fluid yet controlled touch that evokes physical and metaphysical depth with a single extended gesture. Once a mathematics major, Mahmoud Hamadani creates highly ordered yet exceedingly free form paintings. Many of his paintings resemble nature, but emphasize the role of chance. Olivier Catté works with an inherently unpredictable material, recycled cardboard, with which he reflects on urban structure. There is no collage in Catté’s work. He tears and inks the material, and finds his rhythm in a certain degree of randomness. Alan Sonfist pioneered an alternative approach to working with nature and culture. He sculpts from the outside in, reintegrating aspects of indigenous natural and cultural histories. For Sonfist, the outside bark of a tree tells the tree’s story. Info: Art100 New York, 555 West 25th Street, New York, Duration 8/12//2/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.art100.hk

Friends with Books: Art Book Fair Berlin 2016 features 160 participants and a series of public programmes: discussions, readings, presentations, performances, and art works that explore the perimeters of today’s art publishing.  The public programmes series “ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH BOOKS…?” features lectures, performances, conversations, and panel discussions. “it is this flash itself that seduces” is an exhibition part of Friends with Books Programmes, the artists’ works all elicit a shared interest in books and publications and the differing forms of ‘pleasure’ they may evoke, such as voyeurism, the desire for knowledge, escape, and material possession. Works on view include drawing, collage/print, found images, performance, text, sculpture, and site-specific installation. Info: Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Invalidenstraße 50–51, Berlin, Duration: 9-11/12/16, Hours: Fri (9/12)18:00-20:00 Reception, Sat-Sun (10-11/12) 11:00-19:00, http://friendswithbooks.org

Drawing from sources as diverse as African mudcloth, Japanese shibori, and Native American basket weavings, Julie Chang in her solo exhibition “New Works” investigates how identities are constructed, engaging patterns to explore the personal and political forces that shape and misshape our lives.  Chang will create a work directly on the walls and floor of the gallery as well as present a series of large-scale paintings on paper. The patterns in woven textiles and baskets reflect a rich multiplicity of traditions, while the elemental forms in each are common to many cultures across the globe.  Similarly, the process of weaving embodies paradox in its unification of opposites:  the warp and the weft, one vertical and one horizontal thread, one stretched taut and one in undulating motion. Info: Hosfelt Gallery, 260 Utah Street, San Francisco, Duration : 10/12/16-21/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sat 10:00-17:30, Thu 11:00-19:00, http://hosfeltgallery.com

The group exhibition “Towards Mysterious Realities” aims to encourage profound reflection on Asia’s relation to the world. A majority of the 13 invited artists/collectives are from Asia. They not only add multiple intersected or parallel dimensions to this exhibition through their concerns over specific pieces of history and life experiences, but also attempt to construct or discover the relationships between historical contexts and our day-to-day survival from different perspectives. The exhibition is particularly concerned with the unsettling Cold War experiences throughout the second half of the 20th century, seeking to examine how the previous head-on confrontations over ideologies and values, which have been ignored or consigned to oblivion, lurk in our quotidian existence in a transcendent manner. Furthermore, this exhibition expects such a historical experience stretching back generations to serve as one of major pivotal points for profound reflections, rather than to bring about a hasty conclusion, wherefrom we can map out alternative routes to grasp and re-narrate realities. Info: Curator: Amy CHENG, TKG+, No. 15, Ln. 548, Ruiguang Roar, Neihu Dist., Taipei, Duration: 10/12/16-2/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.tinakenggallery.com

In his solo exhibition “Negative Ecstasy” Mustafa Hulusi presents six new major works, each of which probes differing notions and physical manifestations of division. The concept for the exhibition is based on French philosopher Georges Bataille’s assertion that consequential art involves a rupture between the boundary of life and death, the mixing of the sacred and the profane, or put another way, a communion between the bounded self and the immeasurable void. Hulusi’s works extend these ideas beyond the spiritual, to reflect on the punishing realities of geopolitical borders, those manmade containers of identity, which shape our ideology and define us as people. Info: Curator: November Paynter, Dirimart Dolapdere, Irmak Cad. 1-9, Dolapdere, Istanbul, Duration: 10/12/16-8/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, Sun 12:00-19:00, http://dirimart.com

Titled “Forming in the pupil of an eye”, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 will run from 12/12/16 until 29/3/17. For the third edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a total of 97 artists have been invited to create new work across the city of Kochi. The opening of the biennale will mark the start of over three months of cultural activities in Kochi. The Biennale’s main exhibition is supported by an ancillary programme of talks, seminars, workshops, film screenings and music sessions across venues in Fort Kochi-Mattanchery and Ernakulam. The sectors of the Biennale are: Students’ Biennale, Art by Children, Artists’ Cinema, Art Workshops, Pepper House Residency Exhibition, Master Practice Studios, Let’s Talk series, Video Lab, Music of Muziris, Partner Projects, History Now, Collateral Programmes and Young Residency. Info: Curator: Sudarshan Shetty, Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016, Kochi, Duration: 12/12/16-29/3/17, http://kochimuzirisbiennale.org

“CURRENT: Contemporary Art from Scotland Phase Two” focuses on the history, development and current conditions of artists’ moving image works to further explore the distinctiveness of contemporary art made in Scotland.  Featuring works by 24 artists, “>>FFWD” captures the evocative light of contemporary moving image works from four distinct angles. The section unrolls the moving image as a medium irrevocably defined by the urgencies of our contemporary moment. Drawn from the significant national AHRC research project at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, “REWIND: British Video Art in the ‘70s and ‘80s”  is a critical and historical counter-point to the contemporary moving image works presented in “>>FFWD”. Sampling the visual languages and formal innovations developed by video artists working during the ‘70s and ‘80s. Info: Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, bldg F, NO.570, West Huaihai Road, Red Town, Shangh, Duration: 17/12/16-15/1/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.minshengart.com