ART NEWS:Jan.03
Trained as a miniature painter in Lahore, Pakistan, Ambreen Butt uses the dramatic imagery and storytelling from her native country’s traditional art form to comment on contemporary issues. Ambreen Butt created “I Need a Hero”, a temporary site-specific work for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s façade.The work is a scene of a heroine fighting a dragon and a monkey-like creature, which seem to represent her inner and outer demons. Her confident pose against a background of on-going conflicts suggests she will conquer all. Other young women look at her expectantly from above and below. The inspiration for this work, which is part of an on-going series, came from the story of Mukhtar Mai in Pakistan who was raped by the order of her village tribal council as punishment for speaking out against their codes of justice. Info: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 25 Evans Way, Boston, Duration: 11/1-26/7/17, www.gardnermuseum.org
The exhibition “Here After Here” brings together 100 works by Jitish Kallat encompassing a time frame of almost 25 years, exploring the many processes, themes and ideas that reappear throughout his artistic practice. The most comprehensive exhibition of Kallat’s works to date, it is spread across two buildings of the National Gallery of Modern Art – Jaipur House. Spanning painting, photography, drawing, video and sculptural installations, the works, presented, collectively for the first time, reveal the artist’s continual engagement with ideas of time, sustenance, recursion and historical recall, and his recurrent deliberations on the cosmopolis and the distant cosmos. Kallat’s oeuvre traverses varying focal lengths and time-scales. From close details of the skin of a fruit or the brimming shirt-pocket of a passerby, it expands to register dense peoplescapes and inter-galactic vistas. Info: Curator: Catherine David, National Gallery of Modern Art New Delhi, Jaipur House, Sher Shah Road, India Gate, New Delhi, Duration: 15/1-14/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-17:00, www.ngmaindia.gov.in
The cross-disciplinary work of Miljohn Ruperto includes photography, cinema, performance and digital animation. His work refers to historical and anecdotal occurrences, and speculates on the nature of assumed facts and construction of truth. He creates illusory images and disconcerting effects that challenge the viewer’s perception. His solo exhibition “Geomancies” consists of a film, a series of photographic and video works, as well as a new performance piece. Ruperto works with the concepts of possession, opposition and metamorphosis as common themes and as a background for the exhibition´s narrative. The work investigates the constant battle waged by humans to control nature. Modifications of the landscape and the economic exploitation of nature are counteracted by its unexpected force and how it affects the course of history. Info: REDCAT, 631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, Duration: 15/1-12/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 12:00-18:00, www.redcat.org
Placing the theory of memory at the core of his practice, Sarkis is introducing a layered critical view to today’s social and political issues by inviting various witnesses from the history. The works in the exhibition “MIRROR” by Sarkis conceived together by Ceren Erdem, transform the art’s faculty of bringing the traces of the past to the present into the competence in conjuring up the future through artistic production. A battle scene from the 15th Century and the responding lightning provoke the gallery as they transmute into neon installations. In this space, golden rainbows, images of which histories are touched by Kintsugi technique, moments captured and enlightened by stained glasses, spoils of war coated with lipstick convene and live in a mirror. And many photographs witnessing this confrontation integrate with the faces staring at them and reflect our world like a giant mirror. Info: Dirimart, Dolapdere Irmak Cad. 1-9, Dolapdere 34, Istanbul, Duration: 18/1-19/2/17, Days & Hours: tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, Sun 12:00-19:00, http://dirimart.com
“Naturalia” is the first collaborative exhibition of Paul Kasmin Gallery and Sotheby’s Old Masters Department, the exhibition explores the influence of a specific group of Old Master artists from the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries paired with contemporary artists who approached their practice through the lens of the natural science – and its myriad presentations in art. It is hard to imagine now the sense of wonder and discovery that artists of centuries past felt when studying nature, for man was still on the edge of the world; discovering new species of plants and animals at a pace unlike almost any other in modern history. Nature was as admired as it was feared, concurrently paradisiacal and dangerous, giving it both the sense of the exotic and of dark mystery. Info: Curator: Danny Moynihan, Paul Kasmin Gallery, 293 Tenth Avenue, New York, Duration: 19/1-4/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.paulkasmingallery.com
The exhibition “A Window to China: The Lotus Series” highlights Robert Rauschenberg’s immense artistic interest in China and examines an idealistic artist whose profound conviction to the arts had him constantly searching for new ways to utilize art as a potential lever for intercultural dialogue. During a trip to China in 1982, Rauschenberg took almost 500 photographs as a travel diary. From this compilation of photographs, Rauschenberg found material for the two collections that are on exhibition at Gl. Holtegaard. This collection has never before been presented in Denmark. “Studies for Chinese Summerhall” (1983), a photo series comprised of 10 original prints (38 x 38 cm), is characterized by simple and precise compositions where “everyday” scenes of Chinese life are on display. The “Lotus Series”, Rauschenberg’s final graphic piece, was created concurrent with the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Info: Curator Maria Gadegaard, gl Holtegaard, Gl Holte, Attemosevej 170, Holte, Duration: 20/1-19/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 12:00-17:00, thu 12:00-20:00, www.glholtegaard.dk
For ”Strata” Amie Siegel’s first solo exhibition in London, the South London Gallery presents recent works which explore the mechanisms through which objects become imbued with meaning. Known for her layered, meticulously constructed works that consider the undercurrents of value systems, cultural ownership and image-making, Siegel works across film, video, photography, performance and installation. The film “Quarry” (2015), traces the excavation of marble from the deepest underground quarry in the world to its almost inevitable use in the modern luxury apartments of Manhattan skyscrapers. The film “Fetish” (2016), delves further into the stratified relationships between culture, value, and material by focusing on Sigmund Freud’s personal collection of archaeological statues and artefacts. Proposing a conceptual link between “Fetish” and “Quarry”, Siegel presents a new work, a fragment of pink marble from the lobby of New York’s Trump Tower. Info: South London Gallery, 65-67 Peckham Road, London, Duration: 20/1-26/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Thu-Sun 11:00-18:00, Wed 11:00-21:00, http://southlondongallery.org
Ian Wilson has been exploring the aesthetic potential of spoken language since the late ‘60s. His ongoing body of work, beginning with “oral communication” and eventually including his signature “Discussion”, began in 1968 with the spoken word “time”. The artist, who began as a painter, soon transformed the act of discussion into his sole artistic medium. Over four decades, the focus of these exchanges has shifted from time to the nature of knowledge and non-knowledge, and awareness of ‘the Absolute’. His works are not recorded or photographed in any way, and exist only as long as the conversation itself. Wilson’s desire for abstraction first manifested as paintings that explored and tested the limits of perception. Although Wilson’s early paintings and sculptures are clearly physical objects, they also signal an inclination to take reduction and abstraction one-step further, to the point of ridding art of physical properties altogether. His solo exhibition inaugurates the first season of director Krist Gruijthuijsen’s artistic program at KW, which examines Wilson’s work through three corresponding solo presentations by Hanne Lippard, Adam Pendleton, and Paul Elliman. Wilson’s work will be physically and conceptually embedded within each exhibition, serving as a framework for exploring roles of language and communication, and the broader significance of interaction between human beings. Info: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, Berlin, Duration: 20/1-17/5/17, Days & Hours: Wed-Mon 11:00-19:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.kw-berlin.de
Hanne Lippard presents her first institutional solo exhibition at KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Over the past years, Lippard has focused herself on the production of language solely through the usage of the voice. Her practice stems from design by which she utilizes the voice as a way to convey the discrepancy between content and form. Lippard’s work that takes its inspiration from the so-called “Circle Works” and early Statements by Ian Wilson,who is known for solely working with oral communication. As a response to Wilson, Lippard conceived a new production titled “Flesh”, an Installation, which takes up the entire ground floor hall of the KW building and confronts the visitor with one singular element, a spiral staircase. When ascending the stairs, one enters an awkwardly shaped space that incorporates the upper windows of the ceiling as a point of view outside of the exhibition hall. Info: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, Berlin, Duration: 20/1-9/4/17, Days & Hours: Wed-Mon 11:00-19:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.kw-berlin.de
“Guerrero: Calder & Nevelson, In Their Studios”, is an exhibition of photographs from the estate of Pedro E. Guerrero. Best known for his images of the life and work of American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, this exhibition highlights for the first-time, Guerrero’s intimate documentation of renowned sculptors Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson in their homes and studios. The exhibition includes sculptures and collages by Calder and Nevelson that provide a direct context for the viewer. When on assignment to shoot Alexander Calder’s kitchen for Home and Gardens magazine, Guerrero quickly realized that his interest extended far past a glossy magazine article. This brief meeting developed into a remarkable 13-year documentation of the personal life and practice of one of the 20th century’s most celebrated sculptors. In 1979, Guerrero was commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art to photograph the home and studio of sculptor Louise Nevelson for an exhibition and monograph. Info: Edward Cella Art+Architecture, 2754 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, Duration: 21/1-4/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, http://edwardcella.com