ART NEWS:Feb.04
James Ewing in the exhibition “Stagecraft: Models and Photos” at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (Columbia GSAPP) presents newly commissioned photographs alongside models of significant 20th-century buildings. The exhibition explores the synergy between architectural models and photography and the renewed relevance of model photography as a wellspring of architectural invention. The exhibition includes 14 photographs by James Ewing, with multiple interpretations of six models. Rather than realistic constructions that simulate buildings, Ewing’s images instead offer a meditation on how the intersection of material and visual modes of representation can prompt new ways of seeing, understanding and talking about architecture. Using the Ross Gallery as a photographic studio for several weeks, Ewing experimented with a range of lighting, framing and staging techniques that drew upon his research on the history of model photography. Info: Curators: Irene Sunwoo and Adam Bandler, Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Buell Hall, Columbia University GSAPP, 1172 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, Duration: 9/2-10/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:001-18:00, Sat 15:00-18:00, www.arch.columbia.edu
The exhibition “The Treachery of Images” at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is a tribute to René Magritte one of the most important painters of the 20th Century, that highlights his relationship to the philosophy of his day. Magritte did not see himself as an artist, but rather as a thinking person, who conveyed his thoughts through painting. His entire life he sought to find a form of expression equal to that of language. His curiosity and affinity with great contemporary philosophers such as Michael Foucault resulted in a remarkable oeuvre, which is shown in a new light through over 70 works. In contrast to the methods based on dream and automatism postulated by the Parisian Surrealists associated with André Breton, Magritte’s unparalleled visual language was grounded in the specifically Belgian manifestation of Surrealism, which called for the application of a dialectic method and scientific thinking. Info: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Römerberg, Frankfurt am Main, Duration: 10/2-5/6/17, Days & Hours: Tue & Fri-Sun 10:00-19:00, Wed-Thu 10:00-22:00, www.schirn.de
The exhibition “Arman: Emersions”, features 13 works from the series conceived in 1998 and 1999 by the artist. The series has only been exhibited once before at the Galerie Piltzer in Paris in 1999.The “Emersions” mark a new relationship between painting, which he had practiced since his childhood in Nice, and objects, to which he was drawn starting with his exhibition “Allure d’objects” at Galerie Saint Germain in Paris in 1960). These untitled paintings draw their inspiration from the tragic vision of a contaminated human landscape, covered with oil, garbage, or mud. The mineral effect of the surfaces of the objects derives from the metal plating applied to chairs and bicycles, fans, watering cans, and other objects, whereas the uniformity of color derives from the acrylic paint that Arman uses as coating or glue. Info: Cardi Gallery , C.so di Porta Nuova 38, Milan, Duration 17/2-23/6/17, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-19:00, www.cardigallery.com
In “Seeing while Moving” her first US solo exhibition, Charlotte Moth presents a group of recent works in sculpture, photography, and film. Throughout her work, she trains her gaze on the architectural spaces in which we live and the objects that surround us. Since 1999, Moth has taken analogue photographs of buildings and interiors encountered while traveling, a collection of images she calls the Travelogue. These photographs serve as source of many of her installations, variously grouped into slide projections, sculptural wall works, or table assemblages. Paying close attention to overlooked details like corners and crevices, or the play of shadows, Moth renders mundane objects and spaces as magical and strange. Info: MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames Street, Building E15, Cambridge, Duration: 17/2-16/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 12:00-18:00, Thu 12:00-20:00, https://listart.mit
“At Odds” is Gwenneth Boelens’ first solo museum exhibition and present a group of new photographic works and woven, sculptural pieces. Gwenneth Boelens is concerned with processes of perception, memory, and time, throughout her work she aims to fix the traces of physical movement in space. Originally trained in photography, in her earlier work she used the antiquated wet plate collodion process, during which chemicals are distributed onto large glass plates and exposed to light. The resulting glass pieces capture the traces of her handling the plates during the process, and are displayed as sculptural installations in the space. More recently, Boelens has made a series of large-scale photograms, using various objects or textiles that are folded repeatedly over the duration of the exposure and create radiant fields of color. Info: MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames Street, Building E15, Cambridge, Duration: 17/2-16/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 12:00-18:00, Thu 12:00-20:00, https://listart.mit
Yinka Shonibare’s solo exhibition “Prejudice at Home: A Parlour, a Library, and a Room” features three major installations, which together demonstrate Shonibare’s multivalent approach to the theme of “otherness.” The works span two decades of wide-ranging explorations into individual and collective identity as viewed through the lens of history.Today, these artworks wield an ever greater urgency as a reminder that unchecked prejudice can cripple a society. On view are the installation “The Victorian Philanthropist’s Parlour” (1996–97), the photo suite “Dorian Gray” (2001) and the US premiere of Shonibare’s more recent large scale work “The British Library”, the work is a collection of 10,000 books arrayed on shelves and bound in the artist’s signature brightly colored, Dutch wax cloth. A web component of the work accessible on iPads in the installation allows visitors to explore the complete list of names on the books, video documentation about immigration and has space to record their own stories. “The British Library” was originally co-commissioned by HOUSE 2014 and Brighton Festival for the Old Reference Library at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. Info: James Cohan Gallery, 533 W 26th Street, New York, Duration: 17/2-18/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.jamescohan.com
Does documentary photography show a true picture of the world? Do portrait photographs capture a person’s identity? Today pictures are shared in vast numbers on social media. The exhibition “SNAP: Documentary and Portrait. Photography from the Collection” at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, explores how photography has pictured people from the 19th Century to the present. The exhibition sheds light on three key periods in the documentary genre: 1880s social documentary, 1960s street photography, and 1990s everyday documentary.The exhibition presents more than 100 photographs by 30 acclaimed Norwegian and international photographers, exploring how identity and political standpoints are conveyed and how portrait and documentary photography interweave to create new narratives about the times in which we live. Info: Curator: Eva Klerck Gange, National Museum of Norway, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Bankplassen 4, Oslo, Duration: 17/2-3/9/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri 11:00-17:00, Thu 11:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 12:00-17:00, www.nasjonalmuseet.no
“Playtime” is Isaac Julien’s first extensive solo exhibition in South Korea. Throughout the exhibition, Julien examines inevitable and fundamental questions around capitalism, labour and art market of our time. His work engages with postcolonialism, migration and diaspora, racism and minor gender identities as thematic approach. In his major presentation of Playtime at the Platform-L, the intrinsic contradiction and limits of capitalism is depicted in an apocalyptic tone. The exhibition consists of three works including “Playtime” (2014) functioning as the major axis to the constellation paired to “Kapital” (2013) and finally “The Leopard” (2007) that renders historic traumas into a choreography playing on the border of life and death. Info: Platform-L Contemporary Art Center, 11 Eonjuro-133gil, Gangnamgu, Seoul, Duration: 22/2-30/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 14:00-22:00, www.platform-l.org
New paintings and sculpture by Joe Bradley are on presentation at his solo exhibition “Eric’s Hair”. Weaving cultural references and engagements with the tradition and aesthetics of paint on canvas that are both ironic and earnest, Bradley’s oeuvre is built on a diverse visual language that deadpans against easy categorization. In the new works, Bradley tempers the use of color in bold, primary swathes with approaches to form and surface that remain resolutely contingent. This exhibition is the 2017 Gagosian Oscar show, a highly anticipated annual fixture in the Los Angeles cultural calendar where the art, film, and celebrity communities join to celebrate a key gallery artist on the Thursday evening before the Academy Awards ceremony. Info: Gagosian Gallery, 456 North Camden Drive, Beverly Hills, Duration: 23/2-8/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.gagosian.com
Dove Allouche’s solo exhibition “Le beau danger” features new works from three different series. The artist works in photography, drawing, and printmaking, often employing scientific processes to bring to light otherwise invisible phenomena. In the three series on view here, Allouche explores the question of how art breaks the surface of reality. Though formally abstract, the works result from his empirical investigation into nature, its immanent order amidst the dreadful chaos of the modern world. Allouche made the works in the “Sunflower” series in complete darkness like our Paleolithic ancestors painting in dark caves. He scatters pure silver and tin onto large Cibachrome sheets, sweeping his hand from left to right across the surface, then exposes them to light to reveal reflective halos that correspond to his arm span. “6 million Kelvin flaring regions” is a series of pencil and ink drawings based on photographs of solar flares that are imperceptible to the naked eye. With the series “Funghi”, Allouche refocused on the living realm, working with species of spores that predate man. Info: Peter Freeman, Inc., 140 Grand Street, New York, Duration: 23/2-8/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.peterfreemaninc.com
In the new zine “Illegitimate President” launching at the 2017 edition of Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair (24-26/2/17), Marcel Dzama and Raymond Pettibon turn their distinctive artistic collaboration to address recent political events. In a Limited Edition of 250copies, the 36-page full-color zine by David Zwirner Books, includes 31 reproductions of drawings, collages, comic strips, and protest posters. The result is the artists’ personalized version of a political pamphlet filled with vibrant, vocal responses to topical subject matter. This is the fourth zine the two artists have produced together. Dzama has expanded his practice in recent years to encompass sculpture, painting, film, costume design, and dioramas. Pettibon, for whom this ongoing project is a rare collaboration with another artist, has been making zines since the late ‘70s. All proceeds from sales of the zine will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).