ART NEWS:Sept. 02
In the works of Cullen Washington Jr’s solo exhibition “Od Matter “, nature and the spirit re the impetus of his new body of work. Not nature as scene or sublime scape, but nature in its fundamental form as matter, and the spirit as the force which creates it. In this exhibition Washington employs non-representational abstraction in an effort to understand order, chaos, creation and human connection. The exhibition features seven collagraph works which explore the seen and the unseen, the individual and the indivisible. In a world of data-dentites and troubling socio-political times, Washington’s works act as metaphors for broader realities and underlying universal connections where differences of race, creed and gender are displaced in favor of unity and a singular pluralism. Info: Lesley Heller Workspace, 54 Orchard Street, New York, Duration: 6/9-22/10/17, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 11:00-18:00, Sun 12:00-18:00, www.lesleyheller.com
For his first exhibition in Brussels for more than 20 years, Mel Bochner’s debut’s “Language Is Not Transparent [Brussels, 2017]”, a wall piece taking its name from one of the artist’s most seminal works first shown at the Dwan Gallery in 1970. Bochner intends for this new iteration to premiere within Belgium’s bilingual context: translated into Flemish and French for the first time, this version adds new interpretations and layers of complexity to Bochner’s Conceptualist practice. The work consists of three black rectangles painted directly onto the wall, reappropriating the Renaissance fresco technique of sinopia. In his decision to work directly on the wall, the artist’s hand is clearly visible, via handwritten text in English, French and Flemish, scribbles of white chalk and uneven brushstrokes leaving drops of black paint that almost hit the floor. Info: Gladstone Gallery, 12 Rue du Grand Cerf, Brussels, Duration: 7/9-10/11/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 12:00-18:00, http://gladstonegallery.com
Through constantly-evolving and continually innovative iterations, Jim Campbell parses one of the most fundamental questions regarding the human mind: what enables us to interpret and understand the world around us? The 15 new works in his solo exhibition “Far Away Up Close” should, in theory, defy comprehension. They are either so low resolution or so high resolution that the viewer should not be able to understand the imagery depicted. Campbell’s works, however, activate our most primitive neural and sensory processes for interpreting visual clues like shape, movement, rhythm, and color. Tapping into these instincts, combined with the human capacity for complex memory and the ability to extrapolate, Campbell experiments with digital representation as a metaphor for the transmutation of data into knowledge. Info: Hosfelt Gallery, 260 Utah Street, San Francisco, Duration: 7/9-14/10/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sat 10:00-17:30, Thu 11:00-19:00, http://hosfeltgallery.com
“Kairos” Pat Steir’s solo exhibition showcases paintings that manifest a methodological and philosophical continuity with her “Waterfall” series. Comprising Steir’s first exhibition of new work in over three years, the paintings in Kairos are lush and sweeping in scale, with titles describing the states and senses they evoke. The featured works revisit the dialogue between intuition and accident that has defined Steir’s work since the 1970s, renewing these themes for the present day. The dialectics of intention and chance define Steir’s five-decade long practice; in the Kairos paintings, Steir furthers her investigation of non-objective painting with planes of complex color and texture situated on and between a central fissure. Info: Lévy Gorvy Gallery, 909 Madison Avenue, New York, Duration: 7/9-21/10/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.levygorvy.com
Gabriel Orozco’s solo exhibition at Galerie Chantal Crousel presents new works produced between Mexico City and Bali. Paintings, graphite on canvas works, and sculptures carved in Balinese limestone l resonate with the “Fleurs Fantômes” paintings produced on the occasion of his residency at Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire responding to the architecture of its castle. Gabriel Orozco draws his inspiration from the many places he has visited and lived in and puts forth a body of works translating a graphic turning point in his practice, highlighting the regions he inhabits and which inhabit him. Constantly on the move, the artist establishes a dialogue between here and otherworldliness, geometry and fluidity, memory and transcendence. The artist makes his work out of where he lives, using local materials and often drawing on traditional artisanal practices. Info: Galerie Chantal Crousel, 10 rue Charlot, Paris, Duration: 9/9-7/10/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.crousel.com
George Segal’s solo exhibition at Galerie Templon offers visitors the chance to rediscover the works of the artist. Famous for his environments populated by disturbing plaster figures, George Segal is ranked as one of the best American sculptors. This retrospective exhibition is the first in France in 20 years. George Segal’s tableaux are reflections on the individual and on consumer society. He plays on the permeability of spaces, inviting the viewer to converse with his anonymous and motionless figures. Segal flips the hierarchies: the objects are as real and permanent as nature itself, whereas the human figures are made by hand out of one of the most fragile materials: plaster. The exhibition features a comprehensive selection of the artist’s works. Originally a realist George Segal’s works began to evolve in the ‘70s, turning towards a more expansive and freer style of expression. The coloured works of the 1980s, both figurative paintings and still lives enter into a dialogue with the history of art and master painters. In the ‘90s, the artist shifted his focus to expressionist naturalism. Info: Galerie Daniel Templon, 30 rue Beaubourg, Paris, Duration: 9/9-28/10/17, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-19:00, https://templon.com
The group exhibition “Theatre of the Absurd” at Green Art Galleryreflects on the relationship between art and architecture, exploring the ways they influence and feed off each other. Infusing symbols that have been traditionally used in architecture, the artists in the exhibition question other formal enquiries and the relationship between man, objects and the space they inhabit. They produce fleeting and ambiguous realities which, momentarily, disturb our conditioned relationship with the objects that surround us. Theatre of the Absurd features works by: Farah Atassi, Ana Mazzei, Nika Neelova, Hemali Bhuta and Elena Alonso. Info: Green Art Gallery, Al Quoz 1, Street 8, Alserkal Avenue, Unit 28, Dubai, Duration: 13/9-28/10/17, Days & Hours: Sat-Thu 10:00-19:00, www.gagallery.com
The exhibition “Tension & Conflict – Video Art after 2008” focusses on an exceptional selection of artistic representations which, with unusual eloquence, have resorted to video and the moving image as a means of probing into the impact and effects of the 2008 global financial crisis. Videos, films and installations create a variety of filmic settings at MAAT’s Main Gallery and Video Room, offering personal views on the outcomes of the 2008 great recession, the associated political turmoil and the less visible social consequences of those events. Making use of memories, demonstrations and daily news, but also fictions, performances and varied genres, the artists in the show refuse passivity and make us read recent history – and the changes taking place in the present – in often unexpected ways. Info: Curators: Pedro Gadanho & Luísa Santos, MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), Av. Brasília, Central Tejo, Belém, Lisbon, Duration: 13/9/17-19/3/18, Days & Hours: Mon & Wed-Sun 12:00-20:00, www.maat.pt
4th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art theme “New Literacy” explores how the fourth industrial revolution is transforming the way we live, work, dream, and play. The theme is studied by a variety of exhibitions and programs, including the Main project, Artist-in-Residence program, Research project, Special projects, Parallel program, as well as research and education programs and events of the biennial University. The 4th industrial revolution is being shaped by new literacies around images, movements, and languages. All industrial revolutions transform our relation to space and time, as well as work and play. Today most of us walk around every day with an immense archive of images in our pockets; the changing nature of work, and the movement of the body, both individual and collective, defines a kind of choreography; language is adapting once again to this new revolution. In 2017, the biennial expands its geographic boundaries and time frame. The Artist-in-Residence program routes with a total span of 19,000 km. The 59 routes cover 28 cities, and for the first time the program begins two months before the official opening. Info: Curator: João Ribas, 4th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Duration 14/9-12/11/17, Location: Ekaterinburg and cities of the Ural region, http://uralbiennale.ru
André Butzer for his first solo show at the Galerie Xippas in Geneva presents a special overview of his work with pieces both from his acclaimed “N-Bilder” series (2010) as well as previous works. This exhibition offers a profound insight in what is pictorial in his work. André Butzer develops his works exclusively around the painting medium and its history. From the mid-‘90’s on, Butzer gains international recognition through his colorful paintings, which seem to represent cartoon-like characters. For the term “N-Bild”, the “N” firstly refers to the term “Nasaheim”, a utopian vision created by André Butzer, he also explains that the “N’ is a sacred number, perhaps even a golden number or a letter which could help artists in the creative process as well as forging their own path through their pieces. Info: Galerie Xippas, Rue des Sablons 6 & Rue des Bains 61, Geneva, Duration: 15/9-28/10/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 14:00-18:30, Sat 12:00-17:00, www.xippas.com
The main project of the 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art “Clouds⇄Forests” and will last for four months for the first time in the history of the Moscow Biennale. The project focuses on a new eco-system formed through a circulation of “Cloud Tribes,” who were born on the Internet cloud space, and “Forest Tribes” who are born on cultural origins. The works of 52 artists from 25 countries of the main project are displayed in a dialogue with works from the permanent exhibition of The State Tretyakov Gallery. The Moscow Biennale has for the first time actually become a single unified project. One of the things that brings it together is a mobile application, a digital guide that maps and covers the main project of the Biennale and the parallel program throughout the city of Moscow. Info: Curator: Yuko Hasegawa, Assistant Curator Seiha Kurosawa, 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art, The State Tretyakov Gallery, 10 Krymsky Val, Moscow, Duration 19/9/17-18/1/18, http://en.moscowbiennale.com
The exhibition “Ambienti/Environments” brings together for the first time nine of Lucio Fontana’s seminal “Ambienti spaziali”. Fontana’s pioneering work in the realm of installation art highlights the farsighted, innovative genius of this 20th century master. Visitors to a major exhibition which is staged at 15,000-square-metre Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan are able to walk through several of Lucio Fontana’s celebrated “Ambienti spaziali” featuring different forms and colors which unfold through rooms, corridors and labyrinthine paths. As the public moves through and lingers within them, they gain a full sense of the amazing iconic and aesthetic power that makes these works so innovative even today. Info: Curators: Marina Pugliese and Vicente Todolí, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Via Chiese 2, Milan, Duration: 21/9/17-25/2/18, Days & Hours: Thu-Sat 10:00-22:00, www.hangarbicocca.org
Being one of the 20th century’s most elemental movements while eluding rigid definitions, Fluxus can be interpreted as a continuation of the movements of Dada, Surrealism, action art and the ephemeral art of the 1960s. The Fluxus Manifesto can be interpreted as rebellion, or merely as leaving minimalist traces, the expression of a lifestyle; sometimes with a philosophical message, sometimes without any. The exhibition “Fluxus and Friends – A selection from the Maria and Walter Schnepel Cultural Foundation/Collection” at Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art presents hundreds of works selected from the collection of Maria and Walter Schnepel Cultural Foundation represent a broad palette of Fluxus through works by the most famous international and Hungarian artists. Info: Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art , Komor Marcell u. 1, Budapest, Duration: 22/9-2/11/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-20:00, www.ludwigmuseum.hu