ART NEWS:Oct.01
“60 Years of Performance Art in Switzerland” explores performative art, taking as its starting point the ;60s, when pioneering performance artist Jean Tinguely realized his first self-destructive actions. Besides Tinguely, artists such as Urs Lüthi, Daniel Spoerri, and Anna Winteler exemplify the exhibition’s historical side, while Alexandra Bachzetsis, Florence Jung, San Keller, and Anne Rochat represent its more contemporary aspect. Visitors will encounter the creations of more than 50 artists in documents, photographs, videos, drawings, objects, and, of course, performances. Every month, artists will bring the exhibition to life by presenting both historical pieces and productions made specifically for this context. Info: Curators: Jean-Paul Felley, Olivier Keaser and Séverine Fromaigeat, Museum Tinguely, Paul Sacher-Anlage 2, Basel, Duration: 20/9/17-28/1/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.tinguely.ch
The exhibition “The Show Must Go On” is continuing the themed presentations of the contemporary art Collection at the Kunstmuseum Bern. Not without a touch of irony, the title alludes to the famous pop song by the British group Queen and underscores how very important performativity is in contemporary art. Taking this aspect as its lens, the exhibition has put together photographs, videos, objects, paintings, and installations that address theater, film, performance, role play, staging and production. The exhibition is not only presenting documentation from performances but also the props and objects featured in them. It is likewise showing installations with texts and sound as well as strongly spatial, monumental paintings. These works engage with the multifaceted ways in which performativity has manifested itself in art objects and incite the public to perform too. Info: Curator: Dr. Kathleen Bühler, Kunstmuseum Bern, Hodlerstrasse 8–12, Bern, Duration: 22/9/17-21/1/18, Days & Hours: Tue-10:00-21:00, Wed-Sun 10:00-17:00, www.kunstmuseumbern.ch
In Tom Wesselmann’s solo exhibition at Almine Rech Gallery, the key work “Nude with Lamp” (1977-80) is accompanied by related paintings and works on paper. For Wesselmann, “Nude with Lamp” posed two challenges: the eccentric shape of the canvas and the chiaroscuro of the nude in shadow. While his first shaped canvases were determined by the silhouette of a single depicted object, as in the “Smoker” series, later works are shaped according to their own logic, rather than that of the painted image, utilizing the blank space of the bare wall behind. Repurposing the formal elements of advertising, such as shaped posters and cutouts, Wesselmann complicates the relationship between his female figures and their environments, their long, tanned legs often appearing to extend beyond the two-dimensional surface. After “Great American Nude #100” (1973), his titles became more descriptive, even personal, sometimes naming the model, detailed studies of which are included in this exhibition. Info: Almine Rech Gallery, Grosvenor Hill, Broadbent House, London, Duration: 3/10/17-13/1/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.alminerech.com
Focused on the geopolitical representation of art, the 20th Festival SESC_VIDEOBRASIL has selected works by 50 artists from 25 countries, 15 of whom are Brazilian. They include representatives from Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The Festival’s exhibition features videos, paintings, installations, sculptures, photographs, engravings and even artificial plants forming a small acclimatization garden. These diverse works reveal a multiplicity of worldviews, stemming from a society which, seeming to sense its own demise, resorts to its origins to avoid such a fate. The artworks have been organized according to six main themes: Cosmovisions, Ecologies, Reinvention of Culture, Politics of Resistance, Invisible Histories and OtherModernisms. Info: Curator: Solange Oliveira Farkas, Assistant Curators: Ana Pato, Beatriz Lemos, Diego Matos João Laia, Duration 3/10-17-24/1/18, www.festivalsescvideobrasil.org.br, www.sescsp.org.br and www.sescsp.org.br
A selection of Tom Wesselmann’s “Bedroom Paintings” (1968-83) at Gagosian Gallery reveals the full breadth of the series that Wesselmann considered so central to his oeuvre. Fragments of the human body, such as a hand or a breast, are juxtaposed with objects common to the bedroom—a light switch, flowers, the edges of pillows and curtains. These large-scale compositions draw attention to the abstract properties of each depicted form, the interlocking positive and negative shapes evoking the technique of collage in areas of sharp delineation, bold color, and softly rendered detail. In “Bedroom Painting #63” (1983), the bedroom is framed by a female nude, her arm, torso, and thigh forming a triangular window. Although she is not at the center of the image, her presence is unmistakable, determining the complex shape of the canvas. Info: Gagosian Gallery, 17–19 Davies Street, London, Duration: 4/10-16/12/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.gagosian.com
The first exhibition in the U.S.A. of the work of Alberto Savinio, over two decades, is on presentation at The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA). Hailed by Guillaume Apollinaire as the paragon of a Renaissance man, Savinio was not only an exceptional visual artist and member of the Parisian Avant-Garde, but also a gifted pianist, composer, musicologist, set designer, critic, and writer. Yet despite his achievements, Savinio, the younger brother of Giorgio de Chirico, is today virtually unknown outside of Italy. The exhibition features 25 rarely seen works created by the artist after his move to Paris in 1926, when he put his other creative pursuits on hold in order to devote himself to painting. These are accompanied by a select group of sculptures and prints by Louise Bourgeois, revealing the two artists’ serendipitous commonalities, including their flirtation with Surrealism, a shared interest in the subconscious, and, most significantly, the profound influence that familial relations had on their respective artistic imagery. Info: The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), 421 Broome Street, 4th floor, New York, Duration: 6/10/17-23/6/18, Days & Hours: Fri-Sat 13:00-18:00, www.italianmodernart.org
When Elizabeth Price was commissioned from the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) to create a new artwork based on the collections of the Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers Museums, she was drawn to the modern watercolors and photographs in the Sir Arthur Evans Archive. Her video installation “Restoring the Minoans: Elizabeth Price and Sir Arthur Evans” takes creative license with the museums’ archives in response to Evans’s blurred boundaries between artifact, restoration, and invention. The work reinterprets Evans’s images from his archaeological excavation by layering them with rhythmic electronic music and synthetically voiced narrators to drive a new story that is as much about the past as it is about the future. Presenting artifacts from Minoan Crete and archival materials from the Sir Arthur Evans Archive together wit h Elizabeth Price’s installation, this exhibition explores the relationship between restoration and art. Info: Curators: Jennifer Chi, Rachel Herschman and Kenneth Lapatin, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th Street (between Madison and Fifth Avenues), New York, Duration: 5/10/17-8/1/18, Days & Hours: Wed-thu & Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00, Fri 11:00-20:00, www.isaw.nyu.edu
With over 30 works including painting, drawing, and photography, the multi-faceted exhibition “Alchemical Imagination” encompasses art by some of today’s most talented emerging artists, among them: Jonny Briggs, Colden Drystone, Nicole Coson, Kathrin Hanga, Cyrus Mahboubian, Filippo Piantanida and Tom Poeet, pairing them with mid-career and established artists Shannon Finley, Johan Van Mullem, and Nobuyoshi Araki. In a world governed by advanced technologies, Alchemy is a ritualistic endeavour often associated with the medieval past. However, some of the key aspects of the supposedly archaic tradition are very much present in modern life. Alchemical reactions involve people’s desires. The desire to convert, to make golden, to purify, liquefy. Set in Covent Garden’s LIBRARY, alchemic ideas take on a new meaning. The setting becomes a place of research, where symbolism, anatomy and mystery are contemplated and absorbed. For access to the exhibition email Anya Ovcharenko at anya.ovcharenko@hotmail.com . Info: LIBRARY, 112 St. Martin’s Lane, London, Duration: 7/10-6/12/17, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 9:00-13:00, Sat 11:00-13:00, For access to the exhibition please email Anya Ovcharenko anya.ovcharenko@hotmail.com