ART NEWS:Nov.02

TULCA Festival of Visual ArtsThe 15th edition of TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, titled “They Call Us The Screamers” features artworks by Irish and international artists that are presented across six venues in Galway city, Ireland. The exhibition takes its reference from a book written by Jenny James, published in 1980. The book is an account of Atlantis, the commune she established a few years earlier in the Gaeltacht village of Burtonport, County Donegal, Ireland. The members of the commune were collectively nicknamed “The Screamers” in a 1976 Sunday World article, referring to their practice of primal scream therapy, an adapted form of psychotherapy developed by Dr Arthur Janov that sought to re-enact the traumas of modern upbringing and thereby reverse the neurosis that follows in later life. “They Call Us The Screamers” is an exhibition that does not aim to illustrate Atlantis in Ireland, nor attempt to redress their controversy. Instead, the story gives way to a broader framework of practice-related ideas that develop from the countercultural psychology of the 1970s, seeking to reclaim an alternative future for self and society in today’s perspective. Info: Curator: Matt Packer, 15th TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Duration: 3-19/11/17, www.tulcafestival.com

Musée d'art contemporain de MontréalThe exhibition “Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything” is inspired by the world of Leonard Cohen and the great themes of his life and work and part of the official program for Montréal’s 375th anniversary celebrations. Combining visual art, virtual reality, installations, performances, music and writing, presents a collection of new work commissioned from and created by local and international artists who have been inspired by Leonard Cohen’s style and recurring themes.  Also the exhibition includes innovative multimedia environments where Cohen’s songs are covered and performed, as well as a survey of his archival material (writings, drawings and recordings produced over the past half-century). During the five months of the exhibition there will be a series of five concerts, based on five iconic Leonard Cohen albums. Each concert will present musicians and guest singers from Montreal who will perform a Cohen album in its entirety, in an intimate setting, in keeping with the original intention and order of the songs in the album. Info: Curators: John Zeppetelli and Victor Shiffman, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 185 rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Montréal, Duration: 9/11/17-9/4/18, Days & Hours: Tue 11:00=18:00, Wed-Fri 11:00-21:00, Sat-Sun 10:0018:00, http://macm.org

Turner ContemporaryJohn Davies, whose haunting, figurative sculptures touch on memory, time and the fragility of the body. His solo exhibition at Turner Contemporary brings together the large-scale tableau “My Ghosts” alongside “The Deerson Series”, a group of scarecrow-like sculptures, and recent works on paper. Davies’ interest in the human presence set him apart from many of his contemporaries in British sculpture at the beginning of his career. Of his early figures, often cast from life and clothed. His more recent works are modelled in clay, before being cast in polychrome polyester and fibreglass, or bronze. Davies arranges these figures in carefully choreographed relationships. Animals and inanimate objects such as houses also appear in works whose thematic concerns are always with human experience. Info: Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate, Duration: 9/11/17-14/2/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-17:00, www.turnercontemporary.org

Fort GansevoortDeborah Roberts’ solo exhibition “in-gé-nue” features newly produced works on paper and panel. Roberts’ central concern is the depiction of beauty, especially as it relates to the development of self-image in black women. Combining found photographs, painting, and drawing, Deborah Roberts’ collages critically engage the image of a young girl, an in-gé-nue, whose naivety and innocence protect her from the full weight of visual culture, while also making her vulnerable to its influence. Her body image is constructed through the visual material produced by art history, popular culture, black culture and American history. Using this visual lexicon, Roberts grapples with notions of blackness, the dysfunctional legacy of color-ism, and the psychology of double consciousness that pervades the African American community.  Info: Fort Gansevoort, 5 Ninth Avenue, New York, Duration: 9/11-23/12/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.fortgansevoort.com

TProyectos Monclovahe exhibition “CLOUDS AND TEARS” radiates around what Michael Sailstorfer calls a “solar cat”. Perched in the rafters, the animal reaches it’s closed eyes toward a neon light as though absorbing its ecstatic energy. The meditative stillness generated by the cast-aluminium felis silvestris embodies the experience of pure consciousness around which Sailstorfer arranges his poetic version of a metaphysical universe. Masks that stylistically reference African and Oceanic art or post-apocalyptic robots encircle this moment of feline-introspection. As an object used to either disguise or ceremonially transform, the mask emphasizes the individuated identity of the wearer through its concealment. These masks are sand-cast in aluminium, bronze or iron from quickly drafted cardboard figures in a process that preserves the textures of the humble materials. The visual signatures of their ephemeral origins are thereby preserved and layer meaning vis a vis the patina of their physical qualities. Info: Proyectos Monclova , Colima 55, Col. Roma Norte , Mexico City, Duration 9/11-22/12/17, Tue-Fri 11:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-16:00, http://proyectosmonclova.com

Edward Cella Art & ArchitecturMichael St. John solo exhibition “Portraits of Democracy” features a new series of identically scaled, small-format works that depict aspects of our current culture and society through images of people and objects. Imbued with political tension and conditions of living, St. John’s paintings take on portraiture from a “street up” point of view. Through a strategic selection of processes including appropriation, assemblage, painting, and collage, St. John’s new paintings observe an underbelly of the American experience. St. John’s work conveys a sustained commitment to observing and re-presenting experiences of the everyday. Gathering source materials by casting an inclusive and penetrating gaze on our nation, St. John layers newspaper clippings, found images, fragmented language and everyday objects into captivating collaged portraits of America at present. Info: Edward Cella Art+Architecture, 2754 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, Duration: 11/11/17-6/1/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.edwardcella.com

luvre abu dhabiOn 11 Nov. Louvre Abu Dhabi opens its doors to the public today. It is the first museum of its kind in the Arab world: a universal museum that focuses on shared human stories across civilisations and cultures. On display is the museum’s important collection of artworks, artefacts and loans from France’s top museums. These span the entirety of human existence: from prehistorical objects to commissioned contemporary artworks, highlighting universal themes and ideas. The first site-specific works installed in the outdoor areas are: “For Louvre Abu Dhabi” (2017) by Jenny Holzer, three engraved stone walls that cite important historical texts from Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah, the Mesopotamian bilingual (Akkadian / Sumerian) Creation Myth tablet, and the 1588 annotated edition of Michel de Montaigne’s Les Essais. Giuseppe Penone has created “Leaves of Light” (2017) a vast bronze tree with mirrors placed in its branches to reflect the ‘rain of light’. “Propagation” (2017) is a wall of porcelain tiles that depict hand-drawn concentric circles originating from the fingerprint of Sheikh Zayed, the UAE’s founding father. Info: Louvre Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Cultural District, Abu Dhabi, www.louvreabudhabi.ae

XIPPAS GALLERYFarah Atassi at her solo exhibition presents anew series of canvases. Farah Atassi develops a figurative painting using the vocabulary of abstract painting. Her paintings deal with thick layers and repentance that contrast with the rigidity of straight lines. Similar to a collage, they meticulously combine anachronistic forms with contradictory appearances, borrowed from sculpture, painting, and design. Each composition is rooted, since 2012 and especially in this exhibition, in the binary of background and figure or background and object. This universal theme is explored in vernacular forms and in the all-over paintings. A grid made of adhesive tape orientsthe spectator’s perspective of the painting and its lines break and unwind into a geometric labyrinth. The background is populated with objects and shapes made of synthetic forms and virtual symbols. Info:  Galerie Xippas, Rue des Sablons 6 and rue des Bains 61, Geneva, Duration: 11/11-22/12/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 14:–18:30, Sat 12:00-17:00, www.xippas.com 

La-Ferme-du-BuissonAlex Cecchetti in his solo exhibition “Tamam Shud” offers viewers a totally new experience, a symphonic, immersive investigation at the junction of the visual and the performing arts. Cecchetti probes the mysteries of identity as he investigates the causes of his own disappearance. In this project, the product of two years’ work, the exhibition plays a core part and serves as the matrix for a novel to be published in January 2018. Tamam Shud means “this is the end” in Persian, yet here it is the starting point for a narrative in which each room at the art centre is a chapter. The exhibition also takes the form of an enormous musical score in which the viewers, like the works, become both instruments and musicians. Each installation offers different levels of interpretation: more than mere objects of contemplation, the artworks are sources of experiences and narratives in which fiction blends with reality. Dancers, singers and musicians are performing throughout the exhibition. Info: La Ferme du Buisson, Allée de la Ferme, Noisiel, Duration: 11/11/17-25/2/18, Days & Hours: Wed-Sun 14:00-17:30, http://lafermedubuisson.com

foamFoam commissioned Anouk Kruithof to create an entirely new body of work consisting of (photo) sculptures, a video projection and an animation. The works explore the complex relationship of man to nature in a post-internet era. Kruithof printed images of environmental disasters on latex and rubber anti-slip mats and draped these over sculptures made up of artificial appendages of the human body, such as walking frames, crutches and prostheses. She also combined vividly colored photographs of oil spills and toxic waste with structures made from oxygen masks and anesthetic masks. These unusual carriers refer to the technological accomplishments of the human race, while simultaneously expressing the artificiality, numbness and ultimate disregard that may be the consequence. Info: Foam, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam, Duration 17/11/17-28/1/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 10:00-21:00, www.foam.org

 

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