Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

Masculinities: Liberation through Photography

‘Masculinities: Liberation through Photography’ at the Barbican Centre is a masterful, comprehensive exhibition that outlines a sweeping artistic history that is probing, insightful and moving. Exploring how masculinity has been coded, performed, and socially constructed from the 1960s to the present day, this is a show of 50 international artists working through the medium of film and photography. Working across themes from queer identity, female perceptions of men, hypermasculine stereotypes, many of the participants don't sit easily within a gender binary, and rarely is the story told without an overlap to class, racism and the Western gaze; this is masculinity at its fullest. Review by Chris Hayes

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Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, 270 River Road Athens, GA 30602

Multiple Entry Points to Dis-ease: A Conversation with Amiko Li

Amiko Li’s 'The Purpose of Disease,' curated by Katie Geha, opened at The Dodd Galleries at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia, on February 27th, 2020, but was closed prematurely by the outbreak of Covid-19 in the U.S. Nevertheless, the show’s relevance continues to proliferate. Li began the research for this work in 2017 upon discovery of a mysterious rash spreading across his body. As he investigated remedies for the condition, other threads of research, ranging from tetrachromacy in birds and the relationship between photographs and text, gradually converged experiences of mind and body. The following conversation with Li considers the multiple entry points to embodied and cultural dis-ease. Written by Laurel V. McLaughlin

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Billytown, Helena van Doeverenplantsoen 3, 2512 ZB The Hague, Netherlands

Ide André: Just a Satisfying Spiral

There is something very compelling about Ide André’s ‘Just a Satisfying Spiral’ that impresses itself on the viewer right upon entry. The airy exhibition hall not only bolsters the lively and idiosyncratic nature of the works by giving them ample space to breathe, but it also suites the dynamism that pervades the show’s constituents. Viewers quickly notice that they are in a transitional zone. Review by John Gayer

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Grand Union, 19 Minerva Works, Fazeley Street, Birmingham B5 5RS

Jamie Crewe: Love & Solidarity

The term ‘community’ conjures images of disparate individuals joined by shared interests, experiences, cultures, or religion. But the term also groups unquestioningly, disregarding an acknowledgement that frictions can - and do - exist. Jamie Crewe’s ‘Love & Solidarity’ at Grand Union, Birmingham, the sister exhibition of ‘Solidarity & Love’ at Humber Street Gallery, Hull, offers a conflictual understanding of kinship, and parameters for queer love and disdain. Review by Ryan Kearney

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Austrian Cultural Forum, 28 Rutland Gate, Knightsbridge, London SW7 1PQ

HYPERSURFACE

‘HYPERSURFACE’ at the Austrian Cultural Forum, curated by Caterina Avataneo and Nicole Tatschl, explores the possibilities of making and seeing within relations of complex surfaces and artistic practice. Featuring mostly Austrian artists and a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, text and animation, the show treats surface not as an end but as an active means to accessing various layers of substance and interpretation. Review by Sonja Teszler

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Rathfarnham Castle, 153 Rathfarnham Rd, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14, D14 F439, Ireland

Sven Sandberg: They went and saw a palace hanging from a silken thread

Rathfarnham Castle was, and remains, the original hosting space for Sven Sandberg’s solo show ‘They went and saw a palace hanging from a silken thread’. Currently, it can only be viewed online as the space, along with Ireland’s other cultural institutions, remain indefinitely closed. Presented by Berlin Opticians, a primarily online gallery that operates a nomadic lifestyle in the physical world, often occupying historical buildings, images of Sandberg’s works can be viewed alongside in-situ documentation. Review by Aidan Kelly Murphy

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Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB

Denzil Forrester: Itchin & Scratchin

Spanning the whole of Denzil Forrester’s career from ‘The Cave’ (1978) painted before the artist went to the Royal College of Art, up to works made in 2019 during a first trip to Jamaica, the movement and dynamism of Afro-Caribbean Dub-Reggae scenes with depictions of club nights, sound systems, house parties and Carnival remain the major subject of the work. Review by Piers Masterson

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Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, Avenida Paulista, 1578 / Casa de Vidro Lina Bo Bardi, Rua General Almério de Moura, 200, São Paulo, Brazil

Leonor Antunes: joints, voids and gaps

I didn’t immediately see Leonor Antunes’s works at Lina Bo Bardi’s ‘Casa de Vidro’ (Glass House), which is to say, I saw them without apprehending them to be out of place. The tortuous steel, twisting in controlled but vital serpentines against the dense green vegetation that rushes in through the porous windows, could have merely been part of the eclectic collection of objects dotted around Bo Bardi’s living room. Ultimately, their undulating verticality - an enduring trademark of Antunes’s sculptural practice - gave them away. Review by Inês Geraldes Cardoso

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The Modern Institute, 14-20 Osborne St, Glasgow G1 5QN

Marco Giordano: To Disturb Somnolent Birds

At the threshold of consciousness and sleep, nineteen resin sculptures lit by LED rest on a wooden bench, marking the entry into Marco Giordano’s reverie. Eerie whispers fill the gallery, transporting visitors to continents far away, into a dream-like state. Time is suspended by an ethereal soundtrack; a lullaby calling to “sing or sink” reverberates across the gallery space. Review by Elaine Y.J Zheng

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Upfor Gallery, 929 NW Flanders St, Portland, OR 97209, United States

Danielle Roney: Frequencies of Opacity

Blinking LED lights on the half-moon steel curves of ‘Strata Series: Zero’ and ‘Strata Series: Zero_One’ (both 2020) ascend and descend, irradiating the forms suspended from the ceiling and resting precariously on the floor. They illuminate the voices of migrants. Danielle Roney’s exhibition at Upfor Gallery, ‘Frequencies of Opacity’, imagines how migrants, violently labelled as illegal, could clandestinely occupy institutions and perhaps create renewed borderlands through technology. Review by Laurel V. McLaughlin

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Hauser & Wirth, 23 Savile Row, London W1S 2ET

Alina Szapocznikow: To Exalt the Ephemeral

Nearly fifty years after her death, the restlessly experimental oeuvre of Alina Szapocznikow remains unresolved work; a highly significant, even foundational, figure in the history of twentieth-century Polish art, yet her legacy remains elusive to an audience that may be encountering her for the first time. Sitting uneasily between Surrealism, Nouveau Réalisme and Pop Art, her provocative body of work shifted considerably from a classical figurative manner to one more impermanent, sexualised and haunting. Review by Matthew Cheale

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Simon Lee Gallery, 12 Berkeley Street, London W1J 8DT

Donna Huanca: Wet Slit

Donna Huanca’s ‘Wet Slit’ at Simon Lee Gallery provides a bodily experience of her work. Like the ice sculpture encasing Klein blue hair, only present for the show’s inaugural weekend as it shed water to nothing, we are encased by the exhibition in its evolving sounds and smells, moving beyond the visual. The sound of water dripping and splashing, a glass occasionally smashing, plays on loop. Review by Tess Charnley

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Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BP

Johanna Unzueta: Tools for Life

Anthropologists have long believed that the use and development of tools has played a key role in the evolution of humankind. Tools and their mechanisation have contributed to the advancement of agriculture, industrialisation and modernisation. Over the last two decades, New York-based, Chilean-born artist Johanna Unzueta has explored the impact of these technological advancements on labour and the human condition, particularly in relation to nature. Her new exhibition ‘Tools for Life’, at Modern Art Oxford (temporarily closed), brings together a body of work composed of large-scale felt sculptures, wearable garments, a Super-8 film shot in a Chilean textile factory, a wall mural and a selection of free-standing geometric drawings. Review by Alex White

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