Central Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice, Italy

Venice Biennale 2019: Jon Rafman: Dream Journal

The feature film ‘Dream Journal’ presented at the Venice Biennale is the result of three years of exploration into 3D simulated environments (2016-2019). Throughout an extremely dense 94 minutes, Rafman radically experiments with imaginary worlds populated by a plethora of obscene biotech mutants. CGI reveals the dark vitality of techno-materialism that melds post-human forms with chimerical beasts, monstrous insects and Japanese sexual perversions. Review by Piotr Bockowski

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Matt's Gallery, 92 Webster Road, London SE16 4DF

Susan Hiller: Ghost / TV

At the time of Susan Hiller’s death earlier this year, she was working on a new show for Matt’s Gallery, the tiny Bermondsey gallery with which she had a decades-long working relationship. The resulting show has come about in collaboration with Hiller’s son, Gabriel Coxhead. Review by Lucy Holt

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Belvedere 21, Arsenalstraße 1, 1030 Wien, Austria

Monica Bonvicini: I CANNOT HIDE MY ANGER

Placed in the pavilion designed by Karl Schwanzer, Monica Bonvicini takes over the impressive open-plan ground floor of the Belvedere 21. Bonvicini’s pieces redirect the viewer’s experience towards a performative space that welcomes the outside world, touching on questions of politics and society. Using institutional ways of conditioning her subject, the artist highlights the impact of societal structures. Through her work, Bonvicini reflects on the relationships between this space and the viewer. Review by Alexandra Gamrot

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EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Ahertajantie 5, 02100 Espoo, Finland

Tatsuo Miyajima: Sky of Time

For most of us, numbers allow us to quantify distances, volumes, time and more. The fact that the precise (or imprecise) use of these abstract entities also carries tangible consequences is also commonly known. Few, though, recognise their creative potential. There are only a handful of visual artists who use numbers in their work and Tatsuo Miyajima is one of those rare individuals. Review by John Gayer

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signs and symbols, 102 Forsyth Street, New York, NY 10002

Sharon Louden & Hrag Vartanian: Origins

Sharon Louden & Hrag Vartanian’s latest collaborative project, ‘Origins’, draws on years of conversations, exchanges and shared experiences. First iterated at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Studio Residency Program in 2018, the project remains a living thing. It changes in step with their longstanding friendship. Review by Rosanna van Mierlo

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Gropius Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Taking its point of departure and title from Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ (1490-1510), the current exhibition at Gropius Bau brings together the wide-ranging work of twenty international artists. The state of the garden serves as a microcosmic starting point, from which expansive ideas and wider dialogues emerge about colonialism, systems of sharing, borders and structures of thought. With contributing artists including Yayoi Kusama, Pipilotti Rist, Hicham Berrada and more, the exhibition moves from the paradisiacal to the provocative, the reflective to the revolutionary, and shifts between global and individual lenses. Review by Eva Szwarc

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Tintype, 107 Essex Rd, Canonbury, London N1 2SL

Michelle Williams Gamaker: Distant Relative

In January 2018, Michelle Williams Gamaker travelled across the pond to Los Angeles, California and reached a new level of obsessive fandom. Dressed in a brown taffeta cocktail dress, Jackie O-style sunglasses and gold sparkly stilettos, she made the trek through the 300-acre Forest Lawn Memorial Park - ‘cemetery to the stars’ - to locate the grave of Indian-born, Hollywood studio era film star Sabu. Despite her efforts to connect with the star, for whom Williams Gamaker has a deep affinity, she was eventually discovered by security and ordered to leave, although not without first putting up a good fight. ‘... it’s just that I’m a distant relative,’ she protested. Review by Alex White

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PEER, 97 & 99 Hoxton Street, London N1 6QL

OUT OF SHAPE

It is an important moment for PEER as it is enters its fourth year of collaborating with Acme – a career programme enabling young artists to establish themselves and their approaches towards their future profession. This year the exhibition consists of large installations by three women graduates from London based MA courses – Greta Davies, Kate Howard and Marylyn Molisso. Their work touches on notions of experience, temporality and embodiment, as it interweaves with the gallery spaces, as well as the physical presence of other objects. Review by Alexandra Gamrot

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Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, 1485 Delgany St, Denver, CO 80202, United States

Francesca Woodman: Portrait of a Reputation

‘Portrait of a Reputation’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art highlights the body’s exceptional ability to make connections with the world. The body acts as a mediator between the self and our environment allowing us to move, to create bonds, to express our feelings, and most importantly, to experience the world. Viewers are allowed to create an experience for themselves through their presence, while simultaneously experiencing the past life of artist, Francesca Woodman. Review by Kandice Cleveland

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Republic of Korea Pavilion, Giardini, Venice, Italy

Venice Biennale 2019: History Has Failed Us, but No Matter

The title of the pavilion is ‘History Has Failed Us But No Matter’, curated by Hyunjim Kim, and nods to a struggle against the social and geopolitical framework that a person is born into, yet simultaneously, understanding yourself in relation to this framework. Kim has worked with three female artists; a first in the pavilion's history. Together the artists, Hwayeon Nam, siren eun young jung and Jane Jin Kaise, challenge ideas related to tradition and the canon of gender, mediating on the emancipatory potential of tradition (opposed to tradition being a barrier) for East Asian women. Review by Laura O’Leary

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Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield WF4 4LG

Holly Hendry: The Dump is Full of Images

Holly Hendry’s new exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park features three pieces: ‘Amulet’, ‘Borgorgysmus’, and, clinking quietly and hugely in the centre of the room, the 7.5m-long ‘Slacker’. ‘Slacker’ is Hendry’s first moving sculpture, and as the exhibition’s centrepiece it presents a remarkable evolution of her thinking around the tensions between inside and outside, value and waste, viscera and machinery. Each of the three pieces of the exhibition reveal their innards, unearth things bodily and fabricated, in what comprises a rich exploration of the act of making, and the stuff that arises in the process. Review by Harriet Smith Hughes

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The New Art Gallery Walsall, Gallery Square, Walsall WS2 8LG

Amalia Pica: Private & Confidential

Walking into ‘Private & Confidential’ the viewer is first overwhelmed by masses of laminated A4 sheets, covering every wall of the gallery. This is the first time that ‘Joy in Paperwork, The Archive’ (2016) has been exhibited in its entirety in the UK. Created whilst Amalia Pica, an Argentian artist based in London, was applying for UK citizenship in 2016, the archive consists of sheets sprawling with authoritarian stamps that become abstracted and subverted – no longer (de)legitimising paperwork but adorning it. Review by Emily Hale

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

Simon Starling: ‘A-A’, B-B’’

Two exhibits across the European continent linking together a narrative built over three centuries. An eighth of a Venetian painting, half a car, two Noh masks, a photograph of a pedigree; between original and representation, masquerade and deception, ‘A-A’; B-B’’ reflects on the power of curation to alter audience perception. Review by Elaine Y.J Zheng

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