Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, 15 NE Hancock St, Portland, OR 97212, United States

Interview with Carlos Motta: We Got Each Other’s Back

Three stage settings topped with multiple videos stretch across the expanse of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, featuring the autoethnographies of Heldáy de la Cruz, Julio Salgado, and Edna Vázquez, all in collaboration with multidisciplinary artist Carlos Motta. Motta generously and pointedly answered queries I prompted for this collective project and how it articulates personal counter-narratives through its form in addition to its relation to Motta’s previous works that query the socio-political conditions of marginalised communities, their enmeshed ethical stakes, and the deep affective bonds that they invoke. Interview with Laurel V. McLaughlin

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PUBLIC Gallery, 91 Middlesex St, Spitalfields, London E1 7DA

Interview with Cathrin Hoffmann: IT STILL SMELLS OF NOTHING

German artist, Cathrin Hoffmann, makes paintings of the contemporary individual; alienated, caught up in the temporary pleasures and quick fixes of our techno-capitalist reality. The paintings in her recent exhibition 'IT STILL SMELLS OF NOTHING' at Public Gallery in London are filled with such lonesome individuals, twisting and folding into themselves. Their exposed, blemished flesh is compartmentalised into exaggerated body parts, organised into various suggestive poses. Interview by Sonja Teszler

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David Kordansky Gallery, 5130 W Edgewood Pl, Los Angeles, CA 90019, United States

Adam Pendleton: Begin Again

Adam Pendleton is a New York-based artist whose current exhibition, ‘Begin Again’, is showing at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles, California. Pendleton’s work is significant because it highlights the politics surrounding race and identity, but also demonstrates the chaotic nature of the artistic mediums he uses. Pendleton works with a thick application of paint on canvas, a polyester film called ‘mylar’, and video. His various methods of representing words through mediums allow viewers to separate themselves from any preconceived meanings of language. Pendleton’s work is a representation of the intersections that connect art to the political and social interpretations that text can present. Review by Sheena Carrington

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Like A Little Disaster, Online

The eye can see things the arm cannot reach

Before the pandemic, Julie Grosche and the collective Like A Little Disaster (founded in 2014 by Giuseppe Pinto and Paolo Modugno) had organised a large group exhibition to take place in a 17th century church in Polignano a Mare, a beautiful town on the coast of southern Italy. Once Italy entered lockdown, the curatorial team reconfigured the show as an online exhibition and I’m glad to say that their commitment has paid off handsomely – ‘the eye can see things the arm cannot reach’, presented by the website Sajetta, is a thrilling cocktail of contemporary video work. Review by Tom Lordan

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Online

Hotel Happiness

We are going through a time when our movement is limited and the notion of hospitality has a very different meaning; our bodies are playing host to a virus, while we are unable to host or be hosted in domestic spaces. Experiencing a virtual hotel that hosts artworks and artists as its guests does something powerful. I realise I haven’t thought about these temporary homes in a long time. And ‘Hotel Happiness’ provides this hospitable space—despite the limitations of the digital sphere. Review by Deniz Kırkalı

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Primary, 33 Seely Road, Nottingham, NG7 1NU, United Kingdom

Rebecca Lennon: LIQUID i

Installed in the generous space of the assembly hall of a former school building, the six-channel sound and three-channel video work lures the viewer into a cacophonic whirl of multiple layers and intertwining currents. The artwork induces a vertiginous split-attention effect—a poetic response to the present condition, which is often characterised by contemporary philosophers as liquid, ever changing and precarious in its instability. Review by Jaroslava Tomanova

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Chisenhale Gallery, 64 Chisenhale Rd, Bow, London E3 5QZ

Thao Nguyen Phan: Becoming Alluvium

Thao Nguyen Phan’s film ‘Becoming Alluvium’ (2019) is caught in the crosscurrents of serenity and ferocity, beauty and harsh reality. In this video work, Phan’s ongoing research surrounding the Mekong River is experienced through fictional narratives, woven together with themes of local folklore, ecological concern, South East Asian industrialisation and the fanning Mekong River itself. Alive and lively, this mineral-stained river is shot from the shoreline, from above and from the water, creating a poetic language that envelopes the audience, sweeping us away for the sixteen minutes of the film’s duration. Review by Nina Hanz

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Online, Big Screen Southend and Focal Point Gallery, Elmer Ave, Southend-on-Sea SS1 1NB

To Dream Effectively

Effective dreams are dreams that can change the world. ‘To Dream Effectively’ at Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea is a group show based upon the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin, bringing together alternative narratives for the future of our planet, both online, within the gallery, and upon Big Screen Southend. Review by Elliot Warren Gibbons

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Parafin, 18 Woodstock St, Mayfair, London W1C 2AL

Nancy Holt: Points of View

‘Points of View’ brings together rarely seen photographs, sculpture, installation and works on paper from the late 1960s and early 1970s by pioneering Land and Conceptual artist Nancy Holt, which show the formation of her visual lexicon. This compact exhibition, Holt’s second at Parafin, explores her interest in language, perception and our relationship to the environment. It signals a renewed interest in the artist’s work, ahead of two forthcoming large-scale European shows, and asks questions which feel especially prescient over four decades later, at a moment in which we are acutely aware of our surrounding landscape. Review by Grace Storey

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BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, NE8 3BA

Huma Bhabha: Against Time

There is a distortion of time in BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; a strange anomaly in the fabric of space. Curious works are in the gallery, they could be from a bygone age, a distant future or a parallel world. In a way, each is true; they are birthed from the mind of Pakistani-American artist Huma Bhabha, whose imagination traverses time, space and genre. Review by Christopher Little

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Online

Plicnik Space Initiative

The Plicnik Space Initiative, a new artistic venture founded by Amelie Mckee and Melle Nieling, hosts its inaugural exhibition aboard the D02.2, a fictional spacecraft of massive proportions, with a mission to explore the boundary between physical and virtual space. As museums and galleries across the globe face uncertain futures in the wake of the pandemic, the show interrogates the parameters of digital curation, inviting imaginative responses to a range of pressing questions concerning art and the environment, technology, and commerce. Review by Rowland Bagnall

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Marseille, France

Roots to Routes: Manifesta 13

‘Roots to Routes’ is a collaboration between artists, curators and non-profit organisations from the city of Marseille and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). The project invites strangers to encounter the unfamiliar within the urban environment, while exploring concepts of ‘home’, ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’. Distinguishing itself among the 85 projects of ‘Les Parallèles du Sud’- ‘Roots to Routes’ acts like a second festival nestled within ‘Manifesta’. The programme can be seen as two branches - one concerned with the life of the senses, the other, inherited experience. These are united by ‘Same door different street’, a duo exhibition by Evita Vasiljeva (LV) and Antoine Nessi (FR) - and the first part of the programme to open. Review by Rebecca Larkin

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Online

Film London Jarman Award 2020

The six shortlisted works for the 2020 Film London Jarman Award are thought-provoking, exquisitely produced films that are markedly diverse and address concerns, in different documentary-style formats, that are at the forefront of social consciousness. They showcase the best in contemporary artists’ filmmaking and are being taken on a virtual tour to venues across the UK from 24 September to 19 November 2020. A prominent theme in the shortlist concerns archaeology, made manifest in the evaluation of the past or the uncovering of layers. Review by Rina Arya

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Collezione Maramotti, RVia Fratelli Cervi, 66, 42124 Reggio Emilia RE, Italy

Svenja Deininger: Two Thoughts

At risk of stating the obvious, Svenja Deininger’s work is really something to be seen up close. The pared back minimalism of the Austrian artist’s paintings mean that subtle textural shifts take on an important nuanced role in the articulation between tessellating panels of colour and abstract forms. Noticing the fine grain of a wood panel slotted into the canvas, or the highly buffed sheen of a protrusion like nubuck leather, is one of the small rewards that come by spending more than a fleeting glance on each work. Review by Jessica Saxby

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