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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Villa Arson, 20 Avenue Stephen Liegeard, 06100 Nice, France

Monster Chetwynd: Monster Rebellion

The Villa Arson, a building complex overlooking the city of Nice on the Saint-Barthelemy’s hill comprises a school, an artists’ residency, and an art centre. Nine years ago, Spartacus Chetwynd first came to the Villa as a resident. This summer, the art centre has dedicated a major exhibition to the Glasgow-based artist who now goes by the name of Monster Chetwynd. Review by Angela Blanc

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Jerwood Visual Arts, Jerwood Space, 171 Union Street, Bankside, London SE1 0LN

Jerwood Staging Series 2019

This is the third year of Jerwood Staging Series, a curatorial project that creates events of work that includes film, installation, performance, and discussion. This year’s four artists are diverse in their interests and work: Onyeka Igwe, a London artist and filmmaker absorbed in the archive, place, and the body; Essex-based Rebecca Moss, whose work plays with slapstick and absurdism; multi-disciplinary artist and sculptor AJ Stockwell; and Birmingham-based curator and researcher Seán Elder. Harriet Smith Hughes reviews two of the Series’ events.

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l’étrangère, 44A Charlotte Rd, Shoredtich, London EC2A 3PD

Joanna Rajkowska: The Failure of Mankind

One of the highlights of this year’s Frieze Sculpture display in Regent’s Park is a giant egg. Titled ‘The Hatchling’, the large-scale sculpture by Polish artist Joanna Rajkowska is a replica of a blackbird’s egg, which emits the noises of a hatching bird: heartbeat, pecking, and attempts at vocalisation. Rajkowska’s current solo show at l’étrangère follows up on the themes of this piece under the bleak but apposite title ‘The Failure of Mankind’. Review by Anna Souter

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Gasworks, 155 Vauxhall Street, London SE11 5RH

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami: (15,952km) via Trans-Sahara Hwy N1

Each painting is thought of as an overlap of narratives, stories and representations of black bodies in many forms. In so doing, Hwami is addressing her ideas and ideals of her own family and her roots, as well as the legacies of colonialism. Review by Melissa Chemam

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Ministry of Sound, London

An Evening of Performances 3rd October 2019

Louise O’Kelly: In thinking about how to approach the 2019 Edition of an Evening of Performances, the context that the works would be experienced in was an important decision for me. Having worked across a host of different spaces - producing projects in institutions to theatres to office buildings, railway arches, semi-derelict churches, former power stations and everything in between - I knew how important location would be in the experience of the performances.

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Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010, USA

Donna Huanca: Obsidian Ladder

Donna Huanca’s ‘Obsidian Ladder’ is purposefully discomfiting, and almost too visceral and sensual to be absorbed fully in one go. Once you enter the cavernous main gallery of the Marciano Art Foundation, Huanca’s multimedia installation of paintings, sculpture, performance, sound, and scent threaten to overwhelm your senses. The combination makes for an unnerving, unsettling experience that ostensibly explores femininity and gender, but whose impact only comes across as such when you know the whole context of the work and can appreciate the importance of its site. Review by Deborah Krieger

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Luma Foundation, Parc des Ateliers 45 Chemin des Minimes, Arles, France

Rachel Rose: Enclosure

‘Would you not too hunt the god who killed your child for no reason?’ asks a vagabond, playing the role of prophet by predicting future misfortunes in a pre-capitalist society. In her newest film, ‘Enclosure’ (2019), on view at Luma Foundation, Arles, New-York based artist Rachel Rose (b. 1986) continues to expand on her notions of land, ownership, and violence against women in the context of early seventeenth-century rural England. The work attests to the artist’s fluency in cinematic conventions even as she pushes their boundaries. Review by Angela Blanc

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Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK

Fall, slump, drop on a bedside cabinet in water…: Alex Farrar

The local library is reclaimed by the waves. Spar becomes a rocky outpost. Plaice and pollock nestle in the bookshelves while cod swim among the tinned sardines. Britain has its first climate refugees. The small Welsh village of Fairbourne is being lost to the sea.

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Graz and Styria, Austria

steirischer herbst ’19

On 19 September, steirischer herbst ’19 opens its doors to the public in Graz and Styria. Titled Grand Hotel Abyss, a striking metaphor used by philosopher Georg Lukács, the festival presents a far-reaching meditation on hedonism in troubled times

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Huis Marseille, Keizersgracht 401, 1016 EK Amsterdam, Netherlands

Deana Lawson

Large-scale portraits are sparsely hung throughout lofty rooms with white panelling, accompanied by unframed snapshots and Polaroids. The latter are stuck into the portrait’s frames while the former cluster into corners like living organisms; a sprawling archive of intimate yet anonymous faces. Review by Rosanna van Mierlo

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Brazilian Pavilion, Giardini, Venice, Italy

Venice Biennale 2019: Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca: Swinguerra

“Damn!” Reminiscent of a TV show you want to tell all your friends about, ‘Swinguerra’ (2019) by Brazil-based artists Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca, showcased at the Brazilian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale, felt honest and communicative in a human-to-human way. This artwork possesses all the qualities you would want to find in a friend: empathy, humility, off-beat, daring and an absolute joy. Review by Laura O’Leary

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