Villa Arson, 20 Avenue Stephen Liegeard, 06100 Nice, France
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
Jerwood Visual Arts, Jerwood Space, 171 Union Street, Bankside, London SE1 0LN
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.
l’étrangère, 44A Charlotte Rd, Shoredtich, London EC2A 3PD
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
Gasworks, 155 Vauxhall Street, London SE11 5RH
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
Ministry of Sound, London
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.
Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010, USA
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
Luma Foundation, Parc des Ateliers 45 Chemin des Minimes, Arles, France
‘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
Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
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.
Graz and Styria, Austria
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
Huis Marseille, Keizersgracht 401, 1016 EK Amsterdam, Netherlands
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
Brazilian Pavilion, Giardini, Venice, Italy
“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
Various across Leeds and Wakefield
Yorkshire-born artist Barbara Hepworth made several sculptures bearing the title ‘Form With Inner Form’. The inaugural Yorkshire Sculpture International festival tackles a similar inside-and-out movement, somehow taking up residence within, and broadly encompassing, the established frameworks of sculptural art in Leeds and Wakefield. Enveloping (whilst also pulsing through) the county’s four best museums, YSI feels like it’s trying to be both heart and ribcage at once. Review by Adam Heardman
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Military Rd, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, Ireland
Kim Gordon first came to prominence in the mid-80s as a member of the noise band Sonic Youth - co-founded with her ex-husband Thurston Moore and active until 2011, when both the band and marriage dissolved. Since then Gordon has become a polymath: releasing music from several projects, embarking on an acting career, writing the acclaimed ‘Girl in a Band’ memoir on her years in Sonic Youth, and focusing on her visual art practice that took a backseat during her tenure with the band. It is this last category that sees us drawn to Dublin’s Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) to see Gordon’s latest exhibition ‘She bites her tender mind’. Review by Aidan Kelly Murphy
Estonia Pavilion, c/o Legno & Legno, Giudecca 211, Venice, Italy
The reverie of the crowd is suddenly interrupted by the sound of a drum, accompanied by isolated notes on a synthesiser announcing the beginning of a ritual. Three straw hats appear to be floating over the heads of the crowd towards the entrance, a trio of shamans perched on a moving chariot. Review by Angela Blanc
