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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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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