Hauser & Wirth Publishing

Luchita Hurtado

Hurtado’s conversations with Obrist stay true to her character and reveal many of her most admirable traits to the reader. We learn that she was humble and hilarious: at the admirable age of 97, she kept the menu of the Serpentine opening night dinner as a keepsake. She explained to Obrist, “you have to understand, this is one of the happiest days of my life. This will help me remember this wonderful evening once I’m old.” Review by Maximiliane Leuschner

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Bbeyond, online

Recorded Action Web (R-A-W)

Bbeyond is dedicated to performance art in all its variety. Established in 2001, the Belfast organisation chooses to complement its regional support of Northern Irish artists with a commitment to fostering dialogue between international communities. Its newest exhibition is ‘Recorded Action Web’ or ‘R-A-W’, which celebrates the organisation’s 20th anniversary. Curated by Sandra Breathnach Corrigan, this online series of performance works continues the organisation’s tradition of international collegiality, featuring artists from a wide variety of countries, including the Ukraine, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and, of course, Ireland. Review by Tom Lordan

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Hauser & Wirth, London

Charles Gaines: Multiples of Nature, Trees and Faces

Charles Gaines is a Los Angeles based artist and lecturer who applies systematic and rule-based methods to his unique artistic practice. Gaines’ first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom is currently on view at Hauser & Wirth in London. Due to the ongoing global crisis, Gaines’ show is limited to online viewing. However, it should not be overlooked, as it confronts ideas of race and identity, and raises questions surrounding representation. Across Hauser & Wirth’s galleries on Savile Row are continuations of two ongoing series: ’Numbers & Faces: MultiRacial/Ethnic Combination Series 1’ (1978-) and ‘Numbers & Trees: London Series 1’ (1986-). Gaines’ artistic approach sees systematic colouring combined with overlapping images within a sequenced grid. Review by Sheena Carrington

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LUX Scotland, online

Artist Moving Image Festival 2021: GIVE BIRTH TO ME TOMORROW

Established in 2012, LUX Scotland and Tramway's Artist Moving Image Festival has a reputation for engendering exciting and challenging new discourses surrounding artists' film and moving image. Previous iterations have been curated by artists such as Ima-Abasi Okon, Emmie McLuskey, Mark Briggs and Naomi Pearce, and the 2021 festival is no different, led by artists Adam Benmakhlouf and Tako Taal, who share a commitment to countering the structures of colonialism and white supremacy through their work. Typically taking place over a weekend, this iteration of the festival will unfold, instead, over the course of a year, with a welcome and considered slowness. Review by Amy Jones

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The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Interview with Yuri Pattison – Part One

Spring 2020 was due to see the opening of ‘the engine’, Yuri Pattison’s new exhibition in Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery and his first solo show in a major institution in Ireland. However, lockdown saw the exhibition delayed and Pattison presented a cross-section of the proposed work via the online screening, ‘sunset provision’ - a work that sees the artist rendered a seascape in real-time via a game engine. The elongated timeframe and continuing impact of the global pandemic has resulted in two distinct conversations, which will be published as two distinct texts. Interviews by Aidan Kelly Murphy

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Galerie Charraudeau, 3/4 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France

Interview with Pepo Moreno

Pepo Moreno is a multidisciplinary artist bringing the intimacy of his bedroom studio to the walls of a Parisian gallery. I chatted to Moreno about his creative process, the importance of queer art in the 21st century, and how 70s porn magazines and Catalonian folklore helped him to tame his ‘demons’ - the title of his new show at Galerie Charraudeau. Interview by Noémi Martini

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Profile Books

Miek Zwamborn: The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook

Seaweed, our collective name for marine algae, seems to gather itself more than any other organism on the shoreline. Whereas other seafaring creatures drift apart, seaweed prefers to tangle, knot and assemble on the sand. Perhaps this is why they so naturally intrigued the artist and writer Miek Zwamborn. In 2018, Zwamborn wrote ‘The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook’ in her native Dutch and revealed how the mysterious qualities of this sea grass have become surprisingly integrated in our lives. Recently it has been translated into English by Michele Hutchison, thus sharing Zwamborn’s practice-based research with a new audience. Interview by Nina Hanz

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Fondation CAB, Rue Borrens 32, 1050 Ixelles, Belgium

Ron Gorchov & Otis Jones

The advent of the shaped canvas proved to be a pivotal moment in the history of 20th century art. It quashed the rectangle’s dominance and subverted the idea of the painting as a window. Suddenly, canvases could be egg-shaped or any irregular polygon that was desired. A few artists, such as the American painters Ron Gorchov (1930-2020) and Otis Jones (b. 1946), even pushed the idea further by making paintings that projected off the wall. Now for the first time, their works are being shown together in this unprecedented overview. Review by John Gayer

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DREI, Jülicher Str. 14, 50674 Cologne, Germany

Anna Virnich: Geflüster

Anna Virnich’s ‘patchwork’ paintings are a visual conundrum, treading the thin line between abstract painting and sculpture. With the hands and precision of a seamstress and the eyes of a painter, the object of her desire is texture. An avid collector of fabrics, Virnich uses unusual materials in her art, from leather and woollen fabrics like nettle to more translucent textiles such as crepe, silk, tulle or taffeta. ‘Geflüster’ or ‘Whisperings’ is Anna Virnich’s fifth solo presentation with DREI in Cologne, showing seven of her newest textile tableaux from 2020 in a white cube arrangement. Review by Maximiliane Leuschner

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NTS Radio

Open Deck x Dead Yard

I put on NTS Radio at 2 pm, sat alone on a quiet, cold, Saturday afternoon in lockdown, and just listened. I was welcomed to the ‘Tough Matter’ Radio show by Sheffield-based artist and DJ Ashley Holmes in a sombre tone. A melancholic improvised horn-duet by Simon O’Dwyer and Malachy called ‘River Erne’ played in tandem, creating a sacred atmosphere. Holmes explained, this show is an iteration of his ongoing project ‘Open Deck,’ where people are invited to share a piece of music or sound recordings as a means of collective reflection. Review by Laura O'Leary

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On Sydney’s Northern Beaches During the Time of COVID

Exploring the Landscape Through Abstract Art

Five abstract artists working on Sydney’s Northern Beaches reveal a colourful oeuvre that responds directly to site and place. For each of the artists, the famous stretch of coastline north of the city, dominated by suburbia, the Aussie ‘bush’, and the vast ocean, is intrinsically connected to their psyche—made even more relevant by the outbreak of COVID-19. Feature by Emma-Kate Wilson

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Collective, City Observatory 38 Calton Hill Edinburgh EH7 5AA

Holly McLean: If you get the knees right the rest should follow

A woman stands by her car, removing her wetsuit from the open boot. She stretches it over her body like a small ritual, while she jokes with the person holding the camera. As she pulls up the wetsuit from her ankles, she laughs: “If you get the knees right, the rest should follow.” So forms the title of Holly McLean’s film from 2020, which opens with fellow artist Alice Vandeleur-Boorer getting ready to surf. Wetsuit donned, she runs into the water. Alice bobs over the waves, riding across and surrendering to them, her body flopping majestically into the foam. Review by Eva Szwarc

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PM/AM, 50 Golborne Road, London W10 5PR

06

‘06’ is a both an online and physical exhibition, envisioned by the gallery PM/AM, as “a collective status check, a unique opportunity for self-assessment” that came together after the gallery set up a discussion between several artists, offering a form of exchange to collectively examine how the pandemic was impacting their daily lives. But rather than positioning the exhibition as a response to Covid-19, the discussions became a mediation on this new collective moment of re-evaluation.

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Bosse & Baum, Studio BGC&D, Bussey Building, 133 Rye Ln, London SE15 4ST

Miriam Austin: Andesite

In her show ‘Andesite’ at Bosse & Baum (her third with the gallery), Miriam Austin grapples with both her coloniser ancestry and her desire to expose and challenge the damage wreaked on the landscape by colonial extractivist systems. Born out of an extensive body of research and experimentation, this exhibition imaginatively inhabits both the mythical subterranean realm of Selvaga and the New Zealand landscapes ravished by colonial settlement. Review by Anna Souter

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