Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona, Florida
Together, the thirteen artists in ‘From all Points of the Southern Sky’ reckon with Australia’s colonial past. Curated by Ashley Lumb, this striking exhibition, which borrows its title from the Uluru Statement, offers an unsentimental portrait of a nation in turmoil. Review by Emily Bull
Online and across Brighton
The longest running photography festival in England, the Brighton Photo Biennial, has reincarnated itself in the form of the Photoworks Festival. The inaugural edition is made up of three parts: an outdoor festival on the streets of Sussex, an online festival hub, and at home, a ‘Festival in a Box’. Review by Gulnaz Can
Arusha Art Gallery, 13A Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6QG
In September, Arusha Gallery reopened its doors to a world transformed. ‘Ancient Deities’ fittingly extends the viewer an invitation to consider our future by returning our attentions to the myths of days gone by. Co-curated by artist Rhiannon Salisbury, the show depicts a pantheon for the contemporary. 18 artists were invited to respond to a god of the past, reinventing them for a modern audience. Review by Hailey Maxwell
MeetFactory, o. p. s., Ke Sklárně 3213/15, 150 00 Praha 5, Czech Republic
Curated by Tereza Jindrová, the exhibition inaugurated a long-term programme line titled ‘Other Knowledge’. If one of the pillars of Western modernity is rationality and the division between nature and culture, the involved artists challenge both of these notions and propose to open up to a much wider array of epistemologies. Review by Jaroslava Tomanova
Fuller Rosen Gallery, 1928 NW Lovejoy St, Portland, OR 97209, United States
Areas of ambiguity and endless possibilities are the grounds from which the two-person exhibition featuring the work of Devin Harclerode and Laura Camila Medina springs. Visible through the front windows of Fuller Rosen Gallery in Northwest Portland, Harclerode’s ‘Beat Curtains’ (all 2020), featuring resin and epoxy dyed beads that dissipate down their strands into snippets of hair, hint at the hybrid nostalgic-mythic-atemporal worlds that await visitors. Review by Laurel McLaughlin
Netwerk Aalst, Houtkaai 15, 9300 Aalst, Belgium
In ‘Eve and the Snake’, the story accompanying Alex Cecchetti and Laure Prouvost’s magnificently expressive ‘Occupie Paradit’, Adam and Eve’s lives were unaffected by children, friends, enemies, celebratory events, bouts of pain or any other unique or unexpected circumstances. Every day was like the other until the snake arrived. And that changed everything. Review by John Gayer
Platform Southwark, 1 Joan St, South Bank, London SE1 8BS
In 1970, a group of students started weekly meetings at the London School of Economics; they called for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment, education, the age of consent and in being treated as mentally unwell. Celebrating 50 years of activism, radical protest and positive queerness ‘GLF at 50: The Art of Protest’ at Platform Southwark is part of a sprinkling of events marking half a century of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and their core assertion that ‘Gay is Good’. Their manifesto (republished for this exhibition) was a seminal clarion call for equality. Review by Ian Giles
PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, 451 & 465 Saint-Jean Street Montréal (Quebec) H2Y 2R5, Canada
In addressing the diaspora, it is a mistake to think national and cultural identity can be rendered in any fixed format marked by an artist’s displacement from one place to another, as if the experience of a second generation immigrant who only knows of their native culture could be compared to someone who is forcefully removed from their place of origin. Review by Elaine Y.J Zheng
How can we rebuild the world? A global pandemic, wide-spread racial injustices at boiling point and unfair cultural systems that need urgently addressing. How can the arts contribute to rebuilding the world, pulling us out of the times we are living through and give hope for a better future? How can we embrace this moment to improve those unfair cultural systems which pre-existed the pandemic, such as its carbon impact; the financial precariousness of the artist and the inequitable landscape of the art world? 'The Artist as Consultant', our series of digital discussions was born out of these questions. E-WERK Luckenwalde Director and Curator Helen Turner reflects.
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Ely House, 37 Dover Street, London W1S 4NJ
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For those who might ask why her work resonated so thoroughly with the generation just before her, the 'Life Captured Still' exhibition at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac may offer some answers. A selection of Hito Steyerl’s work was shown alongside a major influence on her life and work; the late filmmaker and video artist Harun Farocki. This exploration of the connections between these two prominent German filmmakers and visual artists was the first major posthumous exhibition of Harun Farocki’s work in the UK and, remarkably, the first exhibition to put their work in conversation together. Review by Chris Hayes
Holt/Smithson Foundation (online)
Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson are two key figures in earth, land, and conceptual art, pioneering some of the most influential site-specific installations and video work in the 20th century. As many galleries and museums are continuing to find new digital means of presenting their programme, the Holt/Smithson Foundation launched a weekly film programme of both artists’ most iconic films alongside lesser known works with each available for just 24 hours. Throughout the series we see each artist in a new light, framed around the early experimental energy of video art as they explore artistic collaboration and themes of presence and absence against the backdrop of their monumental earthworks. Review by Aileen Dowling
Cole Projects, London and online
During the silence of lockdown, questions about how the pandemic would affect the development of cities began to circle frantically. While established models threatened to crumble, in the property world, planning restrictions were relaxed to encourage building and accelerate development. In an ex-military site in north London, curator Camilla Cole has made use of this transitional period for a new project that reflects upon the current, peculiar moment in history. Review by Gabriella Sonabend
'Nothing gentle will remain' is an online publication that invites artists and audiences to speculate on how we gather together, both now and in the future. The projects’ curators discuss what it means to make work about collective gathering during these unprecedented times with contributing artists Paul Maheke and Naïmé Perrette. Interviewed by Titus Nouwens, Nora Kovacs and William Rees
Camden Art Centre, Arkwright Rd, London NW3 6DG
‘The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree’ was originally intended to be an in-house group exhibition at Camden Art Centre. Instead, the spread of COVID-19 and the closure of public gallery spaces saw the show move to the digital realm and become ‘The Botanical Mind Online’. The exhibition is hosted at botanicalmind.online, which serves as both the main space to read about the themes and topics of the show, and the central repository for a number of digital offerings, from videos, sound recordings, and podcasts to texts. Review by Aidan Kelly Murphy
