Viewing articles tagged with 'Installation'

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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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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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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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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Various across Leeds and Wakefield

Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019

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

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Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St, New York, NY 10014, USA

Whitney Biennial 2019

The 2017 edition of the Whitney Biennial is remembered for the animated debate surrounding the inclusion of a controversial painting by Dana Schutz titled ‘Open Casket’ (2016). It spurred an open discussion about cultural appropriation, white privilege and freedom of creativity. It divided much of the art world and prompted a discussion panel with The Racial Imaginary Institute titled ‘Perspectives on Race and Representation.’ The painting ultimately remained. Despite the best intensions of curators Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley, this year’s Whitney Biennial wallows yet again in controversy. Review by Anaïs Castro

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Indian Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice, Italy

Venice Biennale 2019: Our time for a future caring

Pranamita Borgohain speaks to some of the artists, organisers, and key voices behind the Indian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale.

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Magasin III Jaffa, 6813131 34, Olei Zion St, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

Cosima von Bonin: Ocean and Caffeine

Two fish dressed up in skirts and shackled to guitars guard the entrance of Magasin III in Jaffa at Cosima von Bonin’s first solo exhibition in Israel. ‘Ocean and Caffeine’ looks as if it is inspired by the essence of the port city as a surfboard leans horizontally on the wall, but it is a crash course in nearly two decades of von Bonin’s work about marine life. Review by Danielle Gorodenzik

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Museum Voorlinden, Buurtweg 90, 2244 AG Wassenaar, Netherlands

Do Ho Suh

Do Ho Suh’s solo exhibition highlights the artist’s fabric replicas of the places where he once lived. Reproduced at a 1:1 scale and in a range of colours, this well-known mode of his practice not only charts the route Suh’s life has taken, but also creates a presence that is more atmospheric than architectural. Based on residences in Berlin, London, Seoul, and New York City, these markers speak of the evanescence of past experiences and the frailty of memory. Their cumulative effect balances the mnemonic with fact. Review by John Gayer

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Fondazione Prada, Largo Isarco, 2, 20139 Milano MI, Italy

Lizzie Fitch | Ryan Trecartin: Whether Line

Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin’s new commission at Fondazione Prada is a trip in hyper-reality through means of immersive installations and role-play video performances. The multimedia exhibition unfolds as a journey into different physical and psychosocial spaces - from Milan to the core of contemporary (American) culture, via Ohio’s countryside. Review by Giulia Civardi

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Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 3 Chome-20-2 Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku City, Tokyo 163-1403, Japan

Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony

Despite the readymade being a well-established component in modern art, there are still new ways of using mass-produced objects to draw our attention to how we connect with the everyday material world. In the case of Tom Sachs, the New York City-based sculptor known for fashioning makeshift objects and installations from materials as commonplace as duct tape and electrical appliances, his recent exhibition at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery focuses on the use of objects as part of rituals, specifically, as the title makes plain, the Japanese tea ceremony. Review by Nick West

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