Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AH

Interview with Eve Stainton

Eve Stainton’s dance performances transport audiences to brilliantly enigmatic, sensorial worlds. Anyone lucky enough to have caught ‘Rubby Sucky Forge’ at The Place, London in Autumn 2020 will have experienced a much needed detour from reality—three dancers melting, sparring and succumbing to each other in a futuristic stage ecology of metal and slippery projected visuals.Eve’s upcoming performance ‘Dykegeist’ at the ICA is sure to be just as estranging and endearing. Interview with Louisa Doyle

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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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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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Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, 15 NE Hancock St, Portland, OR 97212, United States

Interview with Carlos Motta: We Got Each Other’s Back

Three stage settings topped with multiple videos stretch across the expanse of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, featuring the autoethnographies of Heldáy de la Cruz, Julio Salgado, and Edna Vázquez, all in collaboration with multidisciplinary artist Carlos Motta. Motta generously and pointedly answered queries I prompted for this collective project and how it articulates personal counter-narratives through its form in addition to its relation to Motta’s previous works that query the socio-political conditions of marginalised communities, their enmeshed ethical stakes, and the deep affective bonds that they invoke. Interview with Laurel V. McLaughlin

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Marseille, France

Roots to Routes: Manifesta 13

‘Roots to Routes’ is a collaboration between artists, curators and non-profit organisations from the city of Marseille and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). The project invites strangers to encounter the unfamiliar within the urban environment, while exploring concepts of ‘home’, ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’. Distinguishing itself among the 85 projects of ‘Les Parallèles du Sud’- ‘Roots to Routes’ acts like a second festival nestled within ‘Manifesta’. The programme can be seen as two branches - one concerned with the life of the senses, the other, inherited experience. These are united by ‘Same door different street’, a duo exhibition by Evita Vasiljeva (LV) and Antoine Nessi (FR) - and the first part of the programme to open. Review by Rebecca Larkin

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Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, 5-9 Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland

Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca: Swinguerra

2019 saw Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca represent Brazil at the Venice Biennale with a new video titled ‘Swinguerra,’ in the Giardini della Biennale. And whilst it’s less than a year since Venice, the world that ‘Swinguerra’ originally inhabited seems like a lifetime ago. Its presentation in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios in Dublin comes amidst a global pandemic, blazing wildfires and a deepening culture war on both sides of the Atlantic. And whilst these topics have dominated the media 2020, they have been core issues in Brazil for a number of years with the continued deforestation of the Amazon and increasing violence against LGBTQ+ communities. Review by Aidan Kelly Murphy

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Cole Projects, London and online

Ritual For A New Regime

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

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Galerie Lelong & Co. and P·P·O·W (online)

Irrigation Veins: Ana Mendieta and Carolee Schneemann, Selected Works 1966-1983

Proposed by Carolee Schneemann in the last year of her life, ‘Irrigation Veins: Ana Mendieta & Carolee Schneemann, Selected Works 1966 – 1983’ is a compelling exhibition of two canonical artists who sought to explore their embodied relationship to the land and its history through the body as material. Considering their inclusions in influential essays by Lucy Lippard and Gloria Feman Orenstein, as well as exhibitions at A.I.R. Gallery, the first artist-run gallery for women artists in the United States, it is remarkable that Mendieta and Schneemann have never been placed in direct dialogue. Review by Aileen Dowling

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LADA

LADA Screens Keith Khan

LADA is delighted to present this online screening of Z, a new performance film by Keith Khan.

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Castor Projects, Enclave 1, 50 Resolution Way, London SE8 4AL

Rafal Zajko: Resuscitation

Breathing and the nature of our bodies as something that air passes through have never been considered so urgently as in this show. Rafal Zajko, a London-based, Polish artist, has been making wall-based works that look like vents for a year - a fact I discovered during a remote conversation with Zajko to discuss his exhibition, Resuscitation, at Castor Projects in London, which was open for just one day before its closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Review by Laura O’Leary

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Glasgow International 2020: Digital Programme

The COVID-19 pandemic has cleared the cultural calendar for the foreseeable future and Glasgow International, Scotland’s largest festival of contemporary art, has been postponed until 2021. Indeed, the cancellation of a festival which was planned to span 60 exhibitions and 120 artists will be a disappointment to artists and the public alike. The digital programme is the unintended consequence of this unforeseen event. Review by Hailey Maxwell

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Billytown, Helena van Doeverenplantsoen 3, 2512 ZB The Hague, Netherlands

Ide André: Just a Satisfying Spiral

There is something very compelling about Ide André’s ‘Just a Satisfying Spiral’ that impresses itself on the viewer right upon entry. The airy exhibition hall not only bolsters the lively and idiosyncratic nature of the works by giving them ample space to breathe, but it also suites the dynamism that pervades the show’s constituents. Viewers quickly notice that they are in a transitional zone. Review by John Gayer

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LADA

LADA Screens Tim Bromage : The Lord of Misrule

The Lord of Misrule is new collaborative film by Tim Bromage, filmed by Roger Graham  and performed by Quentin Reynolds.

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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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