November 30, 2020

Alex Da Corte: Rubber Pencil Devil at Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, through January 17, 2021

“Conceived in 2018, ‘Rubber Pencil Devil’ is a video work composed by 57 chapters and a prologue. In Rong Zhai the work is presented by the artist in a site-specific exhibition format featuring 51 of the 57 acts on 19 large rear-pro-jection multi-colored video cubes displayed in the two main floors of the building, giving a new spatial configuration to the artwork according to the new venue.

‘Rubber Pencil Devil’ is a looping, two-hour-40-minute stream of highly stylized videos inspired by a wide range of iconographical and cultural sources from vintage television imagery to 20th-century animation, from queer icons to campy Americana. Da Corte’s artwork functions as a hypnotically slow choreography performed by popular and recognizable figures. They are immersed in an over-sized and over-saturated universe composed of everyday objects, domestic symbols and familiar codes. One of ‘Rubber Pencil Devil’ performers is the artist himself, who mutates into various food puppets and iconic characters such as Pink Panther, Sylvester the Cat, Mister Rogers and the devil.

According to Da Corte, ‘Rubber Pencil Devil’ is a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, a total work of art, an immersive experience combining video, music and architecture, rich in allusions to avantgarde visual artists, experimental writers, pop singers, show-biz personalities and cartoon characters. For the spaces of Prada Rong Zhai Da Corte has conceived a fragmentary and vividly-hued display, a kaleidoscopic and dream-like journey in which his wish ‘of pushing beyond an image or breaking through the screen and actually touching the thing on-screen’ can be fulfilled.” — Prada Rong Zhai

Exhibition views of “Rubber Pencil Devil” by Alex Da Corte, Prada Rong Zhai, November 13, 2020 – January 17, 2021. Photos: Alessandro Wang. Courtesy Prada.

“Rubber Pencil Devil” is a site-specific intervention by American artist Alex Da Corte with the support of Fondazione Prada. The project is on view in Prada Rong Zhai, a 1918 historical residence in Shanghai restored by Prada and reopened in October 2017.

November 20, 2020

Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop at Whitney Museum of American Art, November 21, 2020 – March 28, 2021

“The Whitney presents Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop, a groundbreaking exhibition featuring over 150 photographs by fourteen early members of the Kamoinge Workshop, nine of whom are living and working today. In 1963 a group of Black photographers based in New York came together in the spirit of friendship and exchange and chose the name Kamoinge—meaning ‘a group of people acting together’ in Gikuyu, the language of the Kikuyu people of Kenya—to reflect the essential ideal of the collective. Focusing on the first two decades of the collective (1963-1983), Working Together celebrates the Kamoinge Workshop’s important place in the history of photography and foregrounds the collective’s deep commitment to photography’s power and status as an independent art form.” — Whitney Museum of American Art

“It’s a privilege to present this exhibition in New York where the collective was founded, and where much of the artists’ influential, early work was created,” said Carrie Springer, assistant curator. “Each artist had his or her own sensibility and independent career, but they shared a commitment to photography as an art form, and the exhibition demonstrates their insightful and inventive portrayal of the communities they saw and participated in. As Louis Draper said in an introductory statement to Kamoinge Workshop Portfolio No. 1, the Kamoinge artists’ ‘creative objectives reflect a concern for truth about the world, about the society and about themselves.’ The photographs of these artists are as significant to the history of photography as they are to the current moment.”

Adger Cowans, Footsteps, 1960. Gelatin silver print, image: 8 1/4 × 13 5/16 in. (20.96 × 33.81 cm). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Aldine S. Hartman Endowment Fund, 2018.201. © Adger Cowans
Albert Fennar, Salt Pile, 1971. Gelatin silver print, 6½ x 6½ in. (16.51 x 16.51 cm). Collection of Shawn Walker. © Miya Fennar and The Albert R. Fennar Archive
Anthony Barboza (b. 1944), Kamoinge Members, 1973. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 13 15/16 × 11 1/16 in. (35.4 × 28.1 cm); image, 9 13/16 × 10 in. (24.9 × 25.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Jack E. Chachkes Endowed Purchase Fund 2020.55. © Anthony Barboza
Beuford Smith, Two Bass Hit, Lower East Side, 1972. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 10 15/16 × 13 15/16 in. (27.78 × 35.4 cm), image: 9 3/8 × 13 1/2 in. (23.81 × 34.29 cm). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, 2017.36. © Beuford Smith/Césaire
Herb Robinson, Brother & Sister, 1973. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 11 1/16 × 14 1/16 in. (28.1 × 35.7 cm); image, 6 5/8 × 9 in. (16.7 × 22.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.46. © Herb Robinson
Herbert Randall (b. 1936), Untitled (Palmers Crossing, Mississippi), 1964. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 14 × 10 15/16 in. (35.6 × 27.8 cm); image, 13 1/2 × 8 7/8 in. (34.3 × 22.5 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee 2020.57. © Herbert Randall
James “Jimmie” Mannas, No Way Out, Harlem, NYC, 1964. Gelatin silver print, mount: 15 1/16 × 11 in. (38.26 × 27.94 cm), image: 8 5/16 × 6 3/8 in. (21.11 × 16.19 cm). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment, 2019.201. © Jimmie Mannas
Louis Draper (American, 1935-2002), Untitled (Santos), 1968. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 8 15/16 × 5 7/8 in. (22.7 × 14.92 cm). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, National Endowment for the arts Fund for American Art, 2013.151. © Courtesy of the Louis H. Draper Preservation Trust, Nell D. Winston, Trustee
Ming Smith, America seen through Stars and Stripes, New York City, New York, printed ca. 1976. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 15 3/4 × 20 in. (40.01 × 50.8 cm), image: 12 1/2 × 18 1/2 in. (31.75 × 46.99 cm). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund, 2016.241. © Ming Smith
Shawn Walker (b. 1940), Easter Sunday, Harlem (125th Street), 1972. Gelatin silver print: sheet, 7 3/4 × 9 3/4 in. (19.7 × 24.8 cm); image, 6 1/4 × 8 1/2 in. (15.9 × 21.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee, the Jack E. Chachkes Endowed Purchase Fund, and the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation 2020.61. © Shawn Walker

The exhibition is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) and was curated by Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, associate curator of modern and contemporary art. The installation at the Whitney is overseen by Carrie Springer, assistant curator, with Mia Matthias, curatorial assistant.

Images courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art.

November 9, 2020

Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art at The Cleveland Museum of Art, November 1, 2020 – March 14, 2021

 “The connections between historical African art and contemporary practice are deep but not always apparent. Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art probes this connection through a smart selection of stellar highlights from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s African collection and loaned works by six contemporary African artists of different generations.

 Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art presents objects from nine cultures in Central and West Africa that are juxtaposed with large-scale contemporary installations, sculptures and photographs. The exhibition considers the status of canonical African art objects as they begin their ‘second careers’ upon entering museum collections. It simultaneously examines modes of artistic production in Africa that employ mediums that once served other purposes in everyday life.” — The Cleveland Museum of Art 

“The exhibition’s premise is twofold,” said Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, the exhibition’s curator and former curator of African Art at the CMA, currently the Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Second Careers explores the role of historical African art in the Western museum context: how the objects made their way into the museum and the expectations placed on them to educate, to act as vectors of cultural memory and history and, ultimately, to add value to the institution in their second careers. The exhibition’s secondary focus is the relationship between historical arts of Africa and contemporary practices.” 

Mask, early 1900s. Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yaka people.
Wood, cloth, fibers, pigment; h. 47 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art,
Gift of Katherine C. White.
Untitled (Jua Kali Series), 2014. Tahir Carl Karmali (Kenyan, b. 1987).
Archival pigment print; 45.7 x 30.5 cm. © Tahir Carl Karmali.
Untitled (Jua Kali Series), 2014. Tahir Carl Karmali (Kenyan, b. 1987).
Archival pigment print; 45.7 x 30.5 cm. © Tahir Carl Karmali.
Egúngún Masquerade Dance Costume (paka egúngún), c. 1920–48. Yorùbá. Cotton, wool, wood, silk, synthetic
textiles (including viscose rayon and acetate), indigo, and aluminum; approx.: 139.7 x 15.2 x 160 cm.
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Sam Hilu.
Tightrope: Non-Essential Speed, 2017. Elias Sime. Reclaimed electronic components and wire on panel; 183.8 x 402.6 cm. © Elias Sime. Courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York.
When All Is Said and Done (detail), 2016. Nnenna Okore (Australia, b. 1975). Burlap, jute rope, wire, and dye; 304.8 x 731.5 cm. © Nnenna Okore. Image courtesy the artist.
Earth Growing Roots (detail), 2007. El Anatsui (Ghanaian, b. 1944). Aluminum and copper wire;
236.2 x 401.3 cm. Private Collection. © El Anatsui. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Images courtesy The Cleveland Museum of Art.

November 1, 2020

Chance: Escape from the Holocaust: Memories of a Refugee Childhood by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, October 13, 2020

“I wrote Chance as a memorial to my parents, who are no longer alive, and who can now live forever in my book. I wrote it now while I still have vivid memories of events from over 80 years ago, and before I begin to forget them. I call my memoir Chance because during World War II blind chance decided who shall live and who shall die.

When I began working on the book, I started thinking about my life as a kid. As memories came, I took notes. Once I had many notes, I began writing. As I wrote, more memories came. Some of these memories were very painful, bringing tears to my eyes. There were also humorous moments, bringing comic relief to my story. So that overall writing this memoir was a cathartic experience.

Certain events were of particular importance, which I wanted to bring to the reader’s attention. In order for them not to get lost as words among words, and to slow down the reader, I introduced graphic sequences in which one has to look at pictures and not just read the words.” — Uri Shulevitz

Images from Chance written and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz.

Uri Shulevitz (b. Warsaw, Poland, 1935) has written and illustrated many celebrated children’s books. He won the Caldecott Medal for The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, written by Arthur Ransome, and three Caldecott Honors for The Treasure, Snow, and How I Learned Geography. His other books include One Monday Morning, Dawn, So Sleepy Story, and the instructional guide Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books. He lives in New York City.  

October 26, 2020

Artifices Instables, Stories of Ceramics at Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Sauber, through February 21, 2021

“The exhibition Artifices Instables, Stories of Ceramics presents a journey through inventions and experiments highlighting the diversity of shapes and decorations of ceramics, as well as its production processes. These different stages of production – the selection and preparation of clay, the shaping, the finishing, the decoration, the cooking and the enamelling – reveal, also, the ‘recipes’ and the almost alchemic preparations which vary from one creator/inventor to the other.

Cristiano Raimondi, guest curator at the NMNM for this exhibition, chose to investigate ceramics as a heterogenic and unstable material, able to tell transversal stories. Through a selection of more than 120 pieces by international artists, the curator envisioned a set-up which is a crossover between atelier and a cabinet of curiosities. The exhibition path involves both floors of Villa Sauber, and the works are displayed following the idea of affinity and visual references.” — Nouveau Musée National de Monaco

Exhibition views of Artifices instables, Histoires de céramiques at Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Villa Sauber.

Poterie artistique de Monaco, Style Fischer (1871‐1889). Collections Comité National des Traditions Monégasques, NMNM et Palais Princier Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Poterie artistique de Monaco, Style Fischer (1871‐1889). Collections Comité National des Traditions Monégasques, NMNM et Palais Princier
Aaron Angell. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Aaron Angell. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Eugène Baudin (showcase). Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Chiara Camoni, The Ashes of Montelupo, 2017. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Johan Creten. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Albert Diato. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Albert Diato. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Simone Fattal. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Simone Fattal. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Ron Nagle. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Ron Nagle. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Georges Ohr (foreground). Eugène Baudin (background). Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Georges Ohr (foreground). Eugène Baudin (background). Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Brian Rochefort. Photo : NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2020
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess. Untitled, 2016. Glazed ceramic, 21 x 20 x 13 cm. Private collection, Milan. Photo : Andrea Rossetti

Curator and scenography : Cristiano Raimondi.

Title image: Left: Poterie artistique de Monaco, Style Fischer (1871-1889). Glazed pottery with polychrome sprigs, 40 x 23,5 x 21 cm. Collection NMNM. Right: Ron Nagle, Coitis Mortis, 2013. Ceramic, glaze, catalyzed polyurethane, epoxy resin, and aluminum, 17 x 22 x 14cm. Collection Silvia Fiorucci Roman, Monaco.

Images courtesy Nouveau Musée National de Monaco.

October 21, 2020

Come Together, Right Now: The Art of Gathering at Chrysler Museum of Art, October 11, 2020 – January 3, 2021

“The Chrysler Museum of Art encourages everyone to consider the bonds between us with Come Together, Right Now: The Art of Gathering.  On view at the Museum and in outdoor locations in Norfolk, the exhibition features more than 100 artworks drawn from the Chrysler’s collection and digital photography submitted by community members. Visitors will see many works that are rarely on view and masterpieces from all areas of the collection, including photography, painting, sculpture and installation works.  Four themes—Together in Celebration, Together in Purpose, Together in Justice, and Together in Love—will highlight the many ways artists examine the joys and complexities of ‘coming together’ and showcase how communities are linked by activities, celebrations, demonstrations, love and family.

Come Together, Right Now was conceived in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when people grappled with the new restrictions spawned by social distancing while also uniting in a struggle to control the devastating disease. The public killings of Black and brown people intensified the sense of separation and division and the need to create community as we address uncomfortable but necessary questions about racism and intolerance and chart the course toward an inclusive future. Artwork reminds us of the value of community and prompts us to consider creative solutions to the impediments we face as we work to come together. It also helps us to discover all that we can learn right now from self-examination and each other through our through our common experiences, causes, celebrations and struggles.” — Chrysler Museum of Art

Doris Ulmann (American, 1882–1934). The Preacher’s Family, South
Carolina, ca. 1929–1931. Platinum print. Museum purchase.
Philip Evergood (1901-1973). Music, 1933, revised 1959. Oil on canvas. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
in memory of Jack Forker Chrysler.
Ernest C. Withers (American, 1922-2007). Big Ella, Club Paradise, Memphis,
Tennessee, 1960s, printed ca. 2000. Gelatin silver print. Gifts of Ernest
C. Withers and Panopticon Gallery © Estate of Ernest C. Withers and
Panopticon Gallery of Photography, Boston, MA.
Pierre Daura (American (born Spain), 1896 – 1976). Baseball,
ca. 1939-55. Oil on board. Gift of Martha Randolph Daura
© Daura Estate.
Marilyn Nance (American, b. 1953). Three Placards (Elijah Muhammad, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X),
June 14, 1986. Gelatin silver print. Gift of Joyce F. and Robert B. Menschel © Marilyn Nance.
Ken Heyman (American, born 1930.) Israel (Closeup of Men Holding Hands), 1965. Gelatin silver print.
Gift of Dr. Donald and Alice Lappe © Ken Heyman.
Mark Markov-Grinberg (Russian, 1907-2003). Happy Maternity,
Stavropol Territory, 1935, printed later. Gelatin silver print. Gift of
Gary Ginsberg and Susanna Aaron © Mark Markov-Grinberg.
David A. Douglas (American, b.1958). Portrait of M.K. and Scout, 2005.
Mixed media on panel. Gift of the artist in memory of K.D. Baker
© David A. Douglas
Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946 – 1989). Patti Smith (Neckbrace),
New York. 1977. Gelatin silver print. Gift of the artist
© The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc.
Bob Lerner (American, 1926 – 2019). Candle Vendor, Cuzco, Peru.
Date: 1961, printed 2002. Inkjet print.
Gift of the artist © Chrysler Museum of Art.
Romare Bearden (American, 1911-1988). Tidings, ca. 1970. Screenprint on
wove paper. Museum collection.

“As many have faced unprecedented isolation this year and grappled with social distancing, we believe the time is perfect to celebrate the most powerful things that draw us together. Images of love, dancing, making music and working together will lift visitors’ spirits and inspire them to reflect,” said Lloyd DeWitt, Ph.D., the Chrysler Museum’s Chief Curator and Irene Leache Curator of European Art.

Images courtesy Chrysler Museum of Art.

October 19, 2020

Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water at The Shed, October 16, 2020 – April 11, 2021

 “The Shed reopened October 16 with a solo exhibition, nearly four years in the making, featuring new work by Howardena Pindell that examines the violent, historical trauma of racism in America and the therapeutic power of art.

For her solo exhibition at The Shed, Howardena Pindell presents Rope/Fire/Water, her first video in 25 years and a project unrealized by the artist since the 1970s that The Shed commissioned. In this powerful work, Pindell recounts personal anecdotes and anthropological and historical data related to lynchings and racist attacks in the United States. She accompanies this voice-over with archival photos of lynchings and the historic Birmingham, Alabama, Children’s Crusade, a series of nonviolent protests carried out by young people in May 1963. 

Over her nearly 60-year career, Pindell has created richly textured abstract paintings while engaging with politics and the social issues of her time. In the exhibition, Pindell will also debut a pair of large-scale paintings related to global atrocities of imperialism and white supremacy, and several abstract paintings that demonstrate a through line in Pindell’s practice: after working on traumatic historical projects, the artist decompresses by creating meticulously produced, large-scale abstract works on unstretched canvas.” — The Shed

 “Working on my commission for The Shed has been a very rewarding and healing experience,” said Howardena Pindell. “It allowed me to conceptualize an idea as a result of an experience I had as a child. I put it forth as a performance piece to a group of white women artists at the A.I.R. Gallery, where I was a founder in the early 1970s. They turned it down. (I was the only nonwhite member of the gallery.) The now-realized concept is the film Rope/Fire/Water, the centerpiece of the exhibition.”

Columbus, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 108 x 120 inches. Courtesy the artist, Garth Greenan Gallery,
and Victoria Miro Gallery.
Ko’s Snow Day, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 67 x 72 inches. Courtesy the artist,
Garth Greenan Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery.
Plankton Lace #2, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 77 x 88 inches. Courtesy the artist,
Garth Greenan Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery.
Four Little Girls, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 108 x 120 inches. Courtesy the artist, Garth Greenan
Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery.
Plankton Lace #1, 2020. Mixed media on canvas, 76 x 86 inches. Courtesy the artist,
Garth Greenan Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery.
Rope/Fire/Water, 2020. Digital Video, 19min. Courtesy of The Artist, Commissioned by The Shed.
Slavery Memorial: Lash, 1998 – 99. Mixed media on canvas, 55 1/2 x 136 inches.
Courtesy the artist, Garth Greenan Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery.
Slavery Memorial: Lash, 1998 – 99. Mixed media on canvas. 55 1/2 x 136 inches.
Courtesy the artist,Garth Greenan Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery.
Canals/Underground Railroad, 2015–2016. Mixed media on canvas, 40 x56 1/2 inches.
Courtesy the artist, Garth Greenan Gallery, and Victoria Miro Gallery.

“Bringing together Howardena Pindell’s painting and video practice has increasingly gained importance as our current circumstances have progressed,” said Adeze Wilford, Curatorial Assistant at The Shed. “Her intention to bring attention to historical events that have shaped this country through her video, paired with the beauty of her abstract paintings offered as care for the viewer, is vital for this moment. While we cannot turn away from the past, the artist has provided a means to bring us peace as we face the painful legacy of racism in this country.”

Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water was organized by Adeze Wilford, Assistant Curator at The Shed.

Images courtesy The Shed.

October 14, 2020

Chen Zhen: Short-circuits at Pirelli HangarBicocca, October 15, 2020 – February 21, 2021

“Pirelli HangarBicocca presents Short-circuits a retrospective exhibition curated by Vicente Todolí, devoted to Chen Zhen, one of the leading figures of contemporary art. Celebrated by the world’s most important museums, the artist managed to bridge the gap between the art of the East and that of the West, with works of great visual impact that anticipated the socio-political complexities of today, addressing themes such as globalisation and consumerism, and their relationship with tradition. The exhibition is a journey through some of the artist’s most important works, which convey the idea of the interdependence between the material and spiritual world, through reflections on the curative and purifying action of art and on the metaphorical processes of illness and healing.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by the artist’s creative method, which he referred to as a ‘short-circuit phenomenon’, which is that of revealing the hidden meaning of a work of art when it is taken from the original setting for which it was created to a different place. This process led Chen Zhen to reflect on the concept of symbolic and cultural enrichment as a means of artistic creation. The idea behind the exhibition reflects this, creating original interactions between the works on display, while also shedding light on the numerous cross-references and connections that appear in the artist’s works, creating an open dialogue on a number of themes: globalisation and consumerism, overcoming the hegemony of Western values, and the coming together of different cultures.” — Pirelli HangarBicocca

Chen Zhen. Jue Chang, Dancing Body – Drumming Mind (The Last Song), 2000. Installation view, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2007. Collection Pinault. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Ela Bialkowska
Chen Zhen. Jue Chang, Dancing Body – Drumming Mind (The Last Song), 2000. Installation view, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2007. Collection Pinault. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Ela Bialkowska
Chen Zhen. Éruption future, 1992. Installation view, Centre d’art contemporain de Saint- Rémy-de-Provence, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 1992. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Éric Angels
Chen Zhen. Fu Dao / Fu Dao, Upside-down Buddha / Arrival at Good Fortune, 1997. Installation view, CCA – Center for Contemporary Art, Kitakyushu, 1997. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Chen Zhen
Chen Zhen. Nightly Imprecations,1999. Installation view, Art & Public, Geneva, 2000. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Courtesy Art & Public, Geneva
Chen Zhen. Daily Incantations, 1996. Installation view, Deitch Projects, New York, 1996. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Tom Powell
Chen Zhen. Le Chemin / Le Radeau de l’écriture, 1991 (detail). Installation view, Centre lotois d’art contemporain, Figeac,1991. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Éric Angels
Chen Zhen. Purification Room, 2000 (detail). Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Chen Zhe. Prayer Wheel – “Money makes the Mare Go” (Chinese slang), 1997 (detail). Installation view, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, 1997-1998. Collection Pinault. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Chen Zhen
Chen Zhen. Le Rite suspendu / mouillé, 1991. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Ela Bialkowska
Chen Zhen. Jardin-Lavoir, 2000. Installation view, Galleria Continua, Havana, 2017-2018. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Nestor Kim
Chen Zhen. Jardin-Lavoir, 2000 (detail). Installation view, Galleria Continua, Havana, 2017-2018. Courtesy GALLERIA CONTINUA © ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Nestor Kim

Curated by Vicente Todolí, Short-circuits, is conceived as an immersive exploration within the complex artistic research of Chen Zhen, bringing together for the first time some of the artist’s most significant works from 1991 to 2000, in the 5,500 square metres of the Navate and Cubo of Pirelli HangarBicocca.

Images courtesy Pirelli HangarBicocca.

October 13, 2020

Mending the Sky at New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA), October 9, 2020 – January 31, 2021

“The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents Mending the Sky, the museum’s first major exhibition following New Orleans’ months-long shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition brings together eleven artists’ projects that respond to a world turned upside down. Working across the fields of art, animation, and performance, the artists work to shift conversations, challenge entrenched views, and subvert the established order.

Inspired by one of the works in the exhibition, Mending the Sky takes its title from a Chinese fable in which a rip in the sky causes the earth to split open, bringing floods, fires, famine, and disease—until a goddess comes to take on the arduous task of mending the broken sky. Each of the artworks in the exhibition help give shape to the aftermath of calamity, building towards a more equitable future by helping to envision the new world that might rise in the wake of crisis. Premiering several major new acquisitions by both locally based and internationally recognized artists, Mending the Sky brings a global perspective to issues currently affecting the city of New Orleans, the United States and the world. With roots in Brazil, China, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Vietnam, India, Europe, and the American South, each of these artist projects are also acts of world-building that offer a glimpse of a future that cannot yet be seen.” — New Orleans Museum of Art

Beili Liu, After All / Mending The Sky, 2018- ongoing, Silk, cyanotype, sewing needle, thread, wire, hardware, dimensions variable, 2017 © Beili Liu Studio
Beili Liu, After All / Mending The Sky, 2018- ongoing (detail), Silk, cyanotype, sewing needle, thread, wire, hardware, dimensions variable, 2017 © Beili Liu Studio
Firelei Báez, the trace, whether we are attending to it or not (a space for each other’s breathing), 2019, Acrylic, oil and transfer on archival printed canvas, 90 x 114 3/8 inches, Museum Purchase, Carmen Donaldson Fund, 2019.34, Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle
Firelei Báez, the trace, whether we are attending to it or not (a space for each other’s breathing), 2019 (detail), Acrylic, oil and transfer on archival printed canvas, 90 x 114 3/8 inches, Museum Purchase, Carmen Donaldson Fund, 2019.34, Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York. Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle
Baseera Khan, Braidrage, 2017-ongoing, Indoor rock-climbing wall made from
99 unique poured dyed resin casts of the corners of the artist’s body,
embedded with wearable Cuban chains, hair, and hypothermia blankets,
Dimensions variable, Collection of the Artist, Installation view at the
University of Albany, Photo by Ariana Sarwari © Baseera Khan
Lorna Williams, Lore, 2017, Plaster teeth, vines, plumbing hardware, light
fixture, 64 x 32 x 72 inches, New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum Purchase
© Lorna Williams
Lorna Williams, Lore, 2017, Plaster teeth, vines, plumbing hardware, light
fixture, 64 x 32 x 72 inches, New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum Purchase
© Lorna Williams
Jamilah Sabur, Un chemin escarpé / A steep path, 2018, Five-channel video, Installation from the Hammer Museum, Color, sound, 10:27 min (Edition 1/2), Museum Purchase, Carmen Donaldson Fund, 2019.35, Courtesy of the Artist and Nina Johnson, Miami. Photo: Jeff McLane © Jamilah Sabur
Jamilah Sabur, Un chemin escarpé / A steep path, 2018 (still), Five-channel video, Installation from the Hammer Museum, Color, sound, 10:27 min (Edition 1/2), Museum Purchase, Carmen Donaldson Fund, 2019.35, Courtesy of the Artist and Nina Johnson, Miami. Photo: Jeff McLane © Jamilah Sabur
Clarissa Tossin, Encontro das Águas (Meeting of Waters), 2016-18, Woven archival inkjet print on vinyl (4 1/2 x 50 feet), terra-cotta objects, fishnet, thread, kraft paper and woven baskets and backpack made out amazon.com boxes, Installation View: Blanton Museum of Art, UT Austin (January 13 – July 1, 2018), Collection of the Artist © Clarissa Tossin
Clarissa Tossin, Encontro das Águas (Meeting of Waters), 2016-18 (detail),
Woven archival inkjet print on vinyl, 4 1/2 x 50 feet, Installation View: Blanton
Museum of Art, UT Austin (January 13 – July 1, 2018),
Collection of the Artist © Clarissa Tossin
Diedrick Brackens, If you feed a river, 2019, New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum
Purchase, Carmen Donaldson Fund, 2019.61 © Diedrick Brackens
Ana Hernandez, A Sense of Memory, 2015, Cast metal, found glass, found wood, found
metal, found nails, steel wire, steel wool, oil pastel, wood stain on found wood panel in
artist’s frame, 60 x 41 x 14 inches, New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum Purchase
© Ana Hernandez
Heidi Hahn, Burn Out in Shredded Heaven, 2018-2019, Oil on canvas, 80 x 74 in,
Museum purchase with funds provided by Kevie Yang, 2019.60 © Heidi Hahn
Thao Nguyen Phan, Mute Grain, 2019 (still), Three channel video installation, 15:45 mins, loop, black and white, Collection of the Artist, Image courtesy of the artist and the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai © Thao Nguyen Phan
Thao Nguyen Phan, Mute Grain, 2019 (still), Three channel video installation, 15:45 mins, loop, black and white, Collection of the Artist, Image courtesy of the artist and The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City © Thao Nguyen Phan
Helen Gillet, Photo by Jason Kruppa © Helen Gillet

“Mending the Sky touches on the many complex ideas that we, as a community, have been challenged to address in the times of COVID-19,” says Susan Taylor, Montine McDaniel Freeman Director at NOMA. “This is an exhibition about loss and uncertainty, but also creates space for recovery, healing, and hope.”

“Mending the Sky focuses on artists who consider the crucial actions of care, healing and coming together,” says exhibition curator Katie A. Pfohl. “Each of them recognizes the hard work of recovery: that we must remedy the challenges of the past and address present issues to forge a new path forward.”

Images courtesy New Orleans Museum of Art.

October 11, 2020

Uninvited Guests: Episodes on Women, ideology and the visual arts in Spain (1833-1931) at Museo Nacional del Prado, October 6, 2020 – March 14, 2021

“Uninvited Guests: Episodes on Women, ideology and the visual arts in Spain (1833-1931) is the first exhibition to be organised by the Museo Nacional del Prado following its reopening. It aims to offer a reflection on the way in which the structures of power defended and disseminated the role of women in society through the visual arts, from the reign of Isabel II to that of her grandson Alfonso XIII. During that period the Museo del Prado became a key element for the acquisition and display of contemporary art, playing an important role in the construction of the idea of a modern Spanish school. 

Structured into episodes particularly representative of this art system, Uninvited Guests generates a series of contexts that allow for a reflection from the starting point of the Museum’s own collection and for an analysis of some of the most profound consequences of a common mindset. The women present in all these contexts are rarely the protagonists through their own initiatives, nor are they located where they wished to be: rather, they were merely ‘uninvited guests’ in the art world of the day.” — Museo Nacional del Prado

Queen Joanna the Mad imprisoned in Tordesillas with her daughter, the Infanta. Catherine Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz (1848-1921). Oil on canvas, 1906. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
The Father’s Advice. Plácido Francés y Pascual (1834-1902).
Oil on canvas, 1892. La Coruña, Museo de Bellas Artes,long-term
loan from Museo Nacional del Prado
Pride. Baldomero Gili y Roig (1873-1926. Oil on canvas, c. 1908.
Logroño, Museo de la Rioja, long-term loan from Museo Nacional del Prado
The Human Beast. Antonio Fillol Granell (1870-1930). Oil on canvas, 1897.
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
Phalaena. Carlos Verger Fioretti (1872-1929). Oil on canvas, 1920. Zamora, Museo de Zamora,
long-term loan from Museo Nacional del Prado
The Price of a Mother (To Improve the Race). Marceliano Santa María Sedano (1866-1952). Oil on canvas, 1900. Burgos, Ayuntamiento de Burgos
The Satyr. Antonio Fillol Granell (1870-1930). Oil on canvas, 1906. Collection of the Fillol family
The Spinners (copy of Velázquez). Madame Anselma (Alejandrina Gessler de Lacroix)
(1831-1907). Oil on canvas, 1872. Madrid, Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes
de San Fernando
Fruits. Julia Alcayde y Montoya (1855-1939). Oil on canvas, 1911. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
Joaquina Serrano Painting in Espalter’s Studio. Joaquín Espalter y Rull
(1809-1880). Oil on canvas, c. 1876. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Romanticismo
A Procession Passing through the Cloister of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo.
Elena Brockmann de Llanos (1865-1946). Oil on canvas, c. 1892. Granada,
Hospital Real, Rectorado de la Universidad, long-term loan from
Museo Nacional del Prado

Miguel Falomir, Director of the Museo Nacional del Prado observes: “I think that one of the most interesting aspects of this exhibition lies precisely in the fact that it is directed towards official art of the time rather than the periphery. Some of these works may be surprising to our modern sensibility but not for their eccentricity or doom-laden aura, rather for being an expression of an already outmoded time and society.”   

Uninvited Guests was curated by Carlos G. Navarro, a curator in the Museum’s department of 19th century painting.

Images courtesy Museo Nacional del Prado.

October 6, 2020

Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde—From Signac to Matisse and Beyond at The Museum of Modern Art, through January 2, 2021

“The Museum of Modern Art presents Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde—From Signac to Matisse and Beyond, the first exhibition devoted to the influential French art critic, editor, publisher, dealer, and collector Félix Fénéon (1861–1944). Though largely unknown today and always discreetly behind the scenes in his own era, Fénéon played a key role in the careers of leading artists from Georges Seurat and Paul Signac to Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse, each of whom is featured prominently in the exhibition. Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde—From Signac to Matisse and Beyond traces Fénéon’s career through approximately 130 works that highlight his initiatives to help artists via his reviews, exhibitions, and acquisitions; his commitment to anarchism; his literary engagements; and his contributions to the recognition of non-Western art. Bringing together a selection of major works that Fénéon admired, championed, and collected, alongside contemporary letters, documents, and photographs, the exhibition underscores the tremendous impact he had on the development of modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” — The Museum of Modern Art

Installation views of Félix Fénéon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde—From Signac to Matisse and Beyond, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, August 27, 2020–January 2, 2021. Digital Image © 2020 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photos by Robert Gerhardt.

This exhibition is currently being presented here as part of our Virtual Views series. Explore Fénéon’s life and the art that inspired him through highlights from MoMA curator Starr Figura, along with art, audio, and video features below.

The MoMA exhibition is organized by Starr Figura, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art; Isabelle Cahn, Senior Curator of Paintings, Musée d’Orsay; Philippe Peltier, former Head, Océania and Insulindia Unit, Musée  du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac; with Anna Blaha, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Museum of Modern Art.

Title image: Paul Signac (French, 1863–1935). Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Félix Fénéon in 1890, 1890. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 1/2″ (73.5 x 92.5 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller.

Images courtesy The Museum of Modern Art.

October 5, 2020

Bochner Boetti Fontana at Magazzino Italian Art, October 2, 2020 – January 11, 2021

“Magazzino Italian Art opens a special exhibition examining the formal, conceptual, and procedural affinities in the work of Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, and Lucio Fontana. Curated by Bochner in collaboration with Magazzino, the exhibition marks the first presentation to consider the American artist’s extensive, yet overlooked, engagement with the practices of Fontana and Boetti, as well as with Italian art at large. Bochner Boetti Fontana offers, through the artist’s perspective, a number of resonances between his work and that of the Italian and Italian-Argentine artists: an exploration of systems, language, and materials; and a sense of irony and humor, often and especially shared by Arte Povera and Conceptualism, as all these works opened the work of art onto the space of display. The exhibition also traces parallels between the artistic movements that developed on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1960s and 1970s: Spatialism and Arte Povera in Italy, and Process and Conceptual Art in the United States.” — Magazzino Italian Art

Installation views of Bochner Boetti Fontana at Magazzino Italian Art (October 2 – January 11, 2020). Photos by Alexa Hoyer. Courtesy of Magazzino Italian Art Foundation.

“We are incredibly honored to be working with Mel Bochner to curate this special exhibition that explores key tenets of his practice in tandem with those of Alighiero Boetti and Lucio Fontana,” said Magazzino Director Vittorio Calabrese. “The exhibition marks the first time that an American artist will be shown in our galleries and speaks to the central theme of our 2020 season, which reveals the international resonances of postwar and contemporary Italian art within a broader global perspective.”