Gallery News
Hank Willis Thomas on group show at Duke University
Hank Willis Thomas’ work features on the latest group exhibition, People Get Ready: Building a Contemporary Collection, hosted by the Nasher Museum at Duke University in North Carolina (1 September – 6 January). Since opening in 2005, the Nasher Museum has been dedicated to building a groundbreaking collection of contemporary art. The museum’s collecting strategy emphasises works by diverse artists who have been historically underrepresented, or even excluded, by mainstream arts institutions, and maintains a particular focus on artists of African descent. Drawing primarily on the collection built over the last 12 years, People Get Ready includes works dating from 1970 to 2018 that engage issues ranging from cultural identity to social justice and environmentalism.
Yinka Shonibare, Kudzanai Chiurai and Sam Nhlengethwa on group exhibition in Michigan, USA
The University of Michigan Museum of Art’s exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa reflects on the globalised world by considering how Africa and its artists have been at the centre of complex histories of encounter and exchange for centuries (11 August – 25 November). Bringing together works made in Africa, Europe, and the United States from the nineteenth to twenty-first century, the exhibition demonstrates the international scope and reach of art from Africa and its diaspora. Highlights include paintings, photographs, sculpture, and installations by artists including Kudzanai Chiurai, Yinka Shonibare, MBE and Sam Nhlengethwa.
Tabita Rezaire on group show at Kunsthalle Mainz in Germany
Tabita Rezaire has been included on Virtual Insanity (3 August – 18 November), a major international group exhibition held at Kunsthalle Mainz in Germany, which examines the extension of reality and its shadowy underbelly. The artists included on Virtual Insanity address this subject by creating documents, writing reports and narratives, and developing scenarios. What unites the work on the exhibition is the unique approach each artist takes to the technical innovations and lifestyles brought about by the digital revolution.
Congratulations to Carla Busuttil on being shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize
Carla Busuttil is one of 60 artists to be nominated from 2,700 applicants for the 2018 John Moores Painting Prize – one of the highest accolades awarded to painters in the United Kingdom. As part of being nominated, Busuttil’s work, Trophy of a Dull Man, will be shown at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (14 July – 18 November) as part of the Liverpool Biennial.
Candice Breitz and Hank Willis Thomas on major exhibition celebrating ‘the king of pop’ in London
Work by Breitz and Thomas feature on the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition, Michael Jackson: On the Wall, commemorating the contribution of Michael Jackson to popular and contemporary visual culture (28 June – 21 October). Taking an interesting angle on celebrating the life of Jackson, the exhibition explores how the singer inspired some of the leading names in contemporary art. Curated by Dr Nicholas Cullinan, this major new exhibition spans several generations of artists who each work across a diverse range of media. The exhibition is scheduled to travel to multiple art institutions including The Grand Palais and Espoo Museum of Modern Art, but opens at the National Portrait Gallery to coincide with what would have been Jackson’s 60th birthday.
Hank Willis Thomas on major group show at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo
Work by Thomas features on a major group exhibition, Histórias Afro-Atlânticas, hosted by the Museu de Arte de São Paulo – organised in association with Instituto Tomie Ohtake – in Brazil (28 June – 21 October). The exhibition gathers a wide array of artworks and documents related to the ‘flows and re-flows’ between Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe. In showcasing a wide assortment of media, Histórias Afro-Atlânticas weaves and juxtaposes images from the sixteenth to twenty-first centuries in order to present a variety of topics including portraiture, religious symbolism, activism and academic engagement from these four regions of the globe.
mounir fatmi holds a solo exhibition at CDAN, Spain
For his solo exhibition The Day of Awakening at CDAN in Spain, mounir fatmi explores the relationship between landscape, history and colonialism (28 June – 7 October). The exhibition presents twenty works made by fatmi between 2002 – 2016, which examine the foundations of history and social nature through drawing, photography, sculpture and video.
Samson Kambalu and Kiluanji Kia Henda on group exhibition at MAXXI Museum
African Metropolis is a major exhibition at MAXXI Museum that reflects on the ongoing social and cultural transformations impacting art on the African continent (22 June – 4 November). Curated by Simon Njami and Elana Motisi, the exhibition features 34 celebrated and emerging African artists, including Samson Kambalu and Kiluanji Kia Henda. As its title suggests, African Metropolis brings together work focused on urban space as a location for diverse experiences that create dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity.
First French solo exhibition for Ghada Amer since 2000
The Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré – in Tours, France – hosts a solo exhibition for Ghada Amer, titled Dark Continent (2 June – 4 November); Amer’s first solo museum exhibition in France since 2000 and features a selection of paintings, sculptural works and two outdoor garden installations in its presentation. The title of the exhibition, curated by Elodie Stroecken, is a reference to The Question of Lay Analysis by Sigmund Freud, a text in which he wrote that ‘[t]he sexual life of adult women is a dark continent for psychology’.
Shirin Neshat and Yinka Shonibare MBE at MAXXI in Rome
Neshat’s Illusions and Mirrors video work, from the Dreamers trilogy, and The Invisible Man by Shonibare MBE are featured as part of MAXXI’s group exhibition, Eco e Narciso. Portrait and self-portrait from the MAXXI and Le Gallerie Barberini Corsini Collections (18 May – 28 October). With 37 works by 25 artists from the Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini and MAXXI collections, the exhibition creates a dialogue between the work of old Masters and contemporary artists on the theme of the portrait and the self-portrait.
William Kentridge and Hank Willis Thomas on group exhibition looking at tapestries
Works by William Kentridge (in collaboration with Margueritte Stephens) and Hank Willis Thomas are included on the Boca Raton Museum of Art’s current group exhibition, titled Nomadic Murals: Contemporary Tapestries (24 April – 21 October). In looking at how artists today have increasingly incorporated tapestry into their respective oeuvres, no matter the medium for which they are known, the exhibition charts the history of the tapestry as a work of art. From Reubens to Picasso, the tapestry has played a significant and important role in the development of fine art. The exhibition’s title is borrowed from from an essay about tapestry by the modernist architect Le Corbusier.
William Kentridge and Gerald Machona on exhibition celebrating the Friends of the Iziko South African National Gallery
To celebrate a fifty-year relationship and partnership with the Friends of the Iziko South African National Gallery, the Iziko Museums of South Africa hosts a group exhibition titled Friends50, which features works by William Kentridge and Gerald Machona, to mark the occasion (15 April – 4 November). The Friends of Iziko SA National Gallery, a not-for-profit membership-based organisation, has supported the institution in its role as South Africa’s premier public national art museum, through full or partial funding of acquisitions, as well as a variety of educational and conservation initiatives since 1968.
Kudzanai Chiurai and Yinka Shonibare MBE are included on 21c Museum Hotel’s latest group exhibition in Louisville, Kentucky
Kudzanai Chiurai and Yinka Shonibare MBE feature on 21c Museum Hotel’s new group exhibition, Dress Up, Speak Up: Costume and Confrontation, in Louisville (1 April – 31 March). The exhibition explores the role that costume plays in constructing one’s identity and confronting history. With over 35 participating artists from 22 countries, Dress Up, Speak Up offers a global investigation into such concepts, whilst reconfiguring, reimagining, and reconstituting history in order to examine the legacy and effects of European colonialism.
Tracey Rose on a group show in San Antonio, Texas
Work by Tracey Rose is featured on the Linda Pace Foundation’s group exhibition, Reclaimed, showcasing 25 monochromatic works by some of the most influential contemporary female artists working today (9 March – 26 January). As its title implies, the exhibition addresses the concept of ownership – both literally and figuratively – and the notion of “reclaiming” what belongs to a person and their communities, from their lands and governments to their physical bodies and basic human rights. Drawn from the Foundation’s collection, the exhibition serves as a departure from the institution’s typical spotlight on experimental and new media works, and provides insight into the depth and variedness of its permanent collection.
Sue Williamson work included in the Birmingham Museum of Art’s permanent exhibition of contemporary art
Sue Williamson’s Mementoes of District Six forms part of the latest installment of the Birmingham Museum of Art’s permanent exhibition, Third Space /shifting conversations about contemporary art, the museum’s first large exhibition of contemporary art from its own collection (until 6 January). Mementoes of District Six is an immersive installation that humanises the destruction of an entire area in South Africa during Apartheid. Within the context of the exhibition, the work highlights similarities between post-apartheid conditions and the result of segregation in the American South.
Oltmann, Nhlengethwa and Thomas feature on a group exhibition at 21c Museum Hotels
Work by Walter Oltmann, Sam Nhlengethwa (in collaboration with Marguerite Stephens) and Hank Willis Thomas feature on the 21c Museum Hotel’s group exhibition, SEEING NOW, in Nashville, USA (1 February – 31 December). The exhibition, curated by Alice Gray Stites, aims to explore and reveal the visible and hidden forces shaping what the contemporary world looks like.