Gallery News
Solo exhibition of work by David Goldblatt at the A4 Arts Foundation in Cape Town
Titled Picture Theory, the A4 Arts Foundation presents a solo exhibition of photographic work by David Goldblatt (opens 25 October). As an exhibition, Picture Theory deviates from the convention of presenting Goldblatt’s images within their original essays or bodies of work. Instead the project uncouples images from their chronological and contextual sources, seeking poetic connections that span decades and series.
Kudzanai Chiurai’s "Madness & Civilization" at Kalmar Konstmuseum in Sweden
Following its debut at Goodman Gallery Cape Town earlier this year, Kudzanai Chiurai’s solo exhibition Madness and Civilization travels to the Kalmar Konstmuseum in Sweden (20 October – 3 February). Including works in mixed material on paper, photography, film and installation and taking its name from Michel Foucault’s influential 1964 text, Madness and Civilization presents work typical of Chiurai’s method of returning to and rejecting the post-colonial national state and ‘colonial futures’ – a perception which urges Africans to think, speak and act as their colonisers.
William Kentridge and Shirin Neshat on Portuguese museum show about love
William Kentridge and Shirin Neshat are two of several artists, including Sophie Calle and Marlene Dumas, featured on the Museu Coleção Berardo’s latest group exhibition, titled Quel Amour!? (11 October – 10 February). The exhibition brings together several artists from different generations, countries, and cultures for whom ‘love’ has been a source of inspiration.
Alfredo Jaar on group shows at MET Breuer, Draiflessen Collection, and LagosPhoto
Alfredo Jaar’s Manhattan’s Milosevic is on view at the Met Breuer as part of Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy (until 6 January). The group exhibition explores the ‘hidden operations of power’ within Western democracies by presenting an alternate history of postwar and contemporary art that is also an archaeology of our troubled times. Jaar’s work also appears on across boundaries at the Draiflessen Collection (14 October – 27 January), a group exhibition which pairs various maps from history alongside artworks by contemporary international artists who ‘examine the cartographic depiction of space or the influence of maps on our view of the world.’ In addition, Jaar is featured on the 9th edition of the LagosPhoto Festival (27 October – 15 November). Titled Time Has Gone, this year’s festival explores how the past, present and the future interact within the medium of photography.
Retrospective exhibition for David Goldblatt at MCA Sydney
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia presents a major retrospective for David Goldblatt as part of the Sydney International Art Series (13 October – 3 March). Curated by MCA Chief Curator Rachel Kent in close collaboration with Goldblatt, the exhibition presents photographs spanning his six decade-career, as well as early vintage prints and never-before- exhibited material from a personal archive. The photographs encompass the darkness of Apartheid, the history of the country’s mining industry, the lives of the white middle class, forced segregation of black and Asian communities into townships under the Group Areas Act, as well as the stories of ex-offenders and their crimes, providing a ‘powerful reflection and insight into South Africa’s turbulent history.’
Shirin Neshat on museum group exhibition in Italy
Work by Shirin Neshat is included on the latest group exhibition, War is over? Arte e conflitti tra mito e contemporaneità, at the Museo d’Arte della città di Ravenna in Italy (6 October – 13 January). Curated by Angela Tecce and Maurizio Tarantino, the exhibition is organised and connected to the centenary of the conclusion of the First World War. Through showcasing works by historical Masters and contemporary artists alike, War is over? proposes a path that, through a series of artworks spanning two centuries, reflects on conflicts not purely historical but in a wider, artistic and poetic, personal and collective, aesthetic and ethics.
Tabita Rezaire included on ‘D’EST: A Multi-Curatorial Online Platform for Video Art
Tabita Rezaire’s Premium Connect has been included on D’EST, an online contemporary video art platform. D’EST launched in June and is introducing its content over six ‘chapters’. Rezaire’s work forms part of chapter #4 The Body as an Indexical Reader which aims to create a conversation around various social, philosophical and scientific implications of the body. The chapter is on at the Museum of Modern Art Moscow (MMOMA) on 6 October, and two days later will be available online, where they can be seen upon the free registration until December 2020.
Yinka Shonibare curates Art Council Collection exhibition
In association with the new Arts Council Collection, Yinka Shonibare MBE has curated a touring exhibition at Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester (21 September – 16 December). Titled Criminal Ornamentation, the exhibition features artists including Shonibare whose work ’explores the cultural and social dimensions of the use of pattern in modern and contemporary art’. The result is a collection of colourful, patterned artwork that challenge the notion that the presence of ornamentation in art should be considered bad taste.
Kapwani Kiwanga included in Centrefold Project and group show at Kunsthall in Belgium
Kapwani Kiwanga is one of a select few artists invited to contribute work to the limited edition 10th special issue of Centrefold Project titled upwards i looked. Centrefold is a collaborative publication held in major public institutions around the world, such as the Tate, Zabludowicz Collection, A Foundation, and Philip Aarons. Work by Kiwanga is also featured on Extra States: Nations in Liquidation, an exhibition held at Kunsthal Extra City which brings together artists whose works aim to critically address, recompose or bypass the traditional readings of the state (22 September – 16 December).
Kendell Geers on group shows at MOCA Toronto and White Box in New York
Kendell Geers’ neon sculpture, BELIEVE, features on the inaugural exhibition of the newly reopened MOCA Toronto (22 September – 6 January). Taking its title from the sculpture, the exhibition showcases 15 international artists whose work examine the beliefs & systems that inform our values, behaviour and the fundamental issues of our time. Concurrently at White Box gallery, Geers is on a group exhibition titled White Anxieties, which brings together work that looks at what haunts the conservative American psyche (21 September – 13 October). The exhibition features ‘depictions of an America that is less white, heterosexual, and male, where languages other than English are spoken, and where People of Colour can openly express their cultural traditions without accusations of not being ‘real Americans’.’
Candice Breitz's "TLDR" and "Sweat" on view in Germany
Candice Breitz: Sex Work at the Museum Frieder Burda in Berlin presents the artist’s TLDR and Sweat, video works which address the rampant gender-based violence faced by sex workers (21 September – 5 January). Shot shortly before #MeToo went mainstream in October 2017, the works resonate poignantly within this debate, re-focusing questions that are central to the movement. The exhibition features Breitz’s work in dialogue with pieces by American artist William N. Copley from the collection Frieder Burda. Both artists oppose the discrimination of sex workers, but from two different points of views: Copley’s depictions feature erotic and faceless nudes dominated by the male gaze, while Breitz gives these individuals back their voices.
Kentridge's "Thick Time" travels to the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester
William Kentridge’s touring exhibition Thick Time, travels to the United Kingdom and runs at the Whitworth Gallery at the University of Manchester (21 September – 3 March). This major touring exhibition focuses on the artist’s large-scale film installations including O Sentimental Machine and The Refusal of Time, an immersive work exploring the technology of time-keeping and string theory, created in dialogue with physicist Peter Galison. A display of new and recent tapestries, works on paper and artist books accompany the film projections, presented within an environment designed by Kentridge’s long-term collaborator Sabine Theunissen.
Candice Breitz on group exhibition in Switzerland
Candice Breitz’s Love Story forms part of the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen’s group exhibition, titled The Humans (15 September – 24 March). The exhibition explores how artists formulate their independent views of the world and how they immerse themselves in realities that are inaccessible to traditional media. In addition to the role of our consumption of digital media, the participating artists also shed light on questions about how we deal with people on the margins of society and our attitude toward global migrations.
Ghada Amer on group show at NYU Abu Dhabi
Glimpse into a New Painting by Ghada Amer features on Ways of Seeing, a group show at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery (3 September – 17 November). Taking its cue and title from John Berger’s 1972 groundbreaking BBC television series and respective critical book on visual culture, Ways of Seeing invites audiences to investigate the manifold ways artists imbue otherwise familiar forms and concepts with renewed appearances and meaning, creating in the words of Berger ‘[a] relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.’ In revisiting this seminal treatise, the exhibition raises not only the possibility for diverse viewpoints to co-exist, but also the necessity to safeguard art’s ability to confront us with various points of view.
Kiluanji Kia Henda on exhibition at NAE and the 12th Gwangju Biennial
Africa State of Mind at the New Art Exchange explores the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across Africa (28 September – 16 December). Featuring 16 artists from 11 different countries including Kiluanji Kia Henda, the exhibition interrogates various ideas of ‘Africanness’ through highly subjective renderings of life and identity on the continent, revealing Africa to be a ‘psychological space as much as a physical territory; a state of mind as much as a physical location’. Concurrently in Korea, Kia Henda’s 75 series and the short-film Concrete Affection-Zopo Lady are showing at the 12th Gwangju Biennial (7 September – 11 November). These works are included on the exhibition Imagined Borders, which aims to explore the political, cultural, physical and emotional concepts of borders in today’s global community.
Solo museum exhibition for William Kentridge in Australia
Highlighting the nexus of art, ideology, history and memory emanating from William Kentridge’s experiences of the apartheid regime in South Africa, the Art Gallery of New South Wales presents a museum show of the artist’s broad and diverse oeuvre (8 September – 3 February). Titled William Kentridge: That Which We Do Not Remember and curated by the artist, the exhibition encourages viewers to trace visual and thematic links between diverse aspects of Kentridge’s practice, from his engagement with opera to his interest in early cinema, from his inimitable animated drawings to sculpture and works on paper.
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.
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.