Barcelona Art Guide - June

The top Gallery and Museum shows that you don't want to miss this Spring if you are visiting Barcelona.

I.
Exhibition title: Retrospective
Artist: Duane Michals
Venue: Casa Garriga i Nogués│Fundació Mapfre
Dates: Until 10 September 2017


The retrospective exhibition dedicated to the work of the US photographer, Duane Michals runs until 10 September. The itinerary of the exhibition is distributed in successive stages, that show the different, gradually invented ways of expression of the photographer, along with the varying series made on specific subjects over time.

II.
Exhibition title: WS & CSSC, Drawings and Paintings
Artist: Paul McCarthy
Venue: Fundació Gaspar
Dates: Until 16 July 2017

InWS & CSSC, Painting and Drawings, McCarthy presents his paintings and drawings exploring his two main in-progress projects within his multidisciplinary practice: White Snow and Stagecoach. Within these works, McCarthy masterfully mixes the history of painting with contemporary motifs in dramatic scenes that expose latent desire and exploit the uncomfortable space where childhood innocence meets adult knowledge.

III.
Exhibition title: International Airport
Artist: Group show including José Benítez, Andrew Bush, César Delgado, Evol, Gerard Fernández Rico, Pablo Genovés, Joy, Mark Laita, Mr. Brainwash, Gerard Mas, Alejandro Monge, Erwin Olaf, Lluis Roig, Samuel Salcedo, Ramon Surinyac, Loes Van Delft.
Venue: Galeria 3 Punts
Dates: until 10 July 2017


INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT is a group exhibition made of a selection of paintings and sculptures by young mid-career living artists with an international reputation and projection. The confluence of a diversity of visual languages constitutes a globalized and updated version of our culture, a melting pot enriched and nourished by exchange, collaboration and inherent human curiosity. 

Vienna Art Guide - June

Mumok, Josephinum, Belvedere/Winterpalais: Jakob Lena Knebl rethinks the collection of modernist and contemporary art, a spacial sound installation by Samuel Schaab at one of Viennas most interesting hidden museums and an international fashion statement at the Winterpalais.


I.
Exhibition title: Vulgär?  Fashion Redifined
Artists: Manolo Blahnik, Chritian Dior, Karl Lagerfeld, Vivienne Westwood etc.
Venue:  Belvedere / Winterpalais
Dates: Until June 25, 2017


The Winterpalais is a wonderful Baroque jewel in Vienna´s city centre. It was originally built as a lavish stately residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy. This exhibition is curated by Judith Clark. Organised by Barbican, London.

Picture: Christan Wind © Belvedere, Vienna

II.
Exhibition title: Lonely Old Slogans
Artist: Jakob Lena Knebl
Venue: Mumok
Dates: Until October 22, 2017


Mumok is Vienna's Museum of Modern Art – located in the Museums District. The exhibition is designed by Jakob Lena Knebl – it is a new arrangement of the mumok collection of modernist and contemporary art. Knebl combined her selection with new own works. Curated by Barbara Rüdiger and Susanne Neuburger.

Picture: © Itai Margula

III.
Exhibition title: Artificial Hearts – The Bridge to Survival
Artists Judith Fegerl, Peter Garmusch, Stephanie Pflaum, Samuel Schab, Anna Witt
Venue: Josephinum
Dates: Until October 17, 2017


External Curator and Museology Consultant Moritz Stipsicz redesigned the collections of the Medical University and curates group shows  and permanent intervantions with contemporary artist. The exhibiton reflects Vienna´s artificial heart programme and combines this theme with five artist statements: science meets fine art. Curated by: Klaus Wassermann and Moritz Stipsitz.

Picture: © Itai Margula

Jerusalem Art Guide - June

Jerusalem is heating up this time of the year, lucky for us, there are some really exciting art exhibitions to draw us into the delightfully air conditioned galleries. From an epic Ai WeiWei exhibit to reinventing venerable design concepts, to questioning our contemporary social culture - here is a list of recommendations that will keep you cultured and busy during your stay in Jerusalem! 
 
I.
Exhibition title: Maybe, Maybe Not
Artist/s: Ai WeiWei
Venue: The Israel Museum 
Dates: Until 20 October, 2017

Ai Wei Wei is an internationally renowned multimedia artist known for his powerful installations and exhibitions that are politically charged with the brave artist’s voice. Wei Wei’s works often result in dramatic exhibitions, and this highly anticipated one at The Israel Museum (Wei Wei’s first time exhibiting in Israel!) is no exception. “Maybe, Maybe Not” takes up almost the entire third floor of the Israel Museum and criticises human condition, begging the world to respond to the world’s injustices.

Exhibition view photo by Eli Posner

II.
Exhibition title: Repositioning
Artist/s: Various Artists
Venue: The Museum for Islamic Art
Dates: Until 30 November, 2017


Twelve artists were asked to choose an object from the permanent collection of The Museum for Islamic art and reinterpret for this stunning group exhibition. Featuring works from the plastic arts, design and video - each artists’ interpretation questions the value of each object and its importance - whether it is inherent, and whether its value changes once the artists fills it with his or her own interpretation and meaning. 

Remy Tarif, "Significant Other" Photoby: Shay Son Ephraim

III.
Exhibition title: Shared Taxi
Artist/s: Malki Tesler
Venue: Barbur Gallery 
Dates: Until 16 June, 2017


Tesler is a Tel Aviv based artist who works primarily with painting and video works. Although her exhibition will only be up for the first two weeks in June, I highly recommend having the chance to view the artist’s bold and comic approach. Tesler questions social boundaries and human condition vis-a-vis her childish introverted illustrations along with successfully crass videos where you view the artist interacting with the public in order to draw attention to mundane social situations. 

Video still by Malki Tesler


HEADER IMAGE: View of “Maybe, Maybe Not” at The Israel Museum, photo by Elie Posner . 
 

London Art Guide - June

June is the last push for most art professionals, we have been running around everywhere and we cannot wait for our summer holiday! Here are three exhibition choices to gain energy from. 

I.
Exhibition: Focusing Room
Artists: Adolf Luther, Alberto Biasi, Heinz Mack, Christian Megert, Nicolas Schoffer, Peter Sedgley, Nanda Vigo
Venue: Art Circle 48 Albemarle Street London W1S4DH
Dates: 19 May - 9 June, 2017


It's a wonderful way to plunge into the art of the 1960s and 1970s. While we may all know Donal Judd, most of the artists in this show are still relatively unknown, which is a crime given how meaningful they are to this time. This whole generation of artists was fascinated by light and perception. The artists saw themselves as geeky researchers in the field of optics which we can tell while walking around all these optical and lighting illusions. 

II.
Exhibition: Juicy Bits
Artist: Tristan Pigott
Venue: Cob Gallery, 205 Royal College Street, London NW10SG
Dates: 8 June - 1 July, 2017


The kind of people that Tristan Pigott depicts are our real contemporaries. People who are attuned to the way that self-image is constantly chopped up, repackaged and beamed back at us through the wires and lenses of our modern culture. Go and see it, you will never hold your iPhone the same way again. 
 

III.
Exhibition: Procedures & Materials
Artists: Scarlett Bowman, Will Thomson, Alexandra Lethbridge, Leni Dothan and Jessica Thalmann
Venue: Online! https://collectionair.com/exhibitions/75-procedures-materials
Dates: Until 24 July, 2017


Not all exhibitions have to be experienced physically, we are, after all in a time of progress. Here is a great online exhibition by curator Ariane Belisle discussing processes and materials with a group of young artists. In the mid-1960s, process became a marked theme within the history of art. Rooted in the Dada movement and Abstract Expressionism, materials, procedures and facture began to take precedence over the final work. Eschewing the fabricated modular units of Minimalism, the artworks intentionally left exposed traces of their creation. Echoing the common refrain ‘it’s the journey, not the destination,’ Procedures & Materials follows in this tradition, investigating new processes in art.

- by Marine Tanguy

Zurich Art Guide - June

The international art world is soon to descend upon the city for Zürich Art Weekend (10 & 11 June), a precursor to Art Basel the following week (13–18 June), and Zürich’s galleries are preparing stellar shows to greet them. 

I. 
Exhibition title: For Evergreen
Artist: Thomas Flechtner
Galerie: Bildhalle
Dates: Until 24 June. 2017


My breath caught when I entered Bildhalle’s bright white lofty space, punctuated with large-scale colour photographs by Thomas Flechtner (b. 1961, Switzerland). Vibrant colours, seeping into lurid, alongside glimpses of nature felt just right to accompany summer’s arrival in the city. But any sense of purity soon receded - things were not quite what they seemed. 

Flechtner’s exhibition, For Evergreen, combines photographs from different series made over the last 10 years - Bulb, Germs, Leaves, Grasses and News. The obvious connection is nature, but these are predominantly artificial landscapes. When looking at Germs No. 8, for example, I imagined delicate shoots of grass growing from islands of red flesh floating on a bright blue lake. What was this place? I learnt that this landscape is wholly constructed - the artist had dipped cotton balls in red ink and placed them on a mirror reflecting the sky. Both confusing and compelling, Flechtner also plays with scale, further mystifying his works’ origins. In another piece, News, the artist cultivated seeds in his garden, and germinated the vegetation over 100 international newspapers, which he assiduously watered. Over time, the newspaper print faded and receded as nature took over. The straight photographs document an aesthetic and ideological dialogue between the green shoots and the news images and text below. 

The works continue to surprise, wherever Flechtner has intervened with the environment, creating tension between what is natural and man-made. 

Thomas Flechtner, News, 2010
© Thomas Flechtner, Courtesy of Bildhalle

II.
Exhibition title: Press ++
Artist: Thomas Ruff
Galerie: Mai 36
Dates: 9 June – 29 July, 2017


Since the late 1970s, having famously studied with Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1977 alongside Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer and Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff (b.1958, Germany) has been exploring the internal structures of the photographic medium and questioning the construction and meaning of an image. 

Press ++ includes photographic prints Ruff collected over many years - American and Japanese press photographs from the 1930s to 1970s, which span politics, society, science, technology and fashion. For this series, he scanned the front and backs of each found photograph and merged the two sides in a single image. The results include images of astronauts, airplanes, car crashes and film stars interrupted by pressroom scribbles, stamps, ink stains and pencil drawn crop guidelines. 

Looking at these pieces reminded me of my days working with Magnum Photos, poring over boxes of vintage press prints, where the backs with all their stamps, scribbles and fingerprints were often more intriguing than the images themselves. Observing Ruff’s works on this vast scale (224 x 185 cm), being able to inspect the rough notations, transports us back to the heyday of photojournalism, which holds special meaning in today’s digital age. However, the scale of the works takes them into a different realm from press prints – they have a formidable presence and a contemporary aesthetic. As with earlier series, Ruff makes us contemplate the authenticity and meaning of a single image. 

Thomas Ruff, Press ++32.64, 2016
© Thomas Ruff, Courtesy of Galerie Mai 36

III.
Exhibition title:  No title
Artist: Danny Lyon
Galerie: Edwynn Houk
Dates: 24 May – 29 July 2017


It’s difficult not to enter this exhibition with a great deal of expectation. Danny Lyon (b. 1942, USA) is such a cult figure, thanks to his seminal works from the 1960s on the Civil Rights Movement (“The Movement”, 1964) and the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club (“The Bikeriders”, 1968). 

Lyon is best known for creating a new style of documentary photography by embroiling himself in the lives of his subjects. He would get close, very close! Most notably, when he was only 23, he joined the Chicago Outlaws, a group maligned for living free of the conventional expectations of society. The resulting photographs, alongside his earlier work covering the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement, led to his association with the “New Journalism” of Hunter S Thomson and Truman Capote in the late 1960s / early 1970s. Even the intrepid Hunter S Thomson, however, wrote him a letter warning him against staying with the Chicago Outlaws: “Dear Danny, I think you should get the hell out of that club unless it’s absolutely necessary for photo action”. Lyon’s belief that documentary photography was a powerful instrument of truth seems somewhat old-fashioned and romantic today (think Ruff’s conceptualizing of the “truth” of an image), however his non-conformist attitude produced gritty and intimate imagery, which inspired generations of younger photographers.

Far from outdated, I found these images highly relatable at what feels like a moment of intensified political and racial tension globally. Arrest of Taylor Washington, Lebs Restaurant, Atlanta, 1963 (image below) is a salient image of a violent police clash with a young black student, which could just as easily have been taken today. In his Bikers photographs, such as Memorial Day Run, 1966 (image below), we can connect with their sheer defiance and sense of freedom. 

It is definitely worth following with a visit to the Fotomuseum in Winterthur, to see Danny Lyon: Message to the Future (until 27th August), which has toured from the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC) and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. 

Arrest of Taylor Washington, Lebs Restaurant, Atlanta, 1963
© Danny Lyon / Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery Zürich

Memorial Day Run, Milwaukee, 1966
© Danny Lyon / Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery Zürich


Header Image: Thomas Ruff, press++21.04, 2016
© Thomas Ruff, Courtesy of Galerie Mai 36

- by Diana Poole