Hans Ulrich Obrist’s 2014 book, breezing through his career, curatorial influences and cultural mentors, is dedicated to David Weiss, one half of the famous Swiss duo Fischli and Weiss. The two artists crop up in Obrist’s account frequently, as does Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster or Christian Boltanski, architect Rem Koolhaas, philosopher Edouard Glissant and his personal art-historical …
The just finished exhibition at DRAF, London hinged on a contradiction for me – its works, centred on the theme of flesh, treated it as shifting, porous, if not ephemeral but at the same time, the display was stubbornly tangible, rejecting the ghostliness of a post-digital human. No video or film installations were to be …
I have been to The Infinite Mix twice in the past two months and each time I spent weeks raving about it to colleagues and friends. One of them, upon hearing that it consisted of video installations, instantly shook his head in disapproval- he explained that video art alienated him, that the works were usually …
THAT WAS THEN THIS IS NOW reads Ed Ruscha’s 2014 lithograph print. Decades of other statements and terse phrases preceded it: HOLLYWOOD IS A VERB. I DONT WANT NO RETRO SPECTIVE. COLD BEER BEAUTIFUL GIRLS. HURRY UP SCHEDULE. VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE. Authoring such pieces must be fun- the process usually entails snatching overheard conversations or …
The photogram film and garden plants make for an uncommon but richly allusive pairing in Cathy Rogers' Light Touch exhibition at Pie Factory in Margate (open until 1st November). The delicate contact in the show's title can be found in works scattered around four rooms of the former pork butcher's, making the place resonate with …
Clarissa Beveridge and Camilla Bliss are two out of six artists selected by Threads for their DYI exhibition at The Brewery Tap in Folkestone. Focusing on the notions of process, fluid arrangement and short-lived, particular moments, the exhibition reflected pertinent themes in the contemporary art discourse. The curatorial team has also organised a panel discussion …
French photographer and member of Magnum Agency, Marc Riboud, died on 30th August 2016. He travelled extensively and captured many armed conflicts in the East, always achieving photography that was totally fused with the moment. Often witty and constantly aesthetically minded, Riboud produced a body of work that resonates with me every time I look …
24th February 2015, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Conducted as part of research for my dissertation thesis in Bourriaud's office which he liberally filed with cigar smoke. MK: I first wanted to talk to you about the goals of relational aesthetics, in particular how to understand them in terms of applicability. On some occasions, you speak …
Exactly 45 years ago today, the celebrated priestess of 1960s black and white photography, Diane Arbus, 'wrote the world 'Last Supper' in her diary. She placed the appointment book on the stairs leading to the bathroom. She swallowed a large dose of barbiturates and,still in her clothes, laid down inside the tub. Then, with great …
Dutch conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader (1942-75) produced/performed a slender volume of works before his tragic, inexplicable disappearance at sea. The action documented above is titled 'On the way to a new neoplasticism, Westkapelle, Holland' (1971) and shows the artist building an abstract composition in Mondrian-esque colour palette and hard-lined shape with his own body. Jan …
Continue reading "Art Piece From Around Town: Simon Lee Gallery"
Francis Alÿs could be the 21st century conceptual Peter Bruegel, at least if he would be measured against the Renaissance painter’s profile as it appears half way through Jem Cohen’s ‘Museum Hours’ (2008). In one scene, a museum guest lecturer discusses the Dutch painter with a small audience, highlighting his ‘respect for everyday scenes, ‘games, …
Etel Adnan's show is important, centrally located and so visually rich that it elevates the exhibition straight into the top ten cultural highlights around the city: tapestries, paintings, ceramics, folded watercolours, books of poetry and a meditative film in one of my favourite exhibition spaces. After the recent success of the works by Hilma af Klint, …
Continue reading "Art Piece From Around Town- Serpentine Gallery"
The uniquely inspired Iranian cinematographer, whose films seeped existential enquiry, sensitivity and humanity, died on Monday 4th July 2016 at the age of 76. His legacy comprises 'The Close-Up' (1990), the award-wining 'Taste of Cherry' (1997), poetry and photographs of wobbly raindrops shielding his many travelled roads.
This short piece was written for an exhibition catalogue on the occasion of Festival of Projections in Canterbury in March 2016. ‘The Image of the Road’ is the second collaborative video work by Helen Kirwan and Simon Pruciak which traces their 17,000 km journey along the E40, a grand transnational highway between Calais in France …
Ruth McDonald's prints were recently displayed in the Front Room at the Beaney in Canterbury and stood out by their colour tonality and evocative landscape. The artist seems to have a relationship to nature à la Impressionism, spending hours on site and noting the changes, often visiting at different times of the day and night. 'It seems …
The current exhibition 'Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979' (until 29 August 2016) at Tate Britain features a sculptural work by Ed Herring titled 'Proposition' (1970). It comprises of a filing cabinet and 400 postcards, each one of which was for some time kept by participants and then collected by the artist. Herring said: 'The whole idea of the activity …
6.Marc Sommer (Esther Woerdehoff Gallery) When socially-oriented photography gets too much, Marc Sommer's absurd juxtapositions refresh like a glass of cold water on a hot day. The Strasbourg-based, self-taught photographer infuses his images with dark or ironic humour and builds up a scene on paradoxes and tricks. Especially compelling is the quiet, contemplative character of the …
The second iteration of Photo London (19-22 May 2016) boasted more than eighty galleries from the art capitals (New York, London, Paris, Berlin) but also from cities further afield -Madrid, Sydney, Moscow or Argentina. Big players exhibited next to the smaller ones, gallerists next to publishers, which ensured that the event remained abuzz throughout the whole of …
*entry for this year's Burlington Magazine Contemporary Art Writing Prize Postmodernism has come to carry a range of connotations, chief among them the notions of disorder, destabilisation and difference. Whether we feel saturated by this complex discourse by now or are still returning to its core problems, its undermining of linear and conclusive narratives …
*This is a variation on an article I wrote for Questa Non Arte, to be found here: https://questanonearte.com/2016/04/26/quarrelling-with-the-world-marusa-sagadin/ Having never been to Hackney neighbourhood in London before, it took me a good while to find my way to the Space Gallery where I intended to see Maruša Sagadin’s first UK exhibition. Uncertain about the direction I …
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