Summer 2015
In this issue: Geta Brătescu, Akram Zaatari, Doug Aitken, Lutz Bacher, Now Wash Your Hands: a short history of dirt and germs in contemporary art; Fashion and Feminism and more…
In Art Previewed
Ten Summer exhibitions you won’t want to miss, in Chicago, Moss, New York, Hydra, Athens, London, Paris and São Paulo, by Martin Herbert:
Charles Ray, Art Institute of Chicago
Momentum 8, various venues, Moss
Olaf Breuning, Metro Pictures, New York
Paul Chan, Deste Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra
Terrapolis, Neon, Athens (at the French School)
Max Mara Art Prize for Women: Corin Sworn, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Alex Israel, Almine Rech, Paris
Will Benedict, Bortolami, New York
Carlos Bevilacqua, Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo
Mona Hatoum, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Points of View – our writers on what’s happening in the artworld and beyond:
Maria Lind on male melancholia and maximising the minimal, in Venice and Hong Kong; J.J. Charlesworth on the end of human experience; Laura McLean-Ferris on whether comedy can be a form of art; Lucas Ospina on curating and public relations, in 33 theses; Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung on postcolonial legacies at the Belgian Pavilion in Venice; Laura Oldfield Ford on a walk around the North Circular road, triggering memories of London’s past; Jonathan Grossmlaerman on getting things done; and Daniel Elsea on Guangzhou off-space Mirrored Gardens.
Great Critics and Their Ideas: Mehmet II, the Great Conqueror, on the Venice Biennale, interviewed by Matthew Collings
In Art Featured
Geta Bratescu
For over six decades the Romanian artist has produced work, often under testing conditions, that is by turns humble, playful and heroic, but always human. By Helen Sumpter
Now Wash Your Hands
When does cleanliness become sterility, and hygiene inhumanity? A short history of dirt and germs in contemporary art. By Chris Fite-Wassilak
Akram Zaatari
What is a photograph and how does it affect the way we read history? Through his art and archiving activity, the Lebanese artist uses media to make sense of our present circumstances. By Oliver Basciano
Doug Aitken
Exploring definitions of humanity, community and the exhibition, the American artist arrives for a Summer in Europe, with a survey show at Frankfurt’s Schirn Kunsthalle and Station to Station, a 30-day ‘happening’ at London’s Barbican Centre. By Andrew Berardini
Lutz Bacher
Probing the politics of gender through decades of shape-shifting and self-effacement, the American artist has always been hiding in plain view. By Martin Herbert
Fashion / Feminism
The urge to make women look pleasing and the urge to break them out of the habit of pleasing – just two of the seemingly irreconcilable driving forces of, respectively, fashion and feminism. And yet feminism is fashionable. So is feminism still feminism when it is sexed up? By Clara Young
In Art Reviewed
Reviews from around the world
PULP Festival, at la Ferme du Buisson, Paris
Artists and Poets, at Secession, Vienna
Pierre Bismuth, at Jan Mot, Brussels
For Real, at Kamel Mennour, Paris
The Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s, at Hamburger Kunsthalle
Yngve Holen, at Galerie Neu, Berlin
Sequences VII, at various venues, Reyjavík
Martial Raysse, Palazzo Grassi, Venice
Intelligent Machinery, at Farmleigh Gallery, Dublin
Sergei Tcherepnin, at Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw
Ali Emir Tapan, at Galerist, Istanbul
Rupert Ackroyd, at Marsden Woo Gallery, London
The Symptom of Art, at Cabinet, London
Five Issues of Studio International, at Raven Row, London
David Douard, at Union Pacific, London
Adam Pendleton, at Pace, London
Kapwani Kiwanga, at South London Gallery
Maud Sulter, at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow
Doris Salcedo, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Mark Ruwedel, at Gallery Luisotti, Santa Monica
Luis Roldán, at Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York
Elizabeth Orr, at Bodega, New York
Hank Willis Thomas, at Jack Shaimman Gallery, New York
Brian Maguire, at Fergus McCaffrey, New York
Josephine Pryde, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco
Francis Alÿs, at Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City
Cao Guimarães, at Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo
Kyle Morland, at Blank Projects, Cape Town
Books
Hollywood Action Films and Spatial Theory, by Nick Jones
Art Workers: Material Conditions and Labour Struggles in Contemporary Art Practice, edited by Erik Krikortz, Airi Triisberg and Minna Henriksson
Headless: A Novel, by K.D.
Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Games and Art, by John Sharp
The Strip: A new work from Woodrow Phoenix, introduced by Paul Gravett
Off the Record: Gallery Girl – against Art Basel