Yana Bystrova: VICA, 25 October through 6 December, at Gallery Russkiy Mir
The title of this show of plein-air paintings is the French version of ‘VUCA,’ a US military acronym for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity—the base condition categories under which people, organisations and, apparently, even societies, make decisions. Here it describes the daily battles the artist underwent during the painting of these open-air studies, created last summer in the French countryside, when tensions between the Ukraine, where Bystrova was born, and Russia, where she trained as a painter, were at their peak. Each work contains conflicts that spill well beyond those between abstraction and representation.
Mark Lewis: Invention au Louvre, through January 5, 2015, at the Musée du Louvre
Canadian film artist Mark Lewis takes us on a silent and vertiginous tour of the Louvre that in several fell swoops of his camera reinvigorates our love for painting, cinema, and museum-going. Part of a three-part cinematic work—the other parts are set in São Paolo and Toronto and will be presented together in a feature-length film—this sequence, four films, the longest 24 minutes, presents a viewing of the Louvre at once familiar and uncanny: the camera wanders past Davids and Titians (with just the shortest, cheekiest glimpse of the Mona Lisa), zooms in on details, then pans out across the tourists, before digitally spinning off up the wall and pulling in tight on frescoes on the ceiling. Not to be missed.
Meiro Koizumi: Theory on the Desk, through 11th January 2015, at Kadist Art Foundation
ArtReview first encountered this young Japanese artist in Kiev in 2013, where he was one of the strongest finalists for that year’s Pinchuk Prize. This was followed by a second sighting at a group show at MoMA in 2014. Now comes his first solo show in France, the culmination of a three-month residency at the Kadist Art Foundation in Montmartre. In videos, installations and performance, the artist explores, through a specifically Japanese prism, representations of memory, war, tradition, pride, nationalism, sacrifice, survival and guilt.
Uli Gassmann: My School, undisclosed location in Ivry-Sur-Seine
Born in East Germany in 1947, Uli Gassman’s earliest playgrounds were bombed-out buildings. Today he works, as architect, stage designer, photographer, sculptor and painter, in an extravagant assemblage of art-grounds around the world, including a wooded property outside of San Francisco, a bunker on the Maginot Line in northern France, and the only private property in Berlin with a still standing chunk of the Wall. Perhaps his most ambitious art-space is a giant warehouse just outside of Paris, which houses My School, the world’s biggest ready-made—a 30-year work-in-progress. The city wants to develop the area and force him, and many other artists out, but Gassmann won’t budge a single bolt without a fight. For a private tour, contact myschool.gassmann@gmail.com
Frank Gehry: 24 October through 16 March 2015, at the Fondation Louis Vuitton
The first show in the Fondation’s new building in the Bois de Boulogne is a showcase of Frank Gehry’s design for the 11,700 sqm cloud of glass, but other items on offer include an ambitious live programme of choreography, poetry, music and sonic sculpture, including works and performances by Tarek Atoui, Lang Lang, Oliver Beer, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Florian Hecker, Kraftwerk and Noé Soulier. Among the new additions to Bernard Arnault’s massive collection on view in the 11 galleries are special commissions by Ellsworth Kelly, Olafur Eliasson, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Sarah Morris, Taryn Simon, Cerith Wyn Evans and Adrian Villar Rojas.
Online exclusive published 22 October 2014
