Right now, there is a billboard overlooking Johannesburg’s M1 highway bearing an instruction: “WEIGH ALL TEARS”. Another one, on the M2, reads “BREATHE”.
These two messages are arguably bossier than most billboard adverts, but they feel impossible to obey. We cannot feasibly measure the mass of human sorrow. And the pandemic is relentlessly choking our prior hopes and certainties, if it isn’t choking our lungs.
This year, Kentridge debuted City Deep, the 11th film in the artist’s “Drawings for Projection” series, which began some 30 years ago. Rooted in his labor-intensive animation process of charcoal drawing, erasure, and redrawing, the film is the first in the series in over a decade, and recently debuted in “City Deep” at Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg (through November 12), alongside recent drawings and sculptures.
Read MoreGWANGJU - A dingy building that once served as the Armed Forces’ Gwangju Hospital had remained closed for years. It had treated the people of Gwangju wounded during the May 18 Democratization Movement in the city, but at the same time was also covertly used to conduct investigations and torture those involved in the movement.
The abandoned location is now open to the public as part of the special exhibition “MaytoDay,” commemorating the 40th anniversary of the May Democratic Uprising, organized by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. The works by Japanese installation artist Chiharu Shiota, British installation artist Mike Nelson and Algerian French installation artist Kader Attia bring back memories of the pains and sacrifices.
The Deichtorhallen Museum in Hamburg is now showing one of the biggest Kentridge retrospectives ever, titled "Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawing to Work." Following a successful run at the Zeitz-MOCAA Museum in Cape Town last year, the exhibition brings hundreds of Kentridge's works to Germany, many of which will be seen in the country for the first time, recounting the career of one of the world's most prolific contemporary artists.
Read MoreArt At A Time Like This and Save Art Space have launched an open-air exhibition titled “Ministry of Truth: 1984/2020” across the five boroughs of New York City. The public presentation, curated by Barbara Pollack and Anne Verhallen, features billboards designed by 20 artists in response to the current U.S. political state. Participating artists include Shirin Neshat, Marilyn Minter, Abigail Deville, Dread Scott, Mel Chin, as well as emerging artists such as Ruj Greigam, Lola Flash and V.L. Cox.
Read MoreFor all but the very top one percent of art lovers, collecting a great work by a top artist can seem impossible. Along with the issue of scarcity, works by high-demand artists are often astronomically expensive and far out of reach for most collectors. But there is still a way to collect works by these impossible-to-collect artists.
Read MoreWhen you are an artist as in demand as William Kentridge, an international lockdown is a bittersweet scenario. Normally busy travelling and working on numerous projects, the coronavirus pandemic has meant that the South African artist has been able to spend eight months undisturbed at home. "I haven't had this amount of studio time for probably 40 years and it has been very rich," he says.
Read MoreOn a recent afternoon, the artists Dread Scott, Catherine Opie and Shirin Neshat, as well as T contributor Nikil Saval and Whitney Museum of American Art assistant curator Rujeko Hockley, joined me on Zoom for a conversation about protest art. I had asked each to nominate five to seven works of what they considered the most powerful or influential American protest art (that is, by an American artist or by an artist who has lived or exhibited their work in America) made anytime after World War II. We focused specifically on visual art — not songs or books — and the hope was that together, we would assemble a list of the top 25. But the question of what, precisely, constitutes protest art is a thorny one — and we kept tripping over it. Is it a slogan? A poster? Does it matter if it was in a museum, in a newspaper or out on the street? Does impact matter? Did it change what you think or believe? Must it endure? What does that mean? And what is the difference, anyway, between protest art and art that is merely political?
Read MoreThe fall art season has officially arrived at Guild Hall, which is presenting three topical visual arts events in the coming days. A recorded talk with Shirin Neshat about her latest video and film project will be streamed on Sunday. An installation by Rosario Varela will open tomorrow, and a virtual talk with Renee Cox and Sanford Biggers will take place on Tuesday.
Read MoreCountries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), specifically Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext to continue pre-existing patterns of suppressing the right to freedom of expression in 2020, said Amnesty International today in a detailed statement.
A utopian vision by renowned Mattituck artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov graced the wall of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill on Saturday, Sept. 12.
From 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., the museum presented “How to Meet an Angel,” a one-minute looped animation.
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