This week, a sculpture by Gerhard Richter, STRIP-TOWER, opened to the public. The installation is sited on the plinth at Serpentine South in Kensington Gardens. STRIP-TOWER represents Richter’s second installation at Serpentine (and will be on view through October 27).[...] Richter completed STRIP-TOWER specifically for Kensington Gardens. The structure is cruciform-shaped, indirectly recalling structures by Ludwig Hilberseimer from the 1920s, and other high-modern edifices.
Read MoreYoko Ono: "Music of the Mind" (until 1st September, at the Tate Modern), is the U.K.’s largest exhibition of the artist’s work and forms part of a trend, brewing since the late 1990s, of vindication of a woman long vilified as the witch-like destroyer of the Beatles. Peter Jackson’s 2021 docuseries, Get Back, coincided with this broader move questioning the ways that Asian women have been depicted. (The first Yoko Ono album I ever owned was a 2007 collection of her songs remixed and reimagined by young DJs.) Ono was the first female philosophy student at Tokyo’s Gakushuin University, then studied poetry and musical composition at Sarah Lawrence, after moving to New York in 1953. Years before the Fab Four debuted on Ed Sullivan, she was a leading figure in Manhattan’s burgeoning avant-garde art scene, with a debut exhibition in July 1961 at AG Gallery, run by seminal Fluxus artist George Maciunas and gallerist Almus Salcius.
Read More"I Live Under Your Sky Too" is a moving presentation of recent work by Shilpa Gupta (Mumbai, 1976) where voice and poetry fill the exhibition space reclaiming the existence of people who have been muted, isolated or relegated to the edges. As embodied by the animated LED light installation with the exhibition´s title phrase – written in English, Spanish and Urdu – this exhibition (presetend at Centro Botin, until September 8, 2024) stages a clear assertion of presence. Shilpa’s insistence on filling empty spaces with voices from diverse communities in a huge variety of languages is a natural consequence of her life in Mumbai, in an extraordinary multicultural and polyphonic environment, immersed in a sea of languages, religions, cultures and beliefs.
Read MoreAFTER DECADES OF creating subversive art and music, Yoko Ono will receive a lifetime achievement award. MacDowell, an organization that offers artists residencies, will honor the artist with its Edward MacDowell Medal at an event in Peterborough, New Hampshire, this summer. [...] “It’s an incredible honor that my mother, Yoko Ono, will be awarded the MacDowell Medal,” her son Sean Ono Lennon, who recently won an Oscar for an animated short about his parents, said in a statement. “The history and list of past recipients is truly remarkable. It makes me very proud to see her art appreciated and celebrated in this way.”
Read MoreYoko Ono stands out as a key figure in contemporary art, celebrated for her innovative and thought-provoking works that defy traditional artistic norms. Born in Japan and later relocating to the United States, Ono’s journey as a Japanese-American woman has profoundly influenced her art. Moreover her work transcends conventional boundaries, tackling social issues and inspiring contemporary artists to delve into the realms of transnationalism, social consciousness, and artistic originality. Yoko Ono’s enduring impact on the art world extends beyond her role as an artist. Encompassing her influence as a multicultural icon, activist, and advocate for artistic experimentation. Until now, people all over the world still regard Yoko Ono as one of the pioneering figures in the rise of the avant-garde art scene. Yoko Ono’s artwork continues to inspire and provoke thought, making her a significant presence in contemporary art. [...] The Yoko Ono exhibition has been open to all for viewing at the Tate Modern since February 15 and will run until September 1, 2024.
Read MoreThe PinchukArtCentre and the Victor Pinchuk Foundation present the exhibition entitled From Ukraine: Dare to Dream, as a Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition—the Venice Biennale. From Ukraine: Dare to Dream, when the world’s in constant fear, will be held at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac in Venice from April 20 until August 1, 2024, presenting the works of 22 artists and collectives, including Shilpa Gupta's works. Can we imagine tomorrow? Do we have the courage to dream? [...] Departing from Ukrainian lands and its history of forced migration, the exhibition sounds subdued voices that become songs of resistance and resilience. It addresses Earth’s ecological disasters while imagining a new utopia, where mythology merges into an alternative garden of Eden. Exhausted landscapes bear witness to human violence—from extractive economies to the harsh realities of war—while carrying seeds of a new beginning.
Read MoreOn Wednesday, April 10, photographers, artists, business leaders, philanthropists, fans andfriends of the International Center of Photography (ICP) gathered at The Shed for a sold out event to celebrate five pioneering women for their creativity, leadership and contributions to photography as an art and a discipline. ICP’s 40th Annual Infinity Awards, sponsored by HEARST and Kering, honored Lynsey Addario, Renell Medrano, Shirin Neshat, Wendy Red Star, and Caryl S. Englander–the first time ICP’s Infinity Awards has awarded five women for their achievements. [...] During the event, each awardee was accompanied by a short film, telling the powerful and often personal story of their journey in photography.
Read MoreFor this exhibition at Arsenale Institute for Politics of Representation in Venice, William Kentridge, renowned for his animated drawings for projection, as well as his sculpture, theatre and opera productions over the last forty years, collaborates with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, friend and author of the foundational monograph on his work published in 1998, to premiere his intriguing new nine-episode video series, SELF-PORTRAIT AS A COFFEE-POT. This exhibition of thirty-minute episodes by Kentridge, originally intended as a series for online viewing, is an experiment in embodiment and phenomenological experience in the digital age, and a reflection on what might happen in the brain and in the studio of an artist, today.
Read MoreA shadowy silhouette of a hunched figure shows a woman on the move. Set against a map of “Germanie” and its surrounding countries, Pylon Lady has two large transmission towers for legs. Considering how Germany propels its energy efficiency, or Energiewende, as a vehicle of foreign policy and cultural influence, it is clear that William Kentridge’s piece embodies, in more ways than one, the title of Potsdam museum DAS MINSK’s new exhibition: Soft Power. (16th March – 11th August 2024)
Read MoreShirin Neshat's exhibition "The Fury" is on show at Dirimart (Istanbul) from March 14 to April 7, 2024. Shirin Neshat's photographs and video installations explore the cultural issues of her native country Iran with a particular emphasis on the experience of women. Growing up in a westernized, upper middle-class family in Iran, Neshat left Iran to study art in Los Angeles in 1974, just before the Iran Islamic Revolution; she did not return until 1990. She began making art about the collision of western and eastern ideologies, which had profoundly impacted her and her family's lives. Neshat's work examines the physical, emotional, and cultural implications of veiled women in Iran with written words taken from religious texts.
Read MoreAs “Yoko Ono : Music of the Mind” (Tate Modern, until 21 September) makes clear, said history is long overdue for revision where Yoko is concerned. Her story is “more subtle, more interesting, and more nuanced than has ever really been allowed,” Sean—himself a musician—emphasizes in his Transatlantic tones now, “and this exhibition feels, in a lot of ways, like a correction of the accepted narrative about her life, her work.” If MoMA’s “Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971” gave New Yorkers a chance to change their minds about Ono and her oeuvre in 2015, the London-based retrospective does the same for a country that spawned both the Fab Four and some of the most shockingly vitriolic coverage of “The Smart One” and “his wife.” Curated by Juliet Bingham and spanning seven decades of work, it’s a testament to the fact that Ono’s is a talent so towering, a character so cool, that to contemplate either in the shadow of Beatlemania is to do both her and yourself a disservice.
Read More"The exhibition "I Feel You" (March 8–July 14, 2024, PinchukArtCentre) invites the viewer to listen to experiences, memories, and testimonies from different places around the world, including Ukraine. Landscapes emerge, carrying scars of human tragedy while bearing the seeds of hope. Unsilenceable voices sound free and loud, despite the repression of authoritarian regimes. Human anxieties and utopian dreams are eclipsed by the political manipulations that affect reality today. The exhibition presents works by many artists, including Shilpa Gupta."
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