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This month in Artforum:
“Responding quickly to the coronavirus meant pushing forward the magazine’s traditional schedule. Out now is our May/June edition, with the next issue to arrive in July. It was only a few months back that I wrote a piece about friendship. It ended with a thesis, which feels even truer in this world: Being together is the only reality. I did not mean this as a metaphor, though I should add that togetherness doesn’t have to mean other people and that aloneness can be its own kind of commune. Another question might be about what we mean by alone—about how we can be together, or make a reality, in the face of new tactics of separating. (You can always learn something from lesbians: ‘Separatism is more than a mere 6’,’ advises Ridykeulous in their project.)”
—David Velasco
Artists’ Projects
Featured in this special issue are projects by hannah baer, Brian Eno, Lauren Halsey, Yoko Ono, Charles Ray, Ridykeulous, Peter Saville, Alexandro Segade, Luc Tuymans, and Francesco Vezzoli and a poem by Eileen Myles.
“While humyn society skulks through a timeout, R’DYKES approaches the small challenge of ‘HOW THE FUCK R WE GOING TO SURVIVE AS A SPECIES WHEN WE’RE ALL AT THE BEGINNING STAGES OF DEMENTIA’ with practical problem-solving skills like creative accounting, pickling beetroot, floetry, and ecstatic collapses. How many mass die-offs and self-anointed advanced civilizations does it take to hide the things that are really happening… .”
—Ridykeulous
“In the past, I would cut out numbers and glue them to the surfaces of my paintings, enumerating the canvases from one to ten before starting over again. I saw these numbers as a reality that contrasted with the fictional character of what the painting itself depicted. During these days of pandemic, numbers have taken on a different meaning: On one hand, they portray the idea of piling up; on the other, they imply a countdown to an end.”
—Luc Tuymans
The May/June issue also carries essays reflecting on the pandemic by the Cinema Worker Solidarity Fund (Thomas Beard, Ed Halter, Nellie Killian, and Sierra Pettengill), Wai Chee Dimock, Heike Geißler, Caroline A. Jones, John Kelsey, Paul B. Preciado, Stuart Schrader, Molly Warnock, and Andrea Zittel.
Also in the issue: Object Lessons: Hal Foster on the art of Donald Judd; Body Horror: Matthew Ronay and Lane Relyea on the art of Tishan Hsu; Openings: Emily LaBarge on Meriem Bennani; Anthony Byrt on the 22nd Biennale of Sydney; Jennifer Krasinski on Adam Linder and Shahryar Nashat at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Zehra Jumabhoy on the Lahore Biennale 02; and 50 exhibition reviews from around the globe.
Plus: Marina Abramović on Ulay, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung on Santu Mofokeng, Amy Taubin on Alexander Nanau’s Collective, J. Hoberman on Sergei Loznitsa’s State Funeral, Jace Clayton on Carl Craig at Dia:Beacon, Yuliya Komska on the handshake, and Duro Olowu shares his Top Ten.