Art Agenda reviews:
Documenta 13, Manifesta 9, and Art Basel
Is Documenta 13 post-human? Three blitzschnell dispatches by Quinn Latimer, Filipa Ramos, and Ana Teixeira Pinto provide very different accounts of this friendly Frankenstein of an exhibition—an “ambitious world of worlds” (Ramos) or “engaged with the world that we (joyfully, sorrowfully, weirdly) inhabit” (Latimer). Rich in animal, vegetal, and other worldly influences, Teixeira Pinto perhaps best surmises the exhibition in equating Documenta to a breed of “urban wildlife” […] “a species neither wild nor domestic and created by the peculiar ecology of the refuse of civilization, an animal that burrows in sewers and scavenges leftovers.” What these perspectives share is an appreciation for the depiction of the world’s fertile fragility, but this too is tinged with an uneasiness of mind.
Recently on Agenda:
Documenta 13, Kassel
Three reviews from Documenta 13 by Quinn Latimer, Filipa Ramos, and Ana Teixeira Pinto.
Art Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Kunsthalle Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst
Colin Chinnery and Laura McLean-Ferris at and around about Art Basel.
Jill Magid’s “Failed States,” Honor Fraser, Los Angeles
Eva Diaz expounds upon how an armored Mercedes station wagon plays a role in Goethe’s “Faust” in Jill Magid’s first show at Honor Fraser, Los Angeles.
Yto Barrada’s “Mobilier Urbain,” Pace Gallery, London
JJ Charlesworth hesitates to judge without having read the assembly manual of thoughts behind Yto Barrada’s “Mobilier Urbain” at Pace Gallery, London.
“The Deep of the Modern,” Manifesta 9: The European Biennial Of Contemporary Art, Genk
Jonas Žakaitis emerges from “The Deep of the Modern” at a mine in Belgium to find how coal can be transformed into a “semantic and morphological engine” of meaning at Manifesta 9.
Paul McCarthy and Damon McCarthy’s “Rebel Dabble Babble,” The Box, Los Angeles
Jonathan Griffin elaborates on the double trouble of Paul McCarthy and son Damon’s passing dalliance with James Franco and Rebel porn at The Box, Los Angeles.
Thomas Bayrle at Air De Paris, Paris
Lara Sarcevic discovers the early (less recognizable) aesthetics of Thomas Bayrle at Air de Paris, Paris.
Yang Fudong’s “Close to the Sea & the Revival of the Snake,” Shanghart Beijing / ARTMIA
Gallery, Beijing
David Spalding is entranced by Yang Fudong’s latest at ShanghART Beijing (with ARTMIA Gallery): “No matter how aestheticized, these images of an exiled rebel struggling for survival have an unexpected confluence with China’s present-day reality, which only strengthens the work’s magnetic field.”
John Miller’s “New Realities,” Patrick Painter Inc., Los Angeles
Andrew Berardini shows how John Miller revives the middlescence (or not: we just like the word) of “Material Realities” at Patrick Painter, Los Angeles.
Mark Dion’s “Twenty One Years of Think in Three Dimensions,” Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin
John Beeson traces Mark Dion’s engagement with the ordinary through sculpture in a survey of the artist’s work at Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin.
Coming soon, reviews of “Glaze,” at Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris; Martin Kippenberger at Carolina Nitsch, New York; “We love you,” at Limoncello, London; Silke Otto-Knapp at Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin; “Stand still like the hummingbird,” at David Zwirner, New York; “Steel Life,” at Michael Benevento, Los Angeles; and Zoe Leonard at Raffaella Cortese, Milan.
Art Agenda’s exhibition announcement service distributes press information on select international exhibitions of contemporary art.
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