Art Agenda reviews: Martha Rosler, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, 7th Berlin Biennale, Frieze New York, and more
It’s the intermission between art event theatricalities. The last scenes supplied enough dramatic flair for the spring, as familiar characters (Artur Żmijewski, Okwui Enwezor) and settings (Frieze Art Fair) appeared in new contexts presenting bold ideas that were met with either acute critiques or lavish praise (see Ana Teixeira Pinto on the 7th Berlin Biennale, Chris Sharp on La Triennale in Paris, and Alan Gilbert on Frieze New York).
Anticipation now looms over the summer. The stage is set, actors ready, and the curtain about to rise on central Europe’s commanding triad of major art events—Manifesta, Documenta, and Art Basel—opening in early June. As audiences and art world professionals prepare for the circuit, Manifesta and Documenta reveal more about their presentations, little by little. Expectations are set for exhibitions formed around diffuse concepts articulated through a myriad of constellations, rather than beating one concept to death. How these will unravel in actuality is still to be seen—and the artist list for Documenta remains under wraps until press week dawns. Witness how the Grand Tour part II unfolds as we publish reports by Jonas Žakaitis on Manifesta; Jordan Finley, Filipa Ramos, and Ana Teixeira Pinto on Documenta; and Colin Chinnery and Laura McLean-Ferris on Art Basel.
Recently on Art Agenda:
Martha Rosler’s “Cuba, January 1981″ Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York
April 20–May 26, 2012
Scott Reger looks carefully at Martha Rosler’s series “Cuba, January 1981″ at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, concluding the show to be “that rare thing, beautiful both in form and for the history it brings to mind.”
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Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s “Return to Noreturn” Esther Schipper, Berlin
April 21–May 24, 2012
Kirsty Bell puts on “mental 3D glasses through which to think things differently” in
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s “Return to Noreturn” at Esther Schipper, Berlin.
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Gabriel Kuri’s “Classical Symmetry, Historical Data, Subjective Judgement” Sadie Coles, London
1 March–26 May, 2012
Lorena Muñoz-Alonso watches Gabriel Kuri “waggishly turn the use of mathematical nomenclature into a formal fetish” at Sadie Coles, London.
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Elad Lassry at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
March 23–May 26, 2012
Kevin McGarry tells us how Elad Lassry’s baby bed “chafes the room with a mood that is too identifiable” at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
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New York gallery openings
May 2012
Nickolas Calabrese tells us how the New York galleries are “laden with the spirit of a protest” via Dana Schutz at Friedrich Petzel Gallery, Tauba Auerbach at Paula Cooper Gallery, Philippe Decrauzat at Elizabeth Dee, Sturtevant at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, Lisa Oppenheim at Harris Lieberman Gallery, and Hans Schabus at Simon Preston Gallery.
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Rearview
Tyler Coburn on Peter Plagens review of Reyner Banham’s “Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies.”
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Frieze New York
May 4–7, 2012
Alan Gilbert color codes Frieze New York, and decrees that “art fairs are becoming the real museums of contemporary art.”
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Melanie Smith at Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich
26 April–25 May, 2012
Aoife Rosenmeyer descends into Melanie Smith’s “tableau of escalating oddity” at Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich.
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7th Berlin Biennale
27 April–1 July, 2012
Ana Teixeira Pinto enters the 7th Berlin Biennale like Clint Eastwood and comes out being John Malkovich: “Żmijewski. Żmijewski? Żmijewski!”
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La Triennale “Intense Proximity” Paris
April 20–August 26, 2012
Chris Sharp visits the La Triennale, Paris, to tell us how Okwui Enwezor’s “Intense Proximity” “is as sensitively handled, nuanced, and, at times, curatorially virtuosic as any exhibition of this stature and nature could hope to be.”
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Candida Höfer’s “Neues Museum Berlin” Johnen Galerie, Berlin
March 2–April 14, 2012
Kimberly Bradley finds that Candida Höfer’s latest series at Johnen Galerie in Berlin “is just as distant, just as monumental as the rest of her oeuvre… weighted with history yet brand-new.”
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Zona Maco, Mexico City
18–22 April, 2012
Kate Sutton discovers how the wrong time can be the right thing at an art fair while out and about at Zona Maco, Mexico City.
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Ricardo Brey / Jimmie Durham’s “looking at my own work (and his)” Christine König Galerie, Vienna
March 23–April 28, 2012
Max Henry witnesses how the assemblages and readymades of Ricardo Brey and Jimmie Durham at Christine König Galerie, Vienna “turn into spookily charismatic representations of otherness.”
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Dirk Bell’s “Grid(love)r” Andreas Melas and Helena Papadopoulos, Athens
March 15–May 12, 2012
Marina Fokidis tells us how “love, or so it seems, puts a crack in this well-thought-out system of control” in Dirk Bell’s “Grid(love)r” Andreas Melas and Helena Papadopoulos, Athens.
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Coming soon, reviews of John Miller at Patrick Painter, Los Angeles; Yang Fudong at Shanghart Gallery, Beijing; Mark Dion at Christian Nagel, Berlin; Taryn Simon at Almine Rech, Paris; Yto Barrada at Pace Gallery, London, and more.
Art Agenda’s exhibition announcement service distributes press information on select international exhibitions of contemporary art.
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