John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, UK
Transformism, an exhibition of two new works by Melanie Jackson and Revital Cohen, has been commissioned by The Arts Catalyst. Both artists through their distinctive practices have made new works exploring their interests in how cultural archetypes and ideas interweave science and technology to create new shapes, visual forms and structures.
As we develop the tools to manipulate and engineer new forms and systems of life, the exhibition considers our historical and contemporary entanglements with nature, technology and the economy, and how these relationships influence emergent forms in biological and synthetic matter, through new sculpture, installation and moving image works.
The Urpflanze (Part 2) is the second part of Melanie Jackson's ongoing investigation into mutability and transformation that takes its lead from Goethe's concept of an imaginary primal plant, the Urpflanze, that contained coiled up within it the potential to unfurl all possible future forms.
In Kingyo Kingdom, Revital Cohen, whose projects often test the ethical parameters of biological design, explores the genus of fish that have been designed for aesthetic purposes, questioning the definitions used to indicate living creatures. Kingyo Kingdom explores the unique culture of breeders, collectors and connoisseurs with footage from the Japanese national goldfish competition, questioning the design and commodification of this species.
In Kingyo Kingdom, Revital Cohen, whose projects often test the ethical parameters of biological design, explores the genus of fish that have been designed for aesthetic purposes, questioning the definitions used to indicate living creatures. Kingyo Kingdom explores the unique culture of breeders, collectors and connoisseurs with footage from the Japanese national goldfish competition, questioning the design and commodification of this species.
David Svensson - Stories of Glass and Light -
Kunsthallen Brandts, Denmark
Swedish artist David Svensson's (b.1973) exhibition Old World Rise Again is a magical journey through a series of compact and unique universes of light and shadows. The visually and sensually seductive worlds experiment with the formal aspects of sculpture but also challenge the viewer's encounter with them.
Old World Rise Again consists of nine works in total, four of which are created from lamps, lighting and glass. The other works are made from fabrics and a series of graphic pages from books. These everyday objects, most of which were first introduced many years ago, are presented in new contexts both as proponents of nostalgia and as active drivers of fresh stories. Through this relationship, a narrative layer is carved out.
The exhibition title Old World Rise Again is a reference to another work of the same name. The work consists of ceiling lamps made from glass that would have hung from mainly Swedish and Danish homes during the 1960s and '70s. You might still be able to find such moulded, often brown-coloured lamps in flea markets today. The lamps are now a redundant and outdated product, but Svensson's work transforms some 400 of these ornate lamps into a captivating light sculpture. The objects are able to transport us to a bygone era but also capable of creating new stories.
The sculptures are a testimony of the artist's fascination of surfaces, mirrors, transparency, and the utilisation of the viewer's reflection. Svensson creates seductive spaces inhabited by regular everyday objects and in the process opens the gates for philosophical discussions about the relationship between artists and such commonplace items.
The exhibition title Old World Rise Again is a reference to another work of the same name. The work consists of ceiling lamps made from glass that would have hung from mainly Swedish and Danish homes during the 1960s and '70s. You might still be able to find such moulded, often brown-coloured lamps in flea markets today. The lamps are now a redundant and outdated product, but Svensson's work transforms some 400 of these ornate lamps into a captivating light sculpture. The objects are able to transport us to a bygone era but also capable of creating new stories.
The sculptures are a testimony of the artist's fascination of surfaces, mirrors, transparency, and the utilisation of the viewer's reflection. Svensson creates seductive spaces inhabited by regular everyday objects and in the process opens the gates for philosophical discussions about the relationship between artists and such commonplace items.
Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London
Light Show surveys the use of artificial light as a medium for sculpture. Focusing on works created by major international artists over the last fifty years, the exhibition brings together sculptures and installations that use light to transform space and to influence and alter perception. While exploring how we experience and psychologically respond to illumination and colour, Light Show also encompasses conceptual, social and political concerns.
Leo Villareal "Cylinder," 2011. © the artist. Image
courtesy the artist and Gering & Lopez Gallery, New
York. Collection of The Amore Pacific Museum of Art,
Korea. Photo: James Ewing Photography.
courtesy the artist and Gering & Lopez Gallery, New
York. Collection of The Amore Pacific Museum of Art,
Korea. Photo: James Ewing Photography.
Since the 1960s, an increasing number of artists from around the world have incorporated artificial light in their work, exhibiting light itself or exploiting its perceptual effects. These artists approach light as a spatial and environmental experience, a factor of psychological influence, and an intangible material which can be manipulated and sculpted. Individual artworks examine different aspects of light such as colour, duration, shadows, natural and artificial illumination, and projection, demonstrating light's crucial role in the transition of sculpture from object to environment.
Light Show includes two of Dan Flavin's pioneering fluorescent sculptures; Jenny Holzer's column of LED signs, MONUMENT; James Turrell's phenomenal Wedgework V; David Batchelor's back-to-front stack of intense urban colour, Magic Hour; and Olafur Eliasson's stroboscopic Model for a timeless garden. It also features immersive environmental installations by Carlos Cruz-Diez, Anthony McCall, and Ann Veronica Janssens, among others. Historic works re-created especially for the Hayward Gallery include early installations by Doug Wheeler, Nancy Holt, and Brigitte Kowanz. A new large-scale commission in neon by Iván Navarro fills the front windows of the Hayward Gallery foyer.
Surveying works using a wide range of illumination sources, Light Show presents cutting-edge lighting technologies, such as custom-made computer-controlled LED lightning, alongside 'found' objects, such as illuminated advertising lightboxes rescued from city streets. Works using the most modest means – an electric torch, or a single theatrical spotlight – feature together with highly complex installations. Individually and collectively, these works stimulate many different – and often surprising – visual experiences. The exhibition invites us to wonder at, contemplate, investigate and, in some cases, to interact with illumination as a phenomenon and as an artistic medium.
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Exhibition in Bilbao, Spain -"Stories of History"
This exhibition compares and contrasts two important works from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao collection: Nine Discourses on Commodus (1963) by Cy Twombly and Mrs Lenin and the Nightingale
(2008) by Georg Baselitz. Both works portray personal narratives that
revisit historical figures from two chronologically distant periods,
using a gesturally charged language unrelated to traditional
expressionisms. In their respective practices, Twombly and Baselitz
distance themselves from other contemporary artists who recreate or
appropriate history in order to introduce new angles or
reinterpretations of reality, and also from those who create “remakes”
of historical events. Alternatively, Twombly and Baselitz present
“stories” based on past events, told from the artists’ points of view,
where their provocations take place within the artistic process rather
than on the political stage.
Georg Baselitz
Jonathan does not know that before the invention of penicillin experiments had been made with poisoned stamps (Jonathan weiß nicht, daß es schon vor der Erfindung des Penicillins Versuche mit vergifteten Briefmarken gab), 2008
Oil on canvas
300 x 250 cm
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
In 1968, Agnes Denes (b. 1931, Hungary) made her first "eco-logical" intervention in the state of New York, announcing her commitment to environmental questions and human issues. In 1977, near the Niagara Falls, she re-enacted the ritual Rice/Tree/Burial—an "allegory of the life cycle" which associates the planting of a rice paddy; chaining together of trees in a sacred forest, formerly an Indian burial ground; filming from the edge of the Niagara Falls; and burying a time capsule addressed to "Homo Futurus" of the year 2979.
Since the 1960s, the poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña (b. 1948, Chile) has been creating installations that summon the spirits of the first inhabitants of the Andes. She literally and figuratively weaves together the past and the present. Her Quipus are inspired by a form of "writing" used by Indian tribes, made up of knotted cords, which was banned by the Spanish conquerors. The long, colored cotton cords which make up the immersive installation Quipu Austral (2012–13) are a shimmering, tactile ode to the communion between man and the cosmos.
Monika Grzymala's (b. 1970, Poland) ephemeral architectural interventions are engendered by physical and imagined lines, made from everyday, fragile materials, such as handmade paper, scotch tape, and magnetic tape). The artist created The River in 2012 in collaboration with Euraba Papermakers, an art collective of Australian Aboriginal women who use offcuts from the clothing industry established on their ancestral grounds. Water, indispensable in the manufacture of paper, is at the heart of the Goomeroi culture. The River floods the space of the exhibition with thousands of suspended white paper leaves—a river of tears evoking lost spirits.
Following the stream of water in order to grasp the thread of life, this exhibition renews the vital connection between the human and the Earth.
Jonathan does not know that before the invention of penicillin experiments had been made with poisoned stamps (Jonathan weiß nicht, daß es schon vor der Erfindung des Penicillins Versuche mit vergifteten Briefmarken gab), 2008
Oil on canvas
300 x 250 cm
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
49 Nord 6 Est – FRAC Lorraine, Metz - Agnes Denes, Monika Grzymala, Cecilia Vicuña - Les Immémoriales
Nourished by the living memory of Andean, Native American, and Australian Aboriginal people, Agnes Denes, Monika Grzymala and Cecilia Vicuña, three artists of different generations and horizons, invite you on a sensuous and poetic journey into the heart of political issues affecting our first-world societies.
In 1968, Agnes Denes (b. 1931, Hungary) made her first "eco-logical" intervention in the state of New York, announcing her commitment to environmental questions and human issues. In 1977, near the Niagara Falls, she re-enacted the ritual Rice/Tree/Burial—an "allegory of the life cycle" which associates the planting of a rice paddy; chaining together of trees in a sacred forest, formerly an Indian burial ground; filming from the edge of the Niagara Falls; and burying a time capsule addressed to "Homo Futurus" of the year 2979.
Since the 1960s, the poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña (b. 1948, Chile) has been creating installations that summon the spirits of the first inhabitants of the Andes. She literally and figuratively weaves together the past and the present. Her Quipus are inspired by a form of "writing" used by Indian tribes, made up of knotted cords, which was banned by the Spanish conquerors. The long, colored cotton cords which make up the immersive installation Quipu Austral (2012–13) are a shimmering, tactile ode to the communion between man and the cosmos.
Monika Grzymala, "The River," 2012. Installation. Realized with Euraba Artists and Papermakers. In collaboration with Boolarng Nangamai. Photo: M. Grzymala. © The artist.
Monika Grzymala's (b. 1970, Poland) ephemeral architectural interventions are engendered by physical and imagined lines, made from everyday, fragile materials, such as handmade paper, scotch tape, and magnetic tape). The artist created The River in 2012 in collaboration with Euraba Papermakers, an art collective of Australian Aboriginal women who use offcuts from the clothing industry established on their ancestral grounds. Water, indispensable in the manufacture of paper, is at the heart of the Goomeroi culture. The River floods the space of the exhibition with thousands of suspended white paper leaves—a river of tears evoking lost spirits.
Following the stream of water in order to grasp the thread of life, this exhibition renews the vital connection between the human and the Earth.
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