English
Agnes Denes:a Pioneer of Conceptual And Environmental Art
The Shed presents the most comprehensive retrospective exhibition to date of the work of Agnes Denes (b. 1931), a leading figure in Conceptual and Environmental art. «Agnes Denes: Absolutes and Intermediates» brings together more than 150 works in a broad range of media spanning Denes’s 50-year career, including three new works commissioned by The Shed. “Agnes Denes not only anticipated the man-made destruction of natural habitats at a moment when few people were paying attention, but much of her work features solutions to ecological crises that we are now facing,” said Hans Ulrich Obrist, The Shed’s senior program advisor.
New Museum Presents a Major Retrospective of Hans Haacke
For six decades, Haacke has been a pioneer in kinetic art, environmental art, Conceptual art, and institutional critique. This retrospective at the New Museum brings together a wide range of works, focusing in particular on how Haacke expanded the parameters of his practice to encompass the social, political, and economic structures in which art is produced, circulated, and displayed. The exhibition includes a number of Haacke’s rarely seen kinetic works, environmental sculptures, and visitor polls, all of which were central to discussions around systems aesthetics in art during that period. It also features works that address the corporate sponsorship of major art institutions and political interference, and more recent works that consider the intersection of global capitalism, nationalism, and humanitarian crises around the world.
Passing Through Architecture:the 10 Years of Gordon Matta-clark
As the first large-scale exhibition of Matta-Clark’s work in China, «Passing Through Architecture: The 10 Years of Gordon Matta-Clark» traces the remarkable thinking and avant-garde works of this interdisciplinary artist from 1968 to 1978 with more than 400 drawings, photo-works, films and archival documents. It aims to examine Matta-Clark’s relentless exploration of topics like architecture, space, biology and ecology; to question the nature of architecture, the natural environment, and human life beyond the scope of architecture 50 years after the artist’s return to New York, and to rethink the multi-faceted legacy left by modernist urban planning ideas.
Johanna Unzueta & Felipe Mujica:where Land And Sea Melt Into Sky
New York-based gallery Proxyco presents «Where Land and Sea Melt into Sky», an exhibition of works by artists Johanna Unzueta (Chile, 1974) and Felipe Mujica (Chile, 1974). The exhibition foregrounds the notion of the artwork as a product of labor, pointing at process, craft work, and collaboration as significant elements of their artistic creation. Working together but maintaining separate practices, the artists have influenced each other for more than 20 years through the exchange of ideas, techniques, and methods.
Dan Cameron on Curatorial Practice And The Work of Gianfranco Foschino
Although this is not an exhibition focused on water scarcity, nor on the consequences of climate change, it does establish a clear link between the sublime image of the landscape and the terrible state of our current situation. In a room next to SED operates the Centro de Estudios del Agua [Water Studies Center] (CEA), which continually evokes the idea of the individual’s potential agency in the face of climate crisis.
The Pencil is a Key:drawings by Incarcerated Artists
«The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists» is an exhibition of more than 140 drawings by imprisoned artists from around the globe, including countries such as Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, and Cuba. Featuring works produced over a roughly two-hundred-year period, the exhibition presents powerful evidence of the persistence of human creativity in the most inhumane of circumstances. The exhibition interprets the term “incarceration” broadly to mean any situation in which an individual is denied their freedom.
ZILIA SÁNCHEZ: EROS
Galerie Lelong & Co. presents «Eros», its second solo exhibition of Cuban artist Zilia Sánchez (Cuba/PuertoRico, 1926), timed to coincide with the artist’s first retrospective at El Museo del Barrio. Recalling the Greek god of love, the exhibition title encapsulates Sánchez’s uniquely sensual, corporeal approach to abstraction, most familiar from her shaped canvas paintings. While the museum show surveys the artist’s vast oeuvre spanning more than six decades, «Eros» focuses on about a dozen new and recent works, highlighting Sánchez’s evolving interest in completely free-standing work, and includes her first-ever sculptures in marble and bronze.
Gabriel Kuri:sorted, Resorted
His exhibition at WIELS – his first institutional solo show in Brussels, where he has lived for the past 16 years – highlights the hybrid nature of his playful work. It comprises over 60 works, including new pieces produced for the occasion, revealing both the diversity of Kuri’s formal approach and the consistency of his underlying themes: flows of information, notions of commercial and cultural value, consumerism, as well as material and its poetic (mis)use.
Alejandro Otero:rhythm in Line And Space
Organized in partnership with the Otero Pardo Foundation of Caracas, Venezuela, the exhibition «Alejandro Otero: Rhythm in Line and Space» at Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino highlights works from his «Cafeteras» (Coffeepots), «Tablones» (Planks), and «Coloritmos» (Colorhythms) series, among others, offering a glimpse into the dynamic practice of this master artist (Venezuela, 1921-1990). Although this exhibition cannot show any of these structures on a public scale, except in images, it does exhibit the artist’s preparatory process that gave rise to them. Following a rigorous methodology, Otero, when producing paintings or sculptural works, always began with drawings, sketches or models, before making the final work a reality.
Rodrigo Valenzuela:past | Present
“Past | Present”, Rodrigo Valenzuela’s third solo exhibition at Upfor, is comprised of two parts: in September, a selection of prior work from major series in photography, video and painting; and in October, the debut of a new body of monochromatic photographs. Valenzuela’s works often involve narratives around immigration and the working class. Rooted in contradictory traditions of documentary and fiction, his staged scenes manipulate codes of representation to affect viewers’ perception of logic and reality.