Exhibitions

The Guggenheim’s New Show of All-Star Photoconceptualism Questions Official Records and How We Depict the Past


“Fake news” will be a tempting aperture through which to approach “Off the Record,” a new group show at the Guggenheim that looks at the ways in which artists consider, critique, or otherwise manipulate “official” documents of history and state power. 

It wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to take that tack. But it’s not what was on curator Ashley James’s mind as she organized the show—her first since becoming the museum’s first full-time Black curator in 2019.

“I’m less interested in speaking to the specificities of our contemporary historical moment than in thinking about a certain position in relationship to history as such,” she tells Midnight Publishing Group News over the phone. She pauses as construction noises from the show’s installation clang behind her.

“It’s about a point of view,” she continues as the din dies down. “It’s about a kind of posture toward history and documentation that is something that’s applicable to the past, to the present, and to the future. It’s more about a methodology.”

Sara Cwynar, <i>Encyclopedia Grid (Bananas)</i> (2014). Courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Sara Cwynar, Encyclopedia Grid (Bananas) (2014). Courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Heavy on photoconceptualism, “Off the Record” comprises some 25 works—all but one of which were pulled from the museum’s own collection—from artists including Sadie Barnette, Sarah Charlesworth, Hank Willis Thomas, and Adrian Piper. It’s a group that represents a wide swath of generations, interests, and artistic practices. What unites them here, explains James, is a shared “skepticism of received history.”  

But how that sense of skepticism manifests in the work varies with each artist. For Sara Cwynar, represented in the exhibition by three pieces from her 2014 Encyclopedia Grid series, it’s an intellectual exercise. Taking a cue from the John Berger classic Ways of Seeing, the artist has culled various pictures of the same subject (bananas, Brigitte Bardot, the Acropolis) from multiple encyclopedias and rephotographed them—a process that shows us, without judgment, the representational quirks and biases of the supposedly objective resources. 

Sadie Barnette, <i>My Father's FBI File; Government Employees Installation</i> (2017). Courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Sadie Barnette, My Father’s FBI File; Government Employees Installation (2017). Courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Lisa Oppenheim, meanwhile, sees creative potential in the document’s deficiency. For a 2007 photo series, the artist reimagined details redacted from a group of Walker Evans’s Great Depression-era negatives, which were hole-punched to prevent publication. Oppenheim’s own small circular photographs, paired next to Evans’s originals, read as a kind of revisionist history—albeit one that is just as flawed as its source material.

Other examples are more charged, such as prints from Carrie Mae Weems’s iconic 1995-96 series “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried,” in which the artist appropriates ethnographic photos of enslaved people to show how photography was used to reinforce racial inequality. Each is paired with a pointed phrase: “DESCENDING THE THRONE YOU BECAME FOOT SOLDIER & COOK,” reads one.

Hank Willis Thomas, <i>Something To Believe In</i> (1984/2007). © Hank Willis Thomas Photography. Courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Hank Willis Thomas, Something To Believe In (1984/2007). © Hank Willis Thomas
Photography. Courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Like these examples, almost all of the artists in the exhibition draw on material from generations past. But that’s not to say that the show doesn’t have something to say about the contemporary moment, James points out—even if its message has little to do with the Trump era specifically. 

Best exemplifying this is the one work in the show that doesn’t belong to the museum’s collection: a 2020 wall-hung assemblage by Tomashi Jackson, in which an archival print of President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act is overlaid with paint and campaign materials for a 2018 gubernatorial race. 

It’s a piece that literally fuses the past with the present, the “official” with the unofficial. And it alludes to another theme that ties together the various pieces in the show: “power,” says the curator, ”whether that power is because of the institution itself or power in a narrative that has been received in a certain way over time.” 

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For Its Major Post-Pandemic Triennial, the New Museum Has Invited 40 Rising Artists to Explore the Theme of Persistence


The 2021 New Museum triennial—the fifth iteration of its signature exhibition of emerging artists—has been in the works since long before the pandemic. But its overarching theme, of tenacity in the face of hardship, will likely feel more relevant than ever when the show opens this fall, well over a year into the pandemic.

The museum announced today that the exhibition, co-organized by Margot Norton, a curator at the New Museum, and Jamillah James, senior curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, is titled “Soft Water Hard Stone.” The name comes from a Brazilian proverb: Água mole em pedra dura, tanto bate até que fura (“Soft water on hard stone hits until it bores a hole”).

For the curators, it’s a metaphor for persistence: Even the most inexorable of materials change with time and energy. 

The 40 artists included in the show—a group that represents five continents and nearly all media—the proverb can, occasionally, be read more literally. The transfiguration of discordant materials and ideas will constitute a prominent theme in the exhibition, as will the use of outmoded models and artistic traditions.

Their works exalt states of transformation, calling attention to the malleability of structures, porous and unstable surfaces, and the fluid and adaptable potential of both technological and organic media,” a statement on the triennial reads. 

Ambera Wellmann, <i>UnTurning</i> (2019). Courtesy of the artist and KTZ gallery, Berlin.

Ambera Wellmann, UnTurning (2019). Courtesy of the artist and KTZ gallery, Berlin.

Though all of the artists were born after 1975, the curators say they didn’t look to birth dates for their definition of “emerging artists.”

“We decided that, instead of age, our parameter would be based on exposure,” James tells Midnight Publishing Group News, “so that artists we invited that had not yet had a major solo exhibition in a U.S. museum.” 

Norton and James began research for the Triennial in the summer 2018, logging nearly two year’s worth of travel and in-person studio visits before the pandemic necessitated some improvisation. “When we scheduled our travel, we were interested in visiting locations where it made a difference to be there physically, and in areas where artists are often underrepresented in international exhibitions,” James says, pointing to places such as North Africa, South Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Since then, the curators have “become quite accustomed to the Zoom studio visit, to say the least.” Norton says. “While there is a huge disadvantage to not seeing work in person, we actually found it to be quite efficient to continue our research remotely, particularly as we honed in on the show’s theme, and for the artists whose works we have had the opportunity to see in person prior.” 

Brandon Ndife, <i>Modern Dilemma</i> (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Bureau, New York.

Brandon Ndife, Modern Dilemma (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Bureau, New York.

“Soft Water Hard Stone,” is set to run from October 27, 2021 to January 23, 2022 at the New Museum. See the full list of participating artists below.

  • Haig Aivazian (b. 1980 Beirut, Lebanon; lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon)
  • Evgeny Antufiev (b. 1986 Kyzyl, Russia; lives and works in Moscow, Russia)
  • Alex Ayed (b. 1989 Strasbourg, France; lives and works in Brussels, Belgium, and Tunis, Tunisia)
  • Nadia Belerique (b. 1982 Mississauga, Ontario, Canada; lives and works in Toronto, Canada)
  • Hera Büyüktaşcıyan (b. 1984 Istanbul, Turkey; lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey) 
  • Tomás Díaz Cedeño (b. 1983 Mexico City, Mexico; lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico) 
  • Gabriel Chaile (b. 1985 San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina; lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal)
  • Gaëlle Choisne (b. 1985 Cherbourg, France; lives and works in Paris, France)
  • Krista Clark (b. 1975 Burlington, VT, United States; lives and works in Atlanta, GA, United States) 
  • Kate Cooper (b. 1984, Liverpool, United Kingdom; lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 
  • Cynthia Daignault (b. 1978 Baltimore, MD, United States; lives and works in Baltimore, MD, United States) 
  • Jes Fan (b. 1990 Toronto, Canada; lives and works in New York, NY, United States and Hong Kong)
  • Goutam Ghosh (b. 1979 Nabadwip, India; lives and works in Kolkata, India) 
  • Harry Gould Harvey IV (b. 1991 Fall River, MA, United States; lives and works in Fall River, MA, United States) 
  • Clara Ianni (b. 1987 São Paolo, Brazil; lives and works in São Paolo, Brazil)
  • Kahlil Robert Irving (b. 1992 San Diego, CA, United States; lives and works in St. Louis, MO, United States) 
  • Arturo Kameya (b. 1984 Lima, Peru; lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 
  • Laurie Kang (b. 1985 Toronto, Canada; lives and works in Toronto, Canada)  
  • Bronwyn Katz (b. 1993 Kimberly, South Africa; lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa) 
  • Ann Greene Kelly (b. 1988 New York, NY, United States; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, United States)
  • Kang Seung Lee (b. 1978 Seoul, South Korea; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, United States) 
  • Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho (b. 1987 Dallas, TX, United States; lives and works in New York, NY, United States) and (b. 1985 Manila, Philippines; lives and works in Berlin, Germany) 
  • Tanya Lukin Linklater (Alutiiq) (b. 1976 Kodiak, AK, United States; lives and works in North Bay, Ontario, Canada)
  • Angelika Loderer (b. 1984 Feldbach, Austria; lives and works in Vienna, Austria)
  • Sandra Mujinga (b. 1989 Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo; lives and works in Oslo, Norway and Berlin, Germany)
  • Gabriela Mureb (b. 1985 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
  • Brandon Ndife (b. 1991 Hammond, IN, United States; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, United States)
  • Erin Jane Nelson (b. 1989 Neenah, WI, United States; lives and works in Atlanta, GA, United States) 
  • Jeneen Frei Njootli (Vuntut Gwitchin) (b. 1988 Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada; lives and works in Vancouver, Canada)
  • Ima-Abasi Okon (b. 1981 London, United Kingdom; lives and works in London, United Kingdom and Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
  • Christina Pataialii (b. 1988 Auckland, New Zealand; lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand)
  • Thao Nguyen Phan (b. 1987 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
  • Nickola Pottinger (b. 1986 Kingston, Jamaica; lives and works in New York, NY, United States)
  • Rose Salane (b. 1992 New York, NY, United States; lives and works in New York, NY, United States)
  • Blair Saxon-Hill (b. 1979 Eugene, OR, United States; lives and works in Portland, OR, United States)
  • Samara Scott (b. 1984 London, United Kingdom; lives and works in London, United Kingdom)
  • Amalie Smith (b. 1985 Copenhagen, Denmark; lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark)
  • Iris Touliatou (b. 1981 Athens, Greece; lives and works in Athens, Greece) 
  • Ambera Wellmann (b. 1982 Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, Canada; lives and works in New York, NY, United States)
  • Yu Ji (b. 1985 Shanghai, China; lives and works in Shanghai, China)

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Painter Amy Sherald’s New Show in Los Angeles Encourages Patient Looking and Quiet Contemplation—See Images Here


In these turbulent times, creativity and empathy are more necessary than ever to bridge divides and find solutions. Midnight Publishing Group News’s Art and Empathy Project is an ongoing investigation into how the art world can help enhance emotional intelligence, drawing insights and inspiration from creatives, thought leaders, and great works of art.

 

 

What the gallery says: “Amy Sherald is acclaimed for paintings of Black Americans at leisure that achieve the authority of landmarks in the grand tradition of social portraiture—a tradition that for too long excluded the Black men, women, and families whose lives have been inextricable from the narrative of the American experience.

Subverting the genre of portraiture and challenging accepted notions of American identity, Sherald attempts to restore a broader, fuller picture of humanity. She positions her subjects as ‘symbolic tools that shift perceptions of who we are as Americans, while transforming the walls of museum galleries and the canon of art history—American art history, to be more specific.’”

Why it’s worth a look: Sherald, who spent the past year making the five pictures in this show, is famously a slow-moving, intensely focused artist. Her reduced production allows her to carefully articulate the sorts of details that characterize her precise paintings: the soft smear of pink on the dog’s nose in A Midsummer Afternoon Dream (2020), the broken fencing along the dunes in An Ocean Away (2020). Her careful painterly fluency encourages appropriately patient, measured looking that is rare in the 21st century.

How it can be used as an empathy workout: The show draws its title from educator Anna Julia Cooper’s 1892 book The Great American Fact, in which she argues that Black Americans are “the one objective reality on which scholars sharpened their wits, and at which orators and statesmen fired their eloquence.” In Sherald’s works, the objective reality of “public Blackness,” as the show’s press release puts it, comes through in portraits of everyday people, living quiet yet proud lives. Perhaps more than anything, these figures invite an empathetic viewer, someone willing to approach the painting with kindness and humility.

“Her paintings,” as the gallery says, “celebrate the Black body at leisure, thereby revealing her subjects’ whole humanity. Sherald’s work thus foregrounds the idea that Black life and identity are not solely tethered to grappling publicly with social issues, and that resistance lies equally in a full interior life and an expansive vision of selfhood in the world.”

What it looks like:

Amy Sherald, <i>A Midsummer Afternoon Dream</i> (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, A Midsummer Afternoon Dream (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, <i>A Midsummer Afternoon Dream</i> (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, A Midsummer Afternoon Dream (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, <i>A bucket full of treasures (Papa gave me sunshine to put in my pockets...)</i> (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, A bucket full of treasures (Papa gave me sunshine to put in my pockets…) (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, <i>An Ocean Away</i> (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, An Ocean Away (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, <i>Hope is the thing with feathers (The little bird)</i> (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, Hope is the thing with feathers (The little bird) (detail, 2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, <i>As American as Apple Pie</i> (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

Amy Sherald, As American as Apple Pie (2020). © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.

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Museums Are Reopening Across Europe at Last. Here Are 8 Must-See Shows You Can Actually Visit in Person This Spring


As spring nears, some European countries are seeing a small, if temporary, reprieve after months of strenuous lockdown. Museums in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and parts of Italy and Scandinavia, are again welcoming visitors to the shows that they’ve been planning, in many cases, for years.

Rifts in society and a still-raging pandemic have been difficult to process, but art—be it historical figures like the Belgian conceptual artist Jef Geys (whose work will be on view in Norway) or the long-overlooked Brazilian artist Leonilson (showing in Berlin), who both broke boundaries in distinct ways—can teach us how to think beyond the challenges of the past year. Newer artists, like Lydia Ourahmane, and intergenerational group exhibitions offer fresh perspectives on society, culture, and nature. And there is little that could substitute the visceral experience of standing within a triumphant installation like Phyllida Barlow’s at Haus der Kunst in Munich.

Here are nine exciting exhibitions in Europe that are—as of publication—actually open and worth a visit, so long as it is safe to do so.

 

Jef Geys at Bergen Kunsthall, Norway

Through April 5

Installation view of Jef Geys at Bergen Kunsthalle. Photo: Thor Brødreskift

Installation view of Jef Geys at Bergen Kunsthalle. Photo: Thor Brødreskift

The show is the largest presentation of the late Belgian artist’s work in nearly two decades, and the first of its scale since his death, in 2018, at age 83. Geys was a hero among the European avant-garde and never liked to define himself as an artist. His tongue-in-cheek practice often rejected the conventions that defined the art world. He responded, for example, to an invitation to a show with a threat to blow up the institution—which he did not do. He always abstained from attending his openings and declined interviews.

At Bergen Kunsthall, Geys’s survey shows the artist’s wit and the way he drew out wonder in the banal. In his “Seed Bag Series” paintings, for example, Geys rigorously painted large replicas of a packet of seeds that he planted in his garden once a year between 1963 and his death. In other works, he deals in humankind’s mundane desire to aggrandize itself. Corporeal-sized figures are perfectly covered in shiny auto paint manufactured for BMW cars, which, according to Geys, are “one of the most important extension pieces of our body.”

 

Risquons-tout” at WIELS, Brussels

Through March 28

Tarek Lakhrissi, Sick Sad World (2020).

Tarek Lakhrissi, Sick Sad World (2020).

The title of this group show, which translates to “let’s risk it all,” is actually the name of a small town on the Belgian-French border that has been known historically as a through-point for immigrants of all sorts. Some 38 artists from the surrounding regions of the Benelux, including some of the most exciting artists based in and around Europe, are involved in this daring show that investigates ideas of “bridging, passing, translating, and transgressing.” That includes breaking through borders, but also tech-induced information bubbles, and safety nets.

Neïl Beloufa, Tarek Lakhrissi, Laure Prouvost, and Nora Turato are among those taking part in “Risquons-tout,” which occupies the whole of the WIELS building and extends into neighboring spaces around it, ultimately examining “how art challenges the homogenization of thought in the now-infamous echo chambers of our overcrowded info-sphere.”

 

Lydia Ourahmane, “Barzakh” at Kunsthalle Basel

Through May 16

Lydia Ourahmane during install of the exhibition "Barzakh," Kunsthalle Basel, 2021. Photo by Dominik Asche / Kunsthalle Basel.

Lydia Ourahmane during install of the exhibition “Barzakh,” Kunsthalle Basel, 2021. Photo by Dominik Asche / Kunsthalle Basel.

The Kunsthalle Basel has commissioned up-and-coming artist Lydia Ourahmane to create a new commission for its upper floor. For her first institutional solo show in Switzerland, the artist has placed new sculptures and sound works among a seemingly innocuous grouping of furniture. It all comes from her rental apartment in Algeria, which had been furnished by its deceased former occupant.

From photographs to dinnerware to chandeliers, the once private space is made public in this exhibition and, meanwhile, the space is rigged with bugging devices that record the visitors’ movements. Together, the installation probes notions of home, settlement, and claiming space, as well as discipline through regimes of surveillance, invoking at once histories of displacement and colonial systems of oppression.

 

Leonilson, “Drawn 1975–1993” at KW Institute, Berlin

Through May 24

"Leonilson,

Da falsa moral and Do bom coração both (1993), on view as a part of Leonilson “Drawn 1975–1993” at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2020. Courtesy Projeto Leonilson. Photo: Frank Sperling.

It is emotional to walk through the first major European survey of Brazilian artist Leonilson, who died of complications related to AIDS in 1993, at age 36. The exhibition, which consists of 250 artworks on three floors of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, charts the pioneering artist’s career and life in works that are often diaristic. There are jubilant sculptures and expressive paintings that chronicle Brazil’s mood at the end of a decades-long regime, as well as the artist’s own worldly wanderings. As Leonilson became ill in the early 1990s, he focused increasingly on delicate embroidered textiles.

Leonilson writes terse stitched or inked poems in the textiles: “handsome, selfish,” says one, while another simply says, “slave” under a drawing of a face near a boot. Later, sometime around his diagnosis, works convey a sense of loss and perseverance: “empty man, lone, ready.” The isolation that Leonilson experienced, in part as a gay man within a largely Catholic nation, is channeled into a poignant and rich language.

 

Jakob Lena Knebl, “Walk on Water” at the Museum of Art and History, Geneva

Through June 28

Jakob Lena Knebl at Geneva’s Museum of Art and History. Photo: Julien Gremaud.

The Geneva Museum has undertaken an ambitious new strategy to recontextualize its historic collection of artifacts and paintings that span centuries. No longer wanting to operate as an “authoritarian” encyclopedic museum, the Swiss institution is letting a contemporary artist reinterpret gems from its collection, starting with the Viennese artist Jakob Lena Knebl, who will represent Austria in 2022 at the Venice Biennale with her collaborator Ashley Hans Scheirl.

For her show “Walk on the Water,” Knebl went through the museum’s 650,000 objects and restaged items within colorful, surreal scenes. In one chapter, there is a statue of Ramses II, dating from around 1290 BC, in a plush modern bedroom. Elsewhere, neoclassical marbles of Venus stand in shower cubicles, and a pair of 18th-century silk shoes sits atop a food platter. It’s a refreshing take that dusts off and reinterprets a truly impressive collection.

 

Sun Rise | Sun Set” at Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin

Through July 25

Installation view of "Sun Rise I Sun Set." Photo: Andrea Rossetti.

Installation view of “Sun Rise I Sun Set.” Photo: Andrea Rossetti.

A sensorial group show at Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin has artists like Max Ernst and Emma Kunz paralleled with contemporary figures including Pierre Huyghe or Norwegian photographer Torbjørn Rødland. A small green sprout is reaching out of the soil of Pamela Rosenkranz’s mound sculpture Infection (Calvin Klein Obsession for Men)—the cologne from the piece wafts around the glassed-in gallery space, which is tinted to protect light-shy earth worms that are fertilizing recent Frieze award winner Precious Okoyomon’s rock sculpture.

“Sun Rise | Sun Set” looks at climate as a poetic protagonist and, where individual humans do occur in this exhibition, they are inseparable from the natural world or at the mercy of it in some way. A woman is dominated by a beast in a 1908 painting by Henri Rousseau. Octopi tentacles seem to hit the sides of the screen as it swims in Kuwaiti filmmaker Monira al Qadiri’s moving work Divine Memory. The exhibition, with its flora and fauna that are both real and depicted, nearly transforms into its own feeling and breathing ecosystem.

 

Phyllida Barlow, “Frontier” at Haus der Kunst, Munich

Through July 25

Installation view of "frontier" by Phyllida Barlow at Haus der Kunst, 2021. Photo: Maximilian Geuter.

Installation view of “frontier” by Phyllida Barlow at Haus der Kunst, 2021. Photo: Maximilian Geuter.

The UK sculptor is having a large retrospective of 100 works that span decades of her practice. Barlow creates large-scale “anti-monumental” sculptures often from basic materials like cardboard, plywood, and textiles.

On the occasion of the show at Haus der Kunst—which launches a series of female-focused programming this year—Barlow has created several new site-specific works while reinstalling older pieces of towering proportions, dominating the museum’s intimidating architecture. There are also more intimate yet equally expressive works on paper that date back to the 1960s, which often share the same vivid color and energy as her sculptures. Considering that many of her works from earlier decades were destroyed, these works, which are usually made after a sculpture is complete, are somewhere between a memory and a dream.

 

Sophie Taeuber-Arp, “Living Abstraction” at Kunstmuseum Basel

Opening March 20

Sophie Taeuber-Arp; Composition à cercles et demi-cercles (1938). Arp Museum Bahnhof, Rolandseck, Remagen.

Sophie Taeuber-Arp; Composition à cercles et demi-cercles (1938). Arp Museum Bahnhof, Rolandseck, Remagen.

The Kunstmuseum Basel is giving Sophie Taeuber-Arp the recognition she deserves as a pioneer of 20th-century abstraction by staging a comprehensive retrospective of Switzerland’s own homegrown artist. The 250-work show, which has been put together in collaboration with MoMA in New York and Tate in London, includes her early works in applied arts and charts her brazen move into geometric abstraction, including her experimental years between Zurich and Paris, through to her later architectural works and abstract paintings.

“Living Abstraction” shines a full spotlight on an artist who has often been overshadowed in art history—though she has a special place in Switzerland, as many important collectors of her work are based there, and her face is on the 50 Swiss Franc note.

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A Beijing Museum Is Staging the World’s First ‘Major’ Crypto-Art Show, Featuring Artists Named Beeple, Fewocious, and Mad Dog Jones


Get ready for the world’s first NFT art exhibition, coming to the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. NFTs, short for non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets, individually identified on a blockchain, allowing one person to own a widely disseminated digital artwork.

The show, titled “Virtual Niche—Have you ever seen memes in the mirror?,” is being billed as “the world’s first major institutional crypto-art exhibition.” It will feature works by more than 60 artists, including newly minted market darling Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple.

The digital artist’s work Everydays—The First 5000 Days is currently for sale in the first-ever purely digital art auction at Christie’s, where bidding is live through March 11. The work currently sits at an astonishing $3.5 million.

The auction house previously auctioned its first NFT artwork, one of Robert Alice’s “Portraits of a Mind” paintings in October for $131,250. The piece, covered in 322,048 digits of hexadecimal code, will be among the works on view at UCCA.

Robert Alice, <em>Block 21 (42.36433° N, -71.26189° E)</em> from "Portraits of a Mind." Photo courtesy of Christie's.

Robert Alice, Block 21 (42.36433° N, -71.26189° E) from “Portraits of a Mind.” Photo courtesy of Christie’s.

NFTs have recently become a major art-market sensation, driven in part by tech investors in cryptocurrency. Last week, another Beeple NFT sold on Nifty Gateway, an online marketplace for digital art, for $6.6 million—1,000 times the $66,666.66 it previously fetched when it first went on sale in October.

“As generational tastes shift, we felt it important to support an exhibition that showcases a demographic’s interest that has had little previous institutional examination,” Elliot Safra, a partner at AndArt Agency, which helped organize the show, said in a statement. “We hope this exhibition will help propel the dialogue surrounding crypto-art from the fringes into the mainstream.”

UCCA is hosting its NTF exhibition through its UCCA Lab, which it describes as “an interdisciplinary platform for new kinds of art-adjacent collaboration.” Sun Bohan, CEO of crypto-art company BlockCreateArt, is the curator, and Digital Finance Group and Winkrypto are co-hosting the show.

Beeple's "Beeple Everydays: The 2020 Collection." Courtesy of Metapurse.

Beeple’s “Beeple Everydays: The 2020 Collection.” Courtesy of Metapurse.

Among the other artists who will have work on view are DJ deadmau5, Mario Klingemann, Robbie Barrat, Pak, Fewocious, and Mad Dog Jones.

The biggest draw will doubtless be “Everydays — The 2020 Collection,” a selection of Beeple’s daily digital drawing series launched in 2007, on loan from Metapurse. The crypto-exclusive fund purchased 20 first-edition artworks on Nifty Gateway for $2.2 million in December, and is selling “tokens” for shared ownership of what they’ve dubbed the B.20 bundle.

“Virtual Niche — Have you ever seen memes in the mirror?” will be on view at UCCA Lab, 798 Art District, No. 4 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China, March 26–April 4, 2021.

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