Staging the Artwork

Joan Jonas – They Come to Us Without a Word

9th May 2015 – 22nd November 2015

Visit: 27/28/29 October 2015

The brilliant Joan Jonas represented the USA at Venice in 2015. The US pavilion galleries were filled with video installations, drawing, sculptures and props, which explore the fragility of nature, whilst taking on some of the qualities of a stage set.

Categories: Artist / Curator, Brussels, Erik van Lieshout, Joan Jonas, WIELS

David Hockney – The Hypnotist

Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris

21st June – 23rd October 2017

Visit: 18th August, 2017

The Hypnotist, David Hockney, oil on canvas, 1963

“Hockney also began to experiment with theatricality, as in the 1963 paintings The Hypnotist, Two Friend and Two Curtains, Play within a Play and Closing Scene. This is often a literal theatricality, with curtains and staged spaces.” 1.

It is at the David Hockney retrospective at the Georges Pompidou, that I first got to see the painting The Hypnotist, a work made in the early stages of Hockney’s long career. A gold frame encompasses a green curtain, which marks the stage, the setting of the work. There are two male figures in the picture plane facing one another. The Hypnotist to the left of the image in furious concentration, hands raised and to the right a ruddy cheeked, blond and younger male in red. The chasm between them is transgressed by the concentration of The Hypnotist made visible in a white bodily form and lightning bolt which physically connects to the brilliant blue eyes of the youth.

Categories: 2017, And Yet There Was Art! Austria 1914-1918, Artist / Curator, City, David Hockney, George Pompidou Centre, Paris

Erik van Lieshout – The Show Must Ego On

WIELS, Brussels

30th September 2016 – 8th January 2017

Visit: 15th October 2016

Erik van Lieshout – The Show Must Ego On –

Categories: Brussels, Erik van Lieshout, The Show Must Ego On, WIELS

William Kentridge – Thick Time

Whitechapel Gallery London

21st September 2016 – 15th January 2017

Visit: 24th September 2016

William Kentridge is increasingly,

Categories: 2016, 2017, Thick Time, Whitechapel Gallery, William Kentridge

Helena Almeida – Corpus

WIELS, Brussels

Curators: Joao Ribas & Marta Moreira de Almeida
10th September – 11th December 2016

Visit: 15th October 2016

Helena Almeida’s solo exhibition is presented in WIELS alongside the two floor extravaganza from Erik van Lieshout.

Both solo shows, both artists present themselves, in their imagery and content. The contrast otherwise is thought provoking. Almeida’s photographic, video and painting works are presented on stark white walls,

Categories: Brussels, Corpus, Helena Almeida, Joao Ribas, Marta Moreira de Almeida, WIELS

Manifesta 11, 2016 – Zurich

Manifesta 11 exhibition held at various sites including Löwenbräukunst and Helmhaus Museums

Curator – Christian Jankowski with co-curators Francesca Gavin, Georgina Casparis and Masha Isserlis
11th June – 19th September 2016

Visit: 28th – 31st July 2016

Manifesta 11,

Categories: Andrea Tarkovsky, Christian Jankowski, Jon Kessler, Jon Rafman, Manifesta 11, Mark Leckey, Wezmke/Leinkauf, Zurich

Ragnar Kjartansson – Solo Exhibition

Barbican, London, UK
14th July – 4th September 2016
Visit: 20th July 2016

1a.Take Me here by the dishwasher installation view 2

Categories: Barbican, London, Ragnar Kjartansson

Anne Hardy – FIELD

Modern Art Oxford, Oxford
7th November 2015 – 10th January 2016

Pasific Palisades faded into remote vision

On entering the gallery we encounter the first work by Anne Hardy, titled Pacific Palisades faded into remote vision, 2014/15 and are given a cosmology of a studio wall space, as a digitally printed image on a wooden billboard type support. The image is of digs, scrapes and the stapled corners of pieces of coloured paper,

Categories: 2016, Anne Hardy, FIELD, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford

Objects – Prague Quadrennial 2015

Nova-Sin Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
Curator: Tomas Svoboda

Objects, was curated as part of the Prague Quadrennial 2015 (18th – 23rd June 2015)

Visit: 18th June 2015

Any questions as to the selection of objects on the plinth, is answered by the film, which shows us a range of theatre professionals, against a black background. Each is telling a story whilst holding and playing with a particular object. The narrative told by the custodian, is the history of the object, its significance in certain productions, how the object was found and variously the performing life of the thing, whether a poodle, a cat, a unicorn, an umbrella, a chair or flying pig. Some of the stories are read, others performed, but all speak to the significance and emotional connection to the thing, sometimes poignant and at other times humorous. The status of the thing its-self is in question.

Categories: Nova-Sin Gallery, Objects, Prague, Tomas Svoboda

Art Hill – Claude Parent

Liverpool Biennial

Tate Liverpool

5th July – 26th October 2014

Art Hill is a new commission by Claude Parent for the 8th Liverpool Biennial, as part of A Needle Walks into a Haystack, curated by Mai Abu ElDahab and Anthony Huberman.

Art Hill is an immersive architectural and curated space, where we as public are invited to climb ramps and slopes, lie on floors and explore relationships between actual and illusory architectural elements existing within both the gallery site and in the selected paintings curated into the space. Claude Parent has created a physical experience in which we become all too aware of our journey through the exhibition as we view works by Naum Gabo,

Categories: Anthony Huberman, Art Hill, Claude Parent, Liverpool, Mai Abu ElDahab, Tate Liverpool