June 2, 2023
Every month, Berlin Art Link shines a spotlight on international exhibitions and events with our Worldwide Hit List. We want to highlight artists, galleries, museums and new projects touching on a variety of topics, employing multiple media and featuring diverse subjects. Below are some of the stand-outs that we’ve selected for the month of June.
The Barbican
Carrie Mae Weems: ‘Reflections for Now’
Exhibition: June 22–Sept. 3, 2023
barbican.org.uk
Silk St, Barbican, London, UK, click here for map
‘Carrie Mae Weems: Reflections for Now’ marks the first major exhibition of the US-American artist in a UK institution. Taking place at Barbican Centre, the exhibition will include film, photography, sound and writings from the artist. A pioneer in film and photography, Weems explores the complex dynamics of gender, family, race and community. Spanning three decades of the artist’s work, from the 1990s to the present day, the exhibition gives a comprehensive insight into Weems’ powerful image-making. Included will be the iconic ‘Kitchen Table Series,’ in which images of orchestrated domestic scenes centre the everyday experiences of being a woman. More recent works include ‘The Shape of Things’ (2021), which focuses on the consequences of structural oppressive and the current political climate in the US.
Carrie Mae Weems: ‘Lincoln, Lonnie and Me – A Story in 5 Parts,’ 2012 // Courtesy the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin
St. Gallen Museum of Art
Camille Henrot: ‘Sweet Days of Discipline’
Exhibition: June 10–Nov. 5, 2023
kunstmuseumsg.ch
Museumstrasse 32, St. Gallen, Switzerland, click here for map
Camille Henrot is an artist working across the board. Her mediums include film, painting, sculpture and drawing, while influences range from social media to cultural anthropology. In Henrot’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland, the space will be transformed into a heterotopia of the seemingly unconnected. A large-scale installation contains over 30 works, made in bronze, aluminum, steel wool, wax and reflective fabric. Peppered throughout the works are care-giving figures—the nanny, the dog walker, the teacher, the babysitter—and more administrative icons, including the calendar and the contract. Henrot considers the multitudes of the parent and caregiver figure, stating: “I very much embrace the idea that the parent is not just the person who is raising the child, but is rather a multiplicitous, fluid, and complicated realm of people, ideas, tasks and objects in our lives.”
Camille Henrot: ‘Iron Deficiency,’ 2021 // Photo by Annik Wetter, courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Mennour, Paris
Chisenhale Gallery
Lotus Laurie Kang: ‘In Cascades’
Exhibition: June 2–July 30, 2023
chisenhale.org.uk
64 Chisenhale Rd, Old Ford, London, UK, click here for map
‘In Cascades’ is Lotus Laurie Kang’s first solo exhibition in Europe. The artist is known for her large sheets of film which, over the course of their installation, change hue from continued exposure to sunlight. With references to biology, feminist theory and science fiction, the work on show will encompass drawing, sculpture and installation, with fermentation vessels and organic matter scattered in the space. The sensitive materials show a continuation of Kang’s interest in states of flux. Specifically, Kang returns to the body, an entity both impermanent and ever-evolving. It possesses porousness and absorbs external forces (whether political, social or otherwise), cycles reflected in the developing and unstable materials used.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Ragnar Kjartansson: ‘Epic Waste of Love and Understanding’
Exhibition: June 9–Oct. 22, 2023
louisiana.dk
Gl Strandvej 13, 3050 Humlebæk, Denmark, click here for map
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art presents the work of Icelandic multidisciplinary artist Ragnar Kjartansson. Curated in close collaboration with Kjartansson, ‘Epic Waste of Love and Understanding’ spans drawing, painting, performance and large-scale installations, drawing upon a rich tapestry of references, from pop culture to politics. Well-known works on show include ‘The Visitors’ (2012), a nine-channel video installation of musicians performing at a crumbling mansion and ‘Me and My Mother’ (2015), in which the artist’s mother repeatedly spits at him in between five-year intervals. A master at endurance performances and acts of repetition, Kjartansson finds the divine in a banality that dances with theatrical tragicomedy and the absurd.
Ragnar Kjartansson: ‘The Visitors,’ 2012 // Photo by Elisabet Davids, courtesy of the artist
Helsinki Biennial
Group Show: ‘New Directions May Emerge’
Exhibition: June 12–Sept. 17, 2023
helsinkibiennaali.fi
Various locations
Curated by Joasia Krysa, the second Helsinki Biennial expands on the environmental focus of the inaugural 2021 edition to encompass political and technology-related issues. Set primarily on Vallisaari island in the Helsinki archipelago, it is intended to celebrate its unique ecosystem and sustainably use local materials for the production of the artworks, some of which will remain on site after the exhibition ends. In addition, artworks and the wider program will sprawl across mainland venues and public spaces including HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Helsinki Central Library Oodi, Stoa and Caisa Cultural Centers, as well as extend online. For this edition, Krysa has joined forces with five curatorial collaborators: Critical Environmental Data, Museum of Impossible Forms, TBA21-Academy, ViCCA @ Aalto Arts and an A.I. Entity. Participating artists include Dineo Seshee Bopape, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Bita Razavi, Tabita Rezaire, Emilija Škarnulytė, Jenna Sutela and Adrián Villar Rojas, among others.
Tabita Rezaire: ‘Deep Down Tidal,’ 2017, installation view // Courtesy the artist and Goodman Gallery
Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Tschabalala Self: ‘Spaces and Places’
Doug Aitken: ‘HOWL’
Exhibition: June 9-July 22, 2023
presenhuber.com
Waldmannstrasse 6, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland, click here for map
Zahnradstrasse 21, 8005 Zürich, Switzerland, click here for map
American artist Tschabalala Self will open her solo exhibition ‘Spaces and Places’ at Galerie Eva Presenhuber’s Waldmannstraße location in Zürich, during Zürich Art Weekend and ahead of Switzerland’s acclaimed fair Art Basel. Self made the works on view during a transitionary period, as she prepared to move her studio from New Haven, Connecticut to Catskill, New York. The title of the exhibition, ‘Spaces and Places,’ mirrors this unlocatable “inbetween-ness” that encircles the pieces included in her second solo show at the gallery. As Olamiju Fajemisin writes in her accompanying text: “With her interdisciplinary, research- and practice-led approach, Self yields multitudes out of canvas, paint, and thread. Caught between obfuscation and hypervisibility, Self’s figures are the product of the complex power dynamics of Black subjectivity.”
In Doug Aitken‘s new solo exhibition at the gallery, opening concurrently in Presenhuber’s MAAG Areal exhibition space, the artist presents an entire series of new artworks that investigates and challenges us to reflect on how humans navigate both ideological and physical landscapes. ‘HOWL’ consists of a series of sculptural artworks that are strategically placed and act as guideposts leading visitors through the exhibition space towards a multi-screen film installation.
Tschabalala Self: ‘Leisure Woman Alone in Chaotic Room,’ 2023 // Courtesy the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich / Vienna, © the artist, photo by Lance Brewer
Albertina
Valie Export: ‘Retrospective’
Exhibition: June 23-Oct. 1, 2023
albertina.at
Albertinapl. 1, 1010 Vienna, Austria, click here for map
A retrospective of groundbreaking feminist artist Valie Export’s work is opening on June 23rd at the Albertina in Vienna. Pioneering performance and media artist Export has examined the role of women in her art since the 1960s, demonstrating how patriarchal structures painfully inscribe themselves on the female body. The exhibition spans Export’s early feminist actions, such as Tapp and Tastkino, to her later performances, installations and body configurations. Works that have never been shown before are also being realized for the first time, permitting new insights into the artist’s career. The exhibition focuses on the relevance of photography in Export’s work, which plays a central role in her exploration of feminist and socio-political issues. Export’s critical work reveals how mass visual media first constructed and established gender-specific images, prescribing female identity. The show explores the relationship between femininity and representation, performance and image, body and gaze, and subject and space.
Valie Export: ‘Asemie,’ 1973, silver gelatine // Courtesy of the artist
Lafayette Anticipations
Pol Taburet: ‘OPERA III: ZOO “The Day of Heaven and Hell”‘
Exhibition: From June 21, 2023
lafayetteanticipations.com
9 Rue du Plâtre, 75004 Paris, France, click here for map
Pol Taburet’s first monographic exhibition at an institution opens at Lafayette Anticipations on June 21st. ‘OPERA III: ZOO “The Day of Heaven and Hell”’ brings together paintings, sculptures and installations around the idea of interiority, both architectural and psychic. 26-year-old Taburet, who lives and works in Paris, has been named one of the most promising young French artists of his generation. Extending his painting practice and exploring new media, this show sees Taburet draw on personal and collective mythology, particularly the tales passed down from generation to generation. Taburet’s grotesque and monstrous visions evoke the imagination of childhood and plunge us into a reality close to hallucination. The inanimate comes to life in the shadowy rooms of Fondation Galeries Lafayette. ‘OPERA III: ZOO “The Day of Heaven and Hell”’ is the last part of a trilogy of exhibitions that deals with the power of the imagination.
Pol Taburet: ‘Jumping out the womb like my daddy is the devil,’ 2022, acrylic and alcohol on canvas // Photo by Jiayun Deng, courtesy of the artist and Balice Hertling, Paris
Städel Museum
Ugo Rondinone: ‘Sunrise. East.’
Exhibition: June 28–Oct. 5, 2023
staedelmuseum.de
Schaumainkai 63, 60596 Frankfurt, Germany, click here for map
Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone has transformed the hill above Frankfurt’s Städel Garden into a strange landscape with his grotesque creatures. In ‘Sunrise. East.,’ Rondinone has produced 12 silver aluminium heads to represent each calendar month. Larger than life, the huge sculptural heads are reduced to their facial expressions, triggering diverse emotions and associations, and evoking the visual language of comics and emoticons. Coming face-to-face with the ghostly creatures populating the museum garden, visitors are confronted with an entire year in fast forward. The exhibition was curated by Städel Museum’s Deputy Head of Contemporary Art, Svenja Grosser.
Ugo Rondinone: ‘Sunrise. East. August,’ 2005, cast aluminium on a concrete pedestal, 210 x 150 x 140 cm // Photo by Stefan Altenburger, courtesy of the artist
MOCA Toronto
Group Show: ‘Impostor Cities’
Exhibition: June 28–Oct. 5, 2023
moca.ca
158 Sterling Rd, M6R 2B7 Toronto, Canada, click here for map
‘Impostor Cities’ at MOCA Toronto is concerned with architectural identity and faking it. Through clips, video interviews and green-screen opportunities, the show explores the patchwork impressions of Canada’s buildings, cities and landscapes as fictional places in film and television. Initially commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts for the 2020 Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, ‘Impostor Cities’ is now being fully realised for the first time. A screening room shows clips from over 3,000 films and television shows shot in Canada, while a collection of video interviews with Canadian architects and filmmakers exposes the existence of a cinematic reality beyond the city’s historical identity. This multimedia project is a playful critique of cultural representation, examining movies as powerful sites of architectural experience, expression and authenticity.
‘Impostor Cities’, screening room installation view // Courtesy Impostor Cities
Schloss Altdöbern
Group Show: ‘Rohkunstbau28’
Exhibition: June 18–Oct. 29, 2023
rohkunstbau.net
Schloss Altdöbern, Am Park, 03229 Altdöbern, Germany, click here for map
With its four-month long exhibition, entitled ‘Endlich Frieden! Die Sorge um sich und die anderen’ [Peace at last! Concern for yourself and others], Rohkunstbau 28 asks bold questions about the ethical prerequisites for an end to violence—violence against nature and against others. The 28th edition of Rohkunstbau looks for artistic answers, combining positions from different genres and inspired by the unique architecture of Altdöbern Castle. Participants of this year’s edition include: Banksy (UK), AA Bronson (CAN), Rufina Baslowa (BLR/CZ), Mike Bourscheid (LUX/CAN), Andrea Bowers (USA), Gaëlle Choisne (F/Haiti), Mariechen Danz (IRL/D), Sarah Entwistle (GB/D), Noémie Goudal (F/UK), Axel Hütte (D), Sven Johne (D), Allan McCollum / Matt Mullican (USA), Olena Pronkina (UKR), Bertram von Undall (DRK) and more.
Mariechen Danz: ‘Womb Tomb : worry scrolls,’ 2018, installation view, 40.000 – A Museum of Curiosity, Fellbach Triennial // Courtesy the artist and Wentrup Berlin, photo by Peter D. Hartung
