Aug. 30, 2024
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 September.
Kunsthalle Wien
Aleksandra Domanović
Exhibition: Sept. 5, 2024-Jan. 26, 2025
kunsthallewien.at
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Wien, Austria, click here for map
With Michelle Cotton as the newly appointed Artistic Director, Kunsthalle Wien launches a new program this September, headlined by a comprehensive exhibition of Aleksandra Domanović’s work. The Berlin-based artist focuses on the intersections of technology, history and culture, exploring how they shape our understanding of identity and contemporary society. Her first solo show in Austria is also the largest presentation of her work to date, featuring over 40 works (including new commissions) produced over the last 18 years. The exhibition showcases her diverse practice in sculpture, video, print, photography and digital media, characterized by a playful and critical approach to information culture in the post-internet era.
Aleksandra Domanović: ‘Sueño de una Tarde,’ 2014 // Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton, Berlin and Los Angeles, Photo by Gunter Lepkowski
Edith Farnsworth House
Beatriz Morales: ‘Capisayo’
Exhibition: Sept. 29-Dec. 8, 2024
edithfarnsworthhouse.org
14520 River Rd, Plano, IL 60545, USA, click here for map
For the exhibition ‘Capisayo’ by Mexican artist Beatriz Morales—a site-specific installation on view at the historical Edith Farnsworth House, curated by Esenija Bannan—the main catalyst was the idea of transforming the building while telling a story, without losing its identity. The Edith Farnsworth House, located in Plano, Illinois just outside of Chicago, is a Mies van der Rohe designed masterpiece and a pilgrimage site for architects and designers world-wide, considered one of the most important modernist assets in the United States. In dialogue with the architecture of the house—its clean lines and flat, horizontal footprint—Morales created the fiber art piece ‘Capisayo’ as a sign of protection, accompanied by works merging painting with embroidery, as well as a number of abstract portrait paintings. The exhibition expands onto the premises of the historic site, including the gallery where a large agave fiber installation piece dyed with natural ink, titled ‘Quimera,’ envelops the round shape of the gallery space.
Beatriz Morales: ‘Capisayo,’ 2024, detail // Courtesy of the artist
Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art
Survival Kit 15: ‘Measures’
Festival: Sept. 6-Oct. 6, 2024
lcca.lv
Riga, Latvia
Various Venues
Organized by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, the 15th edition of Survival Kit, Riga’s annual art festival, spans multiple locations on both banks of the Daugava River. Curated by Jussi Koitela under the title ‘Measures,’ the exhibition considers possible pasts, presents and futures by measuring, investigating and embracing the diverse knowledges embedded in the city and beyond. Visitors are invited to engage with nature-culture environments, explore daily bodily experiences and reflect on data and truth-making. In line with the exhibition theme, the public program, curated by Gundega Laiviņa, delves into the various forms of knowledge produced by the city and its communities. Featured artists include Linda Boļšakova, Jeremy Deller, Renée Green, Monia Ben Hamouda, Gerda Paliušytė, Yuri Pattison and Vidha Saumya, among others.
Aimée Zito Lema: ‘Rond de Jambe,’ Installation and live performance, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam, 2017 // Photo: Sander van Wettum
Fridericianum
Melvin Edwards: ‘Some Bright Morning’
Exhibition: Aug. 31, 2024-Jan. 12, 2025
fridericianum.org
Friedrichspl. 18, 34117 Kassel, click here for map
Starting at the end of August, the Fridericianum in Kassel is hosting a solo exhibition by Melvin Edwards that covers an exemplary range of the American artist’s practice, from his welded violence-haunted sculptures ‘Lynch Fragments,’ made in the 1960s, to his more recent homages to artists and revolutionaries, such as Leon Gontran Damas and Francisco Romão. Marking the first time that Edwards’ art has been shown in Europe, the exhibition showcases an oeuvre that engages equally with the history of the United States Civil Rights movement as well as tradition of abstraction. It is being realized in cooperation with the Kunsthalle Bern and Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Melvin Edwards: ‘Tan Ton Dyminns,’ 1974, painted welded steel in 2 parts, Part 1: 214,6 × 91,4 × 94 cm; Part 2: 217,17 × 91,44 × 93,98 cm // Photo by Timothy Doyon, © the artist, courtesy of the artist; Alexander Gray Associates, New York; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; Galerie Buchholz, Berlin
205 Hudson Gallery
Andrea Blum: ‘Biota’
Exhibition: Sept. 4-Oct. 26, 2024
205hudsongallery.org
205 Hudson St, New York, NY 10013, USA, click here for map
The multi-disciplinary artist Andrea Blum has situated her practice at the intersection of art, design and architecture for over 40 years, creating public artworks such as plazas, parks, mobile homes and libraries across the United States and Europe. In ‘Biota,’ on display from the beginning of September at the 205 Hudson Gallery, Blum turns her attention to creating an exhibition environment that tends to the construction of the natural world and relations between humans and non-humans: the artworks include a series of digital images that simulate organic matter, experiments with furniture-like objects for interspecies observation and videos of wildlife in which animal desire parallels our own.
Andrea Blum: ‘Birdhouse III,’ 2024, C-Trans lightbox, 97 x 145 cm, installation view of ‘Birdhouse,’ 2013, installed at La Conservera Centro De Arte Contemporáneo, Murcia, Spain; 40’x 20’x 36’ // © 2024 Andrea Blum, courtesy of the artist
Ishara Art Foundation
Ayesha Sultana: ‘Fragility and Resilience’
Exhibition: Sept. 6-Dec. 7, 2024
ishara.org
Alserkal Avenue, Warehouse 3 17th St., Al Quoz, Dubai, UAE, click here for map
In her solo exhibition ‘Fragility and Resilience,’ Ayesha Sultana challenges the separation of fragility and resilience, suggesting that fragility can be a form of strength while still encompassing profound vulnerability. The artist explores this theme in the context of social, ecological and personal upheavals that continually challenge the limits of sustainability. The exhibition at Ishara Art Foundation features a wide range of artworks, including the debut of Sultana’s hand-blown glass sculptures, new oil paintings, watercolors on Japanese silk tissue, works on clay-coated paper and earlier photographic pieces. With the inclusion of sketchbooks, diaries and works-in-progress, the show also provides a rare insight into the artist’s creative process.
Ayesha Sultana: ‘Inhabiting Our Bodies,’ 2024, watercolour on Japanese silk tissue, 76.2 x 60.96cm // Courtesy of the artist
Tim Van Laere Gallery
Ben Sledsens: ‘Between Fish and Stars’
Exhibition: Aug. 29-Oct. 5, 2024
timvanlaeregallery.com
Jos Smolderenstraat 50, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium, click here for map
Ben Sledsens is a veteran of the Tim Van Laere Gallery—’Between Fish and Stars’ marks the 33-year-old’s sixth exhibition at the Antwerp institution. Sledsens is known primarily as a surreal painter of nature in the mold of Henri Rousseau, taking in everything from dense woods to picturesque landscapes in order to direct the viewer’s attention to the environmental uncanny. ‘Between Fish and Stars,’ however, places a different emphasis on Sledsens’ oeuvre, introducing his charcoal drawings as contrast to his vividly colored painting.
Ben Sledsens: ‘Yellow Day,’ 2023-24, oil and acrylic on canvas, 190 x 220 cm // Courtesy of the artist and Tim Van Laere Gallery
MMCA Seoul
Group Show: ‘Connecting Bodies: Asian Women Artists’
Exhibition: Sept. 3, 2024-Mar. 3, 2025
mmca.go.kr
30 Samcheong-ro, Jongno District, Seoul, South Korea, click here for map
‘Connecting Bodies: Asian Women Artists’ assembles around 130 works by women artists from 11 Asian countries in an attempt to examine anew the contemporary meaning of post‒1960s art by Asian women from the perspective of “corporeality.” Consisting of six sections, the exhibition shares stories about diverse, polyphonous bodies that have redefined identity in various ways. With this, it goes beyond the Western-centric perspective that views Asian women as “others” and instead focuses on them as agents embodied in multilayered ways. At the same time, ‘Connecting Bodies’ highlights works that have questioned modernity while revealing the experiences of cultural otherness that have been applied to the body in the geographical and political space of Asia, as a setting where ideologies of nation-states, patriarchy, capitalism and nationalism have been reproduced.
PARK Youngsook: ‘Toward Future,’ 1988, gelatin silver print, 71.1 x 25cm, ARARIO Collection // © PARK Youngsook, courtesy of the artist and ARARIO Collection
