Art!
Armchair Traveller: London to Berlin and Back Again
Ottoman, 2021, colored pencil on paper, 22 x 32 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
The art world too global for you? Each month, Interview highlights in pictures the shows you’d want to see—if you could jet-set from one international hub to the next. This month, we’re off to upstate New York, London, and Berlin.
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Karma, New York
August 14 – September 25, 2021
New York Based artist Mathew Cerletty is presenting an intimate showcase at Karma of 9 colored pencil drawings made over the past year. Each drawing, etched into textured cold-pressed watercolor paper, depicts an emphatically singular subject. Cerletty invests seemingly generic items with psychological depth and precision that calls to mind the likes of Robert Gober and René Magritte. A bag of groceries, an ottoman, or a flowerpot are all presented simply, but are nevertheless rendered in colors and forms that keep the eye searching for visual and conceptual rhymes, like a puzzle with evolving logic.
Groceries, 2021, colored pencil on paper, 31.25 x 25 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Karma, New York.
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The New Woman Behind the Camera
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
July 2 – October 3, 2021
The New Woman of the 1920s, otherwise known as le nouvelle femme or neue Frau, was easy to recognize but difficult to define. For many of daring women of the period, the camera was a means of asserting their self- determination and artistic expression. The New Woman Behind the Camera highlights the work of the diverse “new” women who made significant advances in modern photography from the 1920s to the 1950s. During this tumultuous period, women stood at the forefront of experimentation with the camera and produced invaluable visual testimony that reflects both their personal experiences and the extraordinary social and political transformations of the era. The exhibition features 185 photographs, photo books, and illustrated magazines by 120 photographers from over 20 countries.
Ilse Bing, Self-Portrait with Leica, 1931, Gelatin silver print, 10 1/2 in. × 12 in. Collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg © Ilse Bing Estate.
Lola Álvarez Bravo, The Freeloaders, ca. 1955, Gelatin silver print, 9 5/8 × 11 3/4 in. Collection of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser.
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Pope.L: Notations, Holes and Humour
Modern Art, London
July 15 – August 28, 2021
During his more than 40-year career, Chicago artist Pope.L has explored power disparities in language, gender, race, community and the environment across many mediums and disciplines. His exhibition with Modern Art centers on Skin Set, an ongoing project involving a number of text-inflected works that consider the construction of language, identity and stereotype as notation, holes and— frequently— humor.
Pope.L, Next to Last Silk Screen, 2018, silkscreen in lightbox, 25 1/2 x 19 1/2 ins. Photo: Robert Glowacki. © Pope.L. Courtesy: the artist, Modern Art, London and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, USA.
Pope.L, Beached, 2020, ballpoint pen, graphite, charcoal and acrylic, on gridded canvas in plexiglass box in, mirrored medicine cabinet with LED light, hardware and bumpers, 22 1/8 x 16 x 4 1/8 ins. Photo: Robert Glowacki. © Pope.L. Courtesy: the artist, Modern Art, London and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, USA.
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Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin
February 6 – December 12, 2021
A Fire In My Belly features artists from different generations and backgrounds, who examine the ways in which experiences of violence and loss are enacted, witnessed, and transformed. The exhibition explores how artists negotiate and transcend these experiences through personal and political gestures of protest and resistance. The exhibition title is derived from an unfinished film by the American artist and activist David Wojnarowicz, which distills the anger and anguish of the 1980s. The exhibition includes, among others, Bernadette Corporation, Paul Chan, Thomas Demand, Barbara Hammer, Leila Hekmat, Anne Imhof, Arthur Jafa, Ana Mendieta, and Kandis Williams.
David Wojnarowicz, A Fire In My Belly (Film In Progress) and A Fire In My Belly (Excerpt), 1986–87, Super 8 film transferred to video, 13′06′′ & 7′, Color & b/w, no sound. Video still. Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and PPOW Gallery, New York.
Kandis Williams, Eurydice, 2018. Installation view. A FIRE IN MY BELLY, JSC Berlin. Photo: Alwin Lay.
