William Kentridge
Waiting to Forget Something
Prossimamente:- Luogo:
- Naples
- Data:
- 27 marzo 2024
William Kentridge's new 9-episode series, Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot, will premiere in Venice in an installation curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. Shot during, and in the aftermath of, the 2020–2022 COVID-19 pandemic, and completed in 2023, these works will be viewed in a unique, concentrated environment that partially recreates Kentridge's Johannesburg studio where they were made. "Filming began in the first lockdown and the studio mimicked the closed spaces of Covid", states William Kentridge, "but the studio is also an enlarged head, a chamber for thoughts and reflections where all the drawings, photos and detritus on the studio walls become these thoughts".
Reinhard Mucha, born in Düsseldorf in 1950, could be summed up in this formula with his “model making.” The potential of the matter is his raw material, the potential to radiate neuralgic emotional states with a sculptural frequency all its own. Filing cabinets, index card boxes, historical furniture—for Mucha, not “yesterday’s news,” not “the end of the story” (from the arsenal of his titles), but the beginning of his own new arrangements, reconfigured and thus abstracted. Freed from the original functional context of everyday life, in which they have served their purpose, literally cut free, things become the building blocks for mostly sculptural formal inventions that stand for themselves, namely as art. Including axiomatic achievements, such as the legacy of Marcel Duchamp, i.e. the significance of even the choice of an object, as well as the unconditional belief in the narrative power of the material à la Joseph Beuys, the expansion of the artistic field through conceptual art, and the stock of forms of minimalism. Mucha deconstructs this pool of ideas into its component parts, as he does with other materials, in order to then reintegrate individual components into the work — transformed with his assistance. For example, he recodes the formal language of minimal art, its clean self-referentiality, into a display of individual experience. In typical Mucha fashion, this display character then becomes his subject again, to which he adds footnotes of self-reflection, for example when he “shows” works in works as inserts, thus thematizing the exhibition itself through their co-exhibition.
The exhibition, curated in collaboration with the artist of the Royal Academy of London, presents recordings of legendary performances, photographs, videos, sculptures and live re-enactments of four iconic performances performed for the first time in the Netherlands: These performances, Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful (1975), Imponderabilia (work with Ulay) (1977), Luminosity (1997), and The House with the Ocean View (2002), are being presented for the first time in the Netherlands. Additionally, visitors will have the opportunity to participate in two works firsthand. The exhibition will include Abramović's earliest work from 50 years ago, as well as her well-known pieces such as Work Relation (work with Ulay) (1978) and Counting the Rice according to the Abramović Method. The upcoming solo exhibition will showcase over 60 works that present the development of the award-winning performance pioneer. The exhibition promises to be the most comprehensive on the artist.
The exhibition Ugo Mulas / Saul Steinberg's Graffiti in Milan, curated by the Ugo Mulas Archive and Walter Guadagnini, will be in CAMERA's Project Room from 14 February to 14 April 2024 and recounts that event, re-proposing the entire decoration to scale from Mulas' photographs. A selection of about fifteen photographs - some vintage, others printed for this occasion - allow us to enter deeply into the work of these two great representatives of 20th century art, to appreciate Steinberg's iconographic fantasy and the poetic lucidity of Mulas' eye. In 1961, Saul Steinberg produced an extraordinary graffito decoration of the atrium of the Palazzina Mayer in Milan, commissioned by Studio BBPR, which was overseeing its renovation. An important work, which followed other similar undertakings by the great designer and illustrator in the United States during the previous decade. When the work was complete, Steinberg asked a young Ugo Mulas to witness the work, both in its entirety and in detail. To help the photographer in his work, the artist also wrote a short text explaining the iconography and meaning of his work, a reflection on the labyrinth starting with the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, the city where Steinberg had lived before the war. In 1997, the building was renovated again, and the graffiti destroyed: today, only Ugo Mulas' photographs remain of that splendid intervention, capable of restoring both the document of the work and its interpretation.
From 15 March to 20 April The University of Ghent will present Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent from 1990 to 1998. It is a cross-reference exhibition of information on the presence of an American artist in a Belgian city: consisting of a spatial chronology into which are inserted texts, artworks, archival documents, and books, focused on the relationship between an international artist and a local art community, with mentions of the reciprocity between work, partnership, family and household, edited and curated by Gertjan Oskar and Wouter Davidts The exhibition Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent (...) presents traces of Kosuth's presence and activities in Ghent before, during and after his stay in Ghent. Using an extensive selection of historical documents, photographs, press, publications, books, works of art and letters from both private and institutional archives, the exhibition sheds light on the forcefield between the international artworld and a specific locality on the one hand, and the private life and public work of an artist on the other. The exhibition shows that a contemporary art practice always develops in a complex network of international contacts and local players, but also always involves a social dynamic between artist and partner, family, colleagues and friends. Parallel to the exhibition, Joseph Kosuth realized a billboard for 019 and Artlead in the Ghent Harbour. Billboard Series #30 (05/10/2023 – 18/02/2024) Joseph Kosuth, Misfortune | Happiness, 2023
'The Other Side' aims to express he concept of crossing over to the other side is experienced every night during sleep and dreams. From childhood, we learn that death is a mysterious and unknown place that separates life from this other realm. Our consciousness is limited, surrounded by an unconscious sea. Venturing too far into this unknown realm can be a one-way journey, where we confront our inner demons. It appears that there are multiple perspectives, including this one, rather than just one. However, there is also a growing sense that this perspective may not be entirely unique. The use of rigid and binary definitions is inadequate in describing the complexity that surrounds and permeates us. Categories such as man or woman, madness or sanity, and virtuality or reality can be limiting and destructive. They hinder our ability to move from what we are to what we aspire to be. Reality and fiction can become indistinguishable, and ultimately, there may be no discernible difference. The other side can be whatever you desire, or rather, everything that you do not necessarily want, but still desire. For a moment, forget about the constraints of this side, the only one you believe you know. Disregard categories, reason, and logic. Ignore imposed labels and language. Forget everything you think you remember and venture into the other side.