Eliana Willis

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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: The Late Polish Artist Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Monumental Soft Sculptures Stun at Tate Modern

    Visitors to “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” at the Tate Modern in London will find themselves dwarfed as they move between vast, free-hanging structures that challenge our traditional notions of sculpture and textile art. 
    Their warmly colored, ragged surfaces have been achieved by weaving together organic materials like sisal plant, horsehair, and hemp rope into complex and ambiguous 3D fiber installations known as “Abakans.”
    “It is from fiber that all living organisms are built, the tissue of plants, leaves and ourselves,” Abakanowicz once said. “Our nerves, our genetic code, the canals of our veins, our muscles. We are fibrous structures.” 
    Audiences will learn how Abakanowicz started out making painted textiles in the 1950s and watch as her practice evolved over the 1960s and ’70s, when she transitioned to building suspended forms on a monumental scale.
    Their radical nature is all the more striking for the artist’s distance from many of the major hubs of the art world. Born in 1930, she grew up in the rural Polish countryside and later, during the war, her family became part of the resistance while she worked as a nurse’s aid at the remarkably young age of 14. Afterward, Abakanowicz became an artist under an oppressive Communist regime and struggled against the odds to build an internationally recognized career. 
    Abakanowicz is also known today for Agora, a crowded group of headless figures permanently installed in Chicago’s Grant Park, and War Games, large structures made from trees in the style of military equipment. One of the works from this latter series, Anasta (1989), is displayed in the exhibition alongside the Abakans.
    “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at Tate Modern until May 21, 2023. See works in the show below.
    Installation view of “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at Tate Modern until May 21, 2023. Photo courtesy of Tate Modern.
    Installation view of “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at Tate Modern until May 21, 2023. Photo courtesy of Tate Modern.
    Installation view of “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at Tate Modern until May 21, 2023. Photo courtesy of Tate Modern.
    Installation view of “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at Tate Modern until May 21, 2023. Photo courtesy of Tate Modern.
    Installation view of “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at Tate Modern until May 21, 2023. Photo courtesy of Tate Modern.
    Installation view of “Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope” is on show at Tate Modern until May 21, 2023. Photo courtesy of Tate Modern.
    Magdalena Abakanowicz, Brown Textile 21 (1963). Photo courtesy of Tate Modern; © Fundacja Marty Magdaleny Abakanowicz Kosmowskiej iJana Kosmowskiego, Warsaw.
    Photograph of Magdalena Abakanowicz at work in 1966. Photo: © Estate of Marek Holzman.

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    French Designer and Provocateur Michèle Lamy Is Unveiling a High-Art Skate Park in West Hollywood

    Carpenters Workshop Gallery is opening a high-art skatepark in West Hollywood tonight with “Turning Tricks” (November 17, 2022–January 14, 2023). The group show was organized by Michèle Lamy, the designer and provocateur (and wife of Rick Owns) behind the creative collectives LamyLand and OwensCorp.
    Five undisclosed pro skateboarders will be at tonight’s opening event to shred their boards on the show’s twelve skateable sculptures, created by pro skater Danny Minnick (the exhibition’s co-curator) alongside artists and designers Skyler DeYoung, Chris Benfield, and Lamy’s daughter Scarlett Rouge.
    Typically, these skaters would charge appearance fees, but they’re friends of Lamy, who maintains a rich cadre of collaborators, and always brings a posse to art openings. Rapper A$AP Rocky credits her with shaping his career.
    Lamy and Carpenters Workshop Gallery partner Loïc Le Gaillard are also friends. As the two talked recently, Lamy expressed a desire to push art’s existing limits, transcending mere objects to encapsulate an ephemeral but palpable vibe. Skating, and its community, came to mind.
    “I’m fighting for a new way of being,” she said in a statement. “I’m ready to imagine a new world.”
    Rouge at work, on site at Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Courtesy of the gallery.
    “I have always been about creating spaces for people and inviting artists to create, and this project is an extension of my world,” Lamy continued. “We are all on this ride together.”
    Even though skateboarding only gained mainstream appeal in the early 1990s, Los Angeles has been a hub for it since the 1950s. “No sport is more connected to Southern California than skateboarding,” the Los Angeles Times wrote late last year.
    L.A. residents emptied their pools during droughts. Some turned them into DIY skateparks. Last summer, the sport made its Olympic debut at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
    Still, lingering associations between skateboarding and pesky kids—or worse, crime—persist.
    Between the gallery and artists, everyone hopes that the communal energy of tonight’s “Turning Tricks” opening carries on well throughout the show’s run over the next two months, leaving a social memory as much a design one.
    To that end, they’ve filled out the gallery by fabricating full-on ramps, while reimagining trash cans and fire hydrants as objets d’art and replicating L.A.’s most iconic skating sites.
    An installation view of Danny Minnick, Skater shredding H-Street Office Ramp (2022). Courtesy of Carpenters Workshop Gallery.
    In Sandpit, for instance, Rouge reanimated a legendary skating site off the Venice Beach boardwalk, once “a notorious intersection between graffiti and skating, with worldwide influence,” the work’s description explained. Legends like Henry Sanchez, Guy Mariano, and Eric Koston practiced there, until the city razed the site in 2000.
    Atelier OwensCorp built their own iteration of the Lockwood Elementary School, whose concrete playground remain a popular skating spot, using cinder blocks, asphalt, a chain-link fence, paint, and concrete. Minnick, meanwhile, honors skate and apparel company H-Street, founded in 1986 by pro skaters Tony Magnusson and Mike Ternasky, by recreating their notorious in-house quarterpipe from plywood, masonite, and steel.
    The artists also all painted, carved, and re-shaped a total of 65 skate decks from maplewood for collectors at the occasion. Every single one comes with its own print of relief oil-based ink on archival Arches cover paper.
    “The essence of skateboarding will be seen and heard for the first time through objects as they should be, without being considered a nuisance, an outlaw, or outsider activity,” Minnick mused in the release. “The exhibition brings the artist energy that has been such a big part of my life to a format for all to consider and enjoy.”
    “Turning Tricks” is on view at Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Los Angeles through January 14, 2023.
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    in Exhibitions

    David Hockney Put a Personal Touch on the New Immersive Experience Based on His Work Coming to London

    The boom in immersive art shows has seen some of the world’s best-loved masterpieces reimagined on the largest scale, and toured to audiences worldwide. The focus so far has been on historical works, with artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt and Frida Kahlo among the most popular subjects. 
    David Hockney may now be one of the first living artists to get the same treatment for a new show, “Bigger & Closer (not smaller and further away)” opening early next year in London. 
    Installation of David Hockney’s Gregory Swimming Los Angeles March 31st 1982 at “David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away),” an immersive art experience at Lightroom in King’s Cross, London. Photo: courtesy of Lightroom, ©David Hockney.
    Hockney has been able to take the reins and direct this new immersive journey, inviting visitors into some of his most renowned paintings, from the swimming pools he painted during his years in California to the vast canyons he captured in the American West.
    Photographs and polaroid collages will also be used to tell visitors about the artist’s life, transporting audiences between Yorkshire, where Hockney is from, to Los Angeles, where he moved to in the 1960s, and Normandy in southern France, where he now lives. 
    These insights and many more will stretch across six themed chapters, which are set against commentary from Hockney and a custom score by the American composer Nico Muhly.
    Installation of The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twentyeleven) (1998) at “David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away),” an immersive art experience at Lightroom in King’s Cross, London. Photo: courtesy of Lightroom; © David Hockney.
    “The world is very, very beautiful if you look at it, but most people don’t look very much,” Hockney muses in one voice-over. “They scan the ground in front of them so they can walk, they don’t really look at things incredibly well, with an intensity. I do.”
    Three years in the making, this mega production won’t be the first time Hockney has kept an eye on tech trends and adapted his painting practice to new media. He began using computer software to draw as early as the 1980s and, since 2009, he has regularly exhibited portraits, landscapes and still-lifes that were made on an iPad.
    David Hockney viewing the model box containing an immersive view of his work August 2021, Landscape with Shadows. Photo: Mark Grimmer, © David Hockney.
    The show will open in Lightroom, a new four-story exhibition space for immersive experiences in the creative district of Kings Cross, organized by the London Theatre Company and 59 Productions. “David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller and further away)” runs from January 25 to April 23, 2023 and tickets are now on sale at £25 ($30) for adults and £15 ($18) for students.
    London is also home to Frameless, another venue for experiential art forms that opened in Marble Arch in September. The arrival of Lightroom suggests that the immersive art craze shows no sign of disappearing, following major investment in this fast growing sector.
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    in Street Art

    A Mural by Reka in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    James Reka is a young contemporary Australian artist based in Berlin, Germany. His origins lie in the alleyways and train lines of Melbourne’s inner suburbs where he spent over a decade refining his now-emblematic aesthetic. His figurative work has come to represent the beginnings of a new style of street art: clean, unique and not necessarily on the street (much to his mother’s joy).Surrealist, abstracted creatures emerge from the depths of Reka’s mind, communicating through strong lines, dynamic movement and bold colours. These figures haunt the laneways over four continents, clambering up brick walls and giving the urban environment a literal fresh coat of paint. Their personalities mirror those of their often-decrepit metropolitan context, opening a dialogue between the viewer and their surroundings.The wall was made in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.See more images below and check back with us soon for more updates. More

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    in Street Art

    La güerita, 2022 by Ana Barriga in Plasencia, Spain

    Ana Barriga is a Spanish artist. She lives and works in Madrid. Her works attempt to balance reason and emotion, capturing the energy that arises from their intersection. Barriga tries to focus on the shared environment between artists and children, using elements such as children’s toys, colourful decorative objects and other items used in everyday life. Her approach to her subjects is filled with irony, humour and playfulness from which unpredictable and new situations that don’t fit the rules emerge.The eighteen meters high wall was painted in Plasencia, Spain.The project collaborated with Invasion Street Art Festival, Misterpiro and Jaime Urdiales.See more images below and check back with us soon for more updates.Invasion Street Art Festival. Foto: Andy Solé More

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    in Street Art

    “A Famous Milanese Renaissance Girl, with Red Brushstrokes, Pixel and a Pointer” by Ozmo in Milan, Italy.

    Born in Pontedera, Italy Ozmo made his first steps in the comics world, but since early 90s he soon moved his focus on writing and painting. In short time his tag would have become one of the most famous and respected ones in the Italian graffiti scene. A special reportage dedicated to Ozmo on ‘Aelle’ – the most famous urban culture underground mag in Italy – will consacrate him as one of the leading figure in the national underground writing scene.Ozmo is now based in Paris. He returns to Milan, the adopted city that has welcomed him in the most decisive years of his artistic career, and he does so symbolically bringing home a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance art: The Lady with the Ermine of Leonardo da Vinci which has been in Poland for two centuries.To dominate the view of the Milanese architecture of Corso XXII Marzo, ready to attract and direct the gaze of passers-by, from now on there will be, in fact, A famous Milanese Renaissance girl, with red brushstrokes, pixel and a pointer, a monumental reinterpretation and recontextualization of the Leonardesca Lady, unchanged in its beauty and elegance of the fifteenth century, but enriched by the journey that, through the centuries, led her to be reborn under the gaze of an artist of today, to relive in the homage that Ozmo makes to the city and its history.It is precisely in Milan, in fact, that Leonardo da Vinci creates some of his most famous masterpieces, capable of changing Italian portraiture. In this context of research and innovation, of artistic and cultural ferment, his Lady with Ermine was born.The project continues the conceptual and aesthetic path undertaken many years ago, which holds together the link between the artist and the historical, historical-artistic and cultural Italian tradition, and his ever-living desire to actualize it.  A famous Milanese Renaissance girl, with red brushstrokes, pixels and a pointer, is enriched with new artistic elements and new points of reflection.With tools typical of the computer world, such as pixels and pointers, but made with brush and spraypaint, Ozmo conceals, highlights or changes elements of the original work, bringing it into contact with the current era and the languages recognized by today’s society. With a red sign that runs along the surface, Ozmo consolidates the link between the pictorial intervention and the architectural context, and harmoniously binds all the artistic elements, giving the city a new public work.The mural  has been realized with the support of the association Street is Culture and the social cooperative of EST – Enosteria sociale , which, in a public housing in the center of Milan, recovers people from difficult contexts, and  it does so by integrating itself in the environment through the art and work. It’s precisely his mission, to bring art where it is not usable, to give life to the collaboration with Ozmo. The realization of the work was curated by Annalisa Ferraro, with the collaboration of RiparTIAMO ApsTake a look at more images below and check back with us soon for more updates. More

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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: See Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets and Polka Dots at the Hong Kong M+ Museum’s Blowout Exhibition Celebrating Its First Anniversary

    At the age of 93, Yayoi Kusama is still actively making art. Some of her most recent creations can be found among her iconic oeuvre on show in a blockbuster retrospective in Hong Kong that celebrates both the artist’s seven-decade artistic journey as well as the first anniversary of M+ museum.
    The highly anticipated show, titled “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now,” features more than 200 works ranging from paintings, sculptures, installations, moving images, and archival materials. Divided into six themes: Infinity, Accumulation, Radical Connectivity, Biocosmic, Death, and Force of Life, the colorful exhibition chronicles the artist’s trajectory, beginning with her formative years in Japan, through to her breakthrough in the West following her move to the U.S. in 1957, and finally to the decades after her return to her native country in 1973.
    Kusama is now a household name in the art world. She has earned the title of the best-selling Japanese artist in the world, according to data from Artnet Price Database, with sales of her works reaching more than $1 billion as of the beginning of this month. Widely regarded as one of the most influential artists from Asia, her work has been exhibited across the globe, including in previous retrospectives such as the 2012 shows at Tate Modern in London and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the 2017 exhibition at National Gallery Singapore, and last year’s presentation at Gropius Bau in Berlin, which closed in May at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
    So why is M+ staging another Kusama retrospective, and how is it different from its predecessors? “Her New York years had been highlighted and focused upon again and again. However, for me, what has been under-examined is [the period] after she returned to Japan,” Doryun Chong, M+’s deputy director and chief curator, told Artnet News. Chong co-curated the Hong Kong retrospective with independent curator Mika Yoshitake.
    Kusama went through a personal crisis after returning to her native country in the 1970s. She was an outcast in Japan, noted Chong, and was soon forgotten by the American art world. But she continued to reinvent her practice and slowly clawed her way back in the 1980s and 1990s to become Japan’s representative at the 1993 Venice Biennale.
    “It took her 20 years to get there from 1973. This is the part that we put a lot of emphasis on [in the show], giving equal or even more weight to the second half of her career,” Chong said.
    The M+ exhibition, which runs until May 14, 2023, is accompanied by a series of public programs as well as a range of exclusive merchandise. The museum has even teamed up with Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) to create a Kusama-themed MTR train, complete with images of the artist’s famous dotted pumpkins.
    Here are some highlights from “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now”.
    Installation view of “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of Death of Nerves (2022) at “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of Red Flower (1980) and Gentle Are the Stairs to Heaven (1990) in “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of Self-Obliteration (1966–74) in “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of Pumpkin (2022) in “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
    Installation view of Clouds (2019) in “Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now.” Photo: Lok Cheng. Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. © Yayoi Kusama.
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    in Street Art

    Artist Interview: Tania Marmolejo

    Tania Marmolejo Andersson is a Swedish-Dominican American artist born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Her work juxtaposes the intimate and personal with the monumental, creating large-scale paintings of ambiguous female facial expressions. She also explores issues of gender and identity as a Scandinavian-Caribbean female artist, using portraiture and physical expression as a means of communicating emotions to the viewer, stimulating a striking empathetic response.Recently, I had the chance to interview Tania to discuss the artistic influences behind her work and her upcoming projects.Rom Levy: When did you know you wanted to be an artist?Tania Marmolejo: Since I was a little girl, I picked up a crayon and found magic.What is the inspiration behind your work?My own experiences as a woman, memories of my childhood and teenage years, thoughts and contemplations on life and the female experience.How does painting as a medium serve your concepts in contrast to the other mediums? Painting in oil allows me to quickly paint my thoughts (i do not sketch beforehand), and at the same time- take my time finishing the work and changing it as I go along and as my thoughts and feelings change.What is the concept in your paintings? Why are women the main subjects of your portraits? And what does the emphasis on the eyes bear?The concept is female life, women are the central figures because I work from my own experiences. The eyes are the vessels for communication. I want the viewer to be “caught” in a stare that won’t let go.Who are the women in your paintings? They are characters that represent feelings, experiences and memories. Not necessarily self- portraits, but there is a lot of me in each character.What can you tell us about your palette? It varies depending on the memory I am portraying, or the feeling I want to express. It can be a cool palette with bits of warmth, or a warm palette with hints of coolness.There are instances where more than one subject is depicted in your paintings, such as a bird or more female characters. Can you tell us more about these paintings?The animals sometimes represent other people, sometimes they are symbols, sometimes they are a little voice…the other female characters can be a mirror image, a friend, a sister. I let the viewer decide.I am interested in the ephemerity of paintings. If you are unhappy with a work, do you tend to destroy it or would you rather put it in storage for a while and alter them at a later date? I store them and alter later. I rarely destroy, though it has happened – so I can move on!As a New-Yorker, how is your relation to the location street culture? I actually don’t have a lot of similarity with the street culture, being more of a “classical” painter, even if my characters can be pop- surrealist in nature. I do have friends in the culture and I enjoy it, but almost feel detached from it as a genre.Did you ever paint a mural or have any interest to do so in the future?I have painted murals in a classic sense (on a wall in a home), but not an outdoor one. It would be an amazing experience to try.Being from various backgrounds culturally, how does that influence your work? My work can be very split in personality, and that comes from my dual Scandinavian- Caribbean heritage. The colors, themes, personalities can be very scandinavian or caribbean, depending on my mood and focus.Describe what a day in Tania Marmolejo’s week looks like?A lot of painting! Always. I am very disciplined and paint many hours a day. I tend to work very hard for several weeks leading up to a show, then I travel far to escape my studio and clear my mind.What is one thing you always need in your studio while working?Music! Though silence is nice too, once in a while. Light- lots of light. Tell us about your upcoming plans?Aside from the solo show at Volery Gallery, which I am very excited about, 2023 is full of solo shows in Asia and Europe, and some group shows too. So I see a lot of my studio walls in my future!Photo credits: B4 Flight More