Eliana Willis

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    in Exhibitions

    An Opera House That Literally Straddles the U.S.-Canada Border Is the Subject of a Thrilling New Film at the Toronto Biennial

    It sounds like a riddle: What kind of opera house has no stage, and what sort of library has no books?
    The answer is the Haskell Free Library, which sits on the border between the United States and Canada. The site doubles as the set for a new film by former Turner Prize joint-winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan, which debuts this week at the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA). 
    The Victorian-era building, which hosts an opera house and a library, was originally constructed to provide education and cultural enrichment to the border communities located directly on the 45th parallel in between Rock Island, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont.
    One half of the structure, including most of the opera seats, is located on U.S. land; the other half, which includes the library and the stage, is in Canada. (Now you understand the joke about it being the only library in the U.S. without books and the only opera house in the U.S. with no stage.)
    Jeffrey Gibson, I AM YOUR RELATIVE, MOCA Toronto (2022). Co-commissioned by MOCA and the Toronto Biennial of Art. Photos Toni Hafkenschied.
    What makes this library and opera house so resonant, according to artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, is the way it illustrates how borders are in fact not lines, but rather densely layered legal and judicial spaces. Such questions about space, race, national identity, and land are at the heart of the entire edition of this biennial, which, after a year of pandemic-related delays, runs from March 26 through June 5. 
    “​​What Water Knows, The Land Remembers,” curated by Candice Hopkins, Katie Lawson and Tairone Bastien, features work by more than 40 artists and includes formats ranging from workshops, guided walks, and artist talks to podcasts and storytelling sessions. 
    A total of 23 projects across nine venues were commissioned specifically for the occasion. “We are a commissioning biennial and conceive of exhibitions and public/learning projects alongside each other,” Patrizia Libralato, TBA’s executive director and founder, told Artnet News. “We see ourselves as a convening organization, bringing partners together with a collaborative approach critical to all we do.”
    One of those commissioned projects is Hamdan’s film, 45th Parallel. The work introduces viewers to the library, which has no entrance from Canada (there is, however, an emergency exit on the Canadian side of the building and patrons from Canada are permitted to enter the U.S. door without reporting to customs). The film also revisits a tragedy that took place against the backdrop of the library in 2010, when a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot an unarmed 15-year-old Mexican national across the border.
    Judy Chicago in collaboration with Pyro Spectaculars by Souza, Diamonds in the Sky (2021). Fireworks performance, Belen, NM. © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Donald Woodman/ARS, New York
    Hamdan is not alone in exploring local history and institutions in this edition of the biennial. Artist Judy Chicago is preparing Tribute to Toronto, a new site-specific performance on June 4. Visible from the shores of Lake Ontario, the work—part of her ongoing “Atmospheres” series—consists of non-toxic colored smoke released from a barge. It’s Chicago’s first-ever work on water.
    “One of my goals is to offer viewers the opportunity to look intently at the glory of the natural environment,” Chicago told Artnet News, “one that is threatened with the destructive forces of climate change and human encroachment.”
    The biennial is also presenting a number of research-intensive projects. The curators found themselves repeatedly returning to and sharing with partners a text by Mohawk artist Ange Loft, “Indigenous Context and Concepts for Toronto,” which the biennial commissioned for its 2019 edition. They also plan to distribute a new commission, a Black History Navigational Toolkit, by artist Camille Turner and writer Yaniya Lee. 
    Camille Turner, Nave (2021–22). Video installation. Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art.
    Summing up the ethos of the biennial, curator Tairone Bastien said it “is unique in its commitment to unpack the complex historical context where the biennial takes place.”
    All of TBA 2022’s events, programs, and exhibitions can be viewed here.
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    in Exhibitions

    The Art World Wasn’t Always Ready for Faith Ringgold. So She Spent Her Career Creating Her Own Milieu

    The art world has as much to do with access as it does with art. So a big part of the artist Faith Ringgold’s retrospective at the New Museum in New York, a sweeping survey spanning almost six decades, is organized around the fact that she didn’t have a lot of inroads. Looking back, her practice even flourished in spite of it.
    This is because Ringgold never lost sight of who she was making work for. Her pieces are “very much coming from a Black womanist perspective, as opposed to a reactionary viewpoint,” artist Tschabalala Self, who first saw Ringgold’s work as a child in Harlem, told Artnet News. “Her works strongly exist within this aesthetic of Black American storytelling, and for the edification of that community, not from a didactic place of making work or explaining Black life to a non-Black audience.”
    Ringgold’s retrospective is the first major New York museum show of her work since 1998, when the New Museum also presented her work. Another show was held at the studio museum in 1984.
    Faith Ringgold, Picasso’s Studio: The French Collection Part I, #7 (1991). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
    “The gaps between the first two retrospectives immediately gives you a sense of the reception and of the marginalization of her work,” Massimiliano Gioni, the current show’s co-curator, told Artnet News. But her art “always found new ways to exist in spite of the many complicated conditions she was in.” 
    In the end, those complicated conditions are hard for anyone to ignore—even curators putting together a show about Ringgold’s life and work. In the years since her 1998 retrospective, Ringgold, now 91, was so alienated from the mainstream art world that she was forced to develop a practice that could exist and thrive outside it.
    In her 1995 memoir, We Flew Over the Bridge, Ringgold reveals how, in the ‘70s, her career “started with a bang and ended with a whimper.” 
    After launching her “American People” series in the ‘60s—hyper-realist paintings that zeroed in on the racial and gender strife characterizing Ringgold’s everyday life at a time when the art world was obsessed with work that was “cool, unemotional, uninvolved, and not ‘about’ anything,” as she wrote—she joined the stable at Spectrum Gallery on 57th Street, becoming the only Black artist represented there.
    During her tenure, she pivoted to her “Black Light” series, a group of pieces that included agitprop-style texts and African-inspired portraits with even more overt Black Power messaging, to the point where she eliminated the use of white paint altogether. By 1970, she’d landed her second solo show at the gallery, still eager to see what the art world could ultimately do for her. 
    By the end of the decade, she found her answer: not much. 
    Faith Ringgold, Slave Rape #2: Run You Might Get Away (1972). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging; courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
    Feeling disheartened, Ringgold forged ahead, finding new opportunities. But even now, as the art world turns its eyes onto her work, many audiences still don’t know that she’s much more than a painter. For one, she was also a prolific sculptor.
    On top of her teaching career, she conducted lectures and put on performances at colleges and universities, producing doll-like soft sculptures as props. These life-sized, often heavily adorned works also provided Ringgold with a way of capturing a small piece of the world that she was able to call her own.
    “She created a whole system of support for herself that was not the traditional gallery [system] in New York,” Gioni said.
    Faith Ringgold, The Wake and Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro (1975-89). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Ron Amstutz; courtesy Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.
    Finding a Place Where You Belong
    Growing up in Harlem in the 90s, Tschabalala Self knew about Ringgold, the children’s book author, but not about Ringgold, the artist. 
    “Peripherally, I would see a lot of her work in the community—for example, if you go to a children’s bookstore,” Self said. “So with Tar Beach, I just automatically identified it with the landscape because it looked like my neighborhood.” (Tar Beach was the first book Ringgold wrote and illustrated. The children’s story tells the tale of a young girl yearning to explore the world beyond Harlem.)
    Self, who has been so inspired by Ringgold’s life and art that she worked closely with Gioni to fundraise for the show, explained that Ringgold’s work, along with that of a number of other prominent Black artists, was woven into the tapestry of her neighborhood. The way it worked—and even still works—is that someone can have a strong, even critical presence in one community, while simultaneously being shunned by another. 
    Faith Ringgold, Sonny’s Bridge (1986). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022
    “If you grew up in Harlem and went to the African American Day Parade every summer,” Self said, “you didn’t realize that, that’s a David Hammons flag, right? You’re just thinking, ‘Oh, that’s a cool Pan-African American flag.’ It’s just an ubiquitous symbol in the neighborhood.”
    The storytelling that Ringgold began with Tar Beach continued in her now-famous painted story quilts—which, by and large, depict profound moments of her life. 
    The quilt version of Tar Beach, dating to 1988, resonates with Self not only because it reminds her of her childhood, but also because of its fantastical sensibility. 
    “I think that’s so important to talk about, the relationship between the fantastical and Black American identity,” Self said. “There’s so much about Black American life that is surreal, and not necessarily in a positive way or negative way. But it’s important to just bring that fantasy into that work.”
    Faith Ringgold, Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach (1988). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
    Where Do We Go From Here?
    Meet Willia Marie Simone. She is a fictional character Ringgold created in the ‘90s for her “French Collection” series. Willia is an expatriate studying art in Paris. Willia is the Black figure who never had a chance to be a central character within Modern art’s depictions of French life.
    Extending this fabulation into her next series, Ringgold formulates a story, set stateside, about Willia Marie Simone’s daughter; a narrative that is, according to Gioni, the story of “non-white America and all these counter myths of origin.” One piece features a Black, dreadlocked Statue of Liberty.
    In her 20s and 30s, Ringgold assumed the art world would help get her work the audience it deserved. From her “American People” series, to her highly political “Black Light” series, and then through to her performances, sculptures, and story quilts, Ringgold never lost sight of her goal to be honest about the racism and sexism she came up against constantly. And for her efforts, she ended up finding an audience all on her own.  
    Faith Ringgold, American People Series #15: Hide Little Children (1966). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Todd-White Art Photography, London; courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
    In the end, her work reflects that trajectory. It’s easy to see now how Ringgold ultimately helped usher in an environment for contemporary artists such as Self, an environment that never existed for many of Ringgold’s peers. 
    But Self is also realistic about the impact Ringgold’s work will have today. While we’re in the midst of a cultural shift around gender and race, one that reflects ideals that artist-activists like Ringgold fought long and hard for, there’s still a lot more work to do.
    “With any kind of movement, when you’re trying to change the culture, it’s not a matter of completely solving the issue,” Self said. “It is about pushing it one step forward, and then hoping that the next group of people are going to be able to push it again.”
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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: See Highlights From the Wildly Ambitious Sydney Biennale, Where Artists Are Reconsidering Our Relationship to Water

    If a river could speak, what would it say?
    That unusual question is at the heart of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, on view at six venues across the city through June 13. The sprawling exhibition—called “rīvus,” which means “stream” in Latin—is organized around “a series of conceptual wetlands” in the ancestral lands of the Gadigal, Burramatagal, and Cabrogal peoples. Helmed by artistic director José Roca, it features 330 works by 89 participants.
    After years of increasingly dire climate emergencies—droughts and catastrophic flooding, wildfires and deteriorating coastlines—it’s not hard to imagine that if waterways could speak, they would have plenty to say. That’s especially true in Eastern Australia, where devastating floods left two people dead and scores of buildings and artworks damaged earlier this month.
    The artists respond in varied ways to the theme of rivers, evoking both the absence of water (in the form of empty water bottles) to its deep connection with storytelling and mythology. At the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, Caio Reisewitz’s large-scale collage, MUNDUS SUBTERRANEUS, takes its name from a 17th-century tome written and extensively illustrated by the German scholar Athanasius Kircher, who studied the systems above and below the Earth’s surface. Reisewitz applies Kirchner’s approach to his native Brazil, where deforestation threatens ecosystems, houses are built on stilts to avoid flooding, and politicians are advocating for infrastructure that literally paves over Native lands. 
    Meanwhile, Manila-based artist Leeroy New created a fantastical sculpture attached to the Information & Cultural Exchange building from recycled plastic water bottles, bamboo, bicycle wheels, and other found objects. The work’s title, Balete, comes from a Southeast Asian tree of the same name, and the sculpture’s undulating form is modeled on the tree’s complex root systems, typically unseen by humans.
    Other highlights include the work of artist and activist group Ackroyd & Harvey—Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey—who co-founded Culture Declares Emergency in 2019. Through a process they call “photographic photosynthesis,” the duo creates images to call attention to dwindling natural grasses around the world.
    See more images from the biennale, organized by venue, below.
    The Cutaway
    Foreground: Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, The Substitute (2019). Background: Cave Urban, Flow (2022) (detail) and Ackroyd & Harvey; Uncle Charles “Chicka” Madden / Wanstead Reserve, Cooks River, Sydney, 2022; Lille Madden / Wanstead Reserve, Cooks River, Sydney (2022). Courtesy the artists. The Cutaway at Barangaroo. Photography: Document Photography.
    Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, The Cutaway at Barangaroo. Photography: Document Photography.
    Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, The Cutaway at Barangaroo. Photography: Document Photography.
    Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, The Cutaway at Barangaroo. Photography: Document Photography.
    Art Gallery of New South Wales
    Badger Bates, Barka The Forgotten River and the desecration of the Menindee Lakes (2021–22); Wiimpatja Paakana Nhaartalana (Me Fishing in the Darling River) (2004); Warrego-Darling Junction, Toorale (2012); Ngatyi Yarilana (Rainbow Serpents having young) (2007); Barka (Darling River) (1992). Courtesy the artist. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photography: Document Photograph.
    Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photography: Document Photograph.
    Ackroyd & Harvey, Lille Madden / Tar-Ra (Dawes Point), Gadigal land, Sydney (2022).Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photography: Document Photography.
    Naziha Mestaoui, One Beat, One Tree (2012). Courtesy the artist’s estate. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photography: Document Photography.
    Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
    Caio Reisewitz, MUNDUS SUBTERRANEUS (2022).Courtesy the artist & Bendana Pinel Art Contemporain, Paris.
    Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Photography: Document Photography.
    Marjetica Potrč, The House of Agreement Between Humans and the Earth (2022); The Time of Humans on the Soča River (2021); The Time on the Lachlan River (2021–22); The Rights of a River (2021); and The Life of the Lachlan River (2021). Courtesy the artist & Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin/Stockholm/Mexico City. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Photography: Document Photography.
    Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Photography: Document Photography.
    Yuko Mohri, Moré Moré Tokyo (Leaky Tokyo): Fieldwork, (2009–21).Courtesy the artist & Akio Nagasawa. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Photography: Document Photography.

    Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct
    Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi, Haukulasi (1995–21). Foreground: Clare Milledge, Imbás: a well at the bottom of the sea (2022) (detail). Courtesy the artist & STATION. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Photography: Document Photography.
    Foreground: Julie Gough, p/re-occupied (2022) (detail). Courtesy the artist. Background: Clare Milledge, Imbás: a well at the bottom of the sea, (2022) (detail). Courtesy the artist & STATION. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Photography: Document Photography.
    Yuko Mohri, Moré Moré (Leaky): Variations (2022). Courtesy the artist, Project Fulfill Art Space & Mother’s Tank Station Ltd. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Photography: Document Photography.
    Left to right: Aluaiy Kaumakan, Semasipu – Remembering Our Intimacies (2021–22). Courtesy the artist, Paridrayan Community elder women, Linkous Kuljeljelje, Chun-Lun Chen & curator Biung Ismahasan; Yoan Capote, Requiem (Plegaria) 2019–21 (detail). Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. Photography: Document Photography.

    Arts and Cultural Exchange
    Leeroy New, Balete (2022) (detail). Courtesy the artist. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Arts and Cultural Exhange. Photography:Document Photography.
    Leeroy New, Balete (2022) (detail). Courtesy the artist. Installation view, 23rd Biennale of Sydney, rīvus, 2022, Arts and Cultural Exhange. Photography: Document Photography.

    National Art School in partnership with Artspace
    Carol McGregor with Adele Chapman-Burgess, Avril Chapman and the Community of the Myall Creek Gathering Cloak, Myall Creek Gathering Cloak (2018). Courtesy the New England Regional Art Museum & the Myall Creek Gathering Cloak Community.
    Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Lagoons and Lagoons and Lagoons (2021) (detail). Courtesy the artist & Fridman Gallery, New York.
    Carolina Caycedo, Serpent River Book and Serpent Table (2017) (detail). Background: Yuma, or the Land of Friends, (2021). 2022, National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
    Left to Right: Carolina Caycedo, Elwha (2016) (detail); Watu (2016) (detail); Iguaçu (2016) (detail). Courtesy the artist. National Art School. Photography: Document Photography.
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    in Exhibitions

    A New Immersive Art Experience Allows Audiences to Enter the Fabled Tomb of the Boy King Tutankhamun

    The craze for all things immersive meets Egyptomania in “Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience,” a new exhibition from the National Geographic Society celebrating the 100th anniversary of perhaps the most famous archaeological discovery of all time.
    Visitors to the show will be transported back in time more than 3,000 years to the boy king’s brief life and reign (ca. 1332–1323 BCE), as well as to the moment when archaeologist Howard Carter opened the long-lost tomb in 1922 to find fabulous golden treasures buried along side the pharaoh.
    “New technologies are making it possible to fully immerse people like never before in important stories from our past, allowing us to develop connections and understand history’s influence on our present and future generations,” Kathryn Keane, vice president of public programming for the National Geographic Society, said in a statement.
    The immersive presentation will use projection mapping to bring to life the archives of the National Geographic Society and “invite visitors into the golden king’s world like never before,” per the exhibition description.
    Harry Burton, Howard Carter, Arthur Callender and an Egyptian worker entering the innermost shrine to see King Tut’s sarcophagus for the first time. Photo courtesy the Griffith Institute, colorization by Dynamichrome.
    To stage the show, National Geographic is teaming up with the Paquin Entertainment Group, the company behind “Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” and “Beyond Monet,” part of the current glut of projected animated light shows. To date, iterations of the two experiences have reportedly attracted over 3 million visitors.
    The Tut exhibition will debut in June at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C., followed by a simultaneous showing in Boston that opens July 8 at SoWa Power Station, which previously hosted “Imagine Van Gogh.” Additional tour dates across North America will be announced in the coming months.
    A view of the “Tutankhamun: Enter the Tomb” virtual reality experience. Image courtesy CityLights.
    In Boston and other cities, audiences can also opt for another, similar experience, “Tutankhamun: Enter the Tomb,” narrated by actor Hugh Bonneville of Downtown Abbey fame.
    That experience was originally part of the London stop of “Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh“, a much-hyped 10-city international tour billed as the the largest collection of the pharaoh’s treasures ever to travel outside of Egypt. It was forced to close due to lockdown restrictions during its appearance at London’s Saatchi Gallery.
    The rest of the run, which was set to go through 2024, was ultimately cancelled over concerns that the exhibition was organized in violation of Egypt’s Antiquities Protection Law, which prohibits lending unique ancient artifacts to commercial enterprises.
    “Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience” will be on view at the National Geographic Museum, 145 17th St NW, Washington, D.C., June 2022–February 2023; and SoWa Power Station, 550 Harrison Avenue, Boston, July 8–September 18, 2022. 
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    in Exhibitions

    Why Heidi Norton’s Enigmatic Monolith of Wax and Mushrooms Caught My Eye

    I stopped by the New York gallery Sargent’s Daughters on a Thursday evening recently, and was excited by this sculpture in its fine group show, “The Palm-Wine Drinkard.” It’s by Heidi Norton, and it’s called Plants Grow Through It.
    I’m not sure whether what engages me about it so much comes through in the photograph. It’s small; a tabletop monolith made of wax, deliberately pockmarked and marbled through with hints of different colors, like the shadows of things suspended inside. Some mysterious objects stud its surface.
    Some of these prove to be little clusters of mushrooms, half submerged in the wax, struggling to rise out.
    Detail of Heidi Norton, A Plant Grows Through It (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    I think part of the effect comes from seeing the work at a distance, and then coming up close. From across the room, it looks like a slightly melted plastic slab in all these unnatural sherbet colors; some splashes of gack green contrast with the hot colors and suggest the industrial. It has the presence of a found thing, and a lack of fussiness which you could almost call indifferent.
    But when you get closer, it feels alive. Partly, this is because it is very literally animated: little hollows contained lit candles during the opening. You could see the flame glowing out, but what was going on only clarified when you saw how the heat from the flame was eating the sculpture out from inside. Little rivulets of living wax formed, pulsating, pooling down the front of the sculpture.
    Detail of Heidi Norton, A Plant Grows Through It (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    The effect is subtle, unspectacular—brainy, really.
    If you view Plants Grow Through It from the side, it looks like a cross-section of mutant geology, with different layers visible: orange, peach, pink, finally a sudden layer of matted dirt on its back side (or what served as its back side in its installation at Sargent’s Daughters).
    Detail of Heidi Norton, A Plant Grows Through It (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    I ended up thinking that Plants Grow Through It is a work about layers, or about the layering of different kinds of material but also different kinds of time. I know from reading about Norton that she’s an artist who thinks a lot about how humans categorize and compartmentalize the natural from the non-natural, human consumption from environmental concerns, even though these are part of one system. This work nicely evokes both a natural phenomena and a manufactured thing.
    The fungi and the candle in the work both suggest time and change, introducing dynamism that takes you away from thinking of the sculpture in terms of permanence. But they also introduce a contrast of incompatible time scales: the tenacious slow persistence of the mushrooms versus the much more rapid work of the candle as it decays the wax around it, dueling it out in the same little world.
    Detail of Heidi Norton, A Plant Grows Through It (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    What equilibrium will the different elements of the work arrive at? Maybe none at all. It feels like you are watching a sculpture that’s thinking about its place in the world.
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    in Street Art

    Artist Retrospective: JR

    French artist JR has the largest art gallery in the world. Thanks to his photographic collage technique, he exhibits his work free of charge on the walls of the whole world – attracting the attention of those who do not usually go to museums.Currently, his most common method to create street art is through the use of wheat pasting and gigantic mono photographs. He often gets his subject models faces with a 28mm wide-angle lens which result in portraits that unguarded, funny, soulful, real, and that capture the spirits of individuals who normally go unseen. His work of art brings forward common everyday materials to the light.Mural In New York City, USA, 2012These blown-up images are then pasted on urban surfaces such as the sides of buildings, bridges, rooftops, and even trains. Not only do they confront the public audience, but they also help engage audiences where they least expect it. Often introducing those who are unfortunate in the world to the remaining population in the world. JR combines powerful social statements through large murals and installations.Check out below to view more of our compilation on JR’s best works.New York City, USA, 2016JR featured a picture of Lauren Lovette from the New York City ballet on this piece from 2016. The French artist created this beautiful artwork showing the famous dancer in motion against a background composed by a monochromatic building.JR have worked with New York City Ballet last 2014. He used the language of dance to tell his version of the riots in the Clichy-Montfermeil district. He created The Groves, a ballet and short film, the music for which was composed by Woodkid, Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams, and which was presented at the Tribeca Film Festival.Mural in Los Angeles, California, 2019This mural is a gigantic collaboration with JR for Branded Arts Maya Angelou Mural Festival which happened in Los Angeles, California. As part of JR’s Inside Out Project 2019, the French artist create a large installation with hundreds of portraits that were taken at the school.Sculpture Installation in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, 2016In anticipation of the Olympic Games 2016 opening this weekend in Rio De Janeiro, JR unveiled a series of giant installations featuring notable athletes.Sculpture Installation in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, 2016Mural in Tokyo, Japan, 2013 in the event of his exhibition entitled “Could Art Change The World?” at The Watari Museum of Contemporary ArtMural in New York City, USA, 2012Mural in Berlin, Germany, 2013“The Chronicles of New York” in New York City, USA, 2020This mural is a part of a series he has made cross Brooklyn in connection with his Brooklyn Museum exhibition, JR: Chronicles last 2020. For this mural, titled “The Chronicles of New York”, he photographed over 1,000 New York residents and reproduced them at a monumental scale on the side of stacked shipping containers in Domino Park, adding to the stunning views of the Williamsburg Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.Mural at The National Library of France in ParisCheck out our #JR page for more stunning works from talented artist! More

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    in Exhibitions

    The Baltimore Museum of Art Invited Its Guards to Curate Their Latest Exhibition. Here’s How They Took on the Challenge

    They spend more time looking at the museum’s walls than anybody else—and now, for the first time, they’re deciding what art will hang there. 
    For the Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) newest exhibition, the security guards have taken on curatorial duties. The show, “Guarding the Art,” features 25 pieces from the BMA’s collection—including works by Louise Bourgeois, Grace Hartigan, and Mickalene Thomas—selected by 17 members of the institution’s security team. It opens to the public this Sunday, March 27.
    The aim of the show, conceived by BMA board member Amy Elias more than a year ago, is to enliven the museum’s presentation—and invite some new perspectives along the way.
    “‘Guarding the Art,’ is more personal than typical museum shows,” Elias said in a statement, since “it gives visitors a unique opportunity to see, listen and learn the personal histories and motivations of guest curators. In this way, the exhibition opens a door for how a visitor might feel about the art, rather than just providing a framework for how to think about the art.”
    Alfred Dehodencq, Little Gypsy (c. 1850). Courtesy of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
    To choose the works for the exhibition, the guards began meeting over video chat with members of the museum’s curatorial team last year. They were face with some large tasks: scouring the museum’s collection, narrowing down their selections, writing wall texts and catalogue entries, devising lighting schemes—in short, designing and staging an exhibition from tip to toe. (Each participant was paid for their curatorial work through a grant from the Pearlstone Family Foundation.)
    “We were kind of nervous because these are serious folks and this is what they do,” said Dominic Mallari, who has worked at the BMA since 2018. “But it turned out that it was very welcoming and inviting.
    For his contributions to the checklist, Mallari selected two artworks: a square, tie-dye-like canvas by Sam Gilliam, and a spare, little-known portrait of a Romani girl by French 19th-century painter Alfred Dehodencq. The latter, he said, stuck out to him among the many ornate paintings in the museum’s Jacobs Gallery of European Art. 
    “It was the simplest one,” Mallari explained. “You have to use your imagination for it. It was just striking to me.”
    Sam Gilliam, Blue Edge (1971). © Sam Gilliam. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles.
    Simplicity was the reason that Alex Dicken, another guest curator, found himself drawn to his sole selection, a 1948 blue and yellow landscape by Surrealist Max Ernst. The artwork’s title doubles as a description: Earthquake, Late Afternoon. (Coincidentally, it also looks a lot like the Ukrainian flag.)
    “When I think of Max Ernst’s paintings I think of these fantastical creatures and alien landscapes. What interested me about Earthquake, Late Afternoon was that they’re pretty much absent,” said Dicken, a recent philosophy grad from St. John’s College in Annapolis, who began working as a security officer in 2019 and recently switched over to the visitor services team.
    “I was interested in the idea that it might have been trying to represent a natural disaster from a non-human perspective, detached from the immediate danger of the situation,” Dicken added. “That came out of investigating it further and thinking about the work.”
    Dicken explained that, at the beginning of the process, he and his cohort tried to come up with a cohesive curatorial theme for the exhibition, but nothing stuck. Meetings moved from Zoom to the museum itself, and he even got together with other guards outside of work to tackle the topic. Still the question loomed. 
    Max Ernst, Earthquake, Late Afternoon (1948).© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
    With help from the art historian and curator Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, who joined the project as a mentor, the group eventually stopped looking for a theme to tie all the curators’ ideas together and instead chose to embrace the multiplicity of perspectives.
    “I know someone else started out the same way that I did, investigating the collection for works that had never been displayed before,” Dicken said. “Whereas others had very particular interests—for example wanting to display works from a particular culture or another interest of theirs outside of the museum, another area of study that they are interested in.”
    “It really became more about talking about our specific experiences rather than forming a set of themes that would characterize the exhibition,” the guest curator went on. “Over time the focus became, ‘What are the diverse array of selections that various guards will make given their collective time in the galleries?’”
    “Guarding the Art” will be on view March 27 through July 10, 2022 at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: Ai Weiwei, Chitra Ganesh, and Other Artists Take Over Honolulu for the 2022 Hawaii Triennial

    Across Honolulu, artists have installed their works in a palace, a shopping mall, museums, and botanical gardens as part of the 2022 Hawai’i Triennial, open now through May 8,
    The theme of this year’s edition, curated by Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu, is “Pacific Century,” which takes the form of a multi-site exhibition to explore indigenous histories, immigration, colonialism, and Asia-Pacific and Oceanic identities through the lens of art.
    The triennial features more than 60 participants comprised of 43 artists and collectives, including local figures with ties reaching back generations, as well as internationally renowned names like Ai Weiwei, Theaster Gates, and Jennifer Steinkamp.
    Below, see highlights from the Hawai’i Triennial 2022:

    Honolulu Museum of Art
    Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Aue Away ft. Kaina Quenga and Anthony Aiu, Honolulu Museum of Art. Courtesy of the artist and Honolulu Museum of Art.
    Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Aue Away ft. Kaina Quenga and Anthony Aiu, Honolulu Museum of Art. Courtesy of the artist and Honolulu Museum of Art
    Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Aue Away ft. Kaina Quenga and Anthony Aiu, Honolulu Museum ofArt. Courtesy of the artist and Honolulu Museum of Art.
    Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Aue Away ft. Kaina Quenga and Anthony Aiu, Honolulu Museum of Art. Courtesy of the artist and Honolulu Museum of Art

    The Bishop Museum
    Chitra Ganesh, Untitled/Kapa Moon, (2022). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Honolulu.Courtesy of the artist and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. © Chitra Ganesh. Photo: Kelli Bullock Hergert.
    Gaku Tsutaja, ENOLA’S HEAD, (2021). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Honolulu. Courtesy of the artist and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. © Gaku Tsutaja. Photo: Kelli Bullock Hergert.
    Izumi Kato and Pacific Sisters, background center: Izumi Kato, Untitled, (2021). and (foreground) Pacific Sisters, Te Pu o Te Wheke, (2021). Courtesy of the artists and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. © Izumi Kato. © Pacific Sisters. Photo: Kelli Bullock Hergert.
    The Foster Botanical Garden
    Installation view of Ai Weiwei’s Tree (2010); Iron Tree, (2020); and Tree (2010). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Foster Botanical Garden, Honolulu. Courtesy of the artist and Hawai‘i Contemporary. © Ai Weiwei. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Installation view, Leeroy New, Balete (2022) and Taklobo, (2022). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Foster Botanical Garden, Honolulu. © Leeroy New. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Installation view, TOQA, ,Midnight Smoothie (2021-22) Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Foster Botanical Garden, Honolulu. © TOQA. Photo: Lila Lee.
    The Royal Hawaiian Center
    Installation view: Momoyo Torimitsu, Somehow I don’t feel comfortable (2021). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Royal Hawaiian Center, Waikīkī. © Momoyo Torimitsu. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Installation view: Momoyo Torimitsu, Somehow I don’t feel comfortable, (2021). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Royal Hawaiian Center, Waikīkī. © Momoyo Torimitsu. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Installation view: “Hawai‘i Triennial 2022,” Royal Hawaiian Center, Waikīkī. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Miao Ying, Hardcore Digital Detox (2018). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Royal Hawaiian Center, Waikīkī. © Miao Ying. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Installation view: Sun Xun, The Ancient Distance Uncover the Mystery of Reality and The Mysterious History Lies in What We Can’t See No.1 (2021). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Royal Hawaiian Center, Waikīkī. © Sun Xun. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Tsuyoshi Hisakado, Pause, (2022). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Royal Hawaiian Center, Waikīkī. Courtesy of the artist and Hawai‘i Contemporary. © Tsuyoshi Hisakado. Photo: Lila Lee.
    Hawaii Theater
    Installation view, Ming Wong, Bloody Marys-Song of the South Seas (2018). Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Lila Lee.

    Hawai‘i State Art Museum
    ‘Elepaio Press (Mark Hamasaki & Richard Hamasaki), Installation view, “‘Elepaio Press. Hawai‘i Triennial 2022.  Photo: Brandyn Liu.
    Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina (Puhipau & Joan Lander), Installation view “Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina.” © Nā Maka o ka ‘Āina. Photo: Brandyn Liu.
    Installation view: Piliāmo‘o, (Mark Hamasaki and Kapulani Landgraf), photographs from Ē Luku Wale Ē. © Piliāmo‘o. Photo: Brandyn Liu.
    Tropic Editions (Marika Emi), Installation view, “Tropic Editions, CAFE.Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Hawai‘i State Art Museum, Honolulu.  © Tropic Editions. Photo: Vincent Bercasio.

    The Iolani Palace
    Jennifer Steinkamp, Queen Lili‘uokalani, (2022). Hawai‘i Triennial 2022, Iolani Palace, Honolulu. Courtesy of the artist and Iolani Palace. Photo: Leimaile.
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