Eliana Willis

John Akomfrah‘s multichannel video installations are all-encompassing: the color, sound, and especially juxtaposition of historical footage with contemporary imagery make for a truly absorbing experience. And while his works address some of the most urgent present-day issues, Akomfrah also draws inspiration from the art of the past: he traces his interests back to masterpieces by artists like Constable and Turner that he encountered as a teenager visiting Tate Britain, after his family moved from his native Accra, Ghana.
“Turner’s my guy because there’s an act of will and imagination, which is at the forefront with what I call his ‘cinematic eye,’” the artist says in an interview with Art21. “It’s a painting, but it feels like you’re in the disaster.” The interview is part of the new season of the acclaimed PBS series’s Art in the Twenty-First Century series.
Akomfrah gestures to the turbulent ocean, a hallmark of Turner’s work, which figured heavily in his 2015 film Vertigo Sea. That work is an episodic meditation on the sublime beauty and horror of the water, incorporating scenes of migrants crossing the expanse in hope of a better life, images of the whaling industry, and readings of Moby Dick along with archival and newly shot footage.
“I’m more choreographer than creator,” the artist explains in the video, “I became interested in making multi-screen films because it seemed a way of bringing disparate interests together.” For Akomfrah, the addition of archival material introduces another voice, and so another perspective. 

Still from John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea (2015). ©Smoking Dogs Films, courtesy of Lisson Gallery.

For Art21, Akomfrah details personal experiences and global issues that he’s engaged in his films, including Brexit, race riots, the military coup in Ghana that forced his family to flee for Britain, and a number of other political and social events. All of those historical strands, the artist says, helped to shape his own view.
“Once you’ve understood that you are a product of things, you can’t shake off realizing that from across your life,” he says.
Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series Art in the Twenty-First Century, below. The brand new 10th season of the show is available now at Art21.org. 
[embedded content]
This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking artists. A new series of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series like New York Close Up and Extended Play and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.

Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

Bruce Nauman has made a career out of unsettling audiences—or at least, shaking up the dailiness of life—with a various-and-sundry practice that has stretched from the absurdist, at-times whimsical performance pieces that first gained him recognition in the 1960s, to distressing sculpture and video works that boldly take torture as their subject matter.  
This month, Nauman, who at 78 is still very much at it, debuted three new works at Sperone Westwater in an exhibition that marks his 13th solo show at the gallery since his first one, 45 years ago in 1976.
Two new interactive 3-D video works and one hanging sculpture (Two Leaping Foxes, a return to the animal sculptures Nauman first made in the late 1980s) comprise the show and are given ample space in the gallery (which should be something of a comfort to those still hesitant to visit galleries in person).
Bruce Nauman, Nature Morte (2020). Courtesy of Sperone Westwater.

For fans of the provocative artist, the exhibition conjures up comparisons to earlier precedents in his long career, especially for those who still have last year’s MoMA retrospective, “Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts,” in mind.
That’s not to say the works are without innovation, however. The videos, Walking a Line (2019) and Nature Morte (2020), feel strangely and unexpectedly vulnerable. 
In Walking a Line (2019), Nauman walks with his arms extended out to his sides as he follows a straight line. Nauman’s Walk with Contrapposto from 1968–69 comes to mind—the seminal, and nonsensical, performance art video that showed the young artist following a path around his studio in slow-motion as he comically mimicked the stances of ancient sculptures.
But the mood of Walking a Line feels more precarious than punchy, as Nauman walks like a tightrope walker trying to maintain his balance. This is inevitably underscored by Nauman’s age—he is no longer a lithe, almost balletic young man. What’s more, the work has a 3-D element that splits the projection (and the figure of Nauman) horizontally, and plays the two segments out of sync, so that the overall effect is discordant and tenuous.
“There is transparency about his relationship with his own body as he completes what would have been a simple exercise in his youth,” Natasha Westwater told Artnet News. “In the editing, he again divides the body in half, creating asymmetry with each turn. Sometimes his lower body turns around, revolving 180 degrees before the upper half catches up, sometimes completely walking out of the frame.”
Bruce Nauman, Nature Morte (2020). Courtesy of Sperone Westwater.

What made Nauman so revolutionary in the 1960s and ‘70s was, of course, this invitation inside his space, inside the studio. In our age of Instagram and hyper-documentation, it can be hard to imagine the impact his gesture had. Already in 2001, with Mapping the Studio (2001), Nauman began to record his studio space at night, picturing it as its own object, full of mice and critters. 
But in his most recent work, Nature Morte (2020), the artist has gone much further, giving the public free reign to navigate his studio without his presence. Through three iPads, each linked to a projection, visitors can explore the space of his studio and inspect individual objects that Nauman has scanned. 
“Nauman disappears, his body is absent, and the spectator becomes the participant or performer… Nauman recorded hundreds of images documenting all parts of the studio—notes from previous artworks, books, coffee cups, vinyl records, tools, photographs of horses, the sculpture Two Leaping Foxes, and more, for over a year,” noted Westwater, who said the work “questions the conventions of art and the contradictions and ambiguities which characterize our existence in the world.”
The final effect, dizzying as it is, is provocative in a new way—it’s eerie, even lonely, especially in this unusual year, with Nauman suddenly appearing more like a seer than a jester of contemporary life. 
“Bruce Nauman” is on view at Sperone Westwater through November 7, 2020.
Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

“Justine Hill: Touch”Through October 31 at Denny Dimin Gallery

What the gallery says: “Justine Hill’s work explores the boundaries of abstract painting with her unique approach to form and mark making. The works in the exhibition are a continuation of what she has styled the ‘Cutouts’—paintings on shaped wood panels wrapped in canvas. Hill began to work with this process five years ago when she was questioning the circumscribed boundary of the single rectangle for a painting. The way Hill chooses to arrange the pieces, how the shapes relate to one another, and the negative spaces within and around them, are all essential to the work.
The title of the exhibition, ‘Touch,’ refers to the unquantifiable loss we have experienced in our socially distanced, remote lives over the past few months. It is an expression of desire to return to viewing art in person, because without the idea of touch, components such as texture, scale, volume, and color are impossible to understand with accuracy. Hill writes, ‘Touch is about standing in front of something or someone. It is about all that we learn by being in the same place, even when no one is speaking. It is about feeling the touch of the handmade. It is about everything that is lost in translation on a screen.’”
Why it’s worth a look: The colorful cut-out abstractions in Hill’s work are delightful to view online, and even better to see in person. Hill’s most recent series of works, titled “Replica,” are responses to the art of Marina Adams, whose abstract paintings incorporate geometric shapes and bright colors. Hill’s works evoke homemade crafts and magic markers, though their large-scale sculptural aspects and shaped canvases nod to other art-historical precedents, such as Frank Stella’s “Moby Dick” series. The works make you want to grab some art supplies and go to town.
What it looks like:

Installation view, “Justine Hill: Touch” at Denny Dimin Gallery.

Installation view, “Justine Hill: Touch” at Denny Dimin Gallery.

Installation view, “Justine Hill: Touch” at Denny Dimin Gallery.

Installation view, “Justine Hill: Touch” at Denny Dimin Gallery.

Justine Hill, Kilter (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Installation view, “Justine Hill: Touch” at Denny Dimin Gallery.

Justine Hill, Handwork (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Installation view, “Justine Hill: Touch” at Denny Dimin Gallery.

Justine Hill, Replica 3 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Justine Hill, Replica 2 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Justine Hill, Still Life 1 (2019). Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Justine Hill, Still Life 3 (2019). Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Justine Hill, Replica 1 (2020) detail. Courtesy of the artist and Denny Dimin Gallery.

Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

As galleries and art institutions around the world begin to reopen, we are spotlighting individual shows—online and IRL—that are worth your attention.

“Gina Beavers: World War Me”through October 17 at Marianne Boesky Gallery
What the gallery says: “Beavers spends hours scouring Instagram, YouTube, blogs, and other online sources in search of images that inspire, compel, repulse, and amuse her. In recent years, she has become particularly drawn to make-up tutorials created by both professional and amateur artists. Beavers takes stills from these tutorials and recreates them with incredible realism, enlivening the flattened image with dynamic physicality. To create her intensely tactile works, Beavers builds up acrylic paint so densely on the canvas that she is able to sculpt it with a knife. For larger works, she also uses foam to add to the fullness of the forms.
“’I am intrigued by the tools of creativity that are proliferating online, particularly when people apply these to their own bodies, from elaborate face and body painting to nail art,’ said Beavers. ‘For the new works in “World War Me,” I began to use these tools on my own body, borrowing techniques from the internet to make certain artists and their work a part of my own physical self. I am interested in the ways existing online is performative, and the tremendous lengths people go to in constructing their online selves. Meme-makers, face-painters, people who make their hair into sculptures, are really a frontier of a new creative world.’”
Why it’s worth a look: The genesis for this series, which focuses to a great degree on the artist’s own body, was a Sex and the City Meme featuring Carrie Bradshaw asking: “as our country entered World War III, I couldn’t help but wonder… is it time to focus on World War Me?”
And so Beavers does, using the toxicity of consumerism and the powerful lure of Instagram as a starting point for works that are as repulsive as they are enticing. Like Bradshaw’s performative introspection, a much-satirized tic of the TV series, Beavers is interested in users’ carefully constructed presences.
The canvases, built up with thick impasto paint, are not so unlike cakey foundation and spidery eyelashes, thick with dried and crusty mascara, just as pillowy soft lips are only achieved through sticky layers, prescriptions, injections, and Facetune.
What it looks like:

Gina Beavers, Addiction Lips (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Gina Beavers. Photo credit: Lance Brewer.

Installation view, “Gina Beavers: World War Me” at Marianne Boesky Gallery. Photo by Lance Brewer.

Gina Beavers, The Artist’s Lips with Pollock, Kelly, and Kline (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Gina Beavers. Photo credit: Lance Brewer.

Installation view, “Gina Beavers: World War Me” at Marianne Boesky Gallery. Photo by Lance Brewer.

Gina Beavers, Picasso Underwear (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Gina Beavers. Photo credit: Lance Brewer.

Gina Beavers, American Flag Sponge Butt Cake (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Gina Beavers. Photo credit: Lance Brewer.

Installation view, “Gina Beavers: World War Me” at Marianne Boesky Gallery. Photo by Lance Brewer.

Gina Beavers, Nude Self-self-portrait (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Gina Beavers. Photo credit: Lance Brewer.

Gina Beavers, I voted (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Gina Beavers. Photo credit: Lance Brewer.

Follow artnet News on Facebook:Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More