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  • Artist Clotilde Jiménez’s Collaged Images of Bodybuilders Tell a Personal Story of Black Masculinity. See His Work Here

    As galleries and art institutions around the world begin to reopen, we are spotlighting individual shows—online and IRL—that are worth your attention.
    “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” at Mariane Ibrahimthrough August 22

    What the gallery says: “THE CONTEST unravels Jiménez’s own queer imagination to physicality. The works grapple with his deeply personal and once estranged relationship with his father, a bodybuilder and boxer. Jiménez adopts the boxer and bodybuilder as motifs, recalling early ideas of the body, specifically the Black male body.
    Placed within each ‘pose’ or boxing ring, the large scale boxers and body builders brawl, their positions mighty, next to bronze sculptures of heads with colorful boxing headgear. He finds beauty in the color and sculptural physicality of boxing headgear and the groin protector that transforms the body into something strong, powerful and guarded.”
    Why it’s worth a look: For his first solo show at star gallerist Mariane Ibrahim’s Chicago gallery, Honolulu-born, Mexico City-based artist Clotilde Jiménez is quite literally tackling notions of masculinity and Blackness.
    In these works, you can really feel how the artist has infused the works with his personal understanding of what it means to be a strong man—delicate painted flowers adorn the furniture incorporated in some works, and swaths of pattern cut out and pasted onto the canvas provide another layer when juxtaposed with the shaded contours of the muscled bodies. His juxtaposition of unexpected materials and charged forms makes for images that wrestle their way in your head.
    What it looks like:

    Clotilde Jiménez with his sculpture, Orange Boxer (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

    Clotilde Jiménez, Always on Guard (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

    Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.

    Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.

    Clotilde Jiménez, Pose no. 4 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

    Clotilde Jiménez, Pose no. 5 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

    Clotilde Jiménez, Pose no. 6 (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

    Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.

    Clotilde Jiménez,, Shadow Boxer (2020). Courtesy of the Artist and Mariane Ibrahim.

    Installation view, “Clotilde Jiménez: The Contest” Courtesy of Mariane Ibrahim.

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    “A Pale Blue Dot” by INTI in Grenoble, France

    Visual artist INTI is back with a new mural entitled “A Pale Blue Dot” in Grenoble, France. It features a woman embodying the universe with a small dot in her hands that represents the Earth. This mural was made as part of the Grenoble Street Art Fest. Together with the artwork, INTI left us with a quote from Carl Sagan. “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves”
    Born in Valparaíso, Chile, INTI creates artworks surly carries out not more than the meaning, he also transmits the warm colours of it. Painting on canvasses, creating sculptures or large murals, his artwork addresses birthplace of the Latin American culture, multiplying it on a global level.
    He uses few characters in his murals and often talks of themes of life, death, ancient religion and Christianity. INTI takes his name from the Incan sun god and the Quechua word for ‘the Sun’ as homage to his Chilean roots. He always add a special orange/sun glow in his works, which has become his Moniker of sorts, INTI’s style is not only unique and outstanding but thoughtful and calm.
    Scroll down below to see more of INTI’s mural.

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  • Hauser & Wirth Is Hosting a Series of Shows for Fine Art Graduates Whose Thesis Exhibitions Were Cancelled—See Their Works Here

    Mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth is giving recent art-school graduates whose IRL MFA shows were cancelled a spotlight with two exhibitions in Somerset and Los Angeles.
    The gallery will host the graduate exhibitions over the next four months, the first at its artist residency studios, the Maltings in Bruton, in Somerset; and the second at its Book and Printed Matter Lab, in Los Angeles this fall.
    Hauser & Wirth is offering technical, curatorial, and marketing support to the students for both shows.
    Ten recent graduates from four universities in the South West of England will present work in Somerset in an exhibition titled “In Real Life,” which will run from July 29 through August 2.
    The artists included are Melody Addo, Betsy Bond, Samantha Davies, Kamila Dowgiert, Juliet Duckworth, Louise Hall, Lauren Horrell, Lilith Piper, Madeline Rolt, and Connor Vickery-Gearty. 
    “This has been a remarkable time for our final year students,” Natasha Kidd, head of the Bath School of Art & Design’s fine art program, said in a statement.
    “The degree shows were postponed—the assessments took place online, whole shows compressed into pdfs. Tutorials took place through ‘hangouts’—into an array of domestic spaces. Washing lines, hallways and even greenhouses became the site of making work—pet dogs, parents/partners or the odd passer-by on their daily exercise became the audience.”
    Louise Hall, 13 Dead, Nothing Said (2020). Image ©Louise Hall. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

    “Providing support and a platform for artists emerging at this current moment is crucial,” says the Kent-born artist Anj Smith, who is among the artists who are contributing to the gallery’s education program. “Art has long been at the forefront of cultural progress and we need inspired, thoughtful voices now more than ever.”
    The gallery is also partnering with Cal State LA to include works by MFA graduates from the 2020 class in the Los Angeles exhibition in the fall.
    The project is part of the gallery’s philanthropic initiative, #artforbetter, which includes effort to support educational institutions.
    “A deep-rooted commitment to education and professional development has always been at the heart of the gallery and embedded in each exhibition,” gallery cofounder Manuela Wirth said in a statement.
    “It’s important to us that we remain connected to the wider creative community and artistic energy surrounding each gallery location, enabling new generations of talent to thrive by creating meaningful partnerships and support networks.”
    See images of student artworks below.
    Kamila Dowgiert, 24/5 (2020). Image ©Kamila Dowgiert. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

    Melody Addo, Chocolate Pudding (still frame) (2020). Image ©Melody Addo. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

    Juliet Duckworth, Apple Path – November 2019 (2019 – 2020). Image ©Juliet Duckworth. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

    Betsy Bond, Landscape Exhibition Space (2020). Image ©Betsy Bond. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth.

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    “Balance” by Millo in Sardinia, Italy

    Italian artist Millo have recently collaborated with Non Solo Murales di San Gavino Monreale for another mural. Entitled “Balance”, the murals features Millo’s signature child-like creatures balancing different found objects over a cityscape. This mural is located in San Gavino Monreale, Sardinia, Italy.

    “The last months’ events forced and are still forcing all of us to find an inner balance. We suddenly found ourselves in a dystopic reality and we had to struggle to find the strength to go on and out. This wall is about this. How to use what we have and how to find an equilibrium in ourselves.” Millo said.

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    “CALDENSE” by Add Fuel in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal

    Add Fuel just recently finished his addition to FALU Urban Art Festival in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. The mural entitled CALDENSE was inspired by the enormous Bordallo Pinheiro, the richness of natural elements represented in his collections and the genius shapes of his objects, Add Fuel’s intention was to reinterpret the legacy of traditional Caldas ceramics and offer the inhabitants of the city this tribute.

    “From the blue of secular tiles to the green of Bordallo cabbages, from the shape of artichokes to the one of decorative pots, from the master’s realistic fauna and flora to my own imaginary creatures, this wall that is now part of the city wants to be as Caldense as each one of its inhabitants.” the artist mentioned.

    Portuguese visual artist Diogo Machado alias Add Fuel has always been fascinated with the aesthetic possibilities of symmetrical patterning and tessellations. His focus towards working with and reinterpreting the language of traditional tile design, and that of the Portuguese tin-glazed ceramic azulejo in particular. Effortlessly blending these two seemingly-irreconcilable visual idioms, his current practice seeks to combine traditional decorative elements with contemporary visual referents into new forms that reveal an impressive complexity and a masterful attention to detail.
    Take a look below to see more of Add Fuel’s masterpiece.

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  • Immersive Art Experiences Used to Be Everywhere. But Can They Outlast the Coronavirus Pandemic?

    Two summers ago, when I went to see AA Bronson’s exhibition at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, I crawled behind the curtained opening of a little tent where I met the artist and his collaborator sitting in robes or nude on plush pillows. We shook hands and shared tea for 15 minutes in the Tent of Healing before I handed over a totem I had brought with me and stepped back into the gallery. I didn’t flinch at the intimacy of the experience.
    Throughout the last decade, museums and galleries have been leaning into such experiential programming, and viewers have become conditioned to expect them. Touching artworks, putting on headsets, lounging on furniture—anything beyond simply standing and looking has become a staple of museum programming.
    “Visitors have become used to this kind of experience at museums,” says Tine Colstrup, a curator at the Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark, and the organizer of a large-scale show dedicated to immersive art-film pioneer Pipilotti Rist. And artists like Rist have been called on more and more to “soften the white cube,” she says. “Now, we have a challenge to that and it’s not a challenge coming from inside the museum.”
    Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic has upended the status quo, and museum officials are wondering when—and if—the immersive experiential experience will return.
    Ice Watch by Olafur Eliasson and Minik Rosing, Place du Panthéon, Paris, 2015. Photo: Martin Argyroglo © 2015 Olafur Eliasson.

    Seismic Shifts 
    Of course, the biggest tremors have been felt by the organizers of shows that were meant to take place this summer and fall.
    And one of the first exhibitions to test out the new viewing landscape is the second Riga biennial, which opens on August 20 in Latvia.
    “I really wanted to collaborate with the limits of our present and what kind of space was left to reimagine things. And, believe me, there is a huge space for reimagining,” says the show’s curator, Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel.
    “Suddenly, we all realized there are different ways of working,” she says.
    Alexis Blake performace Allegory of the Painted Woman. Photo by Juris Rozenbergs. RIBOCA1: ‘Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More’ in Riga, Latvia, 2 June – 28 October 2018, rigabiennial.com

    For artists unable to travel to Latvia, or for artworks that cannot be shipped, contingency plans have been made: Ugo Rondinone, for example, is making a replica of a work that cannot get to Riga.
    But not every project will go on as planned. The Polish sculptor Pawel Althamer’s Draftsmen’s Congress by One, a huge collective group drawing in which participants share tools and ladders and scrawl and doodle all over a designated space, is no longer possible.
    Now, the 43,000-square-foot venue that was to host his work will stand empty as a testament to the times. “It was extremely important to keep the ghosts of what it was supposed to be. I think the ghosts are as loud as the work itself,” Lamarche-Vadel says.
    Anticipating that not as many people will be able to travel to the show, the organizers will also document the biennial as a film, suggesting new types of immersion.
    “Anyone who is at the biennial may become an actor,” Lamarche-Vadel says, adding that artists of the future will need to find new modes of participation.
    Pawel Althamer’s Draftsmen’s Congress from the 7th Berlin Biennal in 2012. Courtesy of the artist, Foksals Gallery Foundation, Warsaw and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo credit: Yevgen Samborsky.

    Gains and Losses
    But in most cases, regulations will mean changing the visitor experience more than the presentation of actual artworks themselves.
    “Because of the global crisis, we are not focusing on one opening date only, but more a flow of activities and actions, and slowly activating certain spaces, since a traditional opening with 2,000 to 3,000 people is not possible anymore,” says Hedwig Fijen, the director of Manifesta, which opens on August 28 in around the French coastal town of Marseille.
    Like most curators, Cecilia Alemani, director of 2022 Venice Biennale, does not pretend to know what the future holds. But it seems likely that even tools such as headphones and VR goggles will not be used as casually as before.
    “It is something that occupies every curator’s mind,” Alemani tells Artnet News. “Will I be able to show a large-scale, durational performance? I am a big fan of such artworks and the artists behind them,” she says, noting that these artists are among “the most affected by this pandemic.”
    “As artists always do, they will come up with a solution, though there will be adjustments,” she says. 
    But some experience may be lost altogether, which may not necessarily be a bad outcome. “I have this terrifying image of the Museum of Ice Cream and having to jump into a pool of sprinkles, but that would probably be okay to put an end to,” Alemani says with a laugh.
    Museum of Ice Cream, New York. Image courtesy of MOIC.

    Here to Stay
    But Meow Wolf, the art-experience company that was expanding in leaps and bounds across the US last year, is optimistic, though it says its employees have been working “overtime” to adapt company strategy.
    “Our experience has always centered around exploration and play, and providing a full sensory experience of sight, touch, and sound for our visitors,” a Meow Wolf spokesperson told Artnet News. “COVID-19 has led us to re-examine the ways that our visitors interact with the artwork, with ‘touch’ no longer a focus.”
    To that end, Meow Wolf has created an app that allows viewers to access their installations’ storylines through their phones, instead of touching items in real space to find clues. The change may even help solve long-lingering issues.
    “Before COVID-19, our Santa Fe exhibit could get crowded when it was at full capacity,” the spokesperson said. But now, with lower capacity and set time slots, viewers will have the chance to pass through the exhibition more efficiently, and also, should they choose, in a non-linear way.
    Film artist Pauline Curnier Jardin, winner of last year’s prestigious German Nationalgalerie prize, suggests that all these changes may make museum visitors better art-viewers.
    “People will be more dedicated and more available to watch and digest a storyline in its complexity, rather than in the ‘normal’ fast-food consuming” way she says.
    “Before, people were skeptical entering a video installation because it costs time, which is true. Maybe now the audience will make a choice before entering, and take a seat, a breath, and let themselves enter in a film.”
    Pauline Curnier Jardin’s installation at the Hamburger Bahnhof. © Mathias Voelzke

    No Touch Zones
    All these changes to old habits likely mean reassessing ambitions, and redefining the immersive experience.
    “Right now, we have our priorities backwards,” says the artist Tomás Saraceno. “Capital flows freely, jettisoned by the fossil-fuel economy, while people, empathy, and cooperation get stopped at the border. But things like viruses or pollution don’t stop at borders. They don’t need visas, they evade biometric control.”
    “Just by closing your eyes you are immersed in other dimensions,” he says.
    Colstrup, the Louisiana Museum curator, adds that artists and museums are adaptable (and anyway, most public institutions are basically “low-touch” zones).
    “Museums are very good at adapting,” she says. “Artists are very talented creatives who are good at working with the unexpected.”
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