Eliana Willis

Anna Deavere Smith, legendary actress of stage and screen, will give the 2024 A. W. Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C. She’ll become the 73rd lecturer since the prestigious annual series of scholarly talks was inaugurated in 1949 with the goal of offering the “results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the fine arts.” 
Across four consecutive Sundays from April 28 to May 19, 2024, the actress will stage a new performative work called Chasing That Which Is Me and That Which Is Not Me.
What exactly the presentation will cover is still something of a mystery. Smith has conceived the piece as a sequel to That Which Is Not Me, her 2015 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, for which she embodied notable figures of the past and present—including journalist Studs Terkel and Congressman John Lewis—in an effort to outline what it means to be an American. Like most of Smith’s works, the lecture was deeply personal and inspired by first-hand interviews she did with her subjects.  
“When I look back at the list of the lecturers from the 1950s on—what I can say is, I am honored to have been invited,” Smith told Artnet News, her enthusiasm couched in dry wit. “I am also excited to be able to spend some time with the people who work at the National Gallery. It’s going to be a rich time.” 

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With her planned performance, Smith represents something of a departure for the Mellon Lectures series, which has historically featured bookish academics—people like Hal Foster, Michael Fried, Leo Steinberg—presenting recent research.  
This year’s lecturer was anthropologist Stephen D. Houston, who explored the writing systems of ancient Mexico and Central America. In 2022, scholar Richard J. Powell discussed the concept of “colorstruck,” a 20th-century term connoting a cultural prejudice against people with darker complexions. 
“Smith’s presentations will contribute to the public discourse about the powerful role that performing arts can play in exploring our world and humanity,” said Steven Nelson, dean of the NGA’s Advanced Study in the Visual Arts Center, in a statement. 
One of the most respected actresses of her generation, Smith has appeared in TV shows like The West Wing and Nurse Jackie, and films like Rachel Getting Married and The Human Stain. But her talent has always shone brightest on stage, where she pushed the boundaries of the medium with one-woman plays that touch on current issues of race, class, and the criminal justice system. Fires in the Mirror, from 1993, explored the Crown Heights riots of two years prior, while 1994’s Twilight: Los Angeles examined the uprisings that followed the police brutality against Rodney King. 
Smith has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for drama and two Tony Awards, and was the recipient of the prestigious 2013 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for achievement in the arts. She currently teaches at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. 
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A dance inspired by social media, a live reading of a Marguerite Duras book: These are some of the projects that will highlight the 2023 Performa Biennial, set to open across various locations in New York from November 1–19.  
The show, Performa’s 10th since the organization was founded in 2004, will feature newly commissioned performance pieces from a group of international artists, including Julien Creuzet, Marcel Dzama, Nikita Gale, Nora Turato, Franz Erhard Walther, and Haegue Yang—many of whom are experimenting with the medium for the first time. 
As in past biennials, the list of participants represents a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and practices. But RoseLee Goldberg, Performa’s founder and chief curator, sees cohesion in the diversity. These artists, she explained, “deal in very different ways with our biggest concerns—race and gender, climate change, fake news, the Black Atlantic, the aesthetics of dissent—yet each says as much in highly nuanced, sometimes abstract voices.” 
“The work verges on the cerebral, yet, in the context of Performa… the artists have broadened their scope, expanded and extended the possibilities of their creative visions—and their potential audiences as well,” Goldberg added. “It’s an exciting process and you will be surprised and delighted by the results.” 
Haegue Yang, The Malady of Death – Monodrama with Irene Azuela (2016). Photo: Heinz Peter Knes.
For his part, Dzama will bring the whimsical imagery of his paintings to life in a performance that blends song, spoken word, animated video, and dance. The piece, which will be presented at the Abrons Art Center in lower Manhattan, reimagines Federico García Lorca’s kinetic 1929 poem, “Trip to the Moon.” Creuzet, meanwhile, will stage his first large-scale choreographic work, the movements of which were culled from the social media accounts of various African content creators. 
At the Guggenheim, a single performer will read The Malady of Death, a 1982 novella by filmmaker Marguerite Duras, in an artwork conceived by Yang. Gale’s contribution, her first live performance, will feature an ensemble of classical musicians and a light installation. The piece offers a meditation on the increasing volatility of weather in the face of the climate crisis.  
The biennial’s eldest participant is the German artist Franz Erhard Walther, who has, since the 1960s, explored the capacity of materials to mold our understanding of space and time. In Donald Judd’s former home and studio in Soho, Walther will direct viewers to move, manipulate, and even wear a collection of fabric sculptures.  
Franz Erhard Walther, Form Z (1991). © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020. Photo: Maximilian Geuter.Julien Creuzet, Marcel Dzama, Haegue Yang Will Present New Performance Pieces in this Fall’s Performa Biennial.
As its 10th edition, this year’s show marks something of a milestone for Performa, and for Goldberg, who has long been one the industry’s great champions of performance art.  
Back in 2004, Goldberg said, “we set out to make public the long history of performance art, to show its central significance to art history, and to commission new work for the 21st century, fully supported and produced by Performa, that would raise the profile of performance art and attract general audiences.” 
“In all instances, mission accomplished,” she went on, citing Performa’s past publications and symposia, its ongoing curatorial and fellowship programs, and the growing number of performance art departments in major museums. True to the organization’s roots, Goldberg also called attention to the myriad ways in which Performa has used the “city as a stage,” and the local-level impacts of its programs. 
Still, for Goldberg, the magic of her chosen medium remains: “The intensity in the presence of the artist in real time, of spending time with an artist’s work and ideas, that characterize live art has triggered comments from many that performance art provides a gathering place, a visceral pleasure for viewers and a direct exchange that is often missing within the four white walls of galleries,” Goldberg said.  
“Given the ubiquity of technology including the anticipated generation of A.I. artwork, many see performance as the antidote to so much media. We see it as the future.” 
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Featuring more than 150 works, the exhibition “Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution” currently running at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in Adelaide is more than just a presentation of the iconic art of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Drawing from the renowned collection assembled by Jacques and Natasha Gelman, this elaborate exhibition tells the intimate story of Kahlo and Rivera as a couple whose lives were intertwined with art, passion, and politics, against the backdrop of the post-revolution Mexico, from the 1920s to the 1950s.
The show, which spans three galleries, presents not just Kahlo and Rivera’s paintings, works on paper, and rarely seen photographs and period clothing—it also shows works by other Mexican modernists, including Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Miguel Covarrubias, María Izquierdo, Carlos Mérida, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
The colorful exhibition design also reflects the turbulent times that the Gelmans lived through during the 20th century while building their collection. Jacques Gelman was born in St. Petersburg to Jewish parents and went on to become a film producer and distributor in Paris before moving to Mexico in 1938, just before the outbreak of World War II. There in Mexico, he met Natasha Zahalka, who was also a migrant from Europe, and the couple wedded in 1941 in Mexico City. It was during their years in Mexico that they began to become involved in art, forming a close friendship with Kahlo and Rivera and collecting their works as well as works by others of Mexican modernists.
The exhibition runs through September 17.
Installation view: ‘Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution,’ featuring Frida Kahlo’s Self-portrait with monkeys, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; photo: Saul Steed.
Installation view: Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; photo: Saul Steed
Installation view: Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; photo: Saul Steed
Installation view: Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; photo: Saul Steed
Installation view: “Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution,” featuring Ángel Zarraga’s Portrait of Jacques Gelman and Diego Rivera’s Portrait of Natasha Gelman, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; photo: Saul Steed
Diego Rivera, born Guanajuanto City, Mexico 1886, died Mexico City 1957, Calla lily vendor, 1943, Mexico City, oil on board, 150.0 x 120.0 cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation.
Diego Rivera, born Guanajuanto City, Mexico 1886, died Mexico City 1957, Sunflowers, 1943, Mexico City, oil on canvas, 90 x 130 cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation
Diego Rivera, born Guanajuanto City, Mexico 1886, died Mexico City 1957, Landscape with cacti, 1931, Mexico City, oil on canvas, 125.5 x 150 cm, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation
Unknown Artist, Frida and Diego remarry, San Francisco, 1940, San Francisco, California, United States of America, gelatin- silver photograph, 23.5 x 18.4 cm; Throckmorton Fine Art, New York
Bernard Silberstein, born Chicago, Illinois, United States of America 1905, died Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America 1999, Frida paints “Diego on my mind” while Diego watches, 1940, Coyoacan, Mexico, gelatin-silver photograph, 43.2 x 35.6 cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation
Frida Kahlo, born Mexico City 1907, died Mexico City 1954, The bride who becomes frightened when she sees life opened, 1943, Coyoacan, Mexico, oil on canvas, 63 x 81.5 cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation
Lola Alvarez Bravo, born Lagos de Moreno, Mexico 1903, died Mexico City, Mexico 1993, Frida Kahlo, 1944, Mexico City, gelatin-silver photograph, 25.4 x 20.3 cm; Throckmorton Fine Art, New York
Maria Izquierdo, born San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico 1902, died Mexico City 1955, Bride from Papantla (portrait of Rosalba Portes Gil), 1944, Mexico City, oil on canvas, 125.0 x 100.0 cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation
Juan Guzman, born Cologne, Germany 1911, died Mexico City 1982, Frida at ABC Hospital holding a mirror, Mexico, 1950, Mexico City, gelatin-silver photograph, 24.1 x 19.0 cm; Throckmorton Fine Art, New York
Frida Kahlo, born Mexico City 1907, died Mexico City 1954, Self-portrait with red and gold dress, 1941, Coyoacan, Mexico, oil on canvas, 39.0 x 27.5 cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation
Frida Kahlo, born Mexico City 1907, died Mexico City 1954, Diego on my mind (Self-portrait as Tehuana), 1943, Coyoacan, Mexico, oil on board, 76 x 61 cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel Foundation
Unknown Artist, Frida and Diego with Fulang Chang, 1937, gelatin-silver photograph, 12.7 x 10.16 cm; Throckmorton Fine Art, New York
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Despite Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine, the Kyiv Biennial will return for its 5th edition this fall with a series of dispersed exhibitions hosted at six sites internationally. The program will start in Kyiv, Ukraine, and head to Vienna, Austria, in October. Further events are planned for Warsaw, Poland, and two more Ukrainian cities, Uzhhorod and Ivano-Frankivsk, before a final exhibition takes place in Berlin, Germany, in 2024.
It was not clear until recently whether going ahead with this year’s edition would be possible. “It’s one of the roles of the cultural realm to counter the logic of war, which also attacks everything that is civil by destroying cultural infrastructure,” Vasyl Cherepanyn, who organizes the biennial, told Artnet News. “This is a deliberate attack on our cultural identity. It’s very important to counter these genocidal intentions.”
The Kyiv Biennial was founded in 2015, partly in response to the 2014 Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, and Russia’s subsequent invasion of Crimea that same year. In the years since, the biennial has promoted art as a crucial but under-utilized means of activism, resistance, and political engagement, marking the centenary of the October Revolution in 2017, revisiting the Chernobyl disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2019, and, in 2021, spotlighting anti-fascist alliances across Europe.
This year’s edition will address the immediate aftershocks of war and displacement, as well as Russia’s historical and ongoing cultural attack on Ukraine’s land, people, and way of life. Due to its international sprawl and extended run, the biennial has been recast as a European “perennial” project that foregrounds the importance of international solidarity and unifies the Ukraine’s artistic community which is currently scattered across Europe.
Members of the public relax by the Dnipro River after the water receded due to the blowing up of the Kakhovka Dam by Russian occupiers on June 6, 2023. Photo by Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
In Kyiv, the Dovzhenko Centre will use its extensive film archive to present a discursive project about Ukraine’s Dnipro River, tracing its historical role in dividing Ukraine, its symbolic resonances in art and literature, and its recent weaponization through the devastating breach of the Kakhovka Dam by Russian forces in June.
Two more exhibitions will take place at the art gallery Asortymentna Kimnata in Ivano-Frankivsk and at the venue Sorry, No Rooms Available in Uzhhorod, both cities in western Ukraine that lie relatively far from the frontline. The venues emerged in their current form as a result of the war, offering emergency residencies for artists evacuated from more heavily bombarded areas. Artworks produced over the past 15 months will be exhibited with the hope of supporting these new initiatives and making them sustainable models long-term.
“The artists [exhibiting in the biennial] were not only seeking refuge, but also conditions to live and work while staying in Ukraine,” explained Cherepanyn. “This is a really unique social phenomenon, because these places are a melting pot for artists and curators from different regions and have become very productive sites for collaboration.”
Although it felt important that the biennial take place inside Ukraine “against all odds,” the situation remains unpredictable enough that the main part of the show will be hosted by the space tranzit.at in Vienna. A long-standing partner of the biennial, this fringe cultural hub helped set up Office Ukraine Vienna, an initiative that supported Ukrainian artists and curators who had fled the war. The exhibition will host around 30 or 40 artists from Ukraine and other countries.
“It is not just Ukrainian or Eastern European artists who have a lot to say about the war. It is important that Western artists respond” said Cherepanyn. “This is not just a local conflict between some Slavic nations. One of the purposes of this exhibition is to get an understanding that this is a major European war. How did a new fascist war in Europe become possible? The whole continent has to deeply rethink how ‘never again’ became possible again.”

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In 1939, and then again in 1964, Queens, New York played host to the World’s Fair, an international expo where countries came together to show off their achievements in technology and industry. This September, the borough will play host to a different event: The World’s UnFair. 
That’s the name of a new Creative Time-presented project by the collective New Red Order (NRO). With artworks, film screenings, and musical performances, the event will mimic the elaborate pageants of yore, albeit with a different agenda: to expose, in the group’s words, the United States as an “ongoing occupation of stolen Indigenous land.” 
Founded by artists Adam and Zack Khalil (who are both Ojibway, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) and Jackson Polys (Tlingit), New Red Order identifies itself as a “public secret society composed of networks of informants and accomplices dedicated to rechanneling desires for indigeneity towards the expansion of Indigenous futures.” That may be a mouthful, but the group’s central message is pointedly uncomplicated: “Give it back.”  
New Red Order. Courtesy of the artists.
For NRO, the phrase is a call to action: return all land to the peoples who were forcibly displaced from it by settler colonialists. Through its larger, ongoing research project—also called Give It Back—the group investigates and promotes real-life instances where this exchange has voluntarily taken place.  
“New Red Order’s whole work is about harnessing people’s desire for indigeneity—to co-opt it, to appropriate it, to assume it,” said Creative Time curator Diya Vij, who is organizing The World’s UnFair with the collective. NRO’s goal, she went on, is to “take that desire and turn it toward a pathway for [transforming] settlers into accomplices in the return of all indigenous land and life.” 
“They say ‘Give it back’ instead of ‘land back’ because it is something that we can all do. It is a giving and not a taking. It’s being in community together,” Vij added.
Among other attractions, The World’s UnFair will feature an installation of hundreds of tribal flags, signposts indicating the site’s proximity to present day locations of diasporic Lenape communities, and a large-scale video sculpture—titled Fort Freedumb—enwrapped in various forms of fencing. At the center of the fair will be Dexter and Sinister (2023), an animatronic talking tree and beaver that chat with each other about issues of land and the concept of private property. 
An illustrative map for New Red Order’s upcoming The World’s UnFair project. Courtesy of NRO and Creative Time.
That NRO would be interested in the World’s Fairs make sense. With its expos, the U.S. has a troubling history of exploiting indigenous and other minority communities to prop up its own imperialist ideologies. The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, for instance, barred people of color from participating in the event’s central “White City” section. The St. Louis iteration of 1904 put Filipinos and Native Americans on display to demonstrate “uncivilized” cultures. 
“In a time where the future appears bleak or non-existent, giving it back offers a bright path forward, a way for us to survive an apocalypse together,” NRO said in a joint statement. “The landmass here is enormous. And its ecological capacity to sustain life is immense if we care for these resources correctly. You can have a place. But first things first: Give it back.”   
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