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      The Artists at Benin’s First-Ever Venice Biennale Pavilion Plan to Put Restitution at the Fore

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      Curator Azu Nwagbogu has revealed his plans for the first-ever Benin pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Titled “Everything Precious is Fragile,” the group show will feature the work of four contemporary Beninese artists: Romuald Hazoumé, Chloe Quenum, Ishola Akpo, and Moufoli Bello, each of whom has been tasked with creating site-specific work for the ocassion.
      Nwagbogu, founder of Nigerian non-profit African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), will co-curate the presentation with Yassine Lassisi and Franck Houndegla, according to the German publication Contemporary And, which first reported the new details about the highly anticipated exhibition. (The biennale has seen an influx of African countries participating for the first time in recent years, including Madagascar and Ghana in 2019.)
      The Benin pavilion is expected to deal with issues of decolonization, restitution, and repatriation, which have been in the news of late as Nigeria seeks the return of the Benin Bronzes, a collection of royal sculptures that the British stole during the looting of Benin City in 1897.

      The historic artworks, which date to the 13th century, are scattered across some 131 Western institutions—despite growing calls to return them to Africa. (Last year, the Glasgow Museums, the Smithsonian, and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum began repatriating their bronzes, and the German government  transferred the ownership of 1,100 bronzes to Nigeria.)
      In Venice, the Republic of Benin hopes to highlight the ties between contemporary artists working in the nation today and its precolonial past by showcasing work inspired by the nation’s rich history and artistic traditions.
      Specifically, the pavilion will draw on what’s known as the Gèlèdé philosophy, a feminist Yoruba tradition based on the wisdom of the mother, to consider today’s ecological, political, and social issues. The idea is that contemporary society can benefit from looking back to the old ways, while also strengthening connections to indigenous heritage.

      Bello, for instance, is known for her figurative paintings of Black African women with blue skin, inspired in part by the Yoruba people’s traditional use of blue indigo dye in their fabrics. And Akpo uses his photography to blend reality and fiction in series that reimagine cultic practices of Benin’s Nago hunters or honor Africa’s historic queens.
      Hazoumé, the most-established of the four participating artists, is best known for creating sculptures that resemble traditional African masks but are made from discarded gasoline canisters.
      Romuald Hazoumé, Claudia Maigre (2005). Photo courtesy of Galerie Gmurzynska.
      “I send back to the West that which belongs to them, that is to say, the refuse of consumer society that invades us every day,” he has said of the series.
      Benin’s presentation in Venice comes on the heels of “The Art of Benin of Yesterday and Today: from Restitution to Revelation,” an exhibition at the at the Palais de la Marina in Cotonou, Benin, of 26 looted Beninese artifacts from the Quai Branly Museum in Paris that the nation of France agreed to restitute in 2020.
      Earlier this month, AAF opened the exhibition “Dig Where You Stand: From Coast to Coast” at the Palais de Lomé in Togo. Curated by Rosemary Esinam Damalie with curatorial advisory by Nwagbogu, the show, which debuted last year in Tamale, Ghana, features contemporary African artists dealing with similar themes as the upcoming Venice project, including decolonization and restitution.
      “Everything Precious is Fragile,” the first Benin Pavilion, will be on view at the 60th Venice Biennale, April 20–November 24, 2024. 
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      Banksy’s Blockbuster Show in Glasgow Attracted Record Crowds—and the Artist Wants You to Decide Where It Should Travel Next

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      Banksy may not have had an authorized solo show in 14 years, but if anything, that seemed to stoke the demand for his recent outing at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), which set attendance records for the institution with 180,000 visitors over the show’s 10-week run.
      Titled “Banksy: Cut and Run,” the exhibition enforced a strict no photographs rule—all cell phones had to be secured in locked pouches, at the anonymous British street artist’s request. But that apparently didn’t dampen enthusiasm from museum goers, who included actor Johnny Depp and Jarvis Cocker of the band Pulp, according to the Scotland Herald.
      “‘Cut and Run’ has welcomed a new and diverse audience, from primary school pupils to octogenarians, from all areas of society and corners of the globe,” GoMA director Gareth James said in a statement, as reported by the Independent, noting that the institution had to implement late-night hours to meet the audience demand. “Every day we open our doors to queues of hundreds of people waiting for walk-up tickets.”
      It was the first time that the museum had charged paid admission for an exhibition. The show, which presented an in-depth retrospective of Banksy’s 25-year career, included a replica of the artist’s work station, a massive selection of his stencils, and all the behind-the-scenes details on how he got Love is in the Bin to infamously shred itself after hammering down for $1.3 million at Sotheby’s London.
      The original stencil piece for Banksy’s Girl With Balloon, which infamously shredded itself after selling at auction at Sotheby’s London on display in “Banksy: Cut and Run” at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art. Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images.
      If you missed the exhibition in Glasgow, it appears you can still get another bite at the apple, as Banksy has updated the show’s official website to solicit ideas for where to next present it.
      “We want to take this show on the road but have no idea where to go next. Do you?” the website asked.
      Banksy’s exhibition at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art. Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.
      The artist is encouraging people to email their suggestions for the exhibition’s tour to [email protected], preferably with a specific location or venue in mind—not just a country or city—as well as photographs of the space.
      The show does not, however, confirm any details regarding Banksy’s identity, which has sparked countless theories over the years. Last month, a recording from a 2005 episode of NPR’s All Things Considered resurfaced that featured a purported interview with the artist, who is believed to have been born in Bristol, England, around the year 1974. 

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      Radiohead Frontman Thom Yorke and Artist Stanley Donwood’s New Paintings Conjure Eerie, Abstract Landscapes. See Them Here

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      New paintings by the musician Thom Yorke, lead singer of the English rock band Radiohead, will go on view at Tin Man Art gallery in London. The works were produced with artist Stanley Donwood, a long-time collaborator since he produced cover art for the band’s EP My Iron Lung in 1994.
      For Yorke, the experience of making the works was reminiscent of his process as a musician. “That was what I found incredibly exciting,” he said. “I became so conscious of the fact that the two processes are almost exactly the same.”
      Donwood and Yorke met while they were both art students. “I figured I’d either end up really not liking this person at all, or working with him for the rest of my life,” Yorke once recalled. Since 1994, Donwood has made all of Radiohead’s album art and promotional materials. In 2021, he sold some of his prospective cover designs, which were never used, at Christie’s. 
      Yorke and Donwood started making art together a few years ago. Some early efforts were featured in the digital “KID A MNESIA EXHIBITION” that accompanied the release of Radiohead’s triple album of the same name that combined the records Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001) with previously unreleased material.
      For this latest exhibition, “The Crow Flies Part One,” the duo worked side-by-side on the same canvas in a small studio. As well as making the album art for A Light for Attracting Attention, the 2022 debut of Yorke’s new band The Smile, they produced over 20 additional paintings that are now being made public for the first time.
      Longtime fans of Donwood’s artistic interpretations of Yorke’s music will find the appearance of strange, stylized landscapes to be familiar. In this case, swirling abstract forms have been layered over intricate, map-like drawings. In keeping with the idea of using ancient maps as inspiration, the works are made on vellum, or calfskin, which was traditionally used before the widespread availability of paper. Compared to previous projects, the imagery is more delicately painted using old-school techniques like egg tempera or water-based gouache.
      The exhibition runs through September 10, and will be followed by a second part scheduled to run from December 6–10. See more of the new paintings below.
      Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, Unchecked (2021–23). Photo courtesy of Tin Man Art.
      Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, Somewhere You’ll Be There (2021–23). Photo courtesy of Tin Man Art.
      Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, Membranes (2021–23). Photo courtesy of Tin Man Art.
      Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, Let Us Raise Our Glasses To What We Don’t Deserve (2021–23). Photo courtesy of Tin Man Art.
      “The Crow Flies Part One” is on view at Tin Man Art, 4 Cromwell Place, London, September 6–10.

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      Floral Sculptures Are in Bloom at Brooklyn’s Botanic Garden, Courtesy of French Artist Jean-Michel Othoniel

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      It’s the season for glistening, metallic flowers to bloom in Brooklyn. Come to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the majesty of nature (and 12,000 different plants), stay for the French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel’s sublime floral sculpture exhibition.
      “The Flowers of Hypnosis” opened last month and runs until October 22. It consists of six site-specific pieces and took Othoniel a year to produce. Using his signature strands of hammered steel spheres, Othoniel conjured visions of lotus blossoms and a shiny rose. As per the title, it is meant to be a heady, thought-provoking experience, as well as a journey into Zen.
      Jean-Michel Othoniel’s “The Flowers of Hypnosis” at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Photo: Michelle Huynh. Courtesy of Dior.
      “Nature can be a source of inspiration, contemplation, and beauty,” the artist said in an audio introduction to the show. “It’s very important now as a goal to survive the world to escape reality or to build yourself strong enough to face reality—that’s the power of gardens. In general, my sculptures are here to enchant and to push this feeling of contemplation in a stronger way.”
      The enormity and materiality of the flora adds a surreal tinge to the paradisical surroundings, but at the heart of the project seems to be the artist’s goal to service his surroundings and pay homage to the ecology.
      Jean-Michel Othoniel’s sculpture Mirror Lotus in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Lily Pool Terrace. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli. © Jean-Michel Othoniel / ADAGP, Paris & ARS, New York 2023.
      “Jean-Michel has a passion for gardens, flowers, and the natural world that reveals itself in his works for ‘The Flowers of Hypnosis,’ which respond to and enhance their garden settings,” said Adrian Benepe, president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
      “The Flowers of Hypnosis” is sponsored by Dior as part of its Cultural Gardens initiative, which was formed to “maintain the intense links between creativity and the living world that forged the house’s identity.” A new Othoniel art piece created for the brand will be unveiled at a Dior-hosted event at the gardens on September 7.
      The artist Jean-Michel Othoniel. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
      Othoniel’s art style might be familiar from his iconic Palais-Royale metro station in Paris. He had a 2012 survey that stopped at the Centre Pompidou, Brooklyn Museum, and other institutions. He has a permanent installation at the Château de Versailles, a dramatic serpentine fountain emerging in the palace’s lush garden.
      The artist continues to be drawn to the natural world. “Gardens leave a great deal of space for the irrational, the inexplicable, the extravagant,” Othoniel said. “They are places of mystery, magic, and secrecy.”
      Three sculptures in Jean-Michel Othoniel’s “Gold Lotus” series in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Japanese Hill and Pond Garden. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli. © Jean-Michel Othoniel / ADAGP, Paris & ARS, New York 2023.
      “The Flowers of Hypnosis” is on view at the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, Fragrance Garden, and Lily Pool Terrace sections of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
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      A New Museum Show in London Delves Into the Troubling History of Medical Injustice Through a Series of Contemporary Films

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      Towards the end of last year, the Wellcome Collection in London decided to close its 15-year-old “Medicine Man” display because it “perpetuate[d] a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist, and ableist theories and language.” The museum, which predominantly displays medical artifacts, many of which were collected by 19th-century pharmaceutical entrepreneur Henry Wellcome, added that it was in the process of reconsidering “the point of museums.”
      With its new exhibition, “Genetic Automata,” the Wellcome Collection appears to be putting forward an alternative proposition for the role of the museum. The presentation features four recent films by the British-Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong and his long-time collaborator David Blandy, another British artist who is white. Together, the pair explore the legacy of scientific racism and how its ideas still resurface in contemporary culture, technology, and healthcare.
      Installation view of “Genetic Automata” at the Wellcome Collection. Photo: Steve Pocock.
      The latest film in the series, _GOD_MODE_ (2023), was co-commissioned by the museum and the Black Cultural Archives (BCA). Its first half is a direct riposte to the disturbing ideas of Victorian scientist Francis Galton, who established eugenics as a scientific discipline at University College London. The second half, created using Unity, a 3D platform for video games, and littered with references to modern gaming culture, makes an analogy between the myth of genetic superiority and the use of cheat codes to play a video game in the invincible “God mode,” highlighting the comparative lack of agency of “non-player characters.”
      A display of related objects includes death masks used by the phrenologist Robert Noel to analyze the different skull measurements of criminals and intellectuals, a “pocket registrator” invented by Galton to secretly categorize people according to five types, and an eye color gauge used in the 1920s for an antisemitic study on the intelligence of Russian and Jewish school children living in London’s East End.
      Installation view of “Genetic Automata” at the Wellcome Collection. Photo: Steve Pocock.
      These items offer useful historical context to _GOD_MODE_, but the film in turn also gives a new and necessary context to these objects, pulling them out from the past in order to examine their influence on the present.
      A particularly successful film, A lament for power (2020), imagines the perspective of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who unwittingly became the source for the very first immortalized human cell line, known as HeLa, when her cancer cells were stored after a treatment in 1951. The cells were successfully cloned and sent out to researchers across the globe and have since contributed to many medical breakthroughs, including the development of a polio vaccine. Lacks’s family has objected to the non-consensual harvesting of her cells.
      Once more in the style of a video game, large, cell-like forms balloon out from buildings within a eerily dystopian setting. Against this backdrop, we hear Lacks’s imagined voice speak out: “Growing in labs, spliced, injected, and infected for the good of mankind. Your body, swollen to gargantuan form, pulsing, mutating, and splitting, again, and again, and again, as others’ hands manipulate and inspect you,” she says. “Powerless to end this zombie life of your flesh living way past your soul.”
      Still from Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, A lament for power (2020). Photo: © the Artists Commissioned by Art Exchange.
      “A fortune made of you, and your family has seen nothing, knew nothing for decades. And their genes, through yours, are now visible to all,” she continues. “These riches built on your back. The soil of your cells owned, leased out, and licensed by white men in suits. A legacy for their families. Medicines are made thanks to your body that are then denied to your brothers and sisters for the want of a few notes.”
      The final two films are A Terrible Fiction (2019), which tells the little known history of Darwin’s taxidermy teacher John Edmonstone, who was a freed slave, and Dust to Data (2021), which compares the colonial history of archaeology with the modern day practice of mining data to, once again, define people according to categories.
      As each film develops, it delves further into the wider social and cultural implications of scientific and medical injustices. The exhibition suggests that “the point of museums” like the Wellcome Collection may no longer be as custodians of a fixed past, confined within glass cases, but as facilitators of an ever-evolving conversation that welcomes new voices.
      “Genetic Automata” is on view at the Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, through 11 February, 2024.
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      Women Artists and Collectors Are at the Fore of the Hamptons Art Scene. Here Are 6 Female-Focused Exhibitions to See Into September

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      Summer may be coming to an end, but the Hamptons season is far from over—at least for the art scene. Women’s voices and narratives are stronger than ever out East, with several powerful shows curated by women artists and collectors which are spotlighting both overlooked makers and up-and-coming talents. Discover a multitude of inspiring and powerful perspectives with these six must-see shows, spanning photography, craft, furniture, sculpture, and more.  
       
      “Renée Cox: A Proof of Being”Guild Hall, through September 4 
      Installation image, ‘Renée Cox: A Proof of Being’, courtesy Guild Hall of East Hampton. Photo by Gary Mamay.
      Guild Hall is closing out its summer roster with a commanding retrospective of Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox. Over her 30-year career, she has become best known for her performative self-portraits and photographic tableaux in which Black women and men pose, reclaiming predominantly white art historical scenes. “The dramatic use of scale in Cox’s images is powerful, drawing you in or staring you down. A surprising, lesser-known narrative we encourage people to learn more about after seeing the exhibition is the series that depicts ‘Queen Nanny of the Maroons,’ the 18th-century female Jamaican national hero who defeated the British using guerilla warfare,” Andrea Grover, Guild Hall’s executive director, told Artnet News. 
      Another highlight is a new video installation, Soul Culture (2022). Grover says this piece represents a “new direction” for Cox. “The room features moving patterns of sacred geometry collaged from the arms, legs, and bodies of Cox’s models. The artist says it’s meant to stop you from thinking and ‘keep you in the moment,’” added Grover.  
      “Supernatural Beauty”Onna House, through September 5 
      Installation view “Supernatural Beauty” at Onna House, 2023. Photography by Memry Anderson / BFA.
      Last year, fashion designer and collector Lisa Perry opened Onna House, a restored modernist home in East Hampton, featuring a rotating mix of art and objects by female makers. “We reinvent ourselves with every show,” the multihyphenate tells Artnet News. This summer Onna House is showcasing six talents working across media ranging from fiber textiles to metal sculpture in a group show called “Supernatural Beauty.”  
      “LA-based artist Lisa Eisner turns jewelry into art, and Spanish artist Adriana Meunié uses materials she sources in Mallorca to create artistic clothing and art,” said Perry who aspires for the exhibition to expand the meaning of art. “I love the idea of bringing together six women artists from multiple disciplines and backgrounds to find in essence they all speak a similar language with the common goal of seeking beauty in the ordinary and the extraordinary.” 
       
      “Women Choose Women”Exhibition The Barn, through September 9 
      Installation view “Women Choose Women” 2023. Photography by Eric Striffler.
      In Bridgehampton, three powerhouse women have teamed up to present the work of female artists and designers spanning the 1950s to today. Christine Berry and Martha Campbell, co-founders of Berry Campbell (a gallery known for its promotion of overlooked artists, particularly women of Abstract Expressionism) have joined Elena Frampton, principal of Frampton Co. at the designer’s gallery space, Exhibition The Barn. “Set within a converted 1910 barn turned gallery, ‘Women Choose Women’ presents historical and contemporary paintings, sculpture, collectible design, and our own furniture line, all within an unconventional living room setting,” said Frampton. 
      “Women Choose Women” is named after the landmark exhibition held at the New York Cultural Center in 1973, which was also curated by a committee of women artists. Fifty years later, Frampton, Berry, and Campbell believe more progress needs to be made, and have, thus, brought together works, ranging from a rare work on paper by Elaine de Kooning to contemporary sculpture and furniture by Swiss-born, Los Angeles-based Carmen D’Apollonio, presented in collaboration with Friedman Benda. 
       
      “(Mostly) Women (Mostly) Abstract”Eric Firestone Gallery, through September 17 
      Judy Pfaff, Great Glasses (1988). Courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery.
      This August Eric Firestone Gallery is presenting a two-part exhibition across its East Hampton and New York City locations. The Hamptons iteration of “(Mostly) Women (Mostly) Abstract” features a cross-generational group of 22 experimental post-war artists, often on the fringes of the mainstream art world. “The show delves into the works of contemporary artists and their predecessors, who practiced abstract art and explored otherness in this genre—themes such as ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation, which are as relevant now as ever,” gallerist and curator Eric Firestone told Artnet News. Though the artists are separated by time and experiences, their “intensely graphic work and saturated colors” form a cohesive narrative.  
      Firestone says a can’t-miss work is American artist Judy Pfaff’s kaleidoscopic 1988 sculpture, Great Glasses. “Her work is highly fresh and relevant…you’ll want to explore the sculpture’s many facets and the story it tells,” he added. Among the other artists featured are Kennedy Yanko, best known for shaping paint skin into sculpture, and Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award recipient, Nina Yankowitz, whose sculpture, often made using handicraft techniques, challenges the notion of “women’s work.”  
       
      “Change Agents: Women Collectors Shaping the Art World”Southampton Art Center, through September 30 
      Installation view “Change Agents: Women Collectors Shaping the Art World” 2023. Courtesy of Southhampton Arts Center.
      In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the Southampton Arts Center has staged a pioneering show bringing together 14 women collectors, as prestigious as Agnes Gund, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Lisa Perry, and Mickalene Thomas. SAC’s Executive Director, Christina Mossaides Strassfield, says it was founding board co-chair Simone Levinson who came up with the concept, which had surprisingly never been explored to this extent. “Historically and today, female collectors make a huge difference in the art world through their philanthropy and support of artists,” said Mossaides Strassfield, calling to mind Abigail Rockefeller, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and Peggy Guggenheim. “The women whose collections are featured in ‘Change Agents’ continue to carry that torch.” 
      Rather than be divided into sections by collectors, the works are interspersed, so that the “presentation lets each work speak for itself,” added Mossaides Strassfield. “The synergy among the results creates a beautiful dialogue that helps one to rethink the art historical cannon.” Artists in the exhibition range from heavy hitters, including Andy Warhol, Mark Bradford, and Lorna Simpson, to quickly rising talents, such as Michaela Yearwood Dan, Tala Madani, and Becky Suss. 
       
      “Two Pieces in the Shape of a Pear: A Group Exhibition Curated by Pat Steir” Hauser & Wirth, through September 30 
      Angel Otero, Splintered (2019)© Angel Otero. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Photo: Matthew Herrmann
      Southampton’s most invigorating exhibition this summer has been curated by none other than Pat Steir, who has paired works across medium and genre. “Something magical often comes from inviting a great artist to curate a show of works by other artists they admire…Pat Steir approached the assignment as a way to reveal some surprising affinities between eight wonderful artists across several generations—people we might otherwise never have imagined together in the same way,” Madeline Warren, senior director at Hauser & Wirth, told Artnet News. “It took a painter to recognize the shared gestures, forms, and methods, the connections that lie within and underneath the contrasts. The show is full of delights because Pat’s provocative pairings tease out these sorts of unexpected connections.” 
      For the show, Steir paired one of her electric drip paintings from 1993 with Rashid Johnson’s Surrender Painting “Pouring” (2023), a chromatically subdued, yet haunting iteration of his “Anxious Men” works. The other pairings include Cindy Sherman and Mickalene Thomas, Rita Ackermann and Avery Singer, and Mary Heilmann and Martha Tuttle. 
      Also while visiting Hauser & Wirth’s Southampton gallery, don’t miss “Jane Yang: D’Haene / earthbound,” presenting the Brooklyn-based artist’s experimental, highly textured ceramics, inspired by her South Korean heritage and Moon Jars. 
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      Japanese Artist Tetsuya Ishida Dreamed of Having a Solo Show in New York Before His Untimely Death. Two Decades Later, Gagosian Is Honoring His Wish

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      More than two decades ago, when Tetsuya Ishida was still a young emerging artist in Japan, he was already dreaming big. He had his eyes set on New York, wishing that he would one day have his solo exhibition in the center of the contemporary art world. He was preparing himself, saving money from a part-time job and learning English when he was not painting.
      Ishida’s dream, however, did not materialize prior to his untimely death in 2005 at the age of 31 due to a train accident. But that was not the end of his story: This fall, the late Japanese artist’s wish will come true next month when Gagosian opens “Tetsuya Ishida: My Anxious Self” at its 555 West 24th Street space in New York on September 12.
      Featuring more than 80 works, the exhibition, curated by Cecilia Alemani, is set to be the artist’s largest show outside of his native Japan. The gallery is also now representing Ishida globally in association with the artist’s estate, Artnet News can exclusively reveal.
      Tetsuya Ishida, Exercise Equipment (1997). © Tetsuya Ishida Estate. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.
      “In getting to know the family over the past several years, we learned that an exhibition in New York was Tetsuya’s greatest artistic ambition, and we are incredibly honored to present his paintings in New York on the 50th anniversary of his birth,” Nick Simunovic, senior director of Gagosian in Asia, told Artnet News.
      Born in Yaizu, Japan, in 1973, Ishida grew up as part of the country’s “lost generation,” a term referring to those who graduated during the 1990s and 2000s in a period of recession. During his short-lived artist career, Ishida created about 200 works. The sentiment of loss and despair experienced among this generation during a decade marred by high unemployment and high suicide rates can be felt in Ishida’s poignant paintings and graphic works.
      Often meticulously detailed, Ishida’s paintings depict expressionless or sad faces of young men, their human bodies merged with objects surrounding them, including plastic bags, airplanes, buildings, broken satellites, machine parts, and animals like crabs and seahorses. At times, his human figures appear nearly lifeless in his paintings, lying on a conveyor belt or arriving as packaged goods.
      Critics in Japan relate Ishida’s work with the country’s dominating manga and anime culture, but at the same time, this “convergence” with objects can also be understood as a visualization of the psychological survival mechanism needed during a repressive time.
      “At first, it was a self-portrait. I tried to make myself—my weak self, my pitiful self, my anxious self—into a joke or something funny that could be laughed at… It was sometimes seen as a parody or satire referring to contemporary people. As I continued to think about this, I expanded it to include consumers, city-dwellers, workers, and the Japanese people,” the artist was quoted in a statement.
      Ishida’s works were exhibited and collected in some parts of Asia but they did not get to travel beyond the region until November 2013, when Gagosian held a solo exhibition of the artist at its Hong Kong space, the artist’s first outside of Japan.
      Tetsuya Ishida c. 1995 © Tetsuya Ishida Estate. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
      Recalling the organization of the exhibition, Simunovic, who was leading the gallery’s Hong Kong operation at the time, was first introduced to the artist’s enigmatic paintings through a Hong Kong collector more than 12 years ago. “I was immediately taken with the work and showed it to Larry [Gagosian], who was equally captivated,” Simunovic said. “We both agreed that it would be interesting to present an exhibition and, as we didn’t know the family at the time, we began making plans to mount a show of work from the secondary market. We secured great loans from collectors across Asia.”
      The 2013 Hong Kong exhibition became a turning point for Ishida’s art. Jessica Morgan, a curator at the Tate at the time, saw the show and subsequently included the artist in the 2014 edition of Gwangju Biennale, when she served as its artistic director. “Okwui Enwezor, who was on the Gwangju jury at the time, was fascinated by Ishida and the power of his work, and, in turn, featured the artist in his exhibition for the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015,” Simunovic noted. And then, Reina Sofia’s curatorial team saw the Venice show and subsequently offered Ishida’s family a solo show at the museum in Madrid in 2019.
      In between, the artist’s relatives became aware of the growing reputation of his work and reached out to Simunovic. “We slowly began building a relationship and we were given works for sale, which we placed in esteemed collections around the world,” he said.
      Tetsuya Ishida, Refuel Meal (1996) © Tetsuya Ishida Estate. Courtesy the artist, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, and Gagosian.
      The gallery and the artist’s family were initially working on a show in New York, which was stalled due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. “We believe in his work and feel it’s extremely important that it be seen and understood in the West,” Simunovic said. The 80 works to be featured in the New York show represent nearly half of Ishida’s entire body of work. Some of them are on loan from the collection of the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, which is located in the artist’s home town in Japan, as well as other private collections. Others are from the estate and will be available for sale, but Simunovic declined to reveal exactly how many works and the price range.
      Simunovic is confident the show will resonate with an audience in the West. Ishida’s art, which addresses the themes of disconnection, alienation, and despair, are universal and highly relevant to the current times, he added.
      “We live in a pluralistic art world where there are countless western collectors who enjoy collecting Asian contemporary art, just as there are countless Asian collectors who are avidly collecting western contemporary art,” he said.

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      in Exhibitions

      A Major Isa Genzken Retrospective in Berlin Brings a Rare Clarity to What Makes Her Ingenious, Risk-Taking Art So Vital

      by

      It starts with a pink rose, astounding in its towering scale and vaguely threatening—each thorn on the stem is about the size of a butcher’s knife. This monumental steel flower seems as if it is finally at home in the surreal and weird context around the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, where everything is a bit idiosyncratic. The iconic museum is where Isa Genzken is subject of a smartly styled exhibition to mark her 75th birthday called “75/75,” on view until the date of her birthday, November 27.
      An unbridled beauty and a sense of precarity radiate from the German artist’s sculptures once you get past Pink Rose and inside the Mies van der Rohe-designed museum. Like Pink Rose, the Berlin-based artist, who by now one has attained cult status as one of the most important voices in her cohort, works with contradictions. Materials and forms clash and bang together. But the brilliance of Genkzen is the confidence and sensitivity of the medley—it all just works.
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023. Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Buchholz Gallery. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      Curated by Klaus Biesenbach and Lisa Botti, the show, as its title suggests, consists of 75 works on loan from private and public collections, including from the collections of friends of the artist including artists Wolfgang Tillmans and Katharina Grosse, who are also both based in Berlin. “75/75” touches on every key chapter of Genzken’s career, which has been long, multifaceted, and as of late rockier as she has opened up about struggles with alcohol and bipolar disorder. The artist has been unwell lately, too; Given this, she was unable to participate personally in the exhibition, which Biesenbach and Botti framed instead as a gift to her.
      A few days after the opening, Biesenbach posted on Instagram that Genzken did, in the end, make it to see the show. In either case, the show is also a gift to whomever comes to see it in Berlin and wants to understand exactly what makes Genzken essential to contemporary art. The fact that one can simply turn their head left to right and survey the breadth of her career is a unique benefit of this building’s main floor, which is without walls or blind spots.
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023. Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Buchholz Gallery. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      The transparent building also involves the city beyond it, which is chaotically postmodern—not unlike Genzken’s sculptures. The works here echo a city, arranged in a grid plan that you can walk through as if strolling the avenues of Genzken’s psyche. In one sculpture there is a picture of the artist and Gerhard Richter, to whom she was married for many years. One floor below, just by chance it seems, is a landmark show of Richter—a very different kind of artist bent around measured perfection, unlike Genzken—who just permanently loaned 100 works to the museum.
      The modernity of the Neue Nationalgalerie’s jewel-box architecture is a perfect place for the studied chaos of Genzken because it represents her artistic foil—the strictures of modernism. The show also plots out just how Genkzen arrived at this pursuit. It begins with her minimal “ellipsoids” and “hyperbolos,” long and elegant structures that lie on the floor. Then, Genzken’s works jump into the vertical space, into tall standing responses to them in works like Diana. Then, her work begins to spread outwards with works like X from 1992, a see-through box made of epoxy resin that glistens in the afternoon light.
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75,” New National Gallery, 2023. Pictured: NOFRETETE – THE ORIGINAL, (2012). (Private collection Rhineland). Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Buchholz Gallery. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      From there it spirals in fits of genius, into works that are like sieves for the by-products of consumerism and western society. Mies, from 2008, is one such work. It seems like it was made to be where it is right now, dangling from the ceiling with a Barcelona chair and pink hula hoops in the suspension scheme—the very same types of Mies van der Rohe-designed seats on which tourists sit on at the other side of the museum looking at their Google Maps. New Buildings for Berlin from 2005, speaks to the random postmodern nature of Berlin, post-war, poking reference to German modernists like van der Rohe. Then, nearby, Genzken’s disturbingly to-the-point disembodied airplane windows leave you with a lurking sense of death.   
      For Genzken, as for many Berlin artists, this prime spot in the Neue Nationalgalerie is the stuff of dreams. But a show on this level for such an icon is also something special to the public. Laid out chronologically, “75/75” gives you a gorgeously clear way to enter into Genzken’s work, a practice the artist said herself can be hard to understand. And, despite the incredible value of some of these pieces, nothing here is cordoned off behind insurance ropes or motion-sensitive alarms, or constrained to the taming backdrop of a white cube, like zoo animals. At Neue Nationalgalerie, they run free.
      ‘75/75’ is on view at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin until November 27, 2023. See more images of the show below.
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023. Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Buchholz Gallery. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      Isa Genzken, Schauspieler (Actor), (2013). Private collection Rhineland. Courtesy Galerie Buchholz/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023 pictured: DER JUNGE GEWICHTHEBER, (2004) Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Galerie Buchholz © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023. Pictured: UNTITLED, (2015); SCHAUSPIELER II, 6, (2014) (Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner); LEONARDO, (2017) (Private collection); NOFRETETE, (2015). (Collection su.benz, Stuttgart). Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Galerie Buchholz © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023. Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe Courtesy Buchholz Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023. Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe Courtesy Buchholz Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
      Exhibition view “Isa Genzken. 75/75”, New National Gallery, 2023. Photo: National Gallery – National Museums in Berlin / Jens Ziehe Courtesy Buchholz Gallery © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

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      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