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      Seoul’s Institutional Landscape Is as Good as Its Flourishing Commercial Scene. Here Are 7 Star-Powered Museum Shows to Add to Your Calendar

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      While everyone’s focused on commercial art scene in Seoul this week, there are a slew of gallery shows opening to coincide with the debut of Frieze Seoul and the opening of the stalwart art fair Kiaf on Friday. The Korean capital has a wealth of museums and independent art project spaces to choose from. Here’s what is on our radar.
      Do Ho Suh and Children’s “Artland”Buk-Seoul Museum of ArtThrough March 12, 2023
      Artist Do Ho Suh. Photo: Courtesy Lehmann Maupin, New York/Hong Kong.
      “Artland” at Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, which is a part of the network of Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), is presenting Do Ho Suh’s first collaborative children’s exhibition inspired by the artist and his children’s home activities. For over seven years in their London home, Suh and his children have been using modeling clay to create a fantastical ecosystem called Artland inhabited by a range of imaginary species of animals and plants. This exhibition not only brings Artland to Seoul, but also invites children visitors to add new elements to this ecosystem with their imagination.
      1238, Dongil-ro, Nowon-gu, Seoul
      Group show “MANUAL”Primary PracticeAugust 27 to October 29
      Installation view of ‘MANUAL’ at Primary Practice, Seoul, 2022. ©CJY ART STUDIO (CHO Junyong)
      Primary Practice is a new not-for-profit project-based art space under the directorship of Kim Sung-woo, a curator and writer based in Seoul who was a curator for the 12th Gwangju Biennale in 2018 and a curatorial advisor for Busan Biennale in 2020. As the inaugural exhibition of the experimental Primary Practice, the group show “MANUAL” features local artists Kim Minae, Jeong Rohwa, and Hong Seung-Hye; it explores the intersection between automated technology and the exhibition as a construction.
      B1, 7, Changuimun-ro 11-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul
      Ryu Sungsil’s “The Burning Love Song”Atelier HermèsThrough October 2
      Installation view of “The Burning Love Song,” 2022, video and installation. Photo Sangtae Kim © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès / Ryu Sungsil
      Just a year after the 1993-born Korean artist was awarded the Hermès Foundation Missulsang, an art award dedicated to Korean art, Ryu Sungsil has a major solo exhibition called “The Burning Love Song” on view. For this presentation, the artist examines capitalist Korean society through the journey of a fictional character called Dae Wang Lee, who runs a funeral home for dogs. The satirical mixed media show approaches societal issues in a humorous way while propeling audiences to reflect on what extent humans surrender their emotions to the machinery of profit.
      Maison Hermès Dosan Park B1F 7, Dosan-daero 45-gil, Gangnam-gu, Séoul, Corée du Sud
      Juree Kim’s “0 Columns”TINC (This is not a church)September 2 to September 22, 2022
      Juree Kim, Wet Matter(모습, 某濕)_202206 (2022). Provided by the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art.
      Formerly an artist in residence at the V&A, the 1980-born Juree Kim has already exhibited at various biennials around the world over the past decade. “0 Columns” is will be on view at Seoul’s TINC (This is not a church), an independent project space converted from a church. Featuring a new series of mysterious wet sculptures, these large structures might appear to be static at first glance, but they are constantly evolving throughout the show. Audiences are invited to immerse themselves in a space of contemplation while experiencing the scent of fresh soil as well as zen sounds.
      10 gil 34-16, Dongsomun-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul
      Um Tai-Jung’s “Dream and Rejoice of Silver Wings”Arario MuseumAugust 24 to February 26, 2023
      Um Tai-jung, Dream and Rejoice of Silver Wings (2022) ⓒ 2022 Um Taijung. Courtesy of Arario Museum.
      Housed in an iconic space designed by the late Korean architect Kim Swoo-geun, Arario Museum was founded by mega collector Kim Chang-il of the Arario Corporation in 2014. This branch of Arario Museum (it also has a space in Jeju) showcases recent works by Um Tai-jung in solo exhibition “Dream and Rejoice of Silver Wings.” Born in 1938, the renowned Korean artist is known for his abstract metal “healing space-sculptures.” This new show also features previously unseen works and drawings from 1960s to 1980s.
      83, Yulgok-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul
      Hito Steyerl—A Sea of DataThe National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA)Through September 18
      Installation view of Hito Steyerl–A Sea of Data, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA), 2022. Image courtesy of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA). Photography by HONG Cheolki. Courtesy of the Artist, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York and Esther Schipper, Berlin.
      MMCA is hosting Steyerl’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Asia, a monumental survey of the media artist and critic’s career. With 23 works, the exhibition spans early documentary-esque video works such as Germany and Identity (1994) to her more recent SocialSim (2020) as well as a new commission from the museum, Animal Spirits, which was on view at Documenta 15, expands on her exploration of algorithms, artificial intelligence, and robot engineering, and how they relate to human beings and society.
      30 Samcheong-ro 5-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul.
      Group Show “Summer Love 2022”SONGEUN Art and Cultural FoundationThrough September 24

      Thirteen promising young Korean artists are on view in this group show, including Hana Kim, Mijung Lee, and Rhaomi. Guest artists Ahram Kwon—each of them won the 21st Songeun Art Award. Also on view is Kun-Yong Lee, an important figure in Korean experimental art. Swiss French artists Barbezat-Villetard have also made a performative installation to mark this important non-profit institution’s anniversary.
      441 Dosan-Daero, Gangnam-Gu, Seoul 
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      Here Are 7 Gallery Shows Not to Miss in Seoul This Week, From Historical Korean Monochromes to Ethereal VR Environments

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      The art world has descended on Seoul just in time for the inaugural Frieze Seoul and the Kiaf art fairs later this week. As the South Korean capital vies to take over from Hong Kong as an industry hub in Asia, more western galleries are moving in and mingling with the existing Korean gallery infrastructure.
      Before everyone heads to the COEX convention center to hit the fairs, visitors are exploring the cultural offerings around the city’s dynamic neighborhoods. Here are seven gallery shows we are looking forward to catching this week.
      “Emma Webster: Illuminarium”Perrotin Dosan ParkUntil October 1
      Emma Webster, Marshgate Snare (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.
      Perrotin is inaugurating its second space in Seoul with a solo show of British-American artist Emma Webster. The L.A.-based artist uses virtual reality to construct her large-scale, ethereal landscape paintings that transport viewers into eerie hallucinatory scenes. Webster first builds her distorted natural worlds in VR models, which she then renders on canvas in a new iteration of cross-media collage.
      10 Dosan-Daero 45-Gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

      “Chung Chang-Sup: Mind in Matter”PKM GalleryUntil October 15
      Chung Chang-Sup, Meditation 91216 (1991). ©The Estate of Chung Chang-Sup. Courtesy of PKM Gallery.
      PKM Gallery is giving solo show attention to the late Korean abstract artist Chung Chang-Sup. Chung began his career working in Korea’s post-liberation years, and eventually became known for his contribution to the Korean monochrome movement, Dansaekhwa, in the mid-1970s. PKM’s exhibition hones in on the artist’s late-career works, from his 1980s “Tak” series, which incorporate mulberry bark (tak), a key ingredient in traditional Korean paper (Hanji), and runs up to his early 2000s series “Meditation” that was created at the height of his artistic production.
      40, Samcheong-ro 7-Gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul
      “teamLab: Massless Suns”PaceSeptember 2 until October 29
      teamLab, Continuous Life and Death at the Now of Eternity II (2019). ©teamLab, courtesy Pace Gallery.
      Pace is launching its new ground floor exhibition space and outdoor courtyard in the gallery’s recently-expanded complex with a solo exhibition of the digital art collective teamLab. New and recent iterations of the collective’s multi-sensory installations, featuring blooming flowers and colorful sunsets, explore the links between humans and nature; the show will also include the titular interactive installation, Massless Suns and Dark Spheres, a never-before-seen work comprising glowing spheres of light and darkness that move when viewers try to touch them.
      1F, 267 Itaewon-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
      “Lee Seung Jio”Kukje GallerySeptember 1 until October 30
      Lee Seung Jio (1941-1990), Nucleus 75-10 (1975). Courtesy of artist’s estate and Kukje Gallery.
      One of Korea’s heavyweight galleries Kukje has chosen to present its first show of work by the late artist Lee Seung Joi, including what could be seen as some of the rarest instances of his oeuvre. Known as a pioneer of Korean geometric abstract painting, Lee was born in Yongchon, North Korea, in 1941, and died in 1990 in Seoul at the age of 49. Lee’s well-loved “Nucleus” series, which was debuted in 1967, was a project that paved the way for Korean geometric abstractionism; nearly 30 works from the series will be on view.
      54 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea 03053

      “Rebecca Ackroyd: Fertile Ground”Peres ProjectsAugust 30 until October 13
      Rebecca Ackroyd, Trickle (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Peres Projects.
      Peres Projects from Berlin brings the U.K.-born Rebecca Ackroyd to its Seoul space, marking her first solo exhibition in Asia. Featuring new works on paper as well as two sculptures, “Fertile Ground” is inspired by the artist’s encounter with a construction site in London, where she discovered that an intricate network of pipes and metal was embedded in the site’s foundation. The seemingly colorful and fun appearances of this body of work are merely facades for distorted fragments of the past.
      B1, The Shilla Seoul, 249, Dongho-Ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, 04605
      “Diedrick Brackens: Together Our Shadows Make a Single Belly”Various Small FiresSeptember 1 until October 15
      Diedrick Brackens, stealing dark from the sky (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Various Small Fires Los Angeles / Dallas / Seoul.
      Texas-native Diedrick Brackens will have his solo debut in Asia in an exhibition showcasing four new intricately woven tapestries that explore the visual language of West African cultural symbolism, from the silhouetted figures to Ghanaian Adinkra symbols. Brackens has adopted a complex weaving method that embeds layers of colors in a way that demands viewers’ full attention for each individual work.
      Dokseodang-Ro 79, Yongsangu, Seoul
      “Ayoung Kim: Syntax and Sorcery”Gallery HyundaiAugust 10 until September 14
      Ayoung Kim, Delivery Dancer’s Sphere (2022). Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Hyundai.
      The Seoul-based, U.K.-educated Ayoung Kim is the star this art week at the homegrown Gallery Hyundai, which began representing the artist in February. Having exhibited internationally, with works presented at top film festivals around the world including the Berlinale in 2020, Kim presents a new video work that tells the futuristic story of a female delivery rider, exploring the notion of facts in a digital age controlled by algorithms. The show is set to be a timely reflection from an artist whose stomping ground is one of the world’s most technologically advanced and innovative economies.
      14 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03062
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      Rising Artist Wendy Red Star on Why She’s Bringing Lost Native American Histories to Light on Bus Stops in Three U.S. Cities

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      While preparing for her first public art exhibition—a series of paintings reproduced on bus shelters in New York, Chicago, and Boston—artist Wendy Red Star turned to museums for research. 
      She was looking into parfleches, or painted rawhide bags that tribes of the North American Great Plains used for transporting food and other personal belongings. For their makers, typically tribal women, the cases were utilitarian. But for Red Star, who is Apsáalooke (Crow), the objects represented something more: a shared tradition that kept these women’s stories alive, even when historians didn’t bother to do so.
      But not every museum the artist turned to was eager to help. One, she said, initially denied all access to the Crow objects in their collection, citing fears of cultural appropriation. Another required authorization from the Crow Tribe’s executive office—which might be akin to, say, asking for Congressional approval to study a Civil War flag. 
      “It just causes me such anxiety,” Red Star said of her experience negotiating with these institutions, which she referred to as “gatekeepers.” 
      “Maybe the fear is rejection,” she went on. “But to me, that rejection is so heavy because ultimately, it’s lost knowledge. And that’s what’s happened to Native people. Our knowledge has been taken away from us. It’s a terrible feeling.”
      Wendy Red Star, Buffalo Woman and Shows Going (2022). Photo: Nicholas Knight. Courtesy of the artist and Public Art Fund, NY.
      Eventually, Red Star received the support she was looking for, and the results of her effort make up “Travels Pretty,” her new Public Art Fund-sponsored show of paintings installed across bus shelters in three cities. It’s on view now through November 20. 
      Information gathering at museums was just one stage of what the artist considers her research process. The other was more experiential: recreating the designs of Crow craftswomen past, often to meticulous effect. 
      “It was a way for her to learn and study these objects in a more tactile way,” said Public Art Fund associate curator Katerina Stathopoulou, who curated the show. “She was almost retracing the hands of the artists who painted these parfleches hundreds of years ago.”
      Wendy Red Star, Walks Pretty (2022). Courtesy of the artist.
      In their two-dimensional form, Red Star’s designs scan more as painterly abstractions than reinterpretations of tribal craftwork. But accompanying each of the artist’s parfleches is a series of phrases that provide additional context clues—and a hint of poetic flair: “Rose and Soft Violet,” “Packing Case,” “Mother Taught Her Daughter,” “Double Funneled Diamond.” 
      The phrases were culled from the artist’s own research into the bags at museums, but also elsewhere—in textbooks, online articles, and so on. Most carry an air of cold institutional description: “Antedated Painting,” “Symmetrical Design.” Some even feel steeped in colonial gaze: “Industrious Apsáalooke Women,” “Parading In Style.”
      That Red Star would be drawn to these descriptions makes sense. Her own work often makes liberal use of labels, captions, and annotations, appropriating the kind of taxonomical language so often used to portray her culture. Sometimes, the goal is satire, as in her photo series “Four Seasons” and the “The Last Thanks,” both of which found the artist recreating the doll-filled dioramas of museums. 
      Other times, the strategy is more equivocal, as was the case with her 2019 series “Accession,” which paired her own photographs of an annual Crow parade with Works Progress Administration era-card catalogues that depict, in stunning watercolors, Native objects from the Denver Art Museum’s collection. One set of materials imagined tribal culture; the other showed it in all its contemporary vibrance.
      Wendy Red Star, Brings Together (2022). Photo: Mel Taing. Courtesy of the artist and Public Art Fund, New York.
      “Travels Pretty” no doubt falls into the latter category of Red Star artwork, fusing anthropological rhetoric and rich tribal design into a complex message about how heritage is shared across lines of time, geography, and culture. And Red Star, for her part, does not let the institutions have the last say. Each of her parfleches is named after a woman from the Apsáalooke tribe mentioned in the 1885 Crow Census. 
      “In one way, I am trying to build this counter-archive that is accessible and makes sense of my own living experience,” Red Star said. “I feel like I am the counter-archive.”
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      In Pictures: The Drawing Center’s Raucous Summer Show Is an Ode to All Things Ornament, From Japanese Woodblock Prints to Graffiti

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      As its title tells you, “The Clamor of Ornament” is a raucous explosion of color and pattern. The Drawing Center’s summer show throws pretty much everything that might plausibly be fit in the category of “ornament” into its mix. As a result, there is truly something for everyone here.
      The title of the show is an art history joke: It riffs on Owen Jones’s famous Victorian style manual, The Grammar of Ornament. But while Jones tried to create a system that connoted taste and decorum, this show—curated by Emily King with Margaret-Anne Logan and Duncan Tomlin—is anti-systematic and wildly eclectic. From William Morris wallpaper to Japanese woodblock prints, and from graffiti tags to scrimshaw, the show is like a stream of consciousness riff on its subject, breathlessly channel-changing between centuries and media.
      It’s not without its critics either. In the New York Review of Books, critic Jed Perl unleashed a 3,000-plus word attack on the show, declaring it emblematic of the degeneracy of contemporary taste. But even Perl admitted, “There’s real fun to be had here.”
      See some of the highlights of “The Clamor of Ornament,” below, and judge for yourself.
      Installation view, “The Clamor of Ornament: Exchange, Power, and Joy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present” at the The Drawing Center, New York. Photo: Daniel Terna
      Installation view, “The Clamor of Ornament: Exchange, Power, and Joy from the Fifteenth Century to the Present” at the The Drawing Center, New York. Photo: Daniel Terna More

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      In Pictures: See the Vivacious Belle Époque Posters of Jules Chéret, the Most Influential Artist You May Not Have Heard of

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      You may not know the name Jules Chéret—but his work has probably left an impression on you nevertheless.
      That’s because of how wide his influence has been. Chéret (1836–1932) is one of the artists who defines the image of Belle Époque Paris through the afterimage of his dazzling commercial posters. Drawing on the ebullience of Rococo art, he created a new visual iconography of commercial life with his innovative lithographs. Their exuberance matched the excitement and ever-changing nature of the industrial metropolis.
      Today, Chéret is remembered as one of the great progenitors of the poster as an art form. His stylish ads for liquor and nightlife are also credited with creating a new kind of image of the free-spirited fin-de-siècle women—the public even used the term “Chérette” to refer to the phenomenon. His models were described as looking “like champagne coming out of a bottle.”
      “Always New: The Posters of Jules Chéret” at the Milwaukee Art Museum marks the first U.S. solo show for the artist, with 109 sensational works on view that hail from a donation to the institution from James and Susee Wiechmann. While these graphics were made to hawk the fleeting attractions of a cabaret or fashions that are now firmly in the past, the appeal of Chéret’s dynamic style has lasted much longer than any of the things he was selling.
      See some of the highlights from the show, below.
      Installation view of “Always New: The Posters of Jules Chéret.” Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum. Photo by Matt Haas
      Installation view of “Always New: The Posters of Jules Chéret.”
      Installation view of “Always New: The Posters of Jules Chéret.”
      Jules Chéret, Folies-Bergère: Loïe Fuller (1897). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection, M2021.163. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, Benzo-Moteur (1900). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, Bonnard-Bidault: Affichage et distribution d’imprimés (1887). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, Bonnard-Bidault: Bal du Moulin Rouge (1889). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, Job (1895). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, Folies-Bergère: Jefferson l’Homme Poisson (1876). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, L’Horloge: Les Girard (1875/1878 or 1880/1881). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, Vin Mariani (1894). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Jules Chéret, Musée Grévin [before letters] (1900). The James and Susee Wiechmann Collection. Photo by John R. Glembin
      Installation view of “Always New: The Posters of Jules Chéret.”
      “Always New: The Posters of Jules Cheret” is on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum, though October 22, 2022
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      In Pictures: See Contemporary Artworks That Celebrate the Vibrant Creativity of Lowrider and Skater Culture

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      “Desert Rider” at the Phoenix Art Museum is a trip.
      The show focuses on car culture and skateboard culture in the American Southwest—specifically how it has been a resource and inspiration for both Latinx and Indigenous artists. The many sculptures within capture the exuberance of lowrider style, its concept of customization as a creative outlet, and its grassroots displays of identity.
      “I hope guests see the impact that local culture has had on artists working in the Southwest and appreciate this piece of history from the land in which they were born,” curator Gilbert Vicario said in a statement about the show.
      Among the highlights are Justin Favela’s Gypsy Rose Piñata (II), a full-scale sculpture of a hot-pink lowrider in the style of a piñata, newly commissioned for “Desert Rider.” Douglas Miles’s installation You’re Skating on Native Land (2022) features skate decks bearing the titular phrase alongside photos from his Apache community—the Phoenix New Times called it “a stunning reminder of place.”
      And one of the works visitors will surely remember is Liz Cohen’s well-known project Trabantimino (2002–10). Cohen spent eight years merging two incongruously different vehicles—an East German Trabant and a Chevy El Camino—into one car, then transforming herself for the role of a car model for a series of set-up photos.
      See photos from “Desert Rider” below.
      Installation view of “Desert Rider,” Phoenix Art Museum, 2022. Courtesy of the Phoenix Art Museum. Photo: Airi Katsuta.
      Justin Favela, Seven Magic Tires (Phoenix) (2022). Courtesy of the Phoenix Art Museum, Photo: Airi Katsuta.
      Jose Villalobos, QueeRiders (2022). Courtesy of the Phoenix Art Museum. Photo: Airi Katsuta.
      Margarita Cabrera, Agua que no has de beber dejala correr (Water That You Should Not Drink, Let It Run) (2006–22). Collection of the artist and courtesy of Tally Dunn Gallery, Dallas.
      Detail of Margarita Cabrera, Agua que no has de beber dejala correr (Water That You Should Not Drink, Let It Run) (2006–22). Collection of the artist and courtesy of Tally Dunn Gallery, Dallas.
      Installation view of Douglas Miles, You’re Skating on Native Land (2022). Courtesy of the artist and the Phoenix Art Museum. Photo: Airi Katsuta.
      Detail of Douglas Miles, You’re Skating on Native Land (2022). Courtesy of the artist and the Phoenix Art Museum. Photo: Airi Katsuta.
      Installation view of Liz Cohen, Trabantimino (2002–10). Courtesy of the Phoenix Art Museum. Photo: Airi Katsuta.
      Installation view of Liz Cohen, Trabantimino (2002–10). Courtesy of the Phoenix Art Museum. Photo: Airi Katsuta.
      Liz Cohen, Lowrider Builder and Child (2012). Courtesy of the artist.
      Liz Cohen, Gloria Garcetti (2018). Courtesy of the artist.
      Carlotta Boettcher, Cars in the New Mexico Landscape – 50s Chevy with Tree (1996–98). Collection of the artist. © Carlotta Boettcher.
      “Desert Rider” is on view at the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Ariz., through September 18, 2022.
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      Italian Artist Piero Gilardi’s Radical Carved-Foam ‘Nature Carpets’ Were Decades Ahead of the Curve. His First Solo U.S. Show Demonstrates Why

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      One Sunday circa 1965, while strolling along the Sangone river in his hometown of Turin, Italy, the artist Piero Gilardi stumbled upon something all too ordinary that would inspire an extraordinary new direction in his practice: a pile of trash. This was just a few years after the publication Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, but a few decades before “sustainability” became a global buzzword—and the resulting series of works was nothing short of radical.
      Believing that “art is life,” Gilardi hoped to catalyze a cultural “re-enchantment” with nature in its ideal, unspoiled state. For his Tappeto-Natura, or “Nature-Carpets,” the artist used intaglio carving techniques to sculpt scenes of sunflowers in bloom, ripening papaya and pitaya, and pristine seascapes into highly pigmented, high-pile rolls of polyurethane foam. They were, he explained, “aesthetic objects of practical use,” collapsing the boundaries between nature and the man-made, outdoors and indoors, art and design.
      A 1967 exhibition of Gilardi’s Tappeti-Natura, or “Nature-Carpets,” at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris. Courtesy of the artist.
      Gilardi first exhibited his “Nature-Carpets” in 1967 at avant-garde galleries of the era, such as New York’s Fischbach and Paris’s Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, as well as alternative spaces like Turin’s Piper Club, where he hung them on the walls as a backdrop for experimental performances featuring his Vestiti-Natura (that would be “Nature-Clothing”). In the 1980s, Italian gallerist and art collector Margherita Stein adorned her Turin home-gallery with a Gilardi rug that looked like a riverbed.
      Now, the artist’s carpets and clothing are on display together at Magazzino Italian Art in Cold Spring, New York, as the subject of “Gilardi: Tappeto-Natura” (through January 9, 2023). While Gilardi is known as a protagonist of the Arte Povera movement and as a founder of the International Association Ars Technica, as well as Turin’s Parco Arte Vivente (PAV), an experimental center for contemporary art in nature, this is his solo debut in the U.S.
      Gilardi’s “stone” and “birch” dresses, on display at Magazzino. Photo: MARCO ANELLI/TOMMASO SACCONI ©
      Gilardi has long aimed to remove the “frame of artistic representation.” At Magazzino, you’ll find 29 works of his sculpted flora covering walls and floors without frames. To celebrate the opening, dancers from the local Cold Spring Dance Company engaged with the carpets while activating the artist’s stone-like Vestito-Natura (Sassi), one of his two wearable “Nature-Dresses” on display.
      Anyone is welcome to sit on Gilardi’s rock-shaped cushions in the lobby, even play catch with them, nodding to early exhibitions where visitors were invited to walk atop and lie down on his rug creations. As curator Elena Re said in a statement, “Overcoming the aesthetic dimension of the product, the art called its audience into play, or, better, people became a lasting part of the artistic process.”
      Below, see close-ups of Gilardi’s nature carpets on display at Magazzino.
      Piero Gilardi, Papaya e pitaja (2018). © Piero Gilardi. Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, Cold Spring, New York. Photo: Marco Anelli.
      Piero Gilardi, Cavoli sotto la neve (1974). © Piero Gilardi. Collection of Galleria Girardi, Livorno.
      Piero Gilardi, Greto di torrente (1967). © Piero Gilardi. Collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
      Piero Gilardi, Mare, 1967. © Piero Gilardi Collection of of Galleria Girardi, Livorno.
      Piero Gilardi, Girasoli caduti (1967). © Piero Gilardi Private Collection. Photo: Cristina Leoncini.
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      How Filmmaker Isaac Julien Brought the Late Alain Locke, the First Black Curator of Albert Barnes’s Collection, to Life

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      Isaac Julien has a history of working with the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. So it makes sense that his latest commission, for Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation, circled back on writer, philosopher, and “father” of the Harlem Renaissance Alain Locke.
      Locke and Albert Barnes had a history. The collector was one of the first in the United States to collect and show African Art, amassing a collection that Locke, the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, visited and photographed. But their relationship soured: they had clashing interpretations of African art, and Barnes accused Locke of stealing his ideas.
      Once Again… (Statues Never Die) (2022), Julien’s five-channel film about Locke, is installed among items from Barnes’s collection of African sculpture and works by Richmond Barthé and Matthew Angelo Harrison. The work takes many positions, using texts by Bell Hooks alongside writings, performed by actors, by Barnes and Locke.
      Julien also shows a black female curator walking through the Pitt Rivers museum today and an imagined interaction between Locke and artist Richmond Barthé. Shot against the backdrop of the collection, this beautiful film takes us on a journey as nuanced and varied as the debates it touches upon.
      On the occasion of the show, we spoke with Julien about the work, how it connect to old and new debates, and the artist’s thoughts on restitution.
      Isaac Julien: Once Again … (Statues Never Die), (2022) The Barnes Foundation, installation view. Image courtesy Isaac Julien and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. Photo by Henrik Kam.
      You have a history of working with the Harlem Renaissance. What about it speaks to you?
      Well, you could say this work is almost like a prequel to Looking for Langston (1989), which, of course, was a film very much looking at the Harlem Renaissance. I look back to that period—the late ’80s—because that was when I first met artists like Glenn Ligon and curators like Thelma Golden, art critics like Kenny Jones and Dawoud Bey, the photographer. There was a real synergy taking place.
      Paul Gilroy had just written The Black Atlantic or was about to finish it, but I had been able to read some of his early chapters, which was pretty much an entrance to my conceptual thinking about Black art movements. I wasn’t taught about Black Modernism in its American variants, with movements like the Harlem Renaissance, when I was at art school. These had been absences in my art history lessons at St. Martin’s School of Art. But also, there was the question of themes around sexuality and desire, which were also very centrally located in the Harlem Renaissance.
      Looking for Langston was also made during the AIDS crisis. So that’s a kind of echo, in terms of making Once Again… (Statues Never Die) (2022) during the COVID crisis, in the middle of another pandemic and thinking about questions of mortality.
      Do you think these ideas have become part of wider thinking?
      These debates are seen as new today, but they’re actually not new. They’ve just been articulated separately by different generations.
      That’s one of the reasons why in Once Again… (Statues Never Die) there’s this scenario where we have young African artists or students examining African sculptures. That is taken from a film that was made in 1970 called You Hide Me by Nii Kwate Owoo. It was made 50 years ago, and is all about questions of restitution, which we’re debating today.
      Isaac Julien: Once Again … (Statues Never Die), (2022) The Barnes Foundation, installation view. Image courtesy Isaac Julien and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. Photo by Henrik Kam.
      What made you want to make a film specifically about Alain Locke?
      When I got the commission, I thought the thing about Barnes is that he has an omnipresence. There’s a way in which his fixed gaze, or the way that he wants to control how people look at works, is something Locke was unpicking. I saw Locke’s point of view as important, and it would also connect to earlier explorations of Locke in Looking for Langston. I think the piece of work is, in a way, utilizing the commission to think about Locke as someone who could be turned to.
      In addition to making this, I would look at the collection not from Barnes’s view, but more from Locke’s point of view. But then, of course, developing the work, I do realize that both these points of views are in a way from the West, and that’s where I began to develop the Black curator’s voice in the piece, because I felt we needed to have someone who had a completely different relationship to those objects.
      Isaac Julien: Once Again … (Statues Never Die), (2022) The Barnes Foundation, installation view. Image courtesy Isaac Julien and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. Photo by Henrik Kam.
      Why do you think engagement with the Harlem Renaissance and the Black intellectuals of that time is so popular at the moment?
      People have framed it as a paradise of decolonial thinking, and I’m not quite sure what that means. So I am a bit hesitant to use it in terms of my own work. But I think maybe that’s because I was involved in [that] debate. For example, I made a film on Frantz Fanon called Black Skin, White Masks in the mid ’90s with my partner Mark Nash. It’s a debate, which I don’t see as unfinished, between the post-colonial and the decolonial. I think I can see generationally how one wants them to mark a particular moment. But it feels that we’re still in the throes of the unfinished business of these moments and conversations, which constitute a kind of reckoning. We’ve seen various forms of existential crises and political upheavals, cultural debates and controversies that can all change around these different questions around nationalism, race, and culture. It is a contentious time.
      Isaac Julien: Once Again … (Statues Never Die), (2022) The Barnes Foundation, installation view. Image courtesy Isaac Julien and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. Photo by Henrik Kam.
      What do you feel when looking at Barnes’s collection of African art?
      I see lots of things. I think it’s an amazing collection, an astonishing collection. Obviously, I can see the kind of kleptomania Barnes was involved in. I think Barnes, in the end, wanted to amass a statement. He came from a working-class background, was an outsider to Philadelphia white bourgeois society, and left the majority control of the foundation’s board to a Black college, Lincoln University. All these things have now manifested over time as something very controversial.
      It’s great to be able to have some of the African works displayed in the actual gallery, and to have this kind of seance between the objects and sculptures. There’s a kind of dialectic that takes place and I think it’d be interesting one day if there could be the possibility for the works to be moved, and the display to be altered. I think the creators in the Barnes Museum should be free to make interpretations of that collection.
      Isaac Julien: Once Again … (Statues Never Die), (2022) The Barnes Foundation, installation view. Image courtesy Isaac Julien and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. Photo by Henrik Kam.
      What is your view on active collections of historical African art and artifacts today?
      These debates have been taking place for a long time. The only thing new is the difference in contexts. You have the beginnings of the repatriation of objects taken under violent conditions, and I think that’s good. Ultimately, that needs to happen.
      Correction, 8/19/22: An earlier iteration of this article and its headline suggested that Alain Locke was the curator of Albert Barnes’s collection. This is not the case. The article also erroneously stated that a Black character in Julien’s film visits the Barnes Foundation. In fact, it is the Pitt Rivers museum. We apologize for the errors.
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