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      17 Shows to See in Europe in 2023, From a Survey of Yayoi Kusama’s Inflatables to the Largest Showcase of Vermeer’s Work Yet

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      This year may lack big headliners like Documenta and the Venice Biennale, but there is certainly no shortage of showstoppers. We scoured institutional programs across the continent and selected 17 shows set to open between January and June that we think will be the talks of the town.
      LuYang Vibratory Field Kunsthalle Basel, BaselJanuary 20—May 21, 2023
      LuYang, Digital Descending, ARoS, Aarhus, 2021. Exhibition view. Courtesy LuYang and Société, Berlin.
      Set to be the visionary Shanghai-born artist’s first show in Switzerland, “Vibratory Field,” will feature a range of LuYang’s signature body of work, which ranges from video animation, avatars, and video games. The show, according to organizers, is “a spectacular computer-generated cosmos”—given it much more deserved space than the artist’s work received at the Venice Biennale this year, where it was tucked away in a corner.
      “Topics such as our lives, desires, and the limitations and functions of our bodies are relevant to every living person. This allows me to go beyond the limits of my identity to think freely on a higher level, in a larger universe. Any human being can understand my works,” the artist told Artnet News.
      —Vivienne Chow
      Rudolf Levy: “Work in Exile”Palazzo Pitti, FlorenceJanuary 24—April 30, 2023
      Rudolf F. Levy, Fiamma (Flame) (1942). Courtesy Uffizi Galleries.
      I came across the tragic story of Rudolf Levy when I visited a paradigm-shifting exhibition that explored the history of Documenta (the world-famous German exhibition). Part of that show focused on the German-Jewish painter, who died in Auschwitz; this exhibition revealed that before Levy was deported from Florence, where he had been in exile, he would likely have come into contact with Documenta co-founder Werner Haftmann, who was a Nazi and temporarily stationed there. Levy, like many Jewish artists who were murdered in the Holocaust, were later pushed out of postwar German history by people like Haftmann, who did not want to draw more attention to Germany’s war crimes, especially if they were also complicit in them. Levy was excluded from the first Documenta, though he had been on preliminary lists.
      It is especially poignant that the Uffizi’s Palazzo Pitti is not far from where Levy spent his last months. The institution will present the first monographic exhibition dedicated to the artist; it will also include Flame, an acquisition the museum made in January, which was created while he lived in hiding in Florence in 1942.
      —Kate Brown

      Mohammed Sami: “The Point 0”Camden Art Center, LondonJanuary 27–  May 28, 2023
      Mohammed Sami, The Praying Room (2021). Courtesy the artist and Camden Art Center.
      I discovered Sami’s work when it was included in 2021 in the Hayward Gallery’s excellent survey of painting today, “Mixing It Up,” and it stood out among 31 of today’s painting stars. The Iraqi-born artist is now getting his first institutional solo in the U.K., which will showcase his unsettling large-scale paintings that draw from his own memories living under Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad and subsequent refugee experience in Sweden. The troubling works, devoid of people, present eerie and uncanny visions of neglected interiors, overwhelming cityscapes, and everyday objects whose heft lies in what isn’t rather than what is depicted.
      —Naomi Rea

      “Klimt. Inspired by Van Gogh, Rodin, Matisse…”Belvedere, ViennaFebruary 3—May 29, 2023
      Gustav Klimt, Johanna Staude (1917/1918). Photo: Johannes Stoll. Courtesy Belvedere, Wien.
      In 2015, the Belvedere in Vienna and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam embarked on a collaborative journey with an aim to find out which works might have influenced the Viennese modern artist Gustav Klimt, in order to trace exactly how modern art arrived in Vienna at the turn of the century. From major exhibitions to smaller private collections, researchers have been digging deep into history and references to retrace the footsteps of Klimt. This 2023 exhibition should be a fascinating result of this joint research project; it is set to include about 90 paintings, drawings, and sculptures from Klimt alongside works by artists such as Monet, Rodin, van Gogh, and Matisse, who all inspired him. The exhibition marks the 300th anniversary of the Belvedere.
      —V.C.

      Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70Whitechapel Gallery, LondonFebruary 9–May 7, 2023
      Elaine de Kooning, The Bull (1959). Photo courtesy The Levett Collection © EdeK Trust.
      Even as artists like Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning have become major household names, the idea of an “action” painter making bold gestures on canvas still carries frustratingly white, male connotations. This major survey of 150 works by 80 artists will not only place under-recognized women at the center of the Abstract Expressionist movement, but it is set to push far beyond the confines of the New York scene, to bring to light the practices of women working globally, including Wook-kyung Choi in South Korea, Mozambican-born Italian artist Bertina Lopes, Ukrainian-born American painter Janet Sobel, Argentinian artist Marta Minujín, and Iranian painter Behjat Sadr. The exhibition’s scope proves that, from the 1940s onwards, radical notions of free expression and materiality inspired artists worldwide.
      —Jo Lawson-Tancred

      The Morgan Stanley Exhibition: Peter DoigThe Courtauld Gallery, LondonFebruary 10—May 29
      Peter Doig, 2022. Courtesy The Courtauld. Photo: Fergus Carmichael.
      This major exhibition, set to feature a range of new and recent works by the acclaimed painter Peter Doig, is the Courtauld’s first solo show of a contemporary artist since the London institution reopened in November 2021 following a major refurbishment. But it also marks a new chapter of the 1959-born artist’s creative journey: artworks on show will include paintings and works on paper that Doig created since he moved back from his longtime home of Trinidad to London in 2021. The exhibition will also highlight the artist’s work as a draughtsman and printmaker by showcasing a series of new drawings and prints.
      —V.C.
      VermeerRijksmuseum, AmsterdamFebruary 10—June 4
      Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring (1664–67), Mauritshuis, The Hague, bequest of Arnoldus Andries des Tombe, The Hague.
      Arguably one of the most exciting exhibitions in 2023 for not just art lovers but also the general public, this rare exhibition has been billed as the largest showcase of Johannes Vermeer. It is set to bring together at least 28 iconic paintings by the Dutch master from all over the world under one roof; Girl Interrupted at Her Music, Officer and Laughing Girl, and Mistress and Maid are on loan from the Frick Collection, New York, will be shown for the first time together outside of New York in a century. They join The Girl with a Pearl Earring, on loan from Mauritshuis, The Hague, and four masterpieces from the collection of Rijksmuseum. Fingers crossed that climate activists can leave such important cultural treasure alone.
      —V.C.
      Alice Neel: Hot Off The GriddleBarbican, LondonFebruary 16—May 21, 2023
      Alice Neel, Phillip Bonosky (1948). Photo by Ben Davis.
      One of the greats of American art is getting due recognition across the pond with her largest U.K. exhibition yet. Though both Alice Neel’s expressionistic figurative style and her interest in too often overlooked subjects – including activists, queer performers and pregnant women – may be fashionable today, when Neel was working in New York during the early to mid 20th century her practice was easily overshadowed by prevailing interests in modernist movements. Her dignified portrayals of people she encountered in everyday life offer a unique record of people that were otherwise pushed to the fringes of mainstream society and history. Neel’s life in Greenwich Village and later Spanish Harlem, as well as her staunchly communist politics, are also brought to life through letters and photographs. 
      –J.L.
      Martin Wong: “Malicious Mischief”KW Institute for Contemporary Art, BerlinFebruary 25—May 14, 2023
      Martin Wong, Tell My Troubles to the Eight Ball (Eureka), (1978–81). Courtesy of the Martin Wong Foundation and P.P.O.W, New York © Martin Wong Foundation
      The brilliance of the work of American-Chinese artist Martin Wong, who died in 1999, is hard to overstate—and he is, not unlike Michel Majerus, deeply beloved by many artists I know. Yet it seems that art history is still beginning to come to know the vast breadth of Wong’s relevance and his densely packed paintings, which plot queerness, marginal communities, and social realities against landscapes of gentrification.
      That Wong is under-discovered is especially true in Europe, where the artist is only now getting a comprehensive, touring retrospective. “Malicious Mischief” spans his beginnings in late 1960s California, his most famous period of painting (and living in) New York in 1980s, and culminates with his last works made before his death from an AIDS. It will head to the Camden Arts Center (July 7—September 17, 2023) and then to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, (November 2023—February 2024).
      —K.B.

      General IdeaThe Stedelijk, AmsterdamMarch–July, 2023
      Installation view, “General Idea,” June 3 to November 20, 2022, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. © General Idea. Photo: NGC.
      I’ve always been a fan of gallows humor. The surprisingly tight gap between levity and hopelessness can be an effective space in which to broach difficult subjects, and to express unwieldy emotions. So, following its opening at the National Gallery of Canada, I’m excited that this retrospective of General Idea is coming to Europe.
      The Stedelijk will lend its spotlight to the collective, made up of Canadian artists Felix Partz, Jorge Xontal, and AA Bronson, who were active under the moniker between 1969 and 1994. The exhibition is the most comprehensive retrospective on the trio to date, and charts the group’s witty and eccentric output through more than 200 works. From major installations such as the 1987 AIDS sculpture, which riffs on Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” motif—both Xontal and Partz contracted HIV in the 1980s—to archival materials, publications, painting, and sculpture, the exhibition showcases the group’s playful commentary and critique on mass media, consumer culture, social inequality, queerness, and the art economy, tracing its impact on both their own moment and milieu.
      —N.R.

      ‘Reaching for the Stars. From Maurizio Cattelan to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’Palazzo Strozzi, FlorenceMarch 4–June 18, 2023
      Lynette Yiadom-Boayke, Switcher (2013). Photo courtesy of Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection.
      Since opening her non-profit foundation in 1995 in the northern Italian city of Turin, the mega-collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has overseen and continued to grow one of the country’s most prestigious public collections, expanding to Madrid in 2017. Now, the historic Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will be the stage for a selection of highlights from her collection—a first show of its kind. It will include some of the biggest names in contemporary art, including Maurizio Cattelan—the boundary-pushing artist known internationally for Comedian, a banana taped to a wall at 2019’s Art Basel Miami Beach, South African artist William Kentridge, and painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, as well as major YBA art stars like Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas.
      —J.L

      Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American SouthRoyal Academy of Arts, LondonMarch 17–June 18, 2023
      Ralph Griffin, Eagle (1988). Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta. © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2022. Photo by Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio.
      Taking its name from a Langston Hughes poem, this show tells the stories of Black artists working in the American South, including names that have received major acclaim in recent years like Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Nellie Mae Rowe, and Purvis Young. Many of these artists were self-taught, and their experimental practices frequently combined craft traditions, passed down through generations, with found materials to address pressing subjects, such as the relentless persecution and systemic racism faced by Black communities in the South. Interwoven with these are works that record the joys and hardships of everyday life. The show has been organized by the Atlanta-based Souls Grown Deep Foundation, which promotes Black artists from the South and seeks to support their local communities. 
      —J.L.
      Michel Majerus: “Sinnmachine”Mudam Luxembourg, LuxembourgMarch 31—October 1, 2023
      Michel Majerus, ca. 2001. © Edith Majerus, 2022. Courtesy of the Michel Majerus Estate and Neugerriemschneider, Berlin.
      Last year was, officially, the year of Michel Majerus. It marked the 20th anniversary of the artist’s untimely death with shows all over Germany and at the ICA Miami, timed to Art Basel Miami Beach. Interest in the artist, whose estate and archive has been carefully preserved since his death, is booming. Despite the flurry of shows, one essential exhibition is still to come, at at the MUDAM in Luxembourg, which is Majerus’s home country. “Sinnmachine,” which means sense machine in German, will feature early paintings by Majerus and rarely seen archival material, including notebooks, his collection of books and magazines, and recorded VHS tapes—the aim is to build a full picture of how Majerus viewed (and sensed) the world around him.
      —K.B.

      ICÔNESPinault Collection, Punta della Dogana, VeniceApril 2—November 26, 2023
      Maurizio Cattelan, La Nona Ora (1999). Pinault Collection. Installation view: “Maurizio Cattelan,” Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi, 24 September – 24 October 2010, Milan, Italy. Photo by Zeno Zotti.
      Look, it’s always fun to see what’s in a billionaire’s private collection. This exhibition of works from François Pinault’s treasure trove will explore the theme of “icons,” both in the sense of the word’s Greek etymology, which defines an icon as an “image” or “likeness” and a term to designate religious paintings. Works by artists from Maurizio Cattelan to Arthur Jafa and Agnes Martin will be on view in the thematically grouped exhibition, which aims to consider both the fragility and the power of these kinds of images. The Venetian setting is apt for iconoclasm, and I’ll call that as good an excuse as any to make a trip to La Serenissima.
      —N.R.

      Sarah BernhardtPetit Palais, ParisApril 14–August 27, 2023
      Georges Clairin, Portrait de Sarah Bernhardt (1876). Photo courtesy of Petit Palais.
      One of the original celebrities whose talent, glamor and intrigue inspired a cult following and enthralled an entire generation, Sarah Bernhardt was a symbol of her era in Paris. A new show celebrates the centenary of her death, bringing together almost 400 items that retell her exciting life story, both as a stage persona – through costumes, posters and paintings – and as a woman at the center of a wide network of prominent artists and intellectuals – through photographs, personal belongings and even her own artworks. Among the highlights is a resplendent portrait of the actress aged 32 by her friend Georges Clairin. 
      —J.L.

      Liverpool Biennial, uMoya: “The Sacred Return of Lost Things”Various locations, LiverpoolJune 10–September 17, 2023
      Nicholas Galanin, Never Forget (2021). Courtesy the artist. Photo by Lance Gerber.
      The 12th edition of the Liverpool Biennial, which has been named after an isiZulu-language word meaning spirit, breath, air, climate and wind, will be centered around ancestral and Indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing. Curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa, more than 30 artists and collectives, from Brook Andrew (who directed the 2020 Sydney Biennial) to Julien Creuzet (who will represent France in the 2024 Venice Biennale) will respond to the theme.
      —N.R.
      Yayoi Kusama: You, Me and the BalloonsFactory International, ManchesterJune 29—August 28, 2023
      Yayoi Kusama and Dots Obsession, (1996-2011). Installation view at The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. © YAYOI KUSAMA. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro and David Zwirner.
      “You, Me and the Balloons,” the first major immersive exhibition dedicated to the celebrated Japanese artist’s inflatable works, will be a major curtain raiser for Factory International, the highly anticipated new cultural landmark to open in Manchester in the U.K. in June.
      Spanning 143,698 square feet, the new space, designed by the award-winning architecture firm OMA, is the largest publicly funded national cultural project to open in the U.K. since the Tate Modern in 2000. The new Kusama show is set to feature works more than 33 feet tall that trace the artist’s practice in inflatable art —this promises to be a major attraction for art lovers and general public alike.
      —V.C.

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      ‘Beauty Can Be Subversive’: Watch Artist Firelei Báez Reclaim Dominican Folklore in Her Richly Layered Paintings

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      An immersive sculptural installation at the Momentary in Arkansas will offer visitors an unusual opportunity: to travel through time and space. The expansive work by Firelei Báez reimagines the ruins of Sans-Souci Palace in Haiti as though they were emerging out of the Atlantic Ocean, with the vastness of the sky and seas evoked by hanging blue tarps and a mural. The work is not only visually stunning, but explores the history of cultural exchanges between Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
      In an April 2021 conversation with Art21, Báez likewise addressed the colonial history of the Caribbean, but this time on the more manageable scale of the canvas, opening up about her experiences growing up in the Dominican Republic and her extensive interest in the region’s past and rich folklore.
      “I remember always making,” she said of her childhood. “When I was six, other kids would have me draw out these very fancy ‘mariquitas’ [paper dolls] for them. I would have these elaborate ball gowns. They would always have very intricate hair. I was always dealing with the body.”
      “One of the first reasons that I wanted to work on these paintings,” she said, referring to a series of botanical-based canvases she was filmed working on, “was looking at some of the first scientific illustrations of flora and fauna from the New World.” In particular, she referenced the scientific methods of Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus: “So much of his work was sheer nonsense. It equated the New World Black and brown body with bestiality.”
      Instead, Báez found inspiration in the misunderstood female creature Ciguapa, found in Dominican mythology. “The Ciguapa is this trickster figure. She is a seductress. Someone will be lured by her and then be completely lost and never seen again,” she said. “In reading my paintings of Ciguapas, I’m asking the viewer to come to terms with their own feelings around a woman’s body.”
      “The normative tone of the story is these are wanton female creatures. They’re hypersexual and they derail culture. The understory is they are highly independent, they’re self-possessed, and they feel deeply,” she said of her preferred interpretation. “So who wouldn’t want to be that?”
      In reframing such narratives, Báez continues to uncover new ways to “shift ideas of power.” “In that process, you shift the world around you,” she added. “That’s where beauty can be subversive.”
      Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of Art21’s series New York Close Up below. “Firelei Báez” is going on view through July 16, 2023 at the Momentary in Arkansas. 

      [embedded content]

      This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration between Artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of news-making artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21’s flagship series Art in the Twenty-First Century is available now on PBS. Catch all episodes of other series, like New York Close Up and Extended Play, and learn about the organization’s educational programs at Art21.org.
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      In Pictures: The Late Street Art Star Rammellzee’s Graffiti Paintings and ‘Garbage God’ Suits Go on View at Jeffrey Deitch in L.A.

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      Get ready for Rammellzee!
      Jeffrey Deitch met the late graffiti and street art star way back in 1980, but only picked up his estate last year. “Gothic Futurism” marks the first spectacular outing for his works at Deitch’s L.A. gallery, and it’s worth the look.
      In recent years, Rammellzee’s cachet has only been growing. A collaborator (and sometimes critic) of Jean-Michel Basquiat, his work featured in L.A. MOCA’s ultra-popular, landmark “Art in the Streets” show—as well as in the rehang of the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection a few years ago.
      A highlight of the show are the full-body collage suits that embodied “Garbage Gods,” the alter egos the artist adopted. As the great Greg Tate wrote, “he viewed subway art and hiphop as a total movement representing a multidisciplinary and racialized and working-class military campaign against capitalism, Western Civ 101, and white supremacy”—and “continued the war of hiphop generated symbol versus Western language symbol though performance in his technologically enhanced battle suits.”
      See photos from “Gothic Futurism” below.
      Installation view, “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” at Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Joshua White.
      Installation view, “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” at Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Joshua White.
      Installation view, “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” at Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Joshua White.
      Installation view, “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” at Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Joshua White.
      Installation view, “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” at Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Joshua White.
      Installation view, “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” at Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Joshua White.
      Installation view, “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” at Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Joshua White.
      “Rammellzee: Gothic Futurism” is on view at Jeffrey Deitch, 925 N. Orange Drive, Los Angeles, through January 14, 2023.
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      Two Thumbs Way, Way Down: Here Are 6 of the Worst Artworks We Saw Around the World in 2022

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      Who says criticism is dead? Sometimes, despite an artist’s best intentions, an artwork misses the mark—at least according to some opinions. Art is delightfully subjective, and we are sure that many people hold dear some of the art our editorial staff found, well, less than perfect.
      Poncili Creación’s Boring White WallOn view at NADA Miami(November 30—December 3, 2022)
      A scene from the NADA Miami performance Boring White Wall by Poncili Creación. Photo by Eileen Kinsella
      Okay, maybe it wasn’t the “worst” of the year, but the live performance I stumbled into at NADA Miami a few weeks ago, after a day of viewing great art, was certainly among the most jolting and bizarre. It started with a performer in a white hazmat suit entering the room with a rake, frantically swiping the floor, reaching under people’s chairs, and randomly sniffing startled audience members.
      After Poncili Creación’s performer made his way to the white wall—the title of the piece which was a standing foam structure at the front of the room—he proceeded to let out wild screams while alternately hiding behind the wall, attacking it, tearing holes in it, and, eventually, ripping it apart in two with the help of an identically dressed partner performer.
      At times a mannequin, also in a white hazmat suit, was tossed wildly in the air and various bright red sponges and appendages that appeared in mouths and hands flew around, seemingly suggesting bleeding or heartbreak.  The whole 40-minute-ish performance was accompanied by an equally dissonant live music score with sporadic drums and keyboards that had me wondering the whole time whether or not there was an actual structure—or if the obviously talented musicians were just making it up as they went along. I felt a measure of relief when many others in the packed audience burst into laughter at some of the antics, a reaction that did not ruffle any of the performers in the slightest.
      —Eileen Kinsella

      Uffe Isolotto’s “We Walked the Earth”On view at the Danish Pavilion(April 23—November 27, 2022)
      Uffe Isolotto. “We Walked the Earth.” Pavilion of Denmark, Biennale Arte, 2022. © Ugo Carmeni.
      I was bewildered by the Danish pavilion this year. I don’t exactly know what the budget was for this pavilion, but in general I feel keenly aware of how much money is floating around the Scandinavian art world, which makes the task of turning out a flashy pavilion in Venice a lot easier. Well-funded artists, take heed: just because you can, does not mean you should.
      The Danish pavilion struck me as an immensely overproduced work without a powerful message—at least, the message was not delivered. I found it unequivocally graphic, which left little room for interpretation. The concept of “We Walked the Earth,” so I read, was to evoke a Danish pastoral scene with a surreal and disturbing twist that speaks to modern society. And so, one view were many bales of hay alongside a lifelike centaur with dead eyes lying on the ground post-birth wearing a Uniqlo t-shirt. Another centaur in fetish wear appeared to be dead by suicide. I guess the hyperrealism was supposed to incite macro-contemplation, but it was so under-edited that I left feeling thoroughly annoyed. The over-offering also brought out the worst of our selfie addled culture, and so it continued to haunt my social media feeds all week.
      —Kate Brown

      Paul Cézanne, Les Courtisanes (The Courtesans) (ca. 1870–71)On View in the Barnes Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania(Ongoing)
      Paul Cézanne, Les Courtisanes (The Courtesans) (ca. 1870–71), installed at the Barnes Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photo by Tim Schneider.
      My first visit to the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia this January was one of the most fascinating, disorienting, and memorable art experiences of my year, largely because of the gargantuan variance in quality among the hundreds of works crammed, salon-style, onto every available square inch of wall space. The collection mixes up gems from Hieronymous Bosch, Matisse, and van Gogh (among others) with what looked to me like the laziest castoffs and most catastrophic experiments some of the canonical Modernists must have ever produced.
      A reverse standout from the latter category was this blobby, erratic rendering of four courtesans in an illegible mess of a space. (Interior? Exterior? Who can say!) It would be unrecognizable as the work of structural visionary Paul Cézanne if not for the placard unintentionally indicting him at the bottom of the frame. Even at less than seven-by-seven-inches, the canvas made a powerful enough impression to leave me wondering, still, whether Paris’s emerging greats used to quietly compete with each other to see who could saddle the voracious Barnes with their worst dud as part of the bulk purchases that also landed him so many good-to-classic canvases. If so, Cézanne laughed all the way to the victor’s podium.
      —Tim Schneider

      Damien Hirst, The Currency (2022)On view in “Damien Hirst: The Currency” at Newport Street Gallery(September 23—October 30, 2022)
      Damien Hirst at Newport Street Gallery for the grande finale of The Currency. Photo by Naomi Rea.
      Time is a precious commodity for a journalist, and especially for an art journalist during Frieze Week in London. Still, I wanted to watch the completion of Hirst’s debut NFT project—a wager that pitted NFTs against physical art—which would see him burn thousands of works on paper potentially worth millions of dollars on behalf of every buyer who had opted to keep one of his NFTs instead. I trekked over to Newport Street Gallery mostly for the anecdote. Hirst is one of few artists whose name extends far enough beyond the art world bubble that it has resonance with my friends and family. And he famously knows how to conduct a spectacle, from his infamous formaldehyde shark to his 2008 market-decimating auction to his phony shipwreck in Venice. 
      But when Hirst slumped out to take part in the event, it was…really boring? I don’t know if something happened to Hirst—all his previous headline-grabbing stunts happened before my time in the art world—or if this is just what a spectacle looks like in our increasingly digital world, but his utter lack of enthusiasm totally put a damper on the flames. Filmed from multiple angles, it was clear that the main audience was the larger one online than the select audience invited into the room. IRL, it felt kind of like a meet-and-greet with your favorite influencer and seeing the “I’m just here for the paycheck” energy up close.
      —Naomi Rea

      “KAWS: New Fiction” (2022)Serpentine Gallery, London(January 18—February 27, 2022)
      A general view of the “New Fiction” Exhibition showcasing paintings and sculptures by artist and designer KAWS at Serpentine North. Photo: by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images.
      I wanted so much to believe that KAWS’s art is interesting. The first-time collaboration between the respectable Serpentine and the online video game Fortnite seemed also like a partnership that could take art to a new frontier in the digital realm, and make art more accessible to the public. But no matter how much the Fortnite players raved about the experience when it was launched at the beginning of this year, I decided to side with the rest of London’s critics who almost unanimously panned KAW’s show. It was not a particular work—the entire art-viewing experience was a let-down.
      The only way to appreciate KAWS (aka Brian Donnelly) is to be his fan, and I have yet to convince myself to become one. Seeing the blend of sculptures and paintings based on the artist’s trademark crossed-eye figure Companion did not help. The A.R. versions of Companion sitting on top of the gallery building in Hyde Park or floating inside the gallery space did not make the show more interesting—there are other A.R. works out there that are far more inventive. And the exhibition in the Fortnite game? I don’t play video games, but from the YouTube videos I saw, I hardly observed any players who managed to have any interaction with other players in the virtual gallery. I thought it would be a virtual space that allowed players from all walks of life to meet and greet but, instead, most of them seemed to wander around alone and aimlessly. This could’ve been a wonderful project but, as Alastair Smart suggested in his review, it was a bit of a “lost KAWS.”
      –Vivienne Chow

      “Michel Majerus: Progressive Aesthetics” at the ICA MiamiNovember 28, 2022—March 12, 2023
      Michel Majerus, Progressive Aesthetics (1997). ©Michel MajerusEstate, 2022, Private collection. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin. Courtesy of neugerriemschneider, Berlin.
      I was tempted to call out the life-size bronze of reclining female angel, nude and masturbating, that I saw at Scope Miami Beach, but I will avoid such low-hanging fruit in lieu of a choice that might make me look like the philistine, rather than the artist.
      First, I’ll confess that I had never heard about Luxembourgish artist Michel Majerus before the current raft of shows honoring the 20th anniversary of his death. (There are 19 in Germany, and this one in Miami’s Design District, his first solo at a U.S. institution.) Second, I’ll admit that I was completely mystified as to the appeal of his work upon seeing it for the first time. It was large and colorful, heavy on text, and rife with appropriated imagery from brand logos, cartoons, and other artists—not unlike, I might point out, the kind of pop culture-saturated work typically on offer at Scope. The massive canvases seemed like art in the lobby of a trendy hotel, intended as edgy but in actuality blandly inoffensive. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe Majerus was an artistic genius. (My colleague Taylor Dafoe wrote a great explainer about his career.) (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/michel-majerus-first-us-survey-2213613) Or maybe this is a “the emperor’s new clothes” deal, where a bunch of rich old guys have invested in Majerus’s work, and orchestrated this wave of renewed attention to drive up the prices on these uber-boring canvases so they can make a killing on the auction block. Feel free to skewer me for my unsophisticated taste if you disagree—but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not the only one who was underwhelmed when I finally encountered the work of this (IMHO) overrated artist. 
      —Sarah Cascone

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      in Exhibitions

      How the Kochi-Muziris Biennale Overcame Organizational Mayhem, Extreme Weather, and a Gatecrashing Horror Film Production to Finally Open

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      On December 15, as I rushed to find a seat at the Cochin Club for William Kentridge’s lecture-performance Ursonate—part of the programming for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB)—a visitor from Goa called it the “non-biennale biennale.” Ironically, Ursonate, based on a 1932 Dadaist sound poem by Kurt Schwitters that uses nonsensical vocabulary, was precisely about this breakdown of meaning. At some point, Kentridge invited Indian musicians to join him—Naisha Nazar on vocals, Ashwin R on Chenda drum and Mani KJ on harmonium—but his emphatic gibberish drowned them out.
      In a similar vein, at the biennale’s main venue, Aspinwall House, the hammering and installing of works was at times indistinguishable from the percussive rhythms of Asim Waqif’s new commission, Improvise, a massive resonant bamboo sculpture installed outside that visitors could play with sticks
      The curator of KMB’s fifth edition, “In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire,” is Singapore-based artist Shubigi Rao. In the only public art talk she gave in the lead-up to the opening now scheduled for December 23, Rao explained that song was a thread running through the biennale. “Here, song could be lament or joy. It could be humorous, snarky, or silly. As artists we are taught to take ourselves seriously and valorize our ideas. Here there’s anger, humor, embarrassment, cringe and it’s ok to have that messiness.”
      That messiness was unintentionally linked to the biennale’s postponement, announced just the night before it was originally due to open, on December 12. The spaces in Aspinwall especially felt under construction, with cables clustered away from puddles, uninstalled monitors and a small village of workers holding down the fort. 
      At the biennale’s main venue, Aspinwall House, Asim Waqif’s new commission, Improvise, is a massive, resonant, bamboo sculpture, that visitors can play with sticks.
      Amid the ruckus, I was drawn to the sparseness of Algerian artist Massinissa Selmani’s delicate, pastel-colored drawings and videos of miniature beings and floating architectures. All trees are potential enemies (2022) evokes states of suspension, repetition and hopelessness, like his animated bird on a Sisyphean quest to fly through a birdhouse while attached to a fence. 
      Yet there was a certain sense of utopia as well. “When Rao invited me, it was a relief,” Selmani said. “We are often put into a box as Africans, but I’m influenced by Belgian Surrealists and my work doesn’t really speak of colonization. I like to think of minimal gestures situated between comedy and tragedy.” 
      An uncanny parallel to this feeling could be found in the biennale. For those of us who traveled to see the exhibition, on a press tour sponsored by BMW, a supporter from the first edition, our disappointment was met with a seemingly lighthearted approach on the ground. Artists simply got on with things, surrounded by a rallying local community. 
      Being from a country where people had to take matters into their own hands if they wanted basic resources, like running water or 24-hour electricity, I’m familiar with this attitude. Yet unlike in Lebanon, the issues at the biennale are less about a failed state and more about institutional hierarchies and procedures. 
      The Communist government of Kerala, which has been an unwavering supporter of the artist-initiated biennale—established as a foundation by Kerala-born, Mumbai-based artists Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu in 2011—currently provides the largest amount given to any cultural project in India, and almost a third of the biennale’s total budget—around $845,000 out of $2.7 million. But of this, only around $360,000 has actually been received in what an institutional director termed a “promise-to-pay” method.
      “It’s all just come to a head,” said Varun Gupta, director of the Chennai Photo Biennale, which has a space in KMB as part of the new Invitations programmes. “I arrived in September, and they were shooting a local-language movie for a famous actor [at Aspinwall]. When they finally got access to the venue, it was only a month ahead of launch day and they had 21 tonnes of debris to remove because of the film set that had to be torn down,” he said, adding that heavy rainfall in Kerala due to Cyclone Mandous (which hit nearby Tamil Nadu), only added to the infrastructure problems, including collapsing roofs at some heritage venues. “The rain was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” 
      An image from the installation Out of Breath at the Chennai Photo Biennale.
      Further complicating the situation was the ongoing friction between property giant DLF and the local government over the government’s acquisition of Aspinwall, resulting in DLF locking up the venue and barring entry for 10 days through December 1. KMB eventually had to agree to pay rent on the space because negotiations between the co-owners had reached a stalemate. “We were stuck in between and kept thinking we would get it today or tomorrow,” Krishnamachari said. 
      Other logistical hurdles include the need to secure bank guarantees in order to ship and release artworks from customs, which now have to be made by nationalized banks instead of private ones, adding weeks to the process, and shipment costs that have increased post-pandemic. On top of that, there are longstanding systemic issues at KMB, including Komu’s resignation due to allegations of sexual harassment in 2018, accusations of unpaid labour, and a remote style of management. 
      “A lot of these pressures existed before but [the biennale organizers] have managed by sheer tenacity to get it just over the line or just under the line,” said gallerist Amrita Jhaveri, who has been brought on as a new trustee of the foundation. “But they cannot do it every time—people run out of energy and goodwill. At some point, something’s going to give. I think this has to be a moment of reckoning, where something new will emerge.”
      “Doing public art in India is very challenging, it’s hands-on,” Jhaveri added. “It’s very precarious, because the biennale is dependent on a temporary venue. Also, it’s one thing to have an international curator, and another for the team not to be on the ground all the time, which you need to run an event of this scale.”
      The sequence of events signal a volatile relationship that exists between artists and art institutions. More accountability and transparency are necessary, perhaps especially so in places where there is less cultural infrastructure and stable sources of funding. In KMB’s case, there was emergency fundraising and a major failure in communication. While there is a certain laissez-faire or guerrilla style of operation that can be seen as endemic to the region, it doesn’t have to be that way.
      “There is a rot in the art world,” Rao told me. “The work goes up because of volunteers and labor that is invisible.”
      Palani Kumar documented the unsafe conditions and deaths of sanitation workers in Tamil Nadu, in a comment on caste and government-enforced labor.
      The most extreme example of this was found in Gupta’s space, where Palani Kumar documented the unsafe conditions and deaths of sanitation workers in Tamil Nadu, in a comment on caste and government-enforced labor. “In these spaces, we can show challenging work that no one else will show,” Gupta said. “And the government is erudite enough not to interfere.” Gupta added: “I love that KMB has tried to bring the Global South together in this edition, which they haven’t done in the past, by sending invitations to other institutions.” 
      Nearby, the Kiran Museum of Art was invited to host the exhibition “Tangled Hierarchy 2,” organized by the artist Jitish Kallat, curator of KMB in 2014. The thoughtful show stems from a meeting between Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Mountbatten in 1947, before the controversial Partition of the subcontinent. Because he had taken a vow of silence, Gandhi communicated with Mountbatten by writing on the back of a series of envelopes. Alongside the show is Kallat’s installation, Covering Letter, which features the words Gandhi wrote to Hitler before World War II, dissolving in a waterfall of smoke.
      At Pepper House, Pakistani artist Seher Shah’s work felt like a very different comment on estrangement and the unseen. Simply wrought compositions, Notes from a City Unknown (2021) were odes to Delhi, with each screenprint combining abstract architectural forms with text. In City of Forgotten Languages, she writes about a solitary bird forgetting its own song, and needing “a memory to remember how to sing.” Back at Aspinwall, the late Madiha Aijaz’s vivid photographs documenting language, devotion and intimacy in Karachi, could be gleaned beneath polythene sheets. 
      Seher Shah, Notes from a City Unknown (close up), Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2022, Pepper House. Photo: Randhir Singh.
      “When I curated this biennale, I looked at artists that people might think of as raw, with an unfiltered approach to specific problems in regions that are nevertheless universally understood,” Rao said during her talk.
      KMB feels like a political necessity in a country with a Hindu majority rule and an antagonistic relationship to the arts. 
      I left Kochi a bit disheartened that I didn’t see the biennale in its entirety, although it’s not every day that collateral events take precedence. One example was the excellent work at the Student Biennale curated by seven artists, which has been running in parallel to KMB for several years and really gives visitors a sense of the concerns of the artists working in the country, from the agrarian revolts to the Dalit community, the lowest stratum of the traditional caste system. Being with without, curated by Suvani Suri at the Students Biennale, was especially memorable and relevant, looking at states of negation and new ways of listening. 
      If there’s anything that this edition of the biennale has revealed, it’s that artists don’t function autonomously and there’s an unspoken precarity that exists between ambitious art projects and the organizational structures around them.

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      in Exhibitions

      An Interactive Online Exhibition Explores Ray Eames’s Indelible Impact on Midcentury American Design

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      Despite public declarations made by Charles Eames defending the equal role his wife Ray played in shaping their shared practice, she was rarely given the credit she deserved. The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity—a recently established platform promoting the legacy of the historically significant design firm—has opened “Ray’s Hand,” an online exhibition that sheds new light on her vital contribution. Launched on December 15, this latest activation coincides with what would have been her 110th birthday.
      Incorporating everything from preliminary sketches and color samples to toys and everyday products from the 1940s through the 1980s, animated vignettes, and eloquent texts procured by noted scholar Pat Kirkham reveal the multitalented creative’s dynamic approach and her use of varied sources of inspiration to develop innovative concepts that revolutionized midcentury American design. 
      Items from Ray Eames’s office. Photo: Nicholas Calcott, courtesy of Eames Office, LLC.
      “Ray came to design from painting and Charles from architecture, which created a dynamic partnership,” said Llisa Demetrios, the Eames’s granddaughter, executor, and the show’s curator. “From their first project together, they both realized the importance of letting their designs evolve from their hands-on learning. The artifacts in this exhibit demonstrate Ray’s exploration of solving problems and iterating on the solutions.” 
      Much of what was selected for the exhibition came from the storied Eames Office in Venice, California. “As we have been unpacking the crates, opening drawers, and looking in boxes, we have been inventorying what we’ve found so far and making discoveries along the way,” Demetrios added. “The narratives for the exhibits evolved directly from highlighting Ray and Charles’ process through the archival material in the collection.” 
      Courtesy of Eames Office, LLC.
      A major through-line of the showcase is the prevalence of analog hand tools and common materials. Crayons, colored pencils, paints, rubber stamps, silver and gold foils, tissue paper, and marbleized paper join precision tools like scissors, X-acto knives, and magnifying glasses. Adorned in different iconographies, rulers of various lengths also feature prominently. Somehow, Ray always worked within the confines of these readily available components but was able to surpass their limitation by meticulously crafting miniature maquettes, many of which could fit inside the palm of her hand.  
      ​​“I loved how she did not look at an object in isolation but how an object related to everything around it,” Demetrios recalled. “Ray and Charles considered themselves tradespeople. For them, the design process was about addressing a need that they had noticed, or something that someone had come to them for.” The online exhibition does the important work of not just showcasing what they made but how they accomplished these feats. Many of their techniques are as prescient today as they were 60 to 40 years ago.
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      in Exhibitions

      In Pictures: the Musée d’Orsay Presents Kehinde Wiley’s Fallen Figures Alongside the Historic Sculptures That Inspired Them

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      Formerly a train station, the grand central nave of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris has retained its high ceilings and streaming natural light, making it the ideal exhibition space for historic sculptural masterpieces.
      Now, the familiar collection of traditional statues has been enlivened by American artist Kehinde Wiley’s twist on the classical European tradition. At the centre of the hall, a large-scale canvas of a woman wearing bright street clothing, hangs beside two monumental sculptures.
      These new works are an extension of the artist’s ongoing “DOWN” series which, since 2008, has reimagined famous depictions of fallen figures, such as Hans Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (c. 1520), but using contemporary subjects. In this case, Wiley was specifically inspired by the museum’s marble statue Woman Bitten by a Serpent (1847) by the French sculptor Auguste Clésinger.
      That work is directly quoted in Wiley’s painting Women Bitten by a Serpent (Mamadou Gueye), which focuses instead on the Senegalese athlete Mamadou Gueye, depicted in a yellow Louis Vuitton top, blue jeans and white sneakers.
      Each of Wiley’s subjects are laid down or, in the case of An Archeology of Silence, dropping from the seat of a horse in an inversion of the majesty we have come to expect of traditional equestrian portraiture. These poses might suggest calm repose—or violence and death.
      “Whilst playing with the stereotypes of Western painting and sculpture, Kehinde Wiley carries an up-to-date message concerning the violence of contemporary society,” said Christophe Leribault, president of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie, in a statement. “I wanted to display these works as an actual strand of those collections at the Musée d’Orsay that have been such an inspiration to him and of which he offers a fascinating rereading.”
      Born in 1977, Wiley is known for his reinvention of art historical tropes and conventions to center contemporary Black subjects and experiences. The exhibition is an extension of his concurrent show at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice. See images of the installation below.
      “Kehinde Wiley” is on view at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, through January 8, 2023.
      Woman Bitten by a Serpent (1847), by Auguste Clésinger at the Musée D’Orsay. Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images.
      Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
      Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
      Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
      Installation view of “Kehinde Wiley” at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crépy.
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      in Exhibitions

      ‘Unsung Heroes’: A Show of Remarkable Designs Recognizes the Contributions Made by 14 California Women Artists

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      Twenty-five items form the colorful, tactile, and often humorous work of 14 women designers, both known and obscure, in the “Born Too Tall: California Women Designers, Postwar to Postmodern” exhibition at R & Company in Tribeca, New York.
      “Southern California was a hotbed of creativity,” said Evan Snyderman, co-owner of R & Company and co-curator of the show with James Zemaitis, the company’s Director of Museum Relations. “And we thought, why not focus on unsung heroes—in particular the women who are often left out of the conversation, and are not in history books—and give them the credit they are due?”
      Wendy Maruyama, Mickey Mackintosh. Photo: Joe Kramm, courtesy of R & Company.
      The show sheds overdue light on novel approaches by women experimenting with traditional processes and materials. A curved plywood sculpture by Ray Eames—newly reissued in a limited edition—is instantly recognizable, while animal-shaped furniture by Pamela Weir-Quiton comes as more of a delightful discovery. While still in college, Wendy Maruyama used then-verboten particle board, instead of wood, and car paint to create her Mickey Mackintosh chair (1981), which is today recognized as one of the earliest and most iconic examples of postmodern furniture. Arlene Fisch, in the early 1980s, incorporated sewing techniques to create unique pieces of gold and silver jewelry.
      Arline Fisch, Floating Square brooch and bracelet. Courtesy of R & Company.
      “This is something we have been championing for 25 years as a gallery, and is now finding its place in the contemporary design and art world,” said Snyderman. “We see this coming together of all these practices, and hierarchies breaking down between fine art, craft, sculpture, and design.”
      The title of the show comes from a chapter title in Fifth Chinese Daughter, a bestselling memoir by Jade Snow Wong, whose pottery is featured in the exhibition. It refers to the writer’s dim marriage prospects but also typifies the “biology is destiny” trope that hampered the careers of so many female artists.
      Pamela Weir-Quiton, unicorn rocker and moose rocker. Photo: Tiffany Smith Studio, courtesy of R & Company.
      Some of the participants in the show had felt held back because they were doing something new. “There were no galleries around for me,” said Pamela Weir-Quiton, who, conversely, didn’t lack for commissions in her frenzy of creation fresh out of college (where she was the lone woman woodworker). It took close to a half century for a museum—in this case, LACMA, in 2019—to come around to acquiring one of her pieces, which is also featured in “Born Too Tall,” the figurative Georgie girl dresser and chair in a mix of walnut, birch and ebony. “My stuff never fit in to the brown woodworking of the ’60s,” said Weir-Quiton. “It was animated. It had eyes. It connects with you.”
      California being a state larger than many countries, the geographic peg of the show doesn’t conjure any visual through-line. There’s a boho earthiness to some of the pottery and textile pieces from the 1970s, countered by the lyric midcentury elegance of Greta Magnusson Grossman’s double cone lamp of the late 1940s. Some artists acknowledge inspiration from the sunlight, openness, diversity, and “energy” of the West Coast. More than half of the artists are not from the state, but worked, studied, or taught there, and remain associated with it.
      Cheryl R. Riley, Brush Strokes Cigarette Table 1 (Gold). Courtesy of R & Company.
      “I love the brightness, the light there,” said Cheryl R. Riley, a Texas native who lived and worked for two decades in San Francisco before settling on the East Coast. She has two cigarette tables in the show (a throwback to the time when a diminutive piece of furniture was designated for that activity). They easily double as stand-alone sculptures. She likens the medium to a sketch pad, or accessories, saying that their small size and low material cost allow for endless experimentation with shapes, colors, and finishes. “California is gold country, with the gold rushes, and there’s also the silver, with the Mexican culture.” She added, “I don’t have a fear of bling.”
      The show, on view through January 27, 2023, at 64 White Street, also features work by Evelyn Ackerman, Claire Falkenstein, Trude Guermonprez, Merry Renk, June Schwarcz, Kay Sekimachi, and Marguerite Wildenhain.
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