Gleanings

In the last two decades, more than four hundred people have died trying to cross the English Channel from France or Belgium. European agreements and bilateral treaties between the United Kingdom, France and Belgium have turned the Calais area into a deadly border zone due to heightened militarisation and surveillance.

As a visual artist and filmmaker, Robin Vanbesien explores modes of embodied knowledge and collective imagination engaged in social and political struggles. Through a series of audio-visual works, ‘Holding Rehearsals’ presents an expression of collective solidarity and storytelling in response to recent cases of police and state violence in the context of migration border controls. The central film installation, hold on to her, which was selected for the 74th Berlinale, is presented here on multiple screens in the temple space. This film focuses on the murder of Mawda Shawri, a Kurdish-Iraqi toddler hit by police bullets in 2018, while travelling by van on a central highway near the Belgian-French border. Through a collective hearing, the film collects the stories and reflections of both documented and undocumented resident activists on the case of Mawda Shawri.

At the back of the temple, the Bibliothèque sans papiers, curated by Milady Renoir, presents a wide range of books that address the issues at hand in facts and stories like those this exhibition recollects. The library will be regularly activated as part of the public programme and visitors are invited to consult and read these books during the opening hours. On the second floor, the installation holding across a landscape aims to index how the region between the Calais area and Brussels can be seen as a vast necropolitical landscape. Furthermore, the exhibition includes various texts, videos and work notes related to different projects. (Luc Franken)

As hotelier and Château La Coste owner Paddy McKillen tells it, ‘This magnificent show has been an idea for many years. Amid laughs and giggles, chats and cups of tea, great ideas evolved as they do when Damien is his playful self. He has planned out the show to perfection. He has conceived each element to compliment both art and architecture, all set amongst Cezanne’s Provençal landscape.’

Hirst’s exhibition, titled ‘The Light That Shines’, will be the first to traverse Château La Coste’s varied exhibition spaces simultaneously. The Renzo Piano Pavilion will be inhabited by animals in formaldehyde from Hirst’s Natural History series and his Butterfly Paintings will be on display in the gravity-defying Richard Rogers Drawing Gallery. The Old Wine Storehouse will host his space-themed works, featuring the Cosmos Paintings and sculptures from the Meteorites and Satellites series. The Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium, a light-filled, elegantly curved pavilion designed by the late Brazilian architect in 2010, will feature a selection of objects from the mockumentary Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable (2017), first presented in 2017 at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice to great media clamour. Finally, the Bastide Gallery will showcase the colourful and loud Secret Gardens Paintings, unveiled last year at Frieze London. Hirst’s indoor presentations will be enriched by a selection of outdoor sculptures, strategically placed between the Frank Gehry Music Pavilion and the Tadao Ando Art Centre.

The enchantingly immutable and ultra-contemporary landscape of Château La Coste is undoubtedly the perfect backdrop for an exhibition in which the natural elements and the artificiality of art are constantly intertwined. (Lorenzo Csontos)

In a collection presentation at M HKA, Antwerp, Edith Dekyndt examines the power and poetics of electromagnetic sparks. In a somewhat gloomy side room of the collection wing, the museum revisits an intricate three-part installation, first shown at Galerie Greta Meert in 2014.

The slide projection Static Light (2004), intended as a prelude to the other elements, shows a picture of silver flickering lines in a dark space. They are induced by the creation of friction using a wool blanket at a temperature of about -35°C. This investigative approach to art, so distinctive of Dekyndt’s practice, has led her from the Alps to the Arctic circle. Ten years after the first experiments for Static Light, she created the video Svalbard (2014), again demonstrating the marvel of electric discharges. In close observation, the violent movement of the blanket is almost abstracted. The tantalising sound of static electricity, as well as the intense breathing and movement of the artist in the background, render the phenomenon nearly palpable.

Dekyndt’s quasi-scientific investigations tend to depart from the analysis and activation of a certain matter, material or object. Here, the blanket used for this decade-spanning experiment now quietly hangs from the ceiling, as an elegant sculptural echo, signifying the museological conclusion of the ‘Chronology of Tears.’ That one side is cladded in copper — electric conductor par excellence — enhances the object-as-artwork quality of the sheet. The other side, still soft, bears witness to Dekyndt’s lyric examination of the fabric’s latent energy.

See also Dekyndt’s current exhibition at the Fondation CAB in Saint Paul de Vence, ‘Specific Subjects’, curated by María Inés Rodríguez, on view through 27 October 2024, www.fondationcab.com. (Gertjan Oskar)

‘Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art’ is a major group exhibition featuring 50 international artists who challenge power structures through the tactile processes of stitching, sewing, weaving, braiding, beading and knotting.

It is well known that textiles as an artistic medium have been undervalued in the hierarchy of Western art history. Indeed, as the exhibition quickly establishes, textile art practices have too often been regarded as craft, considered feminine and ultimately marginalised by scholars and the art world alike.

How have these classifications been challenged, reflected upon and reshaped? Why and how have artists pushed the boundaries of textile art? And — as it is sometimes necessary to ask — with whom? These questions form the common thread running through all the artworks in the exhibition, which are subdivided into six independent, but closely related themes. Extensive curatorial work has been done to bring together artworks from all over the world, from a variety of collections. Artists whose work is represented here include Sanford Biggers, Louise Bourgeois, Feliciano Centurion, Cian Dayrit, Yee I-Lann, Acaye Kerunen, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Teresa Margolles, Cecilia Vicuña and Billie Zangewa.

Visitors are taken on a long and inspiring journey through stories relating to gender, labour, value, ecology, ancestral knowledge, histories of oppression, extraction and trade. The multisensory set-up requires sustained concentration. For certain artworks, a sample of the material(s) can be touched and examined upon request, as is the case with a tapestry by Mercedes Azpilicueta’s or Igshaan Adams’ delicate installation.

The exhibition is co-curated by the Barbican, London and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, where it will be on show from 14 September 2024 to 5 January 2025. (Henriette Gillerot)

A few months back, and with much ado, the totally renovated National Portrait Gallery opened in London. Since 1856, the museum has been home to famous Britons rendered in rather mediocre portraiture. From Anna Boleyn to Kae Tempest, from Oscar Wilde to Twiggy and from David Hockney to Zadie Smith — they’re all here. The museum had been closed for three years due to extensive renovations, during which time a new strategy was developed for the display of the permanent collection. British fury Tracy Emin was invited to redesign the museum’s majestic bronze entrance gates, echoing the famous architectural commissions awarded to Giotto in Florence and Rodin in France. Numerous works by mostly woman artists and/or depicting female subjects have been dusted off and given pride of place in the collection displays. The new approach also gives more attention to people from overseas, members of the Commonwealth and to narratives told from their point of view. But you can easily sense that it was a bit of a challenge. Earlier, an English newspaper wrote that the National Portrait Gallery remains ‘a museum with barely any great art in it, a peculiarly British institution that reflects our national cult of celebrity. One can argue that representation is more important than artistic quality – but that leaves the National Portrait Gallery where it always was, a collection of notable faces with no regard for artistic depth.’ There’s some truth to this, one might think while walking past the hideous portraits of Ed Sheeran (by Colin Davidson) or Beatrix Potter (Delmar Banner). Nevertheless, the effort to make the collection more diverse — and to have this reflected in the narration of the history of Great Britain — is noted and welcome.

In addition to the permanent collection, the National Portrait Gallery organises temporary exhibitions. On the day this article is published, the exhibition ‘Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In’ opens. Photographers Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron lived a century apart — Cameron working in the UK and Sri Lanka from the 1860s, and Woodman in America and Italy from the 1970s. Woodman is without a doubt of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century. Her consistent use of the female form as a starting point for her photographs has lately inspired many feminist interpretations of her work, as her seemingly traditional nudes often include details that disrupt the composition, forcing us to look more closely. As for Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the first female photographers who succeeded to attain stardom during her lifetime, she had, like Woodman, the ability to imbue her photographs with a powerful spiritual content. Showcasing more than 160 rare vintage prints, ‘Portraits to Dream In’ spans the careers of both artists — and promises to present new ways to look at their work, and the photographic portraiture techniques in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (Els Roelandt)

The landscapes we live in have a profound impact on our beliefs and identities. It is easy to see how a country like Norway has constructed a national identity based on its coastal and mountainous landscapes. However, as many of the natural world’s ecosystems become increasingly shaky, those not exposed to the sights and sounds of nature may be more inclined to disregard the fragile state of our planet. What surrounds us in our daily lives is what usually attracts us. The path of least resistance embraces our attention. For most of us city dwellers, this means that environments such as forests, meadows, rivers and hills, never mind their inhabitants, are quickly forgotten. And yet, resistance movements are not limited to people who live in high altitudes or remote Arctic locations.

What do artworks tell us about how we approach the natural world? Can landscape paintings provide insight into our ever-changing relationship with our environments? What do the different historical materialisations of art say about our self-understanding? The exhibition ‘Earthworks,’ currently on view at Bergen Kunsthall, examines the role of art in ecological resistance movements, specifically in the Nordic countries. The show explores how visual artists, writers and activists have perceived, conceptualised, worshipped and imagined nature. It features contemporary artists who challenge traditional ideas of art by developing more collaborative approaches with nature as a creative partner, such as Tina Buddeberg’s Dreamvalley, a so-called relational living artwork, or Jenna Sutela’s Vermi Cell, a compost installation that uses soil, food scraps, earthworms and humus to power an audio piece.

Perspectives are further diversified as the exhibition not only includes contemporary artworks, but also archival material documenting early eco-activist art projects and collectives. For instance, ‘Earthworks’ traces the historical development of Land Art and showcases historical artworks by artists whose names may not directly ring a bell in our circles, but whose practices had a significant influence on the development of art concerned with the state of the natural world. These include Norwegian sculptor Bård Breivik, early eco-feminist Monica Sjöö and textile artist Annette Holdensen, among others. (Bas Blaasse)

For ‘Baloji Augurism.’, the new exhibition by Belgian-Congolese transdisciplinary artist Baloji, the galleries of MoMu Fashion Museum have been transformed into a realm where vibrant colours, shapes and textures blur the line between the magical and everyday reality. The exhibition delves into ceremony and mythology in the context of Congolese philosophy, rituals and traditions, while also exploring their connection to the European avant-garde. In this way, it addresses themes of resistance, grief and cultural heritage as expressed within these different structures.

Baloji is renowned as a rapper (Starflam), poet, designer, actor and (most recently) film director. He and co-curator Elisa De Wyngaert conceived ‘Augure.’ in MoMu as embodying not one, but three projects: Baloji’s much-lauded debut film Augure (titled ‘Omen’ in English, the film won the New Voice prize at Cannes last year and is the Belgian entry for the 2024 Oscars); the travelling exhibition ‘Augurism.’; and a soundtrack consisting of four albums representing the perspectives of each of the film’s four main characters. Costume designs and photographs from the film, as well as images, props, costumes, installations and videos from Baloji’s archives, are also on display.

The title ‘Augurism.’ refers to the figure of the ‘augur’ in ancient Greco-Roman culture — a priest who interpreted the will of the gods based on the observation of birdsigns. Motifs related to superstition, sorcery and witchcraft resonate deeply with Baloji, as he encounters them through the prism of his very name. ‘Baloji’ originally meant ‘man of science’ in Swahili. However, with the rise of Catholicism during the era of European colonialism, the meaning evolved to ‘man of occult sciences’ and eventually came to refer to the broader concept of sorcery.

Over the course of the exhibition, Baloji will host a series of nocturnal events in collaboration with fellow artists, presented under the title of MoMu x Baloji Takover.

More than forty years after the death of the famous psychoanalyst, the exhibition ‘Lacan, the Exhibition. When Art Meets Psychoanalysis’ opens at Centre Pompidou-Metz. Curated by Marie Laure Bernaac and Bernard Marcadé, the show stems from the idea of two psychoanalysts, author Gérard Wajcman and painter Paz Corona, who shared the desire to organise a major exhibition around one of the twentieth century’s most influential thinkers. The first institutional exhibition devoted entirely to Jacques Lacan, ‘Lacan, the Exhibition’ focuses on key concepts that accompanied the development of his thought, linking them to works by around 100 artists.

In 1949, more than a decade after Lacan’s first contacts with the Surrealist group, he elaborated the famous concept of the ‘mirror stage,’ powerfully exemplified in this exhibition by Caravaggio’s Narcissus. We continue on to his rereading of Freud through ‘lalangue’ (the language of the unconscious) in a section devoted to mottos, lapsus and sonority. Further on, we find a section dedicated to the ‘Nom-du-Père,’ the Lacanian reinterpretation of the Oedipus complex. Here, works by artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Camille Henrot are reread through the lens of concepts such as the rejection of the patronymic and the destruction of the father.

Lacan famously wrote ‘La femme n’existe pas’, meaning that a univocal and singular definition of woman is not possible. We can find an echo of these words in Annette Messager’s splendid series of Proverbs. Starting with the fundamental ‘objet petit a’, the object cause of desire, the exhibition then proceeds to an exploration of sexual intercourse and jouissance. Well-presented is also Lacan’s fundamental relationship with some of the classics of Western figuration: from the Origin du Monde, which entered his personal collection in 1955 and which he kept covered by a panel by André Masson, to Las Meninas by Velázquez — the fulcrum of the interpretative duel between the psychoanalyst and Michel Foucault. (Lorenzo Csontos)

Soon after French photographer Jack Garofalo (1924-2005) was hired by the weekly news magazine Paris Match in 1953, he started shooting the celebrities of his time. Federico Fellini, Sophia Loren, Ernest Hemingway, Yul Brynner, Jacques Brel, André Malraux…, they all appeared in front of his lens. A prominent figure in 20th-century photojournalism, he was celebrated for the profound humanity and stark realism of his visual language. Known for his compassionate approach to subjects, Garofalo’s work for Paris Match took him around the world, where he adeptly captured moments of historical importance and everyday life with equal skill and sensitivity. During the summer of 1970, he spent half a year in Harlem where he encapsulated the essence of one of New York City’s most vibrant neighbourhoods during a transformative era. Seven years later, he recorded the Bronx’s wild energy on film.

The exhibition ‘Street Chronicles’ at Gallery FIFTY ONE brings together a selection of colour and black-and-white photographs of Garofalo’s most evocative images from that era, offering viewers a unique glimpse into the heart and soul of these unique neighbourhoods. These photographs not only depict the physical landscape of the area, but they poignantly display the spirit, resilience, and beauty of these communities during a time of significant social and cultural change. Focused on everyday life, his lens highlighted the struggles and joys of local residents. From intimate portraits to animated street scenes, each photograph tells a story, offering a window into a world that, while geographically specific, speaks to universal themes of community, identity and belonging. The raw energy and candid moments in ‘Street Chronicles’ are a testament to the enduring power of street photography. (Luc Franken)

For Sherrie Levine’s third exhibition at Xavier Hufkens in six years, she’s exhibiting two sculptures enveloped by new oil paintings based on works by Piet Mondrian and Vincent Van Gogh. Levine’s conceptual art, whether painting, sculpture or photography, highlights the relationship between artworks and their source materials. Even when the source material is another artist’s artwork, the production process is all her own. Forty-five years ago, she was contesting notions of ‘originality’, since artists’ sources, whether Van Gogh’s irises or Mondrian’s squares, typically lack ownership. These days, her focus is digitalisation itself, as we ‘click’, rework scans and then display files in varying formats and media. In fact, C-prints that she shot in 1983 of photos illustrating a book of Mondrian’s grids served as the source material for After Piet Mondrian: 9 (2023) and After Piet Mondrian Black and White: 3 (2023), on view here. By reformatting scans of her C-prints to fit identically sized mahogany panels, she further amplifies colour distortions. Pictures of Van Gogh’s five colourful iris paintings (1888—1889) serve as the source material for Monochromes After Van Gogh’s Irises: 1—5 (2023) and Monochromes After Van Gogh’s Irises Inverse: 1—5 (2023). Levine used an algorithm to reduce their diverse palettes to one colour and their varying sizes to identical scales. This process recalls her Meltdown series (1989), for which she transformed scans of pictures of famous paintings into four-by-three-inch grids of their palettes. Providing a counterpoint to her minimalist paintings are Elk Skull (2024), a polished bronze cast from found antlers, and Water Spirit (2012), a patinated bronze cast from an enigmatic totem. (Sue Spaid)

It’s a special month for Brussels: the first European exhibition of the British artist Hew Locke is opening at Almine Rech Gallery in the European capital. Locke, who was born in Edinburgh in 1959 but spent his formative years in Guyana, has had a series of groundbreaking and dazzling high-profile exhibitions in London and the United States in recent years. These included the installation The Procession (2022–2023), which presented more than 150 human figures travelling through space and time and carrying historical and cultural baggage, from evidence of global financial control and colonial violence to powerful images the disappearing colonial architecture of Locke’s own childhood in Guyana. Unfolding in the main hall of Tate Britain, The Procession offered a spectacle in which Locke’s sense of both theatricality and subtlety was expressed in a monumental, diverse and multifaceted work that addressed global economic and racial political history.

Locke’s artistic practice explores visual codes of power, drawing attention to a wide range of genres, such as royal portraiture, maritime and military history, public statuary, trophies and financial documents. His works are highly detailed and distinctly political yet have often been interpreted through a primarily aesthetic lens. Yet it is precisely this deliberate ambiguity, and the fact that histories in Locke’s oeuvre are never really worked out explicitly, that lend his work its political force and allow him to avoid didacticism. For his exhibition ‘Raw Materials’ at Almine Rech Brussels, Locke presents several series of new works, including a collection of textile pieces, as well as the antique bust Souvenir series.

Here’s Locke in an interview with Pieter Boons (Director of the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp, where Locke will present a new work later this year as part of the group show ‘Come Closer’): ‘The title of this show [at Almine Rech] is referring to commodities. For example, it refers to the cotton fabric of the works. In that way, raw materials are not only the actual materials of the works (fake hair, cotton, glue, metal, […]), but also the elements from the past that I am processing. Assembling and layering create something new; a reworking of the past is the sole condition for a different future.’ (Els Roelandt)