Gleanings

Election results all over the world leave no doubt: the far right is on the rise, along with hardened notions of nationalism and patriotism. To be sure, there is a powerful human desire to belong: to connect to ancestors, roots, traditions, identities, territories, tribes and nations. But should you be proud of the country where you happened to be born? Or where you ended up? Is national pride something to aspire to? To be swept up into seductive narratives? And is this identical to feeling a sense of belonging or love for a nation? And what if you don’t belong or feel like you do?

The 57th edition of steirischer herbst aims to address, question and shake up exactly these narratives with the title ‘Horror Patriae’. It is a hybrid of two Latin terms: amor patriae (the love of the fatherland), and horror vacui (the fear of emptiness). The exhibition explores what a fatherland is, how it is created and why we should love it or fear it, if at all. The festival aims to tackle the artificial construct of national identity and the roots of nationalism, as analysed by Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined Communities (1983). One of the places historically known for creating fictions about nation-building is the museum, which is why the central exhibition takes place at the Universalmuseum Joanneum.

steirischer herbst was founded in Austria in 1968 with a similar aim to today: to shake up the narratives of re-emerging Nazism with performances, exhibitions, interventions, music and literature. Today, the festival takes a strong stand against xenophobia and unravels national complexes and dark fantasies with a large group exhibition. ‘Horror Patriae’ combines both artworks and artefacts of the Universalmuseum Joanneum with works by contemporary artists, and a series of performances by Natalia Pschenitschnikova, Yoshinori Niwa, collective La Fleur, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Thomas Verstraeten, Clara Ianni, Felix Hafner, Gerald Straub and many more. (Thessa Krüger)

The exhibition ‘Take a Breath’ offers a profound exploration of the act of breathing that weaves together threads of history, society, politics and personal introspection. It invites us to delve deeper into some ostensibly simple questions, such as: why do we breathe, how do we breathe and what do we breathe? Beyond the act of breathing itself, wider themes are broached, from decolonization, environmental racism and indigenous languages to the impact of war. Breath becomes a mirror, reflecting the profound shifts in our world — shifts that affect how we live, what we fight for and how we seek solace. The exhibition traces the journey from post-industrial air pollution — with works by the likes of William Turner, among others — to the ravages of modern warfare, exploring how these forces shape our environment, our health and our very way of life. It touches on the suppression of voices and protests, where breath becomes a symbol of resistance and unity. It also delves into the use of breath as a personal sanctuary, a means of introspection amid the chaos. The exhibition showcases a rich tapestry of work from artists such as Lawrence Abu Hamdan, whose investigations into sound and silence reveal hidden dimensions of breath. Alex Cecchetti’s immersive installations draw us into the ocean’s depths, inviting us to feel the rhythms of the sea. Ammar Bouras and Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński offer reflections on cultural and environmental narratives, while Khadija Saye’s photographic series ‘In This Space We Breathe’ magnifies the spiritual significance of breath within the Black experience, entwining ancestral rituals with contemporary realities and evoking the intimate, fragile nature of breath and its ties to personal and collective history. ‘Take a Breath’ is a journey into the depths of what it means to breathe, to exist, and to resist. It encourages us to reflect on the need for collective action to address social and environmental injustice. (Els Roelandt)

The island of Hydra, where Leonard Cohen wrote ‘Bird on the Wire’ and ‘So Long, Marianne’, lies in the Aegean Sea. There, an old slaughterhouse has been transformed into a unique exhibition venue. Functioning as the DESTE Project Space, Slaughterhouse is a satellite operation of the Athens-based DESTE Foundation. Since 2009, the Foundation has invited a single artist to stage a unique, site-specific exhibition on the island each summer. This year’s guest is George Condo (1957), best known for his bold figurative paintings that combine Old Master techniques with cartoonish characters. Condo’s oeuvre has been characterised by a disruptive approach since he began producing art in the early 1980s. Initially, critics and curators were uncertain as to how to categorise his grotesque and surreal figurative style, but he soon became instrumental in the revival of figurative depiction in American art, along with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Condo identifies both as seminal influences on his career as well as close personal friends. He describes what he does as ‘psychological Cubism’: imaginary portraits of the outer and inner self. What the viewer sees are the multiple dimensions of a person’s psychological experience, all happening simultaneously: hysteria, grief, joy, sadness …

And the Condo we get to see on Hydra doesn’t disappoint. ‘The Mad and the Lonely’ features a series of small-scale paintings and sculptures selected from the artist’s long career. The works depict the lives of individuals who have been marginalised by society, portraying a state of limbo between madness and loneliness. By bringing them into the limelight, Condo manages to glorify and dignify them. Set in the confined, eerie space of the Slaughterhouse, these constructed minimalist objects, with paintings incorporated as part of his conceptual reasoning, make for an intimate show. Viewers are brought face to face with Condo’s fragmented characters, forcing them to confront the frenzy and realities of the present in a dialectical experience. Victims of their own internal circumstances, these figures are rendered in the abstracted, often uncanny, but at the same time humanoid manner that is typical of George Condo’s idiosyncratic style. (Luc Franken)

A short video of Belgian painter Michiel Ceulers is circulating on the internet. In a shiny, bright yellow raincoat, he walks through the aisles of a supermarket, between shelves crammed with indeterminate material. He picks and chooses, maybe even steals. Everything is perception, everything is story. His paintings are populated with objects and trash, but also quotes and images the artist found in other people’s work or thought up and used himself. The sometimes strangely composed canvases are never completely flat and can take on all possible forms. Anything goes; anything can land on his canvas, really. ‘Just let go — and fall like a little waterfall.’

At Barbara Seiler’s gallery in Zurich, Ceulers is putting on a full exhibition for the second time. The phrase Belgo Swiss Sensibilities refers to the slightly surreal and avant-garde attitude of what Ceulers calls two ‘buffer countries’, Belgium and Switzerland. Although Belgium is perhaps more of an accident than a country anyway. ‘A happy accident, not a mistake,’ says Ceulers, quoting Bob Ross, among others, as he talks about his own paintings. Bob Ross, the eccentric American ‘art guru’ who taught people how to paint on television in the 1980s, but whose work and persona were then exploited and commercialised on tubes of paint, brushes and kitchen towels, to the glory of the glittering piggy bank, the American dream.

Ceulers’ new series of works (painted between 2008 and today) is full of quotes. Wenn man die unterirdische Passage des Kunsthauses in Zürich betritt, kommt man dann im Kunstmuseum Basel wieder heraus? (Irgendwie erinnert mich das an Kippys imaginäres U-Bahn-System, aber dieses Mal mit einer Stella als U-Bahn-Haltestelle) is a recent work that combines oil and acrylic and refers to painting heroes Frank Stella and Martin Kippenberger and to the two institutions that for decades determined who the great artists of our time were. Rainbow / Stella occupies a central place in this exhibition and ties the room together. A bit like the mysterious underground connection that links the two Basel museums?

You can lose yourself endlessly in Ceulers’ flood of quotes. His paintings engage in a conversation with your personal knowledge of painting. But even if you don’t know its history, or if the Western painting tradition with its great heroes and inescapable masters leaves you cold, the glittery coating and lavish use of colour in Ceulers’ paintings are enduring attractions. So, even if a Stella doesn’t do it for you, and Kippenberger never fascinated you, the colour palette and wild composition in Ceulers’ work may strike a chord with you. (Els Roelandt)

Her third museum exhibition in as many years, Agniezska Kurant’s ‘Risk Landscape,’ which explores the impossibility of forecasting the future (despite the promise of artificial intelligence), couldn’t be more topical. It’s hardly surprising that Kurant (1978, Łódź), who studied curating at Goldsmiths, views everything as a collective enterprise: the checklist identifies at least 20 collaborators whose expertise helped bring these objects to fruition. The glass hallway leading to the exhibition space is splattered with fourteen unrecognisable words, emblematic of the different ways languages conceptualise the future. Not all languages point forward in time. Some view the future as coming from behind, above or below.

These artworks interrogate the future: how it happens, why it matters, and where it’s (not) going. Conversions (2023) is a liquid-crystal painting whose fluctuating imagery responds to emotions expressed by millions of protestors via social media. Chemical Garden (2021–present) is a glass box whose inner surface is coated with seven metal salts derived from computer components. This amalgamation, which regenerates greenish vine-like forms, was also used to create the paintings Nonorganic Life 1 and 2 (both 2023). Alien Internet (2023) uses the shape-shifting material ferrofluid to model a constantly evolving cybernetic organism driven by data representing the behaviour of millions of animals, captured using digital technologies. The potential outcomes of Lottocracy (2024), a lotto machine with 60 balls, mostly present the odds of dying under unusual circumstances.

Several objects either employ ‘new’ materials or display new information. The sculptures Post-Fordite 11 and 12 (both 2024) were formed from fossilised automotive paint among other materials, whereas Kurant invented the material present in Sentimentite (2022) by pulverising and blending various forms of currencies used historically. My favourite is Future Anterior (2007), a 2020 replica of the New York Times, as foretold by a clairvoyant in 2007, printed with weather-sensitive thermochromic pigments. (Sue Spaid)

More than 30 years after its creation, the Lyon Biennale has established itself as one of France’s foremost events in the field of contemporary art. From its inception, the Biennale has been at the vanguard of a new approach to regional development, based on the fostering of dialogue and interaction with local communities. By involving the entire local ecosystem, it helps to showcase the region’s strengths — be they geographical, historical, socio-economic or cultural. Under the title ‘Les voix des fleuves, Crossing the water’, the 17th edition of the Lyon Biennale invites artists to question and explore the theme of the waxing and waning of human relationships in tandem with each other and our environment. Guest curator Alexia Fabre, director of the Beaux-Arts de Paris school, wishes the core of her programme to reflect the values of altruism and welcoming the Other. She proposes a pathway along the river Rhône as a metaphor for all waterways, which join to form a stronger current. Through this riverine network the artists can co-produce their works with volunteer participants across 15 zones of Lyon’s metropolitan area and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

For this year’s edition, two significant new sites have been added to the growing network of locations in and around Lyon that will serve as venues for the various components of the event. One of them is Les Grandes Locos, situated on the banks of the Rhône. This complex of industrial buildings was inaugurated in 1846 and was subsequently used as a train maintenance centre by the SNCF in the twentieth century. It has since been converted into a cultural venue. The other site is the Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie de Lyon, a heritage site that was previously dedicated to care, and more recently, to hospitality. Across its various locations, including the archive room of the Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon and the apothecary shops, the Biennale will present rituals associated with the cycles of living beings from birth to death, reflecting the medical and religious history of the site. All the venues of the Biennale — of which macLYON has the longest association ­— embody the event’s history and diversity, as well as its innovation surrounding communal practices. The artists will allow the distinctive voices of these places to resonate. (Luc Franken)

The Royal Academy in London has its iconic Summer Exhibition, and now, after six months of renovation, Centrale in Brussels follows suit with its own ambitious showcase. To mark its reopening, Centrale presents ‘hosting’. The choice of title is deliberate and meaningful. Artistic director Tania Nasielski explains: ‘The term reflects our desire to offer hospitality to both artists and the public. “hosting” is about welcoming and celebrating the artistic diversity that defines today’s Brussels. It’s an invitation that extends beyond the city centre, reaching out to the suburbs, the artists, and the community at large.’

By embracing artists from both central and peripheral areas, Centrale reimagines the city as an ever-expanding creative hub. Artist Pélagie Gbaguidi describes this broader vision as ‘the 20th commune of Brussels’ — a space that transcends traditional boundaries and fosters unity within the city’s rich artistic landscape.

Complementing the main exhibition, ‘hosting’ will feature a vibrant programme of workshops, talks and performances. These events aim to transform Centrale into a dynamic space of dialogue and creativity, encouraging visitors to not just observe but actively participate in shaping more inclusive, welcoming environments.

Curated by an artistic committee including Tania Nasielski and guest artists Manon de Boer, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Juan Pablo Plazas and Richard Venlet, ‘hosting’ was the result of an open call. Out of 2,000 submissions, 350 works by 245 artists were selected anonymously, creating an exhibition that resembles a vast cabinet of curiosities, filling every corner of Centrale with art.

In a gesture of solidarity, ‘hosting’ also includes a sale of the exhibited works. All proceeds will go directly to the artists, with 20% redistributed to the broader community of creators through a solidarity fund. This initiative aims to ensure that the spirit of support extends to all participants, reinforcing the exhibition’s commitment to fostering an interconnected and thriving artistic community. (Luc Franken)

The year before Dada emerged, Hans Arp (1886–1966) and Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943) met at an exhibition in Zurich. In the ensuing years, he had an active exhibition life both inside and outside Dada, while she joined the artist colony Monte Verità, where she danced with various groups during the Sun Festival. Later, she participated in numerous Dada performances as a dancer, choreographer and puppeteer. Between 1916 and 1929, she taught embroidery, weaving and design at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich.

The artworks selected for this modest exhibition suggest their influence on one another. For example, abstract Arp weavings from 1915, 1929 and 1930 pair nicely with Taeuber-Arp’s abstract embroideries and weaving from 1917, 1920 and 1924. Both are represented by several abstract paintings ranging from 1920 to 1942, as well as contemporaneous abstract drawings. We witness Arp experimenting with materials (crumpled and torn paper, wooden cut-outs, collage, marble, bronze and painting on cardboard/wood), whereas Taeuber-Arp opts for irregular forms and scale (futuristic puppets, curves, circles, arcs, undulating shapes, interior design and painting on canvas). Commissioned to design the interior for Café de l’Aubette in Strasbourg, France, she invited Arp and Theo van Doesburg to collaborate. In 1918, she created Portrait of HA, a painted wooden ovoid head atop a wooden stick, whose wide-open mouth and visible uvula suggest a screaming madman!

Two artworks are attributed to both artists, suggesting they jointly-created Marital Sculpture (1937), whose top half, which resembles a head with a gaping mouth, adorns a bulbous bottom, and Duo-Drawing (1939), an ink drawing comprised of straight and curvy lines. A third drawing, attributed to Arp, began as a duo-drawing, which he likely used to make a printing plate in 1946; he tore the resulting print and rearranged it to create the 1947 drawing here. Given the prevalence of movement in Taeuber-Arp’s artworks, they not only demonstrate dance’s influence on her vision, but they forecast Op art’s arrival several decades later. (Sue Spaid)

One of the works of Düsseldorf’s K21 collection that never ceases to delight me is Thomas Schütte’s Ceramic Sketches (1999). Schütte is by far one of the greatest and best-organised artists that I have come across in the past years. His personal archive of letters, sketches, prototypes, notes … , contains today five decades of work across multiple disciplines. From Düsseldorf, it is a short and scenic drive to the artist’s Skulpturenhalle (Sculpture Hall) in Neuss. The model for this exhibition space and underground storage facility, designed by Schütte himself, is a masterpiece of simplicity. A matchbox for a base and a Pringles crisp for a roof. An adjacent building was added to the premises to accommodate his smaller works and archive. ‘It was Gerhard Richter who taught me the importance of archiving,’ he once told me. For several years, Paulina Pobocha, former Associate Curator at MoMA and current Robert Soros Senior Curator at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, travelled to Düsseldorf to study Schütte’s archives in preparation for the first museum survey of his work in the United States in over 20 years. The retrospective will provide a holistic survey of his career from 1975 to the present and will feature a selection of rarely seen works, in addition to those for which he is well known. His early work offered a critique of then-dominant Minimalist and Conceptual art while deeply engaging with cultural and historical content. Schütte’s two-pronged approach considers both the short and long histories of art and embeds them within broader narratives, resulting in a body of work that is both visually and conceptually arresting. Schütte once said, ‘Art is beautiful but requires considerable effort,’ referencing the German art dealer Curt Valentin. Pobocha explains, ‘This quote reveals so much about Thomas’s approach to art-making. Even the simplest gesture arises from a concentrated study of form and content, reflections on history, and how art — whether sculpture, drawing, or architecture — relates to the world beyond itself. More than this, he implicitly asks his audience to meet him halfway, to take time with the work. This too requires effort, but the most rewarding kind.’ It is definitely one of the exhibitions of the coming art season that I am most looking forward to.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue examining Schütte’s practice from his training at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf to the present. Essays by Pobocha, Jennifer Allen and André Rottmann provide art-historical, historical and theoretical pathways into the complexity of Schütte’s oeuvre. Artists Marlene Dumas and Charles Ray reflect on his significance through close readings of his work. (Kathleen Weyts)