Artistic duo Zhuang Hui and Dan’er exhibit their new work, 11 Degrees Incline, at Art Basel Hong Kong, which runs 23 – 26 May. Representing the Magician Space, Beijing, the pair have collaborated since 2005, working together on Leftover Material from The Carpenters, where they replicated 27 pieces of debris produced by carpenters. Celebrating the inaugural Art Basel Hong Kong art fair, the work will form part of the new Encounters section, a large-scale international collection of works sited around prominent positions throughout the fair.
Review of Oat Montien’s Ex-Libris at The Book Club, London
The enchanting nature of books is a childhood gift experienced long before we are able to understand the words on a page. This experience is something artist Oat Montien successfully evokes through his first solo show in London. The Book Club, based in London’s east end, plays host to the innovative Ex-Libris collection and sees the natural collaboration of books in The Book Club. Each work reflects the comforting retreat books offered in our early years.
Theaster Gates: 13th Ballad at MCA Chicago
13th Ballad, an installation by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, is an extension of the artist’s 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, which was co-produced by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago for dOCUMENTA (13). For 13th Ballad, Gates creates a new large-scale installation in the MCA’s Kovler Atrium that comprises objects and materials from the Huguenot House, along with a monumental double cross sculpture and carved wooden pews which create an ecclesiastical ambience to suggest that art museums, like churches, are sites of pilgrimage and thoughtful contemplation. 13th Ballad is accompanied at the MCA by a series of collaborative performances and is on view from 18 May to 6 October.
Linder Sterling: The Ultimate Form, Wakefield
This weekend Linder Sterling presented her UK premiere of The Ultimate Form, a physical collage that combined dance, costume, music and her provocative prints. Set in the gardens of The Hepworth Gallery, seven dancers from the Northern Ballet wound their way across the stage, demonstrating strength and poise in time to Stuart McCallum’s impressive score. Referred to as a “living collage”, Sterling’s works literally moved as they adorned Richard Nicoll’s carefully crafted costumes. Already presenting The Ultimate Form at her retrospective in Paris at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris earlier this year, the performance will next appear at the Tate St Ives early in 2014.
Leslie Thornton: Luna, New York
For the second time, New York artist Leslie Thornton returns to the Winkleman Gallery, New York, to exhibit an inspiring new work. Luna is a detailed examination of nature and technology, utilisng the interplay of place, memory, and abstraction to produce a piece glittering with colour and character. Running, 11 May to 22 June, Thornton’s practice crosses the borders of cinema, video, digital media and installation.
Palace Art and Craft Fair, London
For the third year, the Palace Art and Craft Fair returns to London, 17 – 19 May. Organised by the team behind the highly successful and well established Brighton Art Fair, MADE LONDON and MADE BRIGHTON, this year the fair becomes an art, craft and design fair; a small scale more intimate event showcasing highest quality and original contemporary art and design across all media. Located in the beautiful grounds and main building of Fulham Palace, the historic Tudor/Georgian Palace, formerly the country home of the Bishops of London right by the river at Putney Bridge, is the perfect spot for perusing and purchasing art.
Review of Saloua Raouda Choucair at Tate Modern
The world’s first major museum exhibition of the Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair is long over-due and can finally be seen at the Tate Modern. Choucair, now 96 years old, has dedicated her entire life to enriching art through her interest in a vast array of subjects such as architecture, painting, science, mathematics, Islamic art and poetry. When considering Choucair’s work one must look at it from a point of view that delivers the difficulties of the times she has experienced and endured as a female artist living in Beirut, the capital and largest city of Lebanon. It would be correct to assert that Beirut was and is the Paris of the Middle East. In this respect it is not shocking to see fascinating art emerging from the city and its environs. However, it would also be correct to say that, where there is political and social upheaval, art thrives; as seen in Choucair’s life-long work.
Aesthetica Offer at Hans Josephsohn, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
The first UK major indoor and outdoor Hans Josephsohn exhibition launches this week at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, showcasing work from a career which spanned almost 60 years. To mark this celebration of the late Zurich-based artist, visitors can pick up a free copy of Aesthetica when they spend £10 or more in the YSP shop from Friday 10 May. The largest sculpture park of its kind in Europe, YSP is situated on the 500 acre, 18th century Bretton Hall estate in West Yorkshire and is open daily from 10.00 – 16.00.
Mariele Neudecker, HOUSE Festival of Visual Arts, Brighton
Running in parallel with Brighton’s festival season is HOUSE, a celebration of visual art and domestic space. The lead artist for the sixth edition is Mariele Neudecker, who presents, Heterotopias and Other Domestic Landscapes at the Regency Town House, Brunswick Square, Brighton. Running 4 until 26 May, the exhibition is the artist’s most ambitious installation to date and utilises the building, treating it as a container for an increasingly immersive body of connecting works. The showcase includes sculpture, video, photography and imagery of the Arctic, the Azores, Australia, American and the world’s deepest oceans.
Los Carpinteros: Irreversible at Sean Kelly, New York
Los Carpinteros’ new exhibition Irreversible will open on 11 May at Sean Kelly in New York. The show will be installed in all three of the gallery’s exhibition spaces and will include new sculptures as well as a video installation—a first for the artists. As an exhibition, Irreversible addresses themes of community, the passage of time, and the effects of historic events as endured by the anonymous individuals who comprise a society. Los Carpinteros’ work conflates conflicting periods, styles and subject matter to articulate the push and pull that major social and political events exert on the citizens who experience them.
Athens Video Art Festival 2013
The Athens Video Art Festival returns for the 9th edition of the International Festival of Digital Arts & New Media. Running 7 until 9 June, exhibitions, screenings, workshops and performances will be hosted at the Historical Centre of Athens, opening a dialogue between public and private space.
Tate Liverpool is 25
Since 1988, Tate Liverpool has been the home of some of the world’s most important art works and attracted 15 million visitors. Opening its doors on 24 May, 1988, the gallery has become the most visited venue for modern and contemporary art outside of London. The gallery has already received several birthday wishes in the form of postcards, letters, emails and artworks, from Wayne Hemingway, Anthony McCall, Yoko Ono, Ed Ruscha, Bob and Roberta Smith, Zarina Bhimji and Colin Self. From 17 May until 2 June, Tate Liverpool will be celebrating in style with a specially curated exhibition entitled Tate Liverpool is 25.