Current Exhibitions

Concluding a cycle of three exhibitions organized by the Museum of Arts and Design over the past decade, Changing Hands: Art without Reservation 3 (see Worldwide 34725) presents recent contemporary Native art by some 80 artists from the eastern U.S and Canada. Following Changing Hands 1, which focused on art, craft and design from the American Southwest (see Worldwide 28534), and Changing Hands 2, which featured work by artists from the western U.S. and Canada, including Alaska and Hawai'i (see Worldwide 30343), this third installment completes the overview of art practices in Native American art today, which combine inspiration from cultural traditions with contemporary creativity and include traditional media as well as contemporary techniques and materials. Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation 3 premiered at the Museum of Arts and Design, where it remains on view until October 21, 2012, and will travel to several other venues in North America through the summer of 2014.     

Earlier this month, an exhibition designed by Frank O. Gehry opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (see Worldwide 34648). Featuring 100 works, this major retrospective of the late American ceramic artist Ken Price (1935-2012) traces the entire range of sculpture that he created since the late 1950s. Whether amorphous forms or geometric structures, smooth or textured, abstract or utilitarian, Price's attention to detail and his mastery of the unity of color, form and surface elevated his creations from the realm of craft to that of innovative contemporary sculpture. The exhibition, installed in reverse chronological order, will remain on view at LACMA until early January 2013, after which it will travel to the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Due to open at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston in October is the first survey of the career of American sculptor Tony Feher (b. 1956). The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue (Worldwide 34587) will feature some 60 key works, many of them made of commonly available materials and found objects, and will seek to reveal the richness and complexity of Feher's oeuvre and its impact on a younger generation of artists.

Patron, gallerist, collector, self-taught artist: William N. Copley was one of the most interesting personalities of the twentieth-century art scene. Inspired by Surrealism, Dada and Pop art, and by his friendships with artists like Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, Copley's work is part tribute to the artists whose work he collected and part humorous examination of the erotic interplay between the sexes in all its aspects, and is now the subject of an exhibition that opened in Baden-Baden and is currently on view in Brühl, Germany (see Worldwide 34695).

The project "The Art of Writing," organized by the Wiesbaden Art Forum, presents a diverse lineup of contemporary artists from Asia, Europe and the Arab world who illustrate the concept that writing is "the mother of all arts," elevating the written character into art or incorporating it into their work (see Worldwide 34629). The exhibition will later travel to Boston and Beijing, although the exact dates and venues have not yet been announced.

Marina Abramović

A new book that relates to a 2010 Museum of Modern Art exhibition catalogue on renowned Serbian-born artist Marina Abramović (b. 1946) titled Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (Worldwide 33119) has recently been released. 

Published by Damiani Editore, the book (Worldwide 151764) presents a compelling series of photographic portraits by Italian photographer Marco Anelli (b. 1968) taken during Abramović's 2010 MoMA performance. The images depict the faces of the more than 1,500 museum visitors who participated in the performance over the course of three months, each person being allowed to sit silently facing the artist, who was herself seated in the museum atrium, for as long as they wished. The visitors sat in front of the artist for periods of time that ranged from a few minutes to several hours. Many of the participants found the silent communion with the artist to be a very emotional experience, and a number of photographs depict visitors in tears.

Centre Pompidou

The Centre Pompidou presents a new series of publications titled La collection de photographies. Based entirely on the Pompidou's rich photography holdings, each volume highlights a thematic selection of some 60 images chosen from the 70,000 photographs that make up one of the most important collections in the world. The first four volumes deal with such themes as the fragmentation of the body (Worldwide 76712), shadows (Worldwide 76719), writing (Worldwide 76726) and the artist as model (Worldwide 76732), and feature works by many internationally renowned photographers.

Continuing a series of exhibitions dedicated to mid-career artists active in France that has included monographic shows featuring Philippe Parreno (Worldwide 71643) and Jean-Michel Othoniel (see Worldwide 34704), the Centre Pompidou now presents works by Albanian-born artist Anri Sala (b. 1974) (see Worldwide 34711). The installation was conceived entirely by the artist himself and created specifically for the Galerie Sud, and consists of four of Sala's recent films: 1395 Days without Red (2011), Answer Me (2008), Le Clash (2010) and Tlatelolco Clash (2011). A soundtrack that includes a symphony by Tchaikovsky and various renditions of "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by English punk rock band The Clash accompanies the looped videos, while two photographs and a sculptural object by Sala from the Pompidou's collection complete the presentation. Sala will also be representing France at the 55^th Venice Biennale.

Europalia.brasil

Europalia is a major international arts festival held in Belgium every two years to celebrate one  

invited country's cultural heritage, and in 2011 this honor was bestowed upon Brazil. Several thematic exhibitions held concurrently in and around Brussels highlighted various aspects of past and current Brazilian culture, history and art. In "Brazil, Brasil" (Worldwide 34574), the Palais des Beaux-Arts explores the artistic diversity of a country with a complicated history of colonization, immigration and slavery, while "Art in Brazil, 1950-2011" (Worldwide 34602) surveys the contemporary Brazilian art scene through works by such artists as Hélio Oiticica and Cildo Meireles.

Just as diverse are the indigenous peoples of Brazil, who still populate this vast country from the Atlantic coast to the depths of the Amazon rainforest. Featuring everyday tools and objects alongside splendid ceremonial headdresses made from the most colorful feathers, the exhibition "Índios no Brasil" at the Musée du Cinquantenaire acquaints us with a rich variety of cultures and artistic traditions (see Worldwide 34593).

At the Espace culturel ING, an exhibition titled "Terra Brasilis" (see Worldwide 34586) documented 400 years of cultural exchange between Europe and Brazil as reflected in representations of Brazil's exotic flora and fauna. Showcasing works drawn from international public and private collections, the show featured a diverse range of objects that included paintings, watercolors, prints and photographs as well as curio cabinets containing preserved wildlife specimens, artifacts from indigenous tribes and examples of colonial silverwork.

Warhol