William Kentridge, "Bicycle Kick", 2009. Official Art Poster Edition of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.
In today’s roundup: football art for South Africa, an overgrown baby in Los Angeles, an origami ship from London, body tissue in Bristol, humans behaving like pigs in Milan, flashing lights about Cambridge, and much more.
- Seventeen internationally acclaimed artists — including William Kentridge and Julie Mehretu (both Season 5) — have made posters for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. This is only the second time in history that the World Cup is accompanied by an official licensed art project. This edition highlights art and artists from Africa. Kentridge has contributed his image Bicycle Kick (pictured above). Mehretu’s coliseum-like rendering Stadia II (2004) is also available. Prints in the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Portfolio are sold individually or as a complete set. Browse the collection here.
- Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, a large-scale public art piece by Season 5 artist Yinka Shonibare MBE, will be installed today on the Fourth Plinth of Trafalgar Square in London. To mark this installation, Shonibare’s studio has released an exclusive origami version of his ship to Times Online; go to the link to download the cut-out and received folding instructions. (More on this historic occassion from The Guardian and BBC.)
- Season 1 artist Barbara Kruger has created the latest cover of the London Underground’s pocket tube map. Kruger’s Untitled (Tube Map) follows earlier designs by artists Cornelia Parker, Richard Long, Liam Gillick and David Shrigley, among others. Creative Review has more on this project.
- Ligurian Sea (1993) by Season 3 artist Hiroshi Sugimoto is on view at Southampton City Art Gallery in the U.K. through September 5. Sugimoto’s ocean image is included in the exhibition Sea Fever: From Turner to Today, a display of over 80 works by some of Britain’s best known artists. Sea Fever aims to demonstrate how the sea has been interpreted in art, from work and leisure to times of contemplation. Ligurian Sea was shown last year in the exhibition 7 Days/7 Nights at Gagosian Gallery, New York.
- “Lingua Franca,” an exhibition and event series at Arnolfini in Bristol, looks at intermediary language, linguistic translation and the subjectivity of language. The latest exhibition in this series, titled Me, Myself, and I, features a suite of sixty drawings by Season 1 artist Louise Bourgeois that have been juxtaposed with a sprawling site specific drawing by Austrian artist Otto Zitko. Read more about Me, Myself, and I here.
- You’ve Gone Too Far This Time, a new exhibition at Faggionato Fine Art in London, offers an anthology of approaches to the contemporary body and its material representation. Works by Kiki Smith (Season 2), George Condo, Lisa Yuskavage, Nobuyashi Araki, Yayoi Kusama, Margherita Manzelli, Thomas Schütte and Mindy Shapero are included in the show. Smith’s Untitled (1992), according to the press release, “presents five elements of the female and male body – literal bodily tissue – that hang on the wall like desiccated hides, the male organs drooling uselessly.” You’ve Gone Too Far This Time closes June 25.
- Works by Kiki Smith are also on view at Pace Gallery in New York through June 19. Kiki Smith: Lodestar, the artist’s first major New York gallery show in eight years, features an installation of nearly thirty hand-painted stained glass panels. Smith has been working with glass for the past twenty years. She began working on this installation, titled Pilgrim, five years ago. Originally inspired by an eighteenth-century silk needlepoint by Prudence Punderson entitled The First, Second, and Last Scene of Mortality (1776-83, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford), Pilgrim is a “cyclical journey” that alludes to “various aspects of a person’s life, presented through the images of women.” Smith has used friends and colleagues as models — not as portraits but as stand-ins for various states of a person, or a person’s wandering pilgrimage through life. Smith collaborated with architect Bill Katz, who designed the standing frames that hold the individual panels. Kiki Smith: Lodestar continues through June 19. A catalogue is available for purchase at the gallery.
- Judy Pfaff (Season 4), Jessica Stockholder (Season 3), and Cheryl Donegan will participate in the next SkowheganTALK, a lecture series presented by the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, at the New Museum on May 29 at 3pm. Purchase tickets here.
- Pig Island, called one of the most complex and ambitious works by Season 5 artist Paul McCarthy, is currently on view at the Palazzo Citterio in Milan. This is McCarthy’s first major solo show in an Italian institution. The artist was invited to premiere this monumental piece (along with a selection of works created between 1970 to 2010) by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi Foundation. Via the website “Pig Island is a carnivalesque amusement park in which human beings behave like pigs. A treasure island in reverse…a sculptural shipwreck in which pirates and their heroines throw themselves with abandon into wild revels.” McCarthy began developing this ongoing work-in-progress over seven years ago. Also on view are early works such as Ketchup Sandwich (1970) and Chair With Butt Plug (1978); and McCarthy’s brand new piece Paula Jones (2010), a selection of films realized with Damon McCarthy. Pig Island closes July 4.
- A Voyage of Growth and Discovery — the collaborative project by Mike Kelley (Season 3) and Michael Smith that premiered at New York’s SculptureCenter last year — will be on view in Los Angeles beginning May 26. Presented by West of Rome, this exhibition marks the first Los Angeles exhibition for both artists in nearly a decade. A Voyage of Growth and Discovery includes a multi-channel video, a 30-foot sculpture, and a sound installation. The two-and-a-half hour video component follows the existential journey of Baby Ikki, a character conceived and portrayed by Smith, as he wanders through an annual art event and temporary community in Nevada’s remote Black Rock Desert. Presented in the Farley Building, which has served as Mike Kelley’s studio since 2008, viewers will have the unique opportunity to enter into the artist’s studio and view the work in a location that is traditionally off limits to the public. A Voyage of Growth and Discovery continues through August 26.
- Works by Season 2 artist Tim Hawkinson are on view through June 26 at Blum + Poe in Los Angeles. The exhibition comprises several large scale pieces made from such materials as garbage bags, recycled bottles and a “golden emergency blanket.” Objects on view include Orrery, a towering eight foot tall sculpture of a woman at a spinning wheel atop a platform that is itself made up of a series of rotating concentric circles depicting tire treads. In another piece, Hawkinson takes large self-portrait photos printed in the negative and collages them together to resemble a fleshy and precarious motorcycle. Suspended on an empty backdrop, Hawkinson reconfigures his body so that arms become handles, legs the spokes, and fingers multiplied and braided together to become tires. The exhibition closes June 26.
- A house in Venice, California designed by Season 2 artist Maya Lin was recently featured in the LA Times. The property, owned by art dealer and curator Christine Nichols, is Lin’s first residential project west of the Mississippi. Read more.
- Season 4 artist Mark Bradford also recently appeared in the LA Times; writer Christopher Miles calls Bradford a “hometown hero.” Meanwhile, The Other Paper says Bradford might be a celeb, but “he’s still approachable.”
- Season 3 artist Krzysztof Wodiczko has created a light installation for the new police headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lights on the building’s facade flash red, blue and green at certain times of the day and symbolize the responsiveness of the city’s police, fire and medical workers within the community. A flashing blue light represents a police response; a flashing red light is a fire response; and a flashing green light is a medical response. Read more about this city-funded installation in the Cambridge newspaper Wicked Local.
- Arts & Collections International reports that Tate Modern is expanding its collection of works from the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Recent acquisitions include Staircase-III (2003/2009) by Season 2 artist Do-Ho Suh.