Paul McCarthy, "Children's Anatomical Educational Figure," 2010. Courtesy the artist.
In this week’s roundup, William Kentridge receives the Kyoto Prize! Louise Bourgeois, Jeff Koons, Mike Kelley, and Paul McCarthy have childish things on exhibition and more!
- William Kentridge has been awarded the 2010 Kyoto Prize for Arts and Philosophy, becoming the first African recipient of Japan’s highest private award for global achievement. The awards are Japan’s equivalent of the Nobel awards and the prizes honor “significant contributions to the betterment of humankind.” Kentridge was given the award for his insights into and reflections on human nature through his art.
- Jeff Koons, Mike Kelley, Louise Bourgeois, and Paul McCarthy all have work in Childish Things at The Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. This exhibition focuses on a very specific moment in the post-dada/surrealist take-up of toys and early childhood as themes in art. This exhibition is on view until January 23, 2011.
- Richard Tuttle: Triumphs at the Dublin City Gallery is a site-specific exhibition and collaboration with Richard Tuttle. The show presents recent drawings and a context which is provided by the selection of earlier work—an overlapping triumph which further illuminates the artist’s processes and current work. This exhibition is on view until April 10, 2011.
- The Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston) presents the first museum exhibit of the art of Mark Bradford. The self-titled exhibition features 35 works that often include “found” materials such as tattered movie posters, torn flyers, splintered plywood, and even the endpapers used to perm black hair to create his vibrant, textured compositions. Bradford’s work is on view until March 13, 2011.
- The Whitworth Art Gallery (UK) presents The Land Between Us: place, power and dislocation, an exhibition exploring the imagery of landscape, the places it depicts, the cultural and political power invested in the land and how meaning is found between art and the viewer. It includes work by Vija Celmins, among several other artists, and closes January 23, 2011.
- Cao Fei presents RMB City at A Space Gallery (Canada). This exhibit jumps right into Second Life with the first Canadian solo exhibition by Fei and features a conceptual space and experimental platform for her and her collaborators to embark on explorations in art, design, architecture, literature, cinema, politics, economy, society, and beyond. This show closes on December 11.
- Adaptation: Video Installations presents the work of Arturo Herrera and Catherine Sullivan, among others, at the Philbrook Museum of Art. This exhibition features works that adapt—with varying degrees of fidelity—elements of pre-existing art, literature, film, and popular culture into uniquely new video installations. The exhibition will run through January 9, 2011.
- Mark your 2011 calendars now for Gabriel Orozco: In Conversation at Tate Modern on January 19. This lecture presents an opportunity for Orozco to discuss the different aspects of his works to date: the logic of the accident, chance and games, the imprint of the body, the readymade and the handmade, all explored with a great sense of experimentation.
