Alfredo Jaar. "An Aesthetics of Resistance," 1992. Image courtesy the artist and Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst.
In this week’s roundup, simultaneous exhibitions by Alfredo Jaar and Jeff Koons, a Martha Colburn talk, Josiah McElheny explores the cosmos, Elizabeth Murray in an iPad app for kids and more.
- Alfredo Jaar‘s art is at the Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (Berlin) and subdivided into six groups of works, simultaneously at three institutions. Alfredo Jaar: The way it is. An Aesthetics of Resistance offers a retrospective survey of Jaar’s production spanning nearly four decades. It gives insights into the political themes of the works by the artist and elucidates critical methods of archiving, research and intervention employed by him. The exhibition runs through August 19.
- Martha Colburn will participate in two events at Electronic Arts Intermix (NYC) on Tuesday, June 26. Colburn will screen and speak about a selection of recent films that explore war, conquest, faith, and history as well as early and rarely seen found-film and animation experiments, music video projects, performance documents, and a 2011 animated PSA on fracture mining (fracking) in New York State.
- Bruce Nauman‘s Days had its UK premiere at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. This is a sound installation consisting of a continuous stream of seven voices reciting the days of the week in random order. Fourteen flat panel speakers are set up with one voice emanating from each pair as the visitor passes between them. The work invokes both the banality and the profundity of the passing of each day and invites reflection on how we measure, differentiate and commemorate time. The show closes September 16.
[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_jRJiwkJiI]
- Elizabeth Murray and other selected artists are featured on MoMA Art Lab, an iPad app that helps children create their own projects. It has a special read-aloud feature for pre-readers and it is also touted as fun and educational for adults. Several “ideas” include making sound compositions, generating random collages, creating shape poems or “drawing with scissors.” The app saves new shapes that kids create in the main menu for future use.
[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM4P42ChR2o]
- Josiah McElheny‘s Some Pictures of the Infinite is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston). Comprised of multimedia installations and hand-blown glass creations, the works are a continuation of his exploration of the constellations and cosmos. The exhibition showcases new work by the artist (completed in 2012) including a series of works fusing décor and cosmology, formal elegance and conceptual rigor. The show closes October 14.
- Roni Horn Selected Drawings 1984 – 2012 is on view at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, Löwenbräu. This is the first survey exhibition dedicated solely to the pigment drawings of Roni Horn. It ranges from early pieces that showcase the artist’s early experimentations with pure pigment and varnish to “new and intricate, large-scale drawings” that explore the materiality of color and the sculptural potential of drawing. This work is on view through July 21.
- Vija Celmins‘ work is part of the series ARTIST ROOMS at Tate Britain. Celmins selected four unique drawings and related prints from the ARTIST ROOMS collection. In the next room, Vija Celmins has selected works on paper by J.M.W. Turner to coincide with the presentation of her own work.
- Jeff Koons was a recent focus in Flavorpill‘s online Art feature. The article highlights Koons work that is being shown simultaneously at Basel’s Beyeler Foundation (through September 2), Frankfurt’s Schirn Kunsthalle (through September 23) and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung (Frankfurt).
- Kimsooja discussed her exhibition Performance/Video at UMCA with art critic Robert C. Morgan. The show closed December 2011 and a video was recently posted online.
[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ8bzy6Mrko]