This Week in Art: 4.18-4.24

Cai Guo-Qiang igniting gunpowder drawing White Tone, in Brookhaven, New York, 2016. Photo by Chiaying Yu for artnet.

Cai Guo-Qiang igniting his gunpowder drawing White Tone, 2016. Photo by Chiaying Yu for artnet.

This week we’re bringing you a tour of projects being developed and installed by ART21 artists around the world—see some of today’s most significant artworks without moving an inch. Keep scrolling for in-depth interviews and as always, events and exhibitions on view this week everywhere from Minneapolis to Reykjavik.

  • Watch Ai Weiwei’s Tree, a sculpture made of dead trees fastened together, as it’s installed at Tate Modern’s newest facility, the Switch House. The 10-story building will offer 360-degree views of London when it opens in June.
  • Take a trip through 17 of the 700 pages in Raymond Pettibon’s Homo Americanus, the first monograph chronicling the artist’s vast portfolio of satirical political illustrations.
  • Watch Cai Guo-Qiang set fire to his latest work. A drawing laid out in gunpowder was brought to life with a bang, creating White Tone in a controlled explosion last week.
  • And finally, Mary Mattingly is collaborating with artist and permaculturist Casey Tang to create an urban forest that floats on a barge, working around a century-old ordinance that forbids picking or foraging for food on public land. The “collaborative floating food project” titled Swale, is expected to set sail in June and drift along New York City’s waterways.

Interviews


Events & exhibitions

NYC

  • On Tuesday, April 19th St. Mark’s Church’s Danspace Project is hosting a screening of the 2002 film Charles Atlas: Rainer Variations, followed by a conversation with Charles Atlas and collaborator Yvonne Rainer.
  • Art-focused films are playing a major role in the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend:
    • Barnaby Clay’s documentary about rock photographer Mick Rock, SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock is screening Friday and Sunday night.
    • A tribute to New York artist Elizabeth Murray, Kristi Zea’s Everybody Knows… Elizabeth Murray is screening on Saturday and Sunday.
    • And a film profiling elusive artist Maurizio Cattelan directed by Maura Axelrod will be shown at the Guggenheim on Sunday.

USA

Around the world


Last chance! Exhibitions closing this week


It’s impossible to include all the fantastic exhibitions and art events happening this week in a single post. If there’s something you feel should have been included in today’s roundup, leave a comment below!