The exhibition “Expanded Painting in the 1960s and 1970s” presents radical innovations in painting that testify to a pursuit of freedom and expression in the midst of a period marked by social and political unrest in the United States and abroad.
From Alma Thomas’s mosaic-like painting of flowers to Sam Gilliam’s suspended, draped canvas, these works speak to an upending of barriers-be they artistic, ideological, racial, or rooted in gender stereotypes. By rethinking and systematically probing conventions associated with the painted canvas, these works ultimately speak to the desire for a deeper, more fundamental connection to nature, the body, movement, and light.
Fall 2021
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia
For his first collaboration with a major UK gallery, The National Gallery, Wiley will depart from portraiture to explore artistic conventions and modes of representation in the European landscape tradition through the media of film and painting. Wiley’s first film installation, Narrenschiff (2017), was a contemporary response to the Ship of Fools theme, popular in European culture from the late 15th century. It featured a group of young Black men at sea, struggling to reach the land – a metaphor for both historical and contemporary histories of migration and social dislocation. Building on these themes at the National Gallery, Wiley will explore European Romanticism and its focus on epic scenes of oceans and mountains, and humankind’s relationship with nature. The film included in this project will feature Black Londoners that Wiley met and cast for the film on the streets around the National Gallery.
Winter 2021
The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London
Mary Magdalen is a woman of extremes and has given rise to a multiplicity of interpretations: a wealth of representations, conspiracy theories and controversies. This special exhibition will introduce the visitor to the rich, paradoxical and constantly evolving imagery surrounding this mysterious biblical figure. From the time of the New Testament to the present day, Mary Magdalen has proved to be an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists.
Museum Catharijne Convent, Utrecht, Netherlands
From June 24, 2021 to January 9, 2022
Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of President Obama and Amy Sherald’s portrait of Mrs. Michelle Obama unveiled at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in February 2018 will travel to five cities across the U.S as part of The Obama Portraits Tour organized by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
In addition to the artworks themselves, the tour will feature audiovisual elements, educational workshops, curatorial presentations, and a richly illustrated book The Obama Portraits (2020) co-published by the National Portrait Gallery and Princeton University Press and select merchandise will also be available. This special presentation will exchange the conversations surrounding the power of portraiture and its potential to engage communities.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago: from June 18 to August 15, 2021
Brooklyn Museum, New-York: from August 27 to October 24, 2021
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles: from November 5, 2021 to January 2, 2022
High Museum of Art, Atlanta: from January 14 to March 13, 2022
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: from March 27 to May 30, 2022
The IMEC gave carte blanche to the artist Jean-Michel Alberola for the next exhibition at the Ardenne abbey.
Over the weeks, the artist, whose work is nourished with literature, discovered the undergrounds where the archives are kept. He explored the library, and the reserves and little by little his research took shape around the work of Kafka with the animal of his short story “Le Terrier”.
“When Kafka writes “Le Terrier”, he is the animal just for the time of the writing. Not more, not less. It is the story of an underground place, where, isolated, he can finally write : and isolated he could finaly get out.”
The still unknown drawing of this carte blanche will appear in June at the Ardenne abbey.
From June 4 to September 26, 2021
Ardenne abbey, 14280 Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe, France
“The Soul Trembles” is the largest exhibition devoted to the internationally active artist Chiharu Shiota. On display are some one hundred works ranging from her 1990s output to her latest pieces. In addition to large-scale installation, there are sculptures, performance videos, photographs, drawings, and materials related to her stage design projects.
Among these works are large-scale installations in which black and red threads run through and envelop the entire space, constituting one of her most representative artwork series. The countless lines traced out in thread allude to various phenomena and a complex array of links and connections, while also beckoning us towards the deepest reaches of existence. At the root of these works lie Shiota’s incessantly-pursued themes of life and death, as well as a fundamental inquiry into what we all pursue in life, and where we are heading.
The subtitle of this exhibition, “The Soul Trembles,” refers to the emotional stirrings of the heart that cannot be put into words, in addition to being a manifestation of thoughts the artist hopes to convey to others.
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
No. 181, Sec. 3, Zhongshan N. Rd., Zongschan Dist., Taipei City, Taiwan
From May 1st to August 29, 2021
Lokame Tharavadu (The World Is One Family) is a large-scale curated contemporary art exhibition of Malayali artists, organized by the Kochi Biennale Foundation. Over 260 artists will be exhibiting a collection of their works, to foreground each of their practices.
Jitish Kallat presents in this exhibition “Epilogue” (2011) in which the artist memorialises the life-time of his late father by picturing the approximately 22 000 moons that he saw during his lifetime. Strructured in monthly slots for each year, the moons are represented by "rotis breads", the edges of which grow or crumble away as the moon waxes and wanes.
The "roti moons", a recurring pattern in the artist's work, distill lived time into its essential components—the daily bread, the recurring routine—even as they connect it to a shared, eternally recurring celestial phenomenon. At the end of the path, the viewer is invited to walk with Kallat as he retraces his father's life, a poignant frame with a lone moon, representing the night before 2nd December 1998, when the artist's father died.
Kochi Biennale Foundation, Alappuzha, Kerala, Inde
From April 5 to June 30, 2021
Chiharu Shiota presents her first solo exhibition at Chaumont-sur-Loire. She has created spaces that are bereft of any human presence, of any physical presence but where threads of memory, symbols of time are woven into a web that links inert objects to the past, to moments, to presences that now only exist in memory.
Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, France
From April 2 to November 1, 2021
For the 10th anniversary of the prohect “Arts Towada” that transforms the city into a museum of art, the Towada Art Center is replacing his permanent artwork and displaying the deposited works for the first time since its opening.
On this occasion, Chiharu Shiota will unveil the work “Memory of Water” on April 1st, 2021. This is part of a series of work using boat and threads that has been presented in other exhibitions in Japan and around abroad. It is Chiharu Shiota’s first permanent work in a public museum of art in Japan.
April 1st, 2021
Towada Art Center, Aomori, Japan
The Fondation Thalie presents “Spring”, a new display of her collection in Brussels with new acquisitions from Jitish Kallat, as well as Davide Balula, Le Corbusier, Francis Picabia, Jean Dubuffet, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Risaku Suzuki, Tatiana Trouvé, and Pieter Vermeersch, among others.
“Rebirth, buds and flowers, with this new display there is a desire to share the poetry and beauty of artwork that is usually shown in our homes.
This collection was started in 2008 and evokes “le sensible” around the question of know-how and gesture with regard to textile creations, which is a tribute to the legacy of Anni Albers, the worthy successor of the Bauhaus, who spent her entire career experimenting with weaving techniques as graphic paintings. (…).” – Nathalie Guiot, President of the Fondation Thalie.
Fondation Thalie, 15 rue Buchholtz 1050 Brussels, Belgium
From April 1st to May 9, 2021
Chiharu Shiota’s inspiration often emerges from a personal experience or emotion, which she expands into universal human concerns such as life, death, and relationships.
The installation “Connected to life” consists of more than 50 hanging beds that cascade from the ceiling to the floor. The flow of life, which suddenly came to an end for so many because of the Corona virus with its many deaths, is present in the installation through the blood flowing through the tubes just as blood flows through the human body. Reminding us metaphorically that “the world today is a hospital” (Peter Weibel), the installation conveys a lightness that veils the weight of the subject.
Zentrum für Kunst und Medium (ZKM), Lorenzstrasse 19, Karlsruhe (Germany)
From March 17 to July 11, 2021
The exhibition “On everyone’s lips. From Pieter Bruegel to Cindy Sherman” is dedicated to the theme of the oral cavity, from the mouse to the lips, the tongue and the teeth. Science and medicine have always been involved in the exploration of the specific part of the body, so as art and cultural history, from antiquity to present. The exhibition presents over 250 works of art by among others, David Lachapelle, Albrecht Dürer, Pablo Picasso, Max Klinger, Marina Abramović, Andy Warhol, and Louise Bourgeois comprising paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, drawings, prints and video art, juxtaposed with individual exhibits from ethnological and scientific collections, film and advertising, music and literature.
Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany
Until June 6, 2021
“I want the viewer to reflect on their inner self, on their life – past, present, and future…” – Chiharu Shiota
In “The web of time”, countless intertwined strands connect numbers across time and space. The installation which is part of the Te Papa museum’s permanent collection creates the vision of a night sky studded with constellations of numbers. These numbers – scattered like stars in the night sky – represent meaningful dates in history, both collective and personal. As Chiharu Shiota says, “Numbers confort us. We share dates that are important to us, and they help us understand ourselves.”
permanent displays
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 55 Cable Street, Wellington
For the new Janela edition, “Taffimai” invited artist Julião Sarmento to intervene with the neon installation Strip Club, which occupies most of the Janela’s area.
Strip Club ironically promises to transform the plant store Limbo Shop into a striptease club, inviting whoever passes by the Janela to come inside. As the store is closed by law, the artist’s invitation reveals itself as a provocation, the ultimate game of seduction. This edition of Janela is not just one more game we came to get used to in Julião Sarmento’s work, but it is mostly a reminder that we, in fact cannot come in, cannot enjoy, cannot participate in all of what Lisbon’s streets have to offer.
From February 26 to May 31, 2021
Janela “Taffimai”, Calçada Castelo Picao, 32, Lisboa
Julião Sarmento presents his solo exhibition “Japanese Traffic Yellow Tide” at the Center for Contemporary Art in Kitakyushu, Japan :
“Standing alone in the exact center of the room, the one defined by the crossing of both diagonals on the floor, I imagine a colour. Not just any colour but one which can transport me to unknown pleasures and places of delight. A colour connected to freedom and self-improvement. A colour I particularly fancy and often use in my work. A colour that sets my good mood in. A colour like the colour of New York City cabs. Traffic Yellow. RAL 1023.
I then imagine how many gallons of paint would it be necessary to fill up the room I’m standing in, up to the tip of my head, shy only of my scalp, with me inside, in the center, completely still. To fill up the room with paint up to 186 cm which is my height, shy only of the hairs on top of my head. Like an immense yellow tide. I imagine a room as a sink, with a hole in the bottom through which the paint disappears once the room is filled the way I imagined. And then the result. A yellow room completely covered in yellow paint up to a quota of 186 cm. A simple equation. A simpler gesture ? ”- Julião Sarmento
From February 15 to April 23, 2021
CCA Gallery, 2-5 Hibikino, Wakamatsu-ku, Kitakyushu, Japan
In an unprecedented visual dialogue, the Ex Africa exhibition brings together more than 150 works by contemporary artists of all generations and origins to decipher the relationships that unite the current scene and ancient African arts since the end of the 20th century.
From February 9 to June 27, 2021
Galerie Jardin, musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, 37 quai Branly, 75007 Paris
As part of the Saison Africa2020, Suzana Sousa, independent curator based in Luanda, Angola and Odile Burluraux, curator at the au Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, bring together at MAM a set of works by sixteen female artists from several English-speaking African countries, and Portuguese speakers, or from the diaspora, offering a glimpse of a contemporary African art scene little presented in France. The Power of My Hands, through the creations presented - painting, pottery, photography, video, performance, embroidery etc. - takes into account the capacity of the artists to approach, starting from their personal histories, the social questions which determine the female condition.
From January 22 to May 30, 2021
Musée d’Art Moderne, 11 Avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris
The Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil - Rio de Janeiro is the last location of the touring exhibition of Chiharu Shiota "Linhas da Vida", that has been traveling since beginning of 2020 through Brazil. It is the first extensive solo exhibition presented in the country, showing works spanning over 25 years of artistic career. The exhibition includes the site-specific installations "Beyond Memory", "Two Boats, One Direction" and "Internal Line".
From January 13rd to April 19th, 2021
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro, R. Primeiro de Março, 66 - Centro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
“Río de sangre” is an installation created by Ivan Navarro, located on the banks of the Mapocho river in Chile. Made up of an iron tower connected to one of the river’s pathways through a bridge, it creates a peaceful place for meditation in the midst of the urban jungle. Visitors can walk it up, one at a time, and are given a map of Santiago with the streets renamed after various parts of the human body. The installation is an homage to the Desaparecidos, the victims of the dictatorship thrown in the river before and after the Pinochet era.
Santiago, Chile
From 12 january 2021
With this new solo exhibition, Planetarium, displayed at Centquatre, Iván Navarro created an immersive journey through constellation of videos, sculptures, and other luminous and sonorous objects. Celestial bodies and terrestrials ones are confounded for a better understanding of power, at a time of metaphysics obsessions, such as identity and memory.
From January 9, 2021 to February 28, 2021
Le 104, 5 Rue Curial, 75019 Paris
In January and February 2021, Prune Nourry invests the vast spaces of the Bon Marché Rive Gauche with a set of works created specifically for this carte blanche and thought in relation to the unique architecture of the place. The installation L'Amazone Érogène extends the Catharsis series in which the figure of the Amazon appeared by allowing the artist to experiment an unprecedented scale, thanks in particular to the vast volumes offered by the department store.
From January 9 to February 21, 2021
Le Bon Marché , 24 rue de Sèvres, 75007 Paris
The new Moynihan train hall (New York, USA) features three ambitious site-specific permanent installations by artists Kehinde Wiley, Stan Douglas and Elmgreen & Dragset. On view on the 33rd Street mid-block entryway ceiling, Wiley’s site-specific installation Go (2020), covers the ceiling of the train hall’s with a backlit, hand-painted, stained-glass triptych that recalls the grandeur of decorative Renaissance and Baroque painting.
The Moynihan Train Hall, Penn Station, New York
From January 1, 2021
The exhibition “Thierry Mugler: Couturissime” presents 150 haute-couture and prêt-à-porter outfits by a visionary couturier, director, photographer, perfumer and dancer – almost none of which have ever been exhibited – in addition to accessories, stage costumes, videos, rarely seen sketches, and archival material. Numerous art prints by leading fashion photographers, from Helmut Newton to David LaChapelle, round out the show.
Until April 18, 2021
Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Theatinerstrasse 8, Munich, Germany
