A glimpse into the rarely-seen studios of legendary artists, an unprecedented encounter between Jenny Holzer and Louise Bourgeois, Tracey Emin in leafy woodland, Hilton Als paying homage to Toni Morrison, and much more...
In keeping with Guts Gallery’s ethos, their latest group show is an ode to the 18th and 19th century alternative salon exhibitions which challenged the pervading bourgeois elitism of the day, making space for the work of emerging new artists to be seen. Like these radical salons, Guts Gallery was founded by Ellie Pennick with the aim of reinventing existing power structures and “shifting up the art world”, and their latest exhibition, Salon, is a testament to that.
Including paintings by Motoko Ishibashi, Aaron Elvis Jupin, and Preston Pavlis, Salon features the work of up-and-coming artists, many of whom arrived at painting via backgrounds in divergent, disparate disciplines, all developing a new visual language around “the existing pillars of painting”.
“The canons of traditionalist processes and ideologies are reformulated and injected with a new set of ingredients or cultural icons,” a statement by the gallery explains. “What emerges are observational realities and subverted compositions that simultaneously mystify and open up our perceptions to the world around us. Mysticism, diasporic identities, hypersexualised, downloaded images, fluid landscapes, queer archetypes, commentaries on contemporary consumerism, transitional spaces coexist in a radical re-rendering of 21st-century painting. A new era.”
Salon, brought to you by Guts Gallery, runs from January 13 – February 12 2022 at The Sunday Painter, 117-119 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1XA
Motoko Ishibashi, Untitled (2020) Acrylic on canvasCourtesy of the artist and Guts Gallery
TONI MORRISON’S BLACK BOOK, CURATED BY HILTON ALS, VARIOUS ARTISTS, DAVID ZWIRNER GALLERY, NEW YORK
Curated by beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and critic Hilton Als, Toni Morrison’s Black Book shines a light on Morrison’s profound importance and influence as a writer, educator, editor, and activist. The group exhibition pays homage to what Als describes as the “beauty and audacity of her work”, tracing a thread through her prolific contribution to the arts and her commitment to bringing Black lives to positions of prominence in American literature.
The group exhibition will be composed of archival materials alongside works by artists – including Garrett Bradley, Julie Mehretu, and James Van Der Zee among many others – responding to Morrison’s writings and legacy.
Toni Morrison’s Black Book runs from January 20 2022 at David Zwirner Gallery, New York
Photographer unknown, Toni Morrison in China (1984)Courtesy of Princeton University Library (Toni Morrison Papers, Manuscripts Division, Special Collections, Princeton University Library).
FRANCIS BACON: MAN AND BEAST, ROYAL ACADEMY, LONDON
Throughout his life, Francis Bacon was fascinated with animals. His paintings testify to the gossamer-thin veil of sophistication he believed separated humankind and wildlife. Man and Beast at London's Royal Academy traces the thread of his recurring exploration of people as creatures, and his works which question the constructed layers of so-called civilised behaviour and power that grant us dominion over the animal world.
From one of his earliest surviving works, “Crucifixion” (1933), to the last known painting he made in 1961 (on public display for the first time in the UK), this comprehensive survey of Bacon’s preoccupation with animals and his examination of human bodies divested of their human affectations, reduced to their naked, vulnerable animal-selves.
IDA APPLEBROOG: RIGHT UP TO NOW, 1969 – 2021, HAUSER & WIRTH, SOMERSET
Ida Applebroog has spent over six decades examining overarching themes such as sex, gender, power, and politics. As one of the most groundbreaking artists to emerge from the feminist movement of the 1970s, she continues to develop a resonant visual language experimenting with painting, assemblage, performance, biomorphic sculpture, self-published books, interactive installations and more.
Ida Applebroog: Right Up To Now, 1969 – 2021 is the most comprehensive survey to date of Applebroog’s vast oeuvre, charting a course from her early experiments with sculpture in the late 60s and early 70s, through to her sequential drawings, her more painterly works, her recent fascination with ornithology, her expressions of rage towards modern American politics, to the work she is still making now, in her nineties.
Ida Applebroog: Right Up To Now, 1969 – 2021 is running from Jan 29 – May 2 2022 at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset
Ida Applebroog, “God” (2021), Mixed media on wooden panels; 15 panels, 129.5 x 121.9 x 3.8 cm / 51 x 48 x 1 1/2 inPhotograhy Thomas Barratt
LOUISE BOURGEOIS X JENNY HOLZER: THE VIOLENCE OF HANDWRITING, KUNSTMUEUM BASEL
In this momentous encounter between two of the most fascinating and influential artistic minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, Jenny Holzer curates an exhibition of the work of her friend, Louise Bourgeois.
Both known for their psychologically-charged artworks and their mutual love of the written word, Louise Bourgeois X Jenny Holzer: The Violence Of Handwriting allows us to re-experience Bourgeois’ work and legacy through Holzer’s unique and sympathetic eye, forming a kind of dialogue between the two legendary artists.
Each room has been devised by Holzer as an autonomous installation forgoing the traditional chronological arrangement for a more thematic, idiosyncratic, and poetic sense of order. Alongside an extensive range of the late artist’s work across a range of mediums, the exhibition also promises some of Bourgeois’ rarely-seen large-scale sculptures, such as the colossal “Twosome” (1991).
Louise Bourgeois X Jenny Holzer: The Violence Of Handwriting runs from February 19 – May 15 2022 at Kunstmueum Basel
A CENTURY OF THE ARTIST’S STUDIO, 1920–2020, WHITECHAPEL GALLERY, LONDON
The artist’s studio is a realm of enduring fascination and speculation; a mysterious, sequestered space where art is brought into being. A Century Of The Artist’s Studio 1920 - 2020 at Whitechapel Gallery is a comprehensive exploration of these “crucibles of creativity”.
Bringing together over 100 works by over 80 artists and collectives from all over the world, the exhibition includes paintings, sculptures, installations, and films exploring the theme of the studio, alongside documentary studies of artists’ studios by renowned photographers and filmmakers. A series of ‘studio corners’ will also recreate the environments where great works of art have been made.
SURREALISM BEYOND BORDERS, VARIOUS ARTISTS, TATE MODERN, LONDON
“Surrealism is not a style – but a state of mind”, claims a statement from the Tate Modern heralding its upcoming exhibition, Surrealism Beyond Borders. This extensive exhibition seeks to reframe the narrative of surrealism beyond the Paris-centric focus limited to the 1920s.
The group show includes work from all over the world and spans five decades. While enlarging our sense of the scope of surrealism’s influence as a near-global movement, the exhibition expands our very understanding of surrealism – what it can contain and where, when, and how its influence can be felt – and enlarging our sense of its potential to subvert reality, to depict the slippage between our dream states and our waking lives, and to instigate cultural shifts.
Surrealism Beyond Borders runs from February 24 – August 29 2022 at Tate Modern, London
I LAY HERE FOR YOU, TRACEY EMIN, JUPITER ARTLAND, NEAR EDINBURGH
Tracey Emin continues her exploration of grief, desire, and love amind the gallery spaces and woodland of Scotland’s Jupiter Artland.
The focal point of the exhibition will be a large bronze sculpture, I Lay Here For You, scaled up from a clay maquette shaped by Emin by hand and bearing the tactile presence of the artist’s formative moulding and pressing. The sculpture depicts a female figure lying prostrate on the woodland floor, suspended in a prone moment of lust or despair.
Tracey Emin’s I Lay Here For You at Jupiter Artland, near Edinburgh, opens Spring 2022 (dates TBA)
Tracey Emin, “I Lay Here For You” (2022)Photography Alan Pollok Morris. Courtesy Jupiter Artland
JUST ABOVE MIDTOWN, VARIOUS ARTISTS, MOMA, NEW YORK
From 1974 until when it closed its doors in 1986, Just Above Midtown (JAM) was one of the most vital and influential galleries of New York’s febrile, flourishing art scene. The now-legendary gallery, founded by Linda Goode Bryant with the principle of providing a platform for artists of colour, was known for embracing the work of marginalised, self-taught artists and famed for a series of groundbreaking exhibitions which established it as one of the most important alternative art spaces in this seminal era in NYC’s history.
Curated in collaboration with Goode Bryant herself, this exhibition, Just Above Midtown, revisits significant moments in JAM’s history through a selection of archival material and works previously exhibited at the gallery. In a statement by MoMA, organiser Thomas J. Lax explains: “This exhibition acknowledges Just Above Midtown as the efflorescent space that modelled how art and the relationships art fosters could respond to a society in crisis. This ambitious project not only historicises JAM’s importance but also underscores its relevance in the present.”
Just Above Midtown is running from October 9 2022 – February 18 2023 at MoMA, New York
Senga Nengudi performing Air Propo at JAM (1981)Courtesy Senga Nengudi and Lévy Gorvy
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