)
From Catherine Opie’s explorations of contemporary life to a group exhibition on the theme of play, we round up the exhibitions you need to see this month
Women artists have often turned their gaze upon themselves, detailing the female experience and female pleasure – whether figurative or abstract, film, photo or on canvas. A Women’s Right to Pleasure was originally a book released in 2020, but now it comes to life at Sotheby’s in Los Angeles, which is currently hosting an exhibition of the artists and works featured – from Marilyn Minter to Betty Tompkins, Penny Slinger, Nan Goldin, Tracey Emin, and more. Read more about the show here.
Until August 12, 2022
ALL OPPOSING PLAYERS, DAVID KORDANSKY, LOS ANGELES, US
“How much should we invest in ideas of the ‘we’? And how can we reimagine nation, tribe, and community?” Those are just two questions posed by David Kordansky’s recently opened All Opposing Players, featuring Lotte Andersen, Ed Fornieles, and Shaun Leonardo, curated by The Racial Imaginary. Through these three artists’ works – who each utilise ideas of game-play “to explore the dangerous and the utopian potential of the ‘we’” – the exhibition examines the concept of ‘nationalism’.
Until August 27, 2022
THE END (FOR NOW), SUZ P, AUCTION HOUSE, CORNWALL, UK
Artist Suz P’s upcoming show The End (For Now) is an exploration of “a personal passing of time” and also “a journey through technology and mediums of storytelling”. Through photographs, C-type prints, digital printed fabric, audio soundscape, and Generative Poetry Intervention, the London-based artist will bring an archive of individual and intimate family memories to the Cornwall gallery.
From August 18-20, 2022
CATHERINE OPIE: TO WHAT WE THINK WE REMEMBER, THOMAS DANE GALLERY, LONDON
, Catherine Opie)
Catherine Opie’s social documentary of subcultures and marginalised groups over the last three decades has cemented her as one of the leading photographers of queer representation. To What We Think We Remember is a series of images created over the last decade while Opie travelled across the US and Europe. She set about capturing contemporary life as a “metaphorical framework for reflection” on her life and relationships but also on humanity, its fragility, collective responsibility, and how we can progress despite the threat of climate change and our personal and political freedoms. It asks “how photography can serve as both a frame through which to view the world, but also as a false mirror and metaphor for the fallibility of memory.”
Until August 27
OUR TIME ON EARTH, BARBICAN, LONDON, UK
It’s the final month to witness this moving immersive exhibition which poses radical ideas for how we can live – from concepts around technology to the potential to employ indigenous practices. Dubbed “the story of our future”, it crosses art, science, activism, and more to map out an alternative way forward.
Until August 29, 2022
SHE MAD, MARTINE SYMS, MCA CHICAGO, US
She Mad is an ongoing conceptual project and semi-autobiographical sitcom presented as an immersive sculptural installation that centres a young artist as she tries to break it in the city of dreams, Los Angeles. It’s the culmination of the artist’s project, which examines how the “Black experience is represented through public media”, and is the first time it will be screened in full.
Until February 12, 2023
FACES OF HARLEM, MORNINGSIDE PARK, NYC, US
Ten photographers will showcase at the second edition of the Faces of Harlem exhibition, including NYC native photographer and Dazed 100 alumni Joshua Woods. Presented in Morningside Park, the show will document the people of Harlem and share greater insight into their private lives behind closed doors, focusing on family life, creativity, work, faith, relationships, and love within the community.
From August 6, 2022 – tbc
HOW TO WIN AT PHOTOGRAPHY, PHOTOGRAPHER’S GALLERY, LONDON, UK
This multimedia exhibition examines photography and image-making as ‘play’ by asking viewers to look deeper at the “playful aspects of visual culture”. Across 30 artists, including Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Ed Ruscha, John Yuyi, and more, the show represents a wide range of image-making history and where it is – as well as its meaning and function – today. It asks us to reconsider, and even break the rules, to understand how to ‘win’ at the medium – whether garning likes or through gaming culture, surveillance, and more.
Until September 25, 2022
THE HIGH LIFE, LYDIA BLAKELY, SOUTHWARK PARK GALLERIES
In 1995, Microsoft launched “Where do you want to go today”, a campaign which borrowed travel lingo to describe exploring and connecting with others on the internet. British artist Lydia Blakely revisits this sentiment and intersects it with the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, whereby our lives moved mostly from IRL to URL to explore escapism and digital realms during a crisis. She employs digital imagery from holiday websites and adverts to create paintings and cover deckchairs that blur the tangible and the digital, fantasy and reality, and how these binaries are becoming increasingly collapsed.
Until September 4, 2022
EYES ON THE STREET, JAMEL SHABAZZ, BRONX MUSEUM, USA
For four decades, Jamel Shabazz’s vast archive of photography from New York’s streets has helped define how we know, love, and understand the city. 150 shots are currently on show at the Bronx Museum, taking us on a trip through the city’s history – from its families to the crime, its fashion, and everything in between. Read our recent interview with Shabazz on the show, and then take a trip to the Bronx Museum to see the show before it ends next month.
Until September 4, 2022