 I Can Cry If I Want To at Guts Gallery)
Clear the winter blues: from Barbara Chase-Riboud to Nan Goldin, we round up the best exhibitions to catch this month
January brings a slew of new shows, and a common theme is people who are pushing against the boundaries of their disciplines or their times. Whether its artists like Barbara Chase-Riboud, who is finally getting the recognition she deserves after seven decades of making work, or the UK premiere of Nan Goldin’s documentary, which features intimate footage and interviews with her as she shifted from downtown documentarian to global activist bringing down dangerous pharmaceutical companies. I hope these shows will help clear the cobwebs to give you a fresh perspective, and some much-needed inspiration, on the world around us.
BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD: INFINITE FOLDS, THE SERPENTINE, LONDON
Now in her 80s, Philadelphia-born, Paris-based sculptor, poet, and writer Barbara Chase is finally getting her long-awaited flowers. Since the 1960s, Chase-Riboud has been “committed to foregrounding transnational histories and cultures”, paying homage to cultural legends like Malcolm X, Josephine Baker, Cleopatra, and more, through her sculpture and drawing work, and “prompting a consideration of which people and events are commemorated, and for whom”. Currently she has her first UK solo exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery with Infinite Folds, a retrospective that will bring you up to speed on her incredible oeuvre from its early beginnings to the present day.
Until 29 January. Free admission
A NEW PARADISE, GROUP SHOW, SAATCHI GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Exploring ideas of “how we live today and how we might live together tomorrow”, A New Paradise at London’s Saatchi Gallerylooks at how a vision of ‘paradise’ might differ significantly from person to person. Featuring Campbell Addy, Jahnavi Inniss, Joseph Mobolaji Aina, LaTosha Monique, Sinta Tantra, and Wesley George, this group exhibition shines its light on new and established talents sharing their perspectives of paradise.
Until 22 January. Free admission
JUST ABOVE MIDTOWN: CHANGING SPACES, MOMA, NEW YORK CITY, US
In 1974, Linda Goode Bryant opened Just Above Midtown – known as JAM – an art gallery and ‘laboratory’ that cultivated Black artists and artists of colour. From David Hammons to Lorraine O’Grady, Senga Nengudi, and more, JAM was pivotal in supporting some of the 20th century’s best artists, as well as providing workshops and talks to the public. In honour of JAM’s legacy, MoMA is currently running an exhibition charting its time, from 1974 until closing in 1986. If you can’t make it to MoMA, click here to learn more about JAM’s brilliance.
Until 18 February. Ticketed
YOUTH, ANNE IMHOF, STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
Described as the artistic voice of a generation, Anne Imhof recently took over Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum to merge art, architecture, light, and sound. The 1,100-square metre space – one of the largest in the Netherlands – has been transformed into an “immersive and disorienting total installation, a dystopian labyrinth”. Youth also marks Imhof’s first solo show in the Netherlands.
Until 29 January 2023. Free admission
CARLOS JARAMILLO: TIERRA DEL SOL, GUERRERO GALLERY, LOS ANGE
Carlos Jaramillo pays homage to “contemporary charros and escaramuzas” through a series of photographs taken at “El Classico del las Americas” in California during October last year. The event is an annual, week-long “charreada” (a Mexican rodeo) where young male and female cowboys socialise and compete against each other. Described by Anthropologist Cristina Palomar, the charreria is “a cultural phenomenon that embodies a ranchera tradition derived from the romantic vision of rural Mexico; and it is also a social arena that operates as a mechanism to produce local subjects, values and symbols projected at the national level.” Jaramillo’s documentation – titled Tierra Del Sol – allows a privileged glimpse into the tradition through photography and video that many people might not have an opportunity to witness otherwise.
Until 21 January. Free admission
ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, NAN GOLDIN, VARIOUS CINEMA
Nan Goldin’s star has burned bright for the last 40 years, starting with her images of NYC and Boston’s underground scenes during the 1970s and 80s. Most recently, she has been successful in helping to bring down the Sackler family’s Purdue Pharma company, the manufacturer of the opioid OxyContin, which Goldin became addicted to in the 2010s when recovering from surgery. Now a global protest movement, the Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN) has raised global awareness about the family’s ties to a drug that has killed more than 200k people in the US alone, leading to museums removing the family’s name from wings and galleries. In a new documentary, director Laura Poitras tells the story of Goldin’s fearless efforts over the last few years, as well as her pivotal years as the photographer behind the highly charged Ballad of Dependency slideshow of images, through intimate footage, slideshows, and interviews. The film is currently available in the US but hits UK theatres this month.
AWOL ERIZKU: COSMIC DRILL, BEN BROWN FINE ARTS, LONDON, UK
Awol Erizku burst into global consciousness when he photographed Beyoncé’s pregnancy announcement in 2017. But his work spans far beyond celebrity portraiture into painting and sculpture too, and in a show titled Cosmic Drill at London’s Ben Brown Fine Arts, the LA-based artist presents a new body of work merging his practices and channelling influences from street markings to hip hop, basketball, dice games, and NASA telescopic data.
From 27 January – 6 April 2023
GIRLHOOD, PHILIPPA JAMES, THE NORTH WALL ARTS CENTRE, OXFORD
The enduring fascination with female adolescence gains new ground in Philippa James’ series GIRLHOOD, currently on show at Oxford’s The North Wall Arts Centre. James turns the camera on her daughter and her friends, all born at the dawn of the smartphone era. It’s a tender project that reflects on the vulnerability of teenagers as they shift from childhood yet are “nowhere near adulthood” either while helping James grapple with her own nostalgia and experiences.
Until 28 January. Free admission
BARBARA HEPWORTH: ART & LIFE, TATE ST IVES, CORNWALL, UK
Follow the footsteps of one of Britain’s most influential artists of the 20th century, Barbara Hepworth with a visit to her retrospective at Tate St Ives. The artist considered the seaside town as her ‘spiritual home’, having moved there in 1939 and remained until her death in 1975. In her honour, the exhibition presents almost five decades of her work – from sculpture to painting, drawing, print, and design. Famed for expanding the possibilities of art in society, “her art expresses our relationships with each other and our surroundings” as well as “how art can reflect and alter our perceptions of the world”.
Until 23 May. Ticketed
AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: WORKS FROM THE SOLAND
Much has been written about art history, but much has also been missed out. However, in recent years, many galleries and museums have been unearthing important contributions which fell through the gaps of the ‘greats’ – from East Asia to Uzbekistan, West Africa, New Zealand, and beyond. Currently on at London’s Photographer’s Gallery, this exhibition displays photographs from the Solander Collection – an organisation dedicated to unrepresented artists – with known names such as Ansel Adams, Man Ray, Malick Sidibe, and more, and aims to celebrate “a complex interchange of fine art, scientific, anthropological, documentary and amateur traditions”.
Until 19 February. Ticketed
ART NOW, HANNAH QUINLAN AND ROSIE HASTINGS, TATE BRITAIN, LO
As reported last month, Lynette Biakom-Yiadom’s exhibition at Tate Britain is a must-see, and while you’re there, the current Art Now show, featuring the collaborative work of Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings. In this new series of fresco paintings, the British artists offer a glimpse into street scenes and groups of people that reveal power dynamics, class, social relations, and positions of authority. The artistic duo’s practice expands on their research into the relationship between public space, architecture, state infrastructure, gender, and sexual identity.
Until 7 May 2023. Free admission
JOSEPH BEUYS: 40 YEARS OF DRAWING, THADDAEUS ROPAC, LONDON,
German artist Joseph Beuys is best known for works such as I Like America and America Likes Me, whereby he was locked in a room with nothing but a blanket and a coyote for three days. However, he was also a keen drawer, and now, almost 100 works on paper will feature in the first show dedicated to his drawings in London in 30 years at Thaddaeus Ropac. From early representational works in the 1940s and 50s, conceptual sketches in the mid-60s, leading into his more “radical” practices of the 70s and 80s. Coinciding with the exhibition, British artist Antony Gormley has curated a room whereby a selection of Beuys’ drawings are placed in dialogue with his own.
From 19 January – 22 March. Free admission
MARY ENOCH ELIZABETH BAXTER: “AIN’T I A WOMAN”, BROOKLYN
Fifty years since Roe v Wade, and one year on from its overturning, Brooklyn Museum is exhibiting American artist and advocate Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter’s Ain’t I a Woman. The work – which borrows its title from bell hooks’ 1981 book – is a single-channel video made in 2018 that examines America’s history of reproductive injustice. The film is paired with seven other works that confront Black children’s exposure to “adultification bias”, whereby they are treated as adults, titled Consecration to Mary. Through both, Enoch Elizabeth Baxter explores how the “exploitation of Black girls leads to political disenfranchisement and social precarity, resulting in the mass incarceration of Black women.”
Runs January 20–August 13, 2023
(IT’S MY PARTY) I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO, GROUP SHOW, LONDON
In GUTS Gallery’s latest group exhibition, an all-female ensemble of artists explore the visual motifs of birthdays. Aptly titled (It’s My Party) I Can Cry If I Want To, the exhibition is a self-described ‘celebration of the grotesque’, whereby “women’s bodies are presented as transgressive, unbound, and open-ended”. Expect brilliance from Juno Calypso, Xu Yang, Elsa Rouy, and more.
From 13 January – 2 February. Free admission