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This month promises a new iteration of Kusama’s Infinity Room, a late-night art walk around central London, an imagined darkroom illustrating the idea of pleasure as activism, and much more...
May’s list is brimming with artists who go their own way, whether through experimental art practices, uplifting underrepresented communities, or simply staying true to themselves. Although spring hasn’t really sprung here in the UK, London’s fairs and weekends, such as Photo London or the alternative Peckham24, as well as the annually awaited Bold Tendencies, are about to kick off, giving us all an extra incentive to get outside the house.
Artists such as Isaac Julien, Richard Bell, and Ajamu receive their flowers in London, Yayoi Kusama will send NYC into a frenzy once again with a new Infinity Mirror Room, and a younger generation of artists like Darryl Daley, Tizta Berhanu, and Lauren Halsey come into their own with strong solo shows around the world.
EMBASSY, RICHARD BELL, TATE MODERN, LONDON, UK
The enfant terrible of the Australian art world, Indigenous artist Richard Bell is taking over the Tate’s Turbine Hall with an iteration of “Embassy”, an artwork in the form of an erected tent that hosts discussions, screenings, workshops, and music, so to “imagine a future where Aboriginal people – and all Indigenous peoples – are leaders in a truly equal society”.
The installation pays homage to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy of the 1970s, erected outside of Australia’s Parliament House by four Aboriginal activists protesting the government’s denial of land rights for Aboriginals and their poor living conditions and restricted freedoms.
Also on show will be Pay The Rent, Bell’s ever-increasing ticker tallying up the reparations owed to Aboriginal people by the UK government since the colonisation of Australia. A true self-described troublemaker, Bell turned to art after realising it could be a tool for protest which wouldn’t get him arrested. He remains a stoic thorn in the side of the Australian government as an activist-artist and a crucial voice in a world where Indigenous Australians continue to be overlooked and mistreated on their land.
Richard Bell’s Embassy will be running at Tate Modern from May 20 until June 18, 2023.
ART IS FOR EVERYBODY, KEITH HARING, THE BROAD, LOS ANGELES,
Keith Haring is a hero in New York City, with countless shows dedicated to his art and activism. But LA was lagging, until now, when Haring gets his first-ever museum show in the City of Angels. Art is for Everybody will feature over 120 works from the late artist, divided across ten galleries.
Keith Haring’s Art Is For Everybody is running at The Broad from May 27 until October 8, 2023.
VICTORIA CANTONS, GUTS GALLERY, LONDON, UK
On the heels of her show at Mayfair’s Flowers Gallery, the London artist Victoria Cantons is heading across town and opening another solo show at East London’s GUTS Gallery. Titled What Birds Plunge Through Is Not the Intimate Space, the show borrows from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem of the same name, and “investigates interpersonal relationships and the ways in which we fit into the world around us”. Her fascination with words means her works’ titles – borrowed from poetry or book – hold the key to deeply understanding them.
Working across themes of “desire, loss of time, and the function of language through a distinctly literary lens”, Cantons’ art will catch in your throat. Full of vulnerability and poignant beauty, the artist “doesn’t try to throw off the world she was born into, instead, she holds it as close as one can”.
Victoria Canton’s What Birds Plunge Through is not The Intimate Space is running at Guts Gallery from May 12 until June 4, 2023.
ART AFTER DARK, CENTRAL LONDON, UK
A little bit of shameless self-promotion in this month’s art list, but I’ll be hosting an art tour in partnership with London’s EDITION hotel. So if you’re up for spending a couple of hours with me wandering about central London, chatting about art, meeting like-minded art-curious people, and having a couple of galleries to ourselves for the evening (plus a glass of wine), then grab a ticket and come along on May 3, from 5-8 pm. If you can’t make this one, the next tour will happen on May 31.
Tickets for the Art After Dark May 31 tour are available here.
FOR FREEDOMS, FOTOGRAFISKA, NEW YORK CITY, US
Artist-led organisation For Freedoms is opening Listen Until You Hear at New York City’s Fotografiska, featuring six artists, from co-founders Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman alongside Cassils, Maia Ruth Lee, Cannupa Hanska Luger, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed.
Collectively, the artists will “create an exploratory forum for visitors to consider the idea of ‘visual listening’”, meaning visitors listen aurally and bodily “to be more aware of your relationship with others”.
For Freedoms is notable for erecting artist-designed billboards in every US state ahead of the November midterm congressional election in 2018 and has continued to use public art to “increase civic engagement, discourse, and direct action”.
For Freedoms is running at Fotografiska in New York from May 5, 2023.
SMALL PAINTINGS, JAI CHUAN, QRYSTAL PARTNERS, LONDON, UK Th
There’s a new independent gallery in town! Qrystal Partners, founded by Donald Ryan and fashion designer Supriya Lele, is making a home in South London at 7 Newington Causeway, SE1, and opening its inaugural exhibition this Thursday 4 May. Small Paintings presents the works of Jai Chuan, an India-born, London-based artist whose work pulls inspiration from Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon. Describing her art as “a visual equivalence of her feelings”, she works across the figure, interior and landscape as subjects, “a melancholic, instinctive sense beckons in each of the canvases as the painter becomes the painter with mind and body”.
Small Paintings runs from 4 May (6-8pm) until 15 June 2023
WHAT FREEDOM IS TO ME, ISAAC JULIEN, TATE BRITAIN, LONDON, U
The first major UK exhibition of British artist Isaac Julien presents the “lyrical films and video art installations” that make him one of the leading figures in film and video today. From the early 1980s until today, Julien has explored issues such as the Aids epidemic, Black and queer identities, and migration across film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting, and sculpture.
The exhibition’s design also comes courtesy of Adjaye Associates (David Adjaye’s architectural firm), meaning space and movement are deeply considered, taking visitors on a spectacular visual journey through four decades of Julien’s incredible oeuvre.
Isaac Julien’s What Freedom Is To Me is running at Tate Britain from April 26 until August 20, 2023.
BOLD TENDENCIES: CRISIS, LONDON, UK
Since 2007, Bold Tendencies has been turning up during (what should be) the start of summer with a phenomenal live programme of performances and the unveiling of commissions.
This year, artist and Black Panther Emory Douglas will create new artwork alongside Jenny Holzer, Kahlil Robert Irving, Sandra Poulson, and Abbas Zahedi. The Philharmonia Orchestra, Caleb Femi, a homage to Philip Glass, and many more will make up the live programming schedule. Food and drinks will be provided by Frank’s, of course.
Bold Tendencies: Crisis is running from May 19 until September 16, 2023.
YAYOI KUSAMA, DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK CITY, UK
This month, Yayoi Kusama’s latest works will go on show in New York City for the exhibition I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers – her largest-ever exhibition. New paintings and sculptures in the shapes and forms of pumpkins and flowers will take over David Zwirner’s West 19th Street gallery and the debut of another Infinity Mirror Room. Entry is free but no pre-secured tickets will be available: it’s first come, first served. Time to start queuing…
Yayoi Kusama’s I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers is running from May 11 until July 21, 2023.
DOUBLE KNOWLEDGE, ALICE BLACK, LONDON, UK
“What happens if I were to turn inwards? Who will I encounter?” This is the question posed by Alice Black’s Double Knowledge, a group show featuring Penny Goring, Claire Baily, Olivia Bax, Rachael Louise Bailey, and Lindsay Seers, which is an “exploration of the body as a site for interior knowledge” (a term coined by the late feminist artist Carolee Schneemann).
Through film, photography, sculpture, and installation, the artworks included “represent the act of journeying inwards, away from the ordinary directional flow of daily life towards an inner consciousness which is knowing and knowable, with its own taste and texture, its own sense of familiarity and belonging”. A small but mighty show. Make sure to save time for a 15-minute film about Seers’ remarkable process of becoming a human camera and, ultimately, a human projector.
Double Knowledge will be running at Alice Black until May 13, 2023.
I KNOW IT WAS THE BLOOD, JA’TOVIA GARY, DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART
Dallas-native filmmaker Ja’Tovia Gary presents five artworks and “related ephemera” created over the last three years – from neon script to sculpture, sourced film, and paintings. It’s described as an “evocative memoir that celebrates the power of ancestral knowledge”.
Ja’Tovia Gary’s I Know It Was the Blood is running at the Dallas Museum of Art from April 23 until November 5, 2023.
THE ROOF GARDEN COMMISSION: LAUREN HALSEY, THE MET, NEW YORK
One of my favourite American artists working today, Lauren Halsey, has envisioned and executed a full-scale architectural structure “imbued with the collective energy and imagination of the South Central Los Angeles Community” that she calls home, which takes a central character in her work. The eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I) is an installation that can be inhabited by visitors to New York City’s The Met, allowing them to “explore its connections to sources as varied as ancient Egyptian symbolism, 1960s utopian architecture, and contemporary visual expressions like tagging that reflect the ways in which people aspire to make public places their own”.
Lauren Halsey’s the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I) is running at The Met in New York until October 22, 2023.
PHOTO LONDON, SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON, UK
It’s that time of year again when over 100 galleries worldwide descend on Somerset House for epic photography fair Photo London. Alongside individual exhibitors are talks, workshops, signings, and public programming. Dazed co-founder Rankin will be signing copies of the Dazed Decades: Rankin 1990-2016 on 11 May at the 29 Arts in Progress gallery booth, his book celebrating his iconic shoots from the depths of the Dazed magazine archives.
Photo London will be running at Somerset House from May 11 until May 14, 2023.
AJAMU: THE PATRON SAINT OF DARKROOMS, AUTOGRAPH, LONDON, UK
Ajamu has been making powerful photographs celebrating the queer Black body for three decades – from challenging masculine stereotypes, gender, sexuality, and Black queer representation in the UK. Whether turning his camera on himself for evocative self-portraits or on his community of lovers and friends, Ajamu’s work is striking in its strength, defiance, and vulnerability. This month, London’s Autograph gallery hosts an exhibition of Ajamu’s works, whereby a selection of commissioned works show for the first time alongside much-loved ones. The gallery will also be “dominated” by an imagined darkroom to allude “to the sense of anticipation in Ajamu’s process”.
Ajamu: The Patron Saint of Darkrooms is running at Autograph, London, from April 28 until September 2, 2023.
HAVEN, SEM LANGENDIJK, FOAM, AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
While you’re at Foam for Lebohang Kganye’s Haifa Nyana?, stop by photographer Sem Langendijk’s first solo show, Haven. This long-term research project attempts to capture the places “that no longer exist” because of gentrification. Through his documentary project, his photographs of the former port areas of various large cities – from Red Hook in NYC to ADM in Amsterdam and Docklands in London – critique “the loss of character and history” that occurs with large-scale redevelopment projects for the “homogeneous and anonymous architecture of glass, metal, and concrete”.
Sem Langendijk’s Haven is running at Foam until June 18, 2023.
PECKHAM 24, LONDON, UK
Not-for-profit arts festival Peckham 24 returns this year for its seventh edition, spotlighting new and experimental artists working with photography. This year’s theme ‘body language’ borrows the protest chant of ‘my body, my choice’ as a foundation to explore the body as a site of the political and personal.
Peckham 24 runs from May 12 until May 14, 2023.
TIZTA BERHANU: SYNTHESIS OF SOULS, ADDIS FINE ART, LONDON, U
Born and based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Tizta Berhanu makes dream-like paintings to “introspectively delve into human emotions”. Her first European solo show, Synthesis of Souls, explores “humanity’s full spectrum of emotions” from love, intimacy, kinship, and motherhood. There’s an intoxication to Berhanu’s works that make you feel like you’re falling into them – go get lost in these works if you can.
Ttizta Berhanu’s Synthesis of Souls is running at Addis Fine Art until May 27 2023.
DARRYL DALEY, NOW GALLERY, LONDON, UK
South London-born Darryl Daley’s work infuses storytelling, collaboration, and his Afro-Caribbean heritage into mighty works that cross disciplines. As part of the 2023 Young Artist Commission, Daley will present four film works, “Patois”, “Xaymaca”, “No Ghosts”, and “UNU (you & you)”, which “together survey (his) visual practice to date… to thread together an intricate and tender diasporic narrative”.
Darryl Daley’s What You See Here / What You Hear Here is running at NOW Gallery until June 11, 2023.
SMALL PAINTINGS, JAI CHUAN, QRYSTAL PARTNERS, LONDON, UK
There’s a new independent gallery in town! Qrystal Partners, founded by Donald Ryan and fashion designer Supriya Lele, is making a home in South London at 7 Newington Causeway, SE1, and opening its inaugural exhibition this Thursday 4 May. Small Paintings presents the works of Jai Chuan, an India-born, London-based artist whose work pulls inspiration from Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon. Describing her art as “a visual equivalence of her feelings”, she works across the figure, interior and landscape as subjects, “a melancholic, instinctive sense beckons in each of the canvases as the painter becomes the painter with mind and body”.
Jai Chuan’s Small Paintings is at Qrystal Partners until June 15 2023 (6-8pm).
MOON IS THE OLDEST TV, SELECTED UK CINEMAS
Nam June Paik – truly one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, whose work continues to reverberate through his pioneering and progressive way of thinking about art and the world around us. Sundance Film Festival wrote that Paik “would (go on to) revolutionise how the world thinks of image-making in the electronic age”. The residue of his thinking is everywhere.
Now you can fully immerse yourself in how this great man came to be, with a documentary centred on his life and work, titled Moon is the Oldest TV. Known as the father of video art, Paik is also famous for coining the term “electronic superhighway“ (as well as creating an epic artwork of the same name) to reference the abundance of information we receive electronically that we once had to seek out in a physical form. Directed by first-time director Amanda Kim, the film tells the story of a man who “both saw the present and predicted the future with astonishing clairvoyance”.
Moon Is the Oldest TV is showing at selected UK cinemas from 19 May 2023
SALON PAINTINGS, HURVIN ANDERSON, THE HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD, WE
Since 2006, Huron Anderson has been painting barbershops, the first being one in Birmingham, which he has returned to iterate time and time since. UK art institution Tate observed that the repetitions of the barbershop highlight a “place synonymous with enterprise, affirmation, and community for many Afro-Carribbean migrants”. Exhibiting this month at The Hepworth Wakefield, The Salon Paintings will “focus on the Barbershop series as a lens through which to understand Anderson’s wider practice and key concerns of memory, identity and nationhood.” The final work in the series, a large-scale drawing and new painting started in 2022 will also debut. Alongside his paintings, his process will be displayed through sketches, drawings, 3D models, and objects.
The Salon Paintings is showing from May 26 until November 5 2023