A R T Communication + Brand Consultancy Announces the Global PR Representation of New York-based Design Gallery Les Ateliers Courbet

June 16, 2020 (New York, United States) – Affirming its engagement in the support and promotion of international art, design, and architecture, A R T Communication + Brand Consultancy is pleased to announce its global PR representation of New York-based design gallery Les Ateliers Courbet. Noted for its distinct curatorial focus dedicated to the ongoing craftsmanship mastery and design legacies carried-on by the contemporary artisans and centuries-old manufactures it represents.

Starting in the Fall of 2020, Les Ateliers Courbet will resume its 2020 exhibition program within the gallery space, interrupted over the past months due to COVID-19 pandemic. While Les Ateliers Courbet’s exhibitions program highlights the time-honored techniques behind an objet d’art, its adjoining salons serve as a permanent display of timeless design pieces – bringing together contemporary creations and sought-after pieces culled from the archives. In conjunction, the gallery cultivates the longstanding dialogue between revered ateliers and artists, introducing collaborations among which Venini’s glass blowers and Tadao Ando, Nepalese weavers and Frank Gehry, or Aldo Bakker and the silversmiths of Wiener Silber Manufaktur.

Established in 2013 by Mélanie Courbet, the gallery was born from the desire to share a deep appreciation for master-craftsmen’s ethos and works of art that embody artisanal dexterity and cultural heritage. Rooted in Courbet’s extensive travels and collaborations with artists, designers and artisans around the world, the gallery is a paean to the scrupulous work of today’s rarefied master-craftsmen. Since its opening, Les Ateliers Courbet has garnered international recognition from a clientele of private collectors, interior designers and institutions alike. Today, the gallery represents over 50 traditional crafts passed on by long lineages of esteemed artisans from around the world, including marquetry, woodcraft, ceramic and glasswork, weaving and metalsmithing.

While pursuing its mission with exhibitions, institutional collaborations and publications, the gallery further supports its ateliers with the Editions Courbet – a series of editioned pieces created by guest artists and hand-crafted by the gallery’s master-craftsmen. Each artist is invited to design a collection inspired by the craftsmanship expertise of one atelier. As a tribute to the artisans’ culture of excellence and humility, each Editions Courbet collection will be named after their respective fabricators. The next Editions Courbet collection will be unveiled in September 2020.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

Les Ateliers Courbet
134 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
United States
https://www.ateliercourbet.com/

Image credit: View of Les Ateliers Courbet, New York. Courtesy of Les Ateliers Courbet.

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CHYBIK + KRISTOF ARCHITECTS Present the Design for the New Senezh Management Lab Campus Competition in Russia

Visualization of the Senezh Lab exterior staircase. Image credit: monolot. Courtesy of CHYBIK + KRISTOF.

CHYBIK + KRISTOF’s progressive design for the 82-hectare Senezh campus places the interconnectedness of social and natural environments as a core element of the educational process.

May 4, 2020 (Solnechnogorsk, Moscow region, Russia) – CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers unveil the design for the Senezh Management Lab campus, conceived in response to the associated international invited competition. Located in Solnechnogorsk, a lakeside town on the outskirts of Moscow, the competition invited leading architecture and design studios worldwide, including Mecanoo and MADMA, to propose a site-specific and forward-thinking masterplan for the 82-hectare educational campus – revisiting existing notions of teaching and learning environments. Informed by the specifics of the site and developed alongside a landscape architect and educational specialist, CHYBIK + KRISTOF’s proposal brings together an applied reinterpretation of Constructivist educational theory and an immersive anchoring in the surrounding natural environment.

Rooted in seminal 19th-century psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s “sociocultural theory,” the proposal sees the educational process – learning and teaching – as profoundly shaped by the social, cultural, and environmental conditions in which it is conducted. Vygotsky’s framework reexamined the prevailing Constructivist notions and education system of his time, supporting instead pedagogical and research methods that place context and culture at the center of inquiry and favor human diversity, interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration. Expanding on this premise, whose relevance resonates to this day, CHYBIK + KRISTOF envision an integrative, diverse site, combining multiple functions and demographies, grounded in sociocultural and educational interaction throughout the entirety of the site. Giving particular prominence to the impact of the environment, they propose a design deeply embedded in and informed by Senezh’s natural assets.

The studio’s layout for the site reflects these principles. The core of learning is concentrated in the Lab. Bordering the forest and the lake, the singular polymorphous structure embraces the slope; the four-plan layering of floors allows for permanent views onto the lake. The classrooms – set in clusters of three – are interconnected circular-shaped flexible enclosures within a vast winding lobby. Opening up onto the courtyard through movable wall partitions, they invest the volume as a continuous space, both interior and exterior, void of hierarchy and transitions between formal and informal learning, thereby encouraging interactions between students, professors and invited guests. The Lab’s Conference Hall follows a similar configuration – based on a variable spatial organization that can be made into smaller lecture spaces.

The adjoining buildings are punctuated throughout the extensive site and connected through a seamless network of alleys encompassing the whole perimeter. Endorsing mobility – of individuals, and of ideas – the structures are both complementary and interdependent. The library, an elevated multilayered open cylinder set along the shore, allows for individual retreat and collective research. The adjacent dormitories, wooden pavilions mirroring functional social housing applicable in other contexts, act as spaces for informal communal interaction and exchange. Culture represents a key feature of the campus; the Art Cluster and adjacent Sculpture Park revisit a former maintenance building, while the Music Cluster, a converted former swimming center, brings together a Music Hall and spaces for music events.

Completing this tri-faceted set, the Research Cluster unfolds into a deeply creative environment nourished by the nearby infrastructure, where progressive ideas come into fruition within the adapted technical facilities. A large set of pavilions, versatile tree-like modules for studying, lectures, meetings, activities, populate the campus – shelters for encounters and community learning. Additionally, spaces for sport and relaxation – most of which are open to the public – are distributed across the site.

Drawing for the interior of Senezh Lab. Image credit: monolot. Courtesy of CHYBIK + KRISTOF.

Understanding the natural surroundings as a fundamental agent of context, CHYBIK + KRISTOF lean on nature as a dual entity: a source of evolving knowledge and constant learning, and a space for awe, inspiration, contemplation and relaxation. Students are invited to circulate seamlessly throughout the campus, where interior and exterior spaces, horizontality and verticality, are continually intertwined. The various atmospheres and types of ecosystems – from the lake, wetlands and urban landscaped sections to the open meadow, orchards and diverse forest – simulate all senses from aroma to touch, sight to hearing, and are a fertile ground for the cultivation of curiosity and the movement of new ideas.

While the buildings of various scales echo the prolific vegetation, with the design blending into the existing, unaltered topography of the site, their function is also grounded in nature. Eco-farms are punctuated throughout the site, whilst the open buildings and green roofs endorse a durable connection with the vegetal world. Anchored in sustainability, the campus functions through a wide array of composting, re- and up-cycling, and waste management infrastructure, while movement is assured through extensive walkways and bike and boat sharing. A direct application of Vygotsky’s vision, the curriculum, echoing the natural setting, unfolds around the core notions of ecology, economy, and sociology. The entire site – its design and its function – nurtures innovative, onward-looking ideas in constant consideration of the environment as a key element of our future.

Architects and founders Michal Krištof and Ondřej Chybík reflect on the project, “This extensive project integrates the entire site as part of the education process. It places the environment – both sociological and natural – at the root for all teaching and learning. The space itself, commonly seen as a formal structure disconnected from its function, acts here as a catalyst for knowledge sharing, critical evaluation, innovation and ultimately, progress. Seamlessly integrated in the landscape, Senezh Management Lab embodies the future of education – one deeply tied to environmental concerns, to a new knowledge economy, and to how our societies can better cohabit, and learn from, the natural world.”

Upon review by a global panel of leading architects and educational experts, CHYBIK + KRISTOF’s progressive design was awarded 3rd prize for the competition.

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NOTES TO EDITORS
About CHYBIK + KRISTOF
CHYBIK + KRISTOF is an architecture and urban design practice founded in 2010 by Ondřej Chybík and Michal Krištof. Operating with 50+ international team members and offices in Prague, Brno and Bratislava, the practice aims at creating bridges between private and public space, transcending generations and societal spheres. Taking into account local histories and environmental specificities, the studio works on a wide array of projects, ranging from urban developments to public and residential buildings. Recent projects include: Gallery of Furniture (Czech Republic), the Czech Pavilion at Expo 2015 (Milan, Italy) and Lahofer Winery (Czech Republic). The studio has been awarded a number of prizes, including the 2019 Vanguard Award from Architectural Record.
https://chybik-kristof.com/

Client: Senezh Management Lab, Solnechnogorsk, Moscow Region (Russia)
Year: 2019
Award: 3rd Prize
Team: Michal Krištof, Ondřej Chybík, Jiří Richter, Tomáš Babka, Lukáš Habrovec, Larissa Vieira Matzak, Gönülnur Demet, Francisco Javier Gomariz, Martin Holý, Ivo Stejskal, Luděk Šimoník, Ondřej Švancara, David Erik Bernátek, David Král, Dávid Medzihorský, Tomáš Wojtek, Jan Stolek, Michal Klimeš, Pavel Bánovský, Peter Chaban, Mária Bažíková, Michal Sluka, Šarka Kubínová
Landscape architects: Marko & placemakers, IGOR MARKO
Educational specialist: Rndr. Michal Černý, Masaryk University
Local architect: Vyshegor Pavel Lysikhin Animation: Loom on the moon CGI: monolot

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Art Paris Cancels 2020 Edition and Will Return in April 2021 in the New Ephemeral Grand Palais on Paris's Champ de Mars

Art Paris 2019, Grand Palais © Marc Domage

April 7—11, 2021, Ephemeral Grand Palais, Champ de Mars

April 14, 2020 (Paris) – Following the French government’s latest announcement banning all public gatherings until mid-July 2020 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 22nd edition of Art Paris, Paris’s major spring fair for modern and contemporary, initially to be held from 2—5 April and postponed to 28—31 May, has finally been cancelled.

As the Art Paris team explains: “We wanted to keep our hopes up until the very last minute, and were working on a hypothetical final postponement of the fair at the Grand Palais from 1—5 July – which would have given French galleries the chance to meet their collectors after a spring period of complete standstill. However, and very regretfully so, we now find ourselves obliged to forgo the 2020 edition – a leading Paris art gathering that would have brought together 150 galleries from 20 countries, with a double focus this year on the French contemporary art scene and the emerging hubs of the Iberian Peninsula. We will nevertheless implement various measures to service both exhibitors and audiences in the coming weeks. The fair will be moved entirely online and, as soon as the confinement measures end, a dedicated Art Paris – Hors Les Murs visitor experience across Paris will be proposed to wider audiences. Our aim is to showcase the work of those galleries that have accompanied and continue to accompany and place their trust in us – an essential role at a time when both they, and the artists that they represent, are particularly vulnerable and in need of our support.”

Art Paris will return for its 23rd edition from 7—11 April 2021. It will be the first fair to take over the ephemeral Grand Palais on Paris’s Champ de Mars, a vast contemporary temporary structure designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte conceived to host events in Paris until the Grand Palais reopens after renovation works and to coincide with the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Art Paris and its team extend their heartfelt and sincere thanks to all those who have supported the 2020 edition, including the galleries; artists; cultural institutions; media partners; and companies. They also wish to express their profound solidarity and address their thoughts to all who are fighting the virus and to the victims of the global pandemic.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About Art Paris 2021
April 7—11, 2021 | Ephemeral Grand Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, 75007 Paris
www.artparis.com

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CHYBIK + KRISTOF Bring Back to Life the Greenhouse Where the Foundations of Modern Genetics Were Laid

Rendering of the Mendel Greenhouse project, CHYBIK + KRISTOF. Courtesy of CHYBIK + KRISTOF. Image credit: monolot.

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Gregor Mendel’s birth in 2022, CHYBIK + KRISTOF resurrect the historic greenhouse of St. Thomas Augustinian Abbey in Brno where the notorious scientist and father of modern genetics conducted his pioneering experiments.

April 1, 2020 (Brno, Czech Republic) – CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers unveil the new design for the 19th-century greenhouse of St. Thomas Abbey, Brno, in which scientist Gregor Mendel conducted the experiments at the roots of modern genetics. Nested in the 14th-century Augustinian monastery’s gardens, the original building was swept away by a storm in the 1870s, leaving to this day only its foundations. Building on the latter, the architects revisit the structure and, in commemoration of Mendel’s birth 200 years ago, will return the historically significant site to Brno’s old city in 2022.

Located in the heart of the town, St. Thomas Abbey houses the remains of the greenhouse where Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian friar at the adjacent monastery, spent eight seasons, from 1856 to 1863, cultivating and breeding pea plants in his endeavor to uncover the biological mechanism through which physical traits are passed down from one generation to the next. Built with the support of the abbot, Cyrill Napp, who sought to establish his monastery as a leading center for scientific research, the greenhouse was erected as an extension of the monk’s outdoor laboratory. The experiments conducted there, although acknowledged only after Mendel’s passing in 1884, are now widely recognized as the foundation stone of modern genetics.

Drawing on the history, scientific legacy and archival materials of the site, and following the original ground plan, CHYBIK + KRISTOF have created a design reminiscent of the original building. Integrated in the structure and left visible, the preserved foundations are at the basis of the architects’ reinterpretation – echoing the orientation, shape and distinct roof of the greenhouse. While the trapezoidal volume is identical to the original edifice, the reimagined supporting steel structure seeks inspiration from Mendel’s three laws of inheritance – and the drawings of his resulting heredity system. Likewise, the pitched roof, consisting of a vast outer glass surface, reflects his law of segregation and the distribution of inherited traits, and is complemented by a set of modular shades.

Open onto and deeply connected with the surrounding gardens, the edifice looks onto the nearby statue of the scientist adjacent to the centennial monastery. The flexible design, conceived to adapt to a variety of purposes, is entirely exposed to the exterior with fully open side walls, preventing any visual barriers. A concealed system of heat pumps, shading and heating, located underground, reveal the building’s sustainable scheme, reliant on its adjustable shades and embedded blinds to ensure natural cooling and ventilation in the summer and heating in the winter – thereby mirroring and revisiting the regulative properties of a greenhouse.

Preparatory drawing for the Mendel Greenhouse project, CHYBIK + KRISTOF. Courtesy of CHYBIK + KRISTOF.

With the aim of attracting local and international visitors as well as a professional public essential to preserving the monastery’s legacy, the revived structure acts as a versatile space celebrating Mendel’s work and contributions to modern genetics. The vast, adaptable volume allows for a diversity of events from conferences and lectures to temporary exhibitions, while the integrated blinds enable the space to be darkened for projections and concerts.

Architect and founder Ondřej Chybík explains, “The concept of the redesigned greenhouse is deeply rooted in the work of Gregor Mendel. The nodes and branches constituting the steel supportive framing are in direct dialogue with his laws of inheritance, in particular that of hereditary segregation. Building on this notion as well as Mendel’s original drawings, the resulting, highly complex structure pays homage to his legacy. Laid bare by the transparency of the glass roof, the edifice both embodies and exposes his undeniable contribution to modern science.”

The revived Mendel Greenhouse is due to be completed in 2022, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Gregor Mendel’s birth.

Project Team: Ondřej Chybík, Michal Kristof, Ondřej Švancara, Kryštof Foltýn, Ingrid Spáčilová, Laura Emilija Druktenytė

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NOTES TO EDITORS
About CHYBIK + KRISTOF
CHYBIK + KRISTOF is an architecture and urban design practice founded in 2010 by Ondřej Chybík and Michal Krištof. Operating with 50+ international team members and offices in Prague, Brno and Bratislava, the practice aims at creating bridges between private and public space, transcending generations and societal spheres. Taking into account local histories and environmental specificities, the studio works on a wide array of projects, ranging from urban developments to public and residential buildings. Recent projects include: Gallery of Furniture (Czech Republic), the Czech Pavilion at Expo 2015 (Milan, Italy) and Lahofer Winery (Czech Republic). The studio has been awarded a number of prizes, including the 2019 Vanguard Award from Architectural Record.
https://chybik-kristof.com/

Mendel Greenhouse
St. Thomas’s Augustinian Abbey, Brno
Mendlovo náměstí 157/1
603 00 Brno
Czech Republic
https://www.opatstvibrno.cz/

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Art Paris 2020 Announces New Dates | A 22nd Edition Dedicated To the New French Art Scene and the Iberian Peninsula

UPDATED DATES | May 28—31, 2020, Grand Palais
Opening Preview: Wednesday, May 27 | 6—10 pm

March 12, 2020 (Paris) – Art Paris is pleased to announce its 22nd edition as it returns to the Grand Palais from May 28—31, 2020. In the 20 years since its founding, Art Paris has established itself as Paris’s major spring fair for modern and contemporary art. Bringing together more than 150 galleries from over 20 countries – from the post-war to the contemporary period, Art Paris is a place for discovery, placing special emphasis on the European scene, whilst exploring the new horizons of international creative hubs, whether in Asia, Africa, the Middle East or Latin America. This year, the fair will showcase a two-fold “Focus” – turning to both the French contemporary art scene and the emerging Iberian art hubs, specifically Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid and Porto. In parallel, the “Solo Show” sector will be dedicated to monographic exhibitions, while “Promises” pursues its support to young and emerging galleries.

New participants make up 31% of the 2020 selection, which is marked by the arrival of Parisian galleries including Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Galerie Sator and Caroline Smulders in association with Karsten Greve. From an international standpoint, five countries will be represented for the first time: Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, the Ivory Coast and Turkey. Contributing to the Iberian Peninsula contingent are 12 galleries from Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and Porto. The Asian scene will affirm its presence, with 5 galleries from South Korea including 313 Art Project, Gallery Simon, Gallery H.A.N., Mo J Gallery and Gallery SoSo. Works by African artists will be on show in the Main Sector, at ARTCO Gallery (Aachen/Le Cap) and Niki Cryan (Lagos), as well as in the “Promises” sector with 31 Project (Paris), Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Paris/Abidjan) and Septieme Gallery (Paris), all of which are participating for the first time. The Middle Eastern scene will also be present with a special focus at Galerie Brigitte Schenk (Cologne), presenting works by Halim al Karim (Iraq), Tarek Al Ghoussein (Kuweit) and Abdulnasser Gharem (Saudi Arabia), whose installation The Safe was one of the highlights of Art Basel 2019’s Unlimited sector.

An Overview of the French Art Scene: Common and Uncommon Stories
Each year, in support of the French scene, Art Paris invites a curator to engage critically and historically with a selection of projects by French artists presented by participating galleries. In Common and Uncommon Stories, director of the Bourse Révélations Emerige and guest curator Gaël Charbau brings together the work of 22 artists, most of which were born in the 1980s, responding to the notion of the narrative and the ambiguous interplay between singularity and universality in storytelling. He has also been invited to write a text presenting each artist and their work.

Selected French artists: Henni Alftan (Galerie Claire Gastaud), Léa Belooussovitch (Galerie Paris-Beijing), Abdelkader Benchamma (Galerie Templon), Jérôme Borel (Galerie Olivier Waltman), Damien Cabanes (Galerie Eric Dupont), Claire Chesnier (Galerie ETC), Rémi Dal Negro (Galerie Eric Mouchet), Elsa & Johanna (Galerie La Forest Divonne), Roland Flexner (Galerie Nathalie Obadia), Laurent Gapaillard (Galerie Daniel Maghen), Jennyfer Grassi (Galerie Eva Hober), Kubra Kadhemi (Galerie Eric Mouchet), Gabriel Leger (Galerie Sator), Caroline Le Méhauté (H Gallery), Anita Molinero (Galerie Thomas Bernard), Anne et Patrick Poirier (Dilecta), Baptiste Rabichon (Galerie Paris-Beijing), Louis-Cyprien Rials (Galerie Eric Mouchet), Kevin Rouillard (Galerie Thomas Bernard), Edgar Sarin (Dilecta), Hervé Télémaque (Galerie Rabouan Moussion), Paul Vergier (H Gallery).

Southern Stars: An Exploration of the Iberian Peninsula
Following its extensive survey of the Latin American scene in 2019, Art Paris turns to the Iberian Peninsula, bringing light to Spanish and Portuguese art from the 1950s to the present day. 25 galleries will be presenting works by a selection of 77 artists – from modern masters to contemporary artists. In parallel, projects including a video programme, site-specific installations, and conferences at the Instituto Cervantes and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris will highlight the creative effervescence flourishing in this part of Southern Europe.

A Historical and Contemporary Exploration of the Spanish and Portuguese art scenes
Spread across the various sectors of the fair, the participating galleries will constitute a historical and contemporary journey delving into the various Spanish and Portuguese art scenes.

Representing the Spanish scene, Galeria Marc Domènech (Barcelona) will be paying tribute to historical figures connected with the Surrealist movement, such as Julio González, Óscar Domínguez and Joan Miró, while Galerie Andres Thalmann (Zurich) will be showcasing Joan Hernández Pijuan, one of the major Spanish artists of the last thirty years, known for his uniform colour compositions. Freijo Gallery (Madrid) will be looking back at the generation of artists who lived and worked in Madrid in the 1970s, with conceptual artist Mateo Maté, Ramón Mateos, one of the founders of the El Perro collective, and Darío Villalba, whose hybrid works address questions of identity and marginality. Michel Soskine Inc. (Madrid) will be dedicating a solo show to Antonio Crespo Foix, featuring the artist’s sculptures made of bamboo, horsehair, wool and wire – recreating a surreal natural world tinged with poetry. The analysis of the relationship between history and politics, between art and power and between public space and collective memory acts as a common thread between the works of Cristina Lucas and Fernando Sánchez Castillo, who will be presented side by side at Albarrán Bourdais (Madrid).

As part of the Portuguese showcase, São Mamede (Lisbon) will be celebrating two modern masters: the architect and painter Nadir Afonso (1920—2013), a pioneer of Kinetic Art known for his geometric cityscapes and who worked closely with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer; and Manuel Cargaleiro (born 1927), a painter and ceramicist close to the École de Paris. Jeanne Bucher Jaeger (Paris/Lisbon) will be dedicating its stand to three major figures of the contemporary Lisbon scene: Michael Biberstein (1948—1978), Rui Moreira (born 1971) and Miguel Branco (born 1963), who borrows from art history to create paintings, drawings and sculptures that explore the animal kingdom and notions of scale.

Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris/Brussels) will be presenting works on paper by Jorge Queiroz, whose unique and teeming personal universe lies midway between figuration and abstraction, while Galería MPA (Madrid) will be presenting the hybrid works of Rui Toscano, whose use of the evocative power of images and sounds examines cultural representations and collective memory. Best known for her numerous exuberant sculptures and installations created by accumulating everyday objects, Joana Vasconcelos will be the focus of La Patinoire Royale – Galerie Valérie Bach (Brussels)’s display.

A Monumental Installation at the Front to the Grand Palais
A site-specific installation presented by Portuguese artist Marisa Ferreira, Lost Future (2020) takes its inspiration from Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin (1925) – an urban development project for Paris comprised of 18 cruciform glass skyscrapers placed on an orthogonal grid of streets interspersed with green spaces. The plan, which was never implemented, envisioned demolishing the Marais neighbourhood as a way of solving issues of dilapidated and unhealthy housing, illness and overpopulation – thereby giving place to what Le Corbusier called the “city of tomorrow”, a symbol of European modernity and of the industrial era. Directly referencing this emblematic project, the cross-shaped column imagined by Marisa Ferreira evokes the gap between the utopian ambitions of the 1970s and the current property boom that pays no heed to the history and identity of cities such as Porto and Lisbon.

“Solo Show”: A Showcase of 20 Monographic Exhibitions
Since 2015, Art Paris has encouraged the presentation of monographic exhibitions – a key moment in artists’ careers – by inciting galleries to present specific single artist-focused projects. The 2020 edition will feature around 20 solo shows distributed throughout the fair. Highlights will include a site-specific project by South African artist Roger Ballen (Caroline Smulders in association with Karsten Greve, Paris); a mini-retrospective of British artist – best known for his colourful “puddle” paintings – Ian Davenport (Luca Tommasi – Arte Contemporanea, Milan); and a rare ensemble of works by major Cuban artist Jesse A. Fernández at Galerie Orbis Pictus (Paris).

“Promises”: A Sector for Young Galleries and Emerging Talents
Purposefully placed at the very heart of the Grand Palais, “Promises” will host 14 young galleries from Abidjan, Brussels, Lima, Lisbon, Rome, Sofia, Marseille and Paris, many of which will be exhibiting at Art Paris for the first time this year. The galleries will explore rarely represented art scenes, from Europe – in particular Bulgaria at Structura Gallery (Sofia); Africa, with 31 Project, Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Paris/Abidjan) and Septieme Gallery (Paris); and Latin America, represented by Galerie Younique (Lima/Paris) and 193 Gallery (Paris). The galleries will each be presenting between one and three emerging artists – and benefit from financial sponsorship from the fair. 2020 Selection: 193 Gallery (Paris), 31 Project (Paris), Galerie Ariane C-Y (Paris), Art Sablon (Brussels), Galerie Bessières (Chatou), Double V Gallery (Marseille), Galeria Foco (Lisbon), H Gallery (Paris), Galleria Anna Marra (Rome), Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Abidjan), Ségolène Brossette Galerie (Paris), Septieme Gallery (Paris), Structura Gallery (Sofia), Galerie Younique (Paris/Lima).

Paris in the Spring
Over the past few years, Paris has been reasserting its place as a capital of the arts. The 2020 VIP programme will invite guest collectors and art professionals to discover the city’s very best spring art events. Highlights will include: Christo et Jeanne-Claude – Paris ! at the Centre Pompidou; Erwin Wurm at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie; Cindy Sherman – A Retrospective (1975-2020) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton; Giorgio de Chirico. La peinture métaphysique at the Musée de l’Orangerie; Ulla von Brandenburg at the Palais de Tokyo; James Tissot (1836-1902), l’ambigu moderne at the Musée d’Orsay; Picasso poète at the Musée national Picasso-Paris; and the much-anticipated opening of La Fab. d’agnès b pour l’art contemporain.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About Art Paris 2020
Grand Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris
www.artparis.com

Opening Preview (by invitation only)
Wednesday, May 27 | 6 pm – 10 pm 

Opening Hours
Thursday, May 28 | 11.30 am — 8 pm
Friday, May 29 | 11.30 am — 9 pm
Saturday, May 30 | 11.30 am — 8 pm
Sunday, May 31 | 11.30 am — 7 pm

Admission fee | 28€/14€ (for students and groups)
Catalogue | 20€

Conferences (Updated locations and times to be determined)
Barcelona – Madrid: present – future
Instituto Cervantes
7 rue Quentin Bauchard, 75008 Paris
Turning to the evolving Barcelona and Madrid art scenes, the panel discussion will be moderated by Carolina Grau, guest curator of Southern Stars: An Exploration of the Iberian Peninsula, with the participation of Sabrina Amrani, gallery owner and president of the Madrid Galleries Association; Nimfa Bisbe, art collections director of La Caixa Foundation, Barcelona; Joana Hurtado Matheu, director of the contemporary art centre Fabra i Coats, Barcelona; Manuela Villa Acosta, in charge of events programming at Matadero – centre for contemporary creation, Madrid; and Alex Nogueras, gallery owner and president of the Barcelona Galleries Association.

Lisbon and Porto: the reasons behind an artistic revival
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris
54 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris
In recent years, Lisbon and Porto, Portugal’s two largest cities, have undergone a salient artistic and cultural renaissance. In a country where the lack of financial means acts as a catalyst for both the best and the worst, the necessity to come up with new solutions became an essential focus following the country’s economic and social crisis ten years ago. Lisbon and Porto, although deeply immersed in the country’s institutional and financial instability, continuously assert their open and cosmopolitan outlook. The two cities boast a unique creative dynamic with their local artists and art scenes – one that has caught the eye of the international art world.
In partnership with the French delegation of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Art Paris will be presenting a debate addressing the artistic vitality of Lisbon and Porto and seeking to better understand how these two cities have become two of the most interesting cultural destinations today.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Miguel Magalhães, director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, with Guilherme Blanc, deputy mayor of Porto in charge of culture; João Pinharanda, cultural advisor at the Portuguese Embassy, Paris; Catarina Vaz Pinto, deputy mayor of Lisbon in charge of culture; and Penelope Curtis, director of the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon.

List of exhibitors 2020
193 Gallery (Paris) • 31 Project (Paris) • 313 Art Project (Paris/Seoul) • Galerie 8+4 – Paris (Paris) • A Galerie (Paris) • A&R Fleury (Paris) • A2Z Art Gallery (Paris/Hong Kong) • AD Galerie (Montpellier) • Aedaen Gallery (Strasbourg) • Albarrán Bourdais (Madrid) • Alzueta Gallery (Barcelona) • Galerie Andres Thalmann (Zürich) • Ana Mas Projects (Barcelona) • Galerie Ariane C-Y (Paris) • Artco Gallery (Aachen/Cape Town) • Artkelch (Freiburg im Breisgau) • Art Sablon (Brussels) • Arts d’Australie – Stéphane Jacob (Paris) • Art to Be Gallery (Lille) • La Patinoire Royale – Galerie Valérie Bach (Brussels) • Galerie Cédric Bacqueville (Lille) • Galerie Ange Basso (Paris) • Galerie Belem/Albert Benamou, Barbara Lagié, Véronique Maxé (Paris) • Galerie Renate Bender (Munich) • Galerie Berès (Paris) • Galerie Claude Bernard (Paris) • Galerie Thomas Bernard – Cortex Athletico (Paris) • Galerie Bert (Paris) • Galerie Bessières (Chatou) • Galerie Binome (Paris) • Bogéna Galerie (Saint-Paul-de-Vence) • Brisa Galeria (Lisbon) • Ségolène Brossette Galerie (Paris) • Pierre-Yves Caër Gallery (Paris) • Galerie Capazza (Nançay) • Galerie Chauvy (Paris) • Galerie Chevalier (Paris) • Christopher Cutts Gallery (Toronto) • Creative Growth Art Center (Oakland) • David Pluskwa (Marseille) • Galerie Michel Descours (Lyon/Paris) • Dilecta (Paris) • Galeria Marc Domènech (Barcelona) • Galerie Dominique Fiat (Paris) • Double V Gallery (Marseille) • Galerie Dutko (Paris) • Galerie Jacques Elbaz (Paris) • Galerie Eric Dupont (Paris) • Galerie Eric Mouchet (Paris) • Espace Meyer Zafra (Paris) • Galerie ETC (Paris) • Galerie Valérie Eymeric (Lyon) • Feichtner Gallery (Vienna) • Flatland (Amsterdam) • Galeria Foco (Lisbon) • Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea (Rome) • Freijo Gallery (Madrid) • Galerie Pascal Gabert (Paris) • Galerie Claire Gastaud (Clermont-Ferrand/Paris) • Galerie Louis Gendre (Paris/Chamalières) • Gimpel & Müller (Paris) • Galerie Michel Giraud (Paris/Luxembourg) • Gowen Contemporary (Geneva) • Galerie Philippe Gravier (Paris/Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies) • H Gallery (Paris) • Gallery H.A.N. (Seoul) • Galerie Ernst Hilger (Vienna) • Galerie Eva Hober (Paris) • Huberty & Breyne Gallery (Brussels/Paris) • Galerie Hurtebize (Cannes) • Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger (Paris) • Galerie Koralewski (Paris) • Espace L & Brisa Galeria (Geneva) • Galerie La Forest Divonne (Paris/Brussels) • Galerie Lahumière (Paris) • Galerie La Ligne (Zurich) • Lancz Gallery (Brussels) • Alexis Lartigue Fine Art (Paris) • Anna Laudel (Istanbul/Düsseldorf) • Galerie Jean-Marc Lelouch (Paris) • Françoise Livinec (Paris/Huelgoat) • Galerie Loft (Paris) • Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo (Barcelona) • Galerie Daniel Maghen (Paris) • Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts (Budapest) • Mark Hachem Gallery (Paris) • Galleria Anna Marra (Rome) • Maurice Verbaet Gallery (Knokke Heist/Berchem) • Galerie Minsky (Paris) • Galerie Modulab (Hagondange/Metz) • Galerie Moisan (Paris) • Mo J Gallery (Seoul/Busan) • Galerie Lélia Mordoch (Paris/Miami) • Galería MPA (Madrid) • Galerie Najuma (Fabrice Miliani) (Marseille) • Galerie Nec – Nilsson et Chiglien (Paris) • Niki Cryan Gallery (Lagos) • Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris/Brussels) • Galerie Oniris (Rennes) • Opera Gallery (Paris) • Galerie Orbis Pictus (Paris) • P gallery sculpture (Athens) • Galerie Paris-Beijing (Paris) • Galerie Perahia (Paris) • The Pigment Gallery (Barcelona) • Galerie Polaris (Paris) • Galerie Provost Hacker (Lille) • Galerie Rabouan Moussion (Paris) • Raibaudi Wang Gallery (Paris) • Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery (London) • Red Zone Arts (Frankfurt am Main) • Galerie Richard (Paris/New York) • Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Paris/Abidjan) • J.-P. Ritsch-Fisch Galerie (Strasbourg) • São Mamede (Lisbon) • Galerie Sator (Paris) • Galerie Brigitte Schenk (Cologne) • School Gallery/Olivier Castaing (Paris) • Septieme Gallery (Paris) • Gallery Simon (Seoul) • SIRIN Copenhagen Gallery (Frederiksberg) • Galerie Slotine (Paris) • Galerie Véronique Smagghe (Paris) • Caroline Smulders & Galerie Karsten Greve (Paris) • Michel Soskine Inc. (Madrid/New York) • Gallery SoSo (Heyri) • Space 776 (Brooklyn) • SPARC* - Spazio Arte Contemporanea (Venice) • Structura Gallery (Sofia) • Galerie Tamenaga (Paris/Tokyo/Osaka) • Templon (Paris/Brussels) • Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea (Milan) • Galerie Traits Noirs (Paris) • Galerie Patrice Trigano (Paris) • Galerie Univer/Colette Colla (Paris) • Un-Spaced (Paris) • Galerie Vallois (Paris) • Galerie Sabine Vazieux (Paris) • Viltin Gallery (Budapest) • Galerie Wagner (Le Touquet-Paris-Plage/Paris) • Olivier Waltman Gallery (Paris/Miami) • Galerie Esther Woerdehoff (Paris) • Wunderkammern Gallery (Rome/Milan) • Galerie XII (Paris/Los Angeles/Shanghai) • Galerie Younique (Lima/Paris) • Galerie Géraldine Zberro (Paris) • Galerie Zink Waldkirchen (Waldkirchen).

Image credits:
Image 1. Joana Vasconcelos, Blue Rose, 2016. Installation. 246 x 95 x 47 cm. Courtesy of La Patinoire Royale–Galerie Valérie Bach.
Image 2. Hassan Hajjaj, Afrikan Boy Sittin’, 2013. Photography. 136 x 94 x 6 cm. Courtesy of 193 Gallery.

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The 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN Presents 101 artists, 700 Works and 600 Events over 87 Days

Ibrahim Mahama, No Friend but the Mountains 2012-2020, 2020, charcoal jute sacks, sacks, metal tags and scrap metal tarpaulin, dimensions variable. Installation view (2020) for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, Cockatoo Island. Courtesy of the artist; White Cube; and Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia. Photograph: Zan Wimberley

14 March — 8 June 2020

March 10, 2020 (Sydney, Australia) – The Biennale of Sydney – the third oldest biennial in the world after Venice and São Paulo and largest exhibition of its kind in Australia – has launched its 22nd edition, taking place from 14 March – 8 June 2020. Titled NIRIN, the 2020 edition presents a diverse range of contemporary artworks spanning from video and photography to installations and performances, across six different venues in Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Artspace, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Cockatoo Island, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and the National Art School.

Under the artistic direction of acclaimed Indigenous Australian artist Brook Andrew, this expansive exhibition of contemporary art and events brings together 700 works by 101 international artists and collectives – including 39 Australian artists – many of which have been specifically commissioned for the occasion. Titled NIRIN, or edge – a word of Andrew’s mother’s Nation, the Wiradjuri people of western New South Wales, the exhibition pushes audiences the see beyond what they know, to challenge history, to be a part of the story and to immerse themselves in inspiration and imagined futures.

Highlights include Pitjantjatjara artist, activist and leader Kunmanara Mumu Mike Williams’s (1952–2019) large-scale political protest piece created with the young men in his community, his widow Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin and his lifelong friend and collaborator Sammy Dodd following his passing last year (AGNSW); Tennant Creek Brio’s dynamic series of paintings on discarded western objects that draw inspiration from their experiences at home in the Northern Territory (Artspace); Gamilaroi/Gomeroi Murri Yinah photographer Barbara McGrady’s presentation of her life’s work as a kaleidoscopic compendium of contemporary Aboriginal history (Campbelltown Arts Centre); Ibrahim Mahama’s epic installation of sewn coal sacks in the Turbine Hall on Cockatoo Island; visual activist and photographer Zanele Muholi’s presentation of three bodies of work that look at the politics of race, gender and sexuality (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia); and, Hannah Catherine Jones’s audio-visual work using pop-cultural and archival material, poetic motifs and provocative imagery to tell a story of the African diaspora (National Art School).

The public program – NIRIN WIR meaning edge of the sky – includes over 600 events, with the vast majority free and open to all. This extensive program of live and site-specific artist activations proposes new ways for audiences to experience contemporary art, share time and learn from one other.  Highlights of the program include NIRIN HAIVETA, a restored ferry featuring traditional tattoo markings celebrating and honouring women of the Pacific Islands that will transport students free of charge from Circular Quay to Cockatoo Island every weekday and will hop between Sydney Olympic Park Wharf and Cockatoo Island on Saturdays; the To cook Cook or not? debate featuring performances by Thelma Plum and Ripple Effect at Sydney Town Hall; Stories We Never Tell, a performative walking tour at the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct; 4ESydney HipHop Festival and Bankstown Poetry Slam on Cockatoo Island, and related artist talks, tours and workshops for young people and families every weekend and during school holidays.

Teresa Margolles, Untitled, 2020, mixed-media installation. Installation view (2020) for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, National Art School. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich. Photograph: Zan Wimberley

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About the Biennale of Sydney
Established in 1973, it is the third oldest biennial in the world after Venice and São Paulo and the largest exhibition of its kind in Australia. The Biennale of Sydney has commissioned and presented exceptional works of art by more than 1,800 national and international artists from more than 100 countries. One of the leading international contemporary art events in the world, it plays an indispensable role in Australia’s engagement
with the world, and a meaningful role in the life of the nation.

The Biennale presents the most dynamic contemporary art from around the globe in venues across Sydney with exhibitions that ignite and surprise people, sparking dialogue, cultivating connections and inspiring action through meaningful, shared arts experiences.

The Biennale of Sydney is committed to free access for all and, in 2018, attracted visitation of over 854,000, the highest level in its 45-year history. The Biennale attracts a broad audience: local, interstate, international, culturally diverse and intergenerational. The 22nd Biennale of Sydney, titled NIRIN, is open from 14 March to 8 June 2020.

For information on the exhibition, go to biennaleofsydney.art.

For event bookings, go to biennaleofsydney.art/events.

Facebook / Instagram / @biennalesydney #NIRIN2020 

The Biennale of Sydney is supported by:

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The Armory Show Announces Move to the Javits Center and New September Dates for 2021 Edition

Rendering of The Armory Show at the Javits Center, its new location. Courtesy of The Armory Show and The Javits Center.

March 7, 2020 (New York) – The Armory Show has announced that starting in 2021, New York City’s essential art fair will shift to September at the state-of-the-art Javits Center.  Designed by Architect James Ingo Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners (previously I.M. Pei & Partners), the Javits Center will have recently completed a $1.5 billon expansion project when it welcomes The Armory Show September 9-12, 2021.

The Armory Show 2021 will anchor a new Armory Arts Week and launch the fall art season in alignment with September New York gallery openings.

“We are thrilled for this exciting new chapter for The Armory Show and look forward to creating a spectacular fair in September 2021 at our new home at the Javits Center. September is a great time of year to be in New York City, and we are eager to align with gallery openings to kick off the fall season. We hope everyone will mark their calendars,” said Executive Director Nicole Berry.

“Our historic expansion project is a game changer for the Javits Center, and by hosting The Armory Show in September 2021, we’re proving that events in New York will never be the same,” said Alan Steel, President and CEO of the Javits Center. “We are thrilled to host such a wonderful event as The Armory Show and introduce their exhibitors and attendees to our new dynamic spaces that will raise the standard for event venues nationwide.”

It is befitting that New York’s essential art fair will be a new landmark event for the newly expanded Javits Center. The Armory Show exhibitors and guests alike will be able to enjoy an optimized fair experience with easier accessibility and superior facilities, as well as several key cultural, commercial, and gastronomic destinations in close proximity such as The Highline, the Chelsea Arts District, and Hudson Yards.

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NOTES TO EDITORS
About The Armory Show
The Armory Show is New York City’s essential art fair, and a leading cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th- and 21st-century art. Staged on Manhattan’s Piers 90 and 94, The Armory Show features presentations by leading international galleries, innovative artist commissions, and dynamic public programs. Since its founding in 1994, The Armory Show has served as a nexus for the international art world, inspiring dialogue, discovery, and patronage in the visual arts.

About the Javits Center
Known as the "Marketplace for the World," the Javits Center was designed by I.M. Pei & Partners and opened in 1986. The iconic facility has since become New York City's primary venue for large conventions, trade shows and special events and serves as home to many of the world's top 250 trade shows, hosting millions of visitors a year. These large-scale events generate more than $2 billion in annual economic activity for New York City and New York State, supporting as many as 18,000 jobs in and around the facility. Located on 11th Avenue between West 34th and West 40th Sts. in Manhattan, the Javits Center has 760,000 square feet of exhibition space, 102 meeting rooms and four banquet halls, as well as a range of technology services, including WiFi access. For more information, visit www.javitscenter.com.

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"Freedom Will Have Been An Episode" Opens at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Featuring Four Site-specific Installations

Günter Brus, Untitled (Action Drawing), 1966; Private Collection. Photo: UMJ/N. Lackner

March 2, 2020 (New York) – The Austrian Cultural Forum New York is pleased to announce its spring exhibition, Freedom will have been an episode. Developed in cooperation with Universalmuseum Joanneum (Graz, Austria), the group show contemplates on the creeping social upheaval that has taken place in recent years. Following in the footsteps of pioneering Austrian painter, performance artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer Günther Brus (born 1938), four emerging artists and collectives from Austria have developed new site-specific installations that engage with what freedom means today in art and society.

In the 1960s, when Günther Brus co-founded the seminal avant-garde art movement Viennese Actionism and challenged Austrian society with his taboo-breaking performances, freedom was considered a precious commodity that had to be defended against any form of restriction. In the last decades, these hard-won freedoms have been increasingly undermined by the economy of hedonism and the efficiency of neo-liberalism. People are no longer disciplined by force and violence but are galvanized into self-optimization. This “technology of the self,” in the words of Michel Foucault, is nothing but an efficient form of domination and exploitation. Freedom has become a form of coercion, argues philosopher Byung-Chul Han, whose book Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (2017) inspired the title of this exhibition.

Society and art have changed considerably in the decades since Brus started his “actions.” For Freedom will have been an episode, curator Roman Grabner contrasts Brus’s works with new artistic voices from Austria that challenge the norm and explore what it means today to break free from convention and defy the system, to be a foreign body in society and to analyze its power structures.

While in his work Günter Brus has focused primarily on the human body and the way people are categorized and standardized since the 1960s, Josef Wurm (born 1984) intertwines the anatomy of the human body with the topography of maps. His paintings are social critiques that penetrate into the very innermost, the entrails of human co-existence, and the anatomy of social orders, reaching the rudimentary elements that constitute the body and writing, and thereby codify reality.

Evamaria Schaller’s (born 1980) performances react to specific locations. She deploys her own body in a space where it is neither expected nor wanted and thus represents an affront to the system of order and control. Her latest work engages with genetics, digital data processing, and biotechnologies to question the physical limits of freedom.

Artist duo Eva Pichler (born 1981) and Gerhard Pichler (born 1980) examine the subtle normalizations of everyday life in their art. As zweintopf they develop installations thematizing methods of controlling and influencing others. Their work Fencing IV combines so-called cattle trainers – electrified metal bars meant to prompt animals to excrete their manure at specific places – to construct a large installation that fills the exhibition space like a minimalist grid.

Marleen Leitner (born 1986) and Michael Schitnig (born 1986) of studio ASYNCHROME are constantly engaged with the individual in an era of social upheaval. Influenced by Michel Foucault’s work on developing means to describe the mechanisms and structures in power within the social body, studio ASYNCHROME, through their drawings, observe and reflect on the present socio-political situation based on the algorithms of manipulation.

In his curatorial statement, Roman Grabner sums up the premise of the show: “If the media are corrupted by the economy, if critical thought is equated with corrosive conduct and if political engagement no longer takes place because it is incompatible with social media, then we are heading towards the ‘brave new world’ and freedom will indeed have been an episode.”

Artists on view: Günter Brus, Evamaria Schaller, studio ASYNCHROME, Josef Wurm, zweintopf
Curated by Roman Grabner of BRUSEUM Graz, Austria

A selection of press images can be found on the following link.

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NOTES TO EDITORS
About the Austrian Cultural Forum New York
With its architectural landmark building in Midtown Manhattan, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York is dedicated to innovative and cutting-edge programming, showcasing the best of Austrian contemporary art, music, literature, per­formance, and academic thought in New York and throughout the United States.

Austrian Cultural Forum New York
11 East 52nd St. (btw. 5th & Madison)
New York, NY 10022
www.acfny.org
@acfny

Partners: Neue Galerie Graz/BRUSEUM, Universalmuseum Joanneum
Supported by Land Steiermark

Mazzoleni Announces its Participation in The Armory Show 2020 | Booth 820

Melissa McGill, Red Regatta (Coppa del Presidente della Repubblica, San Giorgio Maggiore), 2019. Archival pigment print with pigment and matte gel medium, 142.2 x 213.4 cm. Courtesy of Mazzoleni, London/Turin

Mazzoleni will feature photography of Melissa McGill’s Red Regatta, a public art project presented during La Biennale di Venezia 2019, alongside an exhibition of works by Italian and international artists, including David Reimondo.

5—8 March 2020
Piers 90 & 94 | Booth 820

Artists Melissa McGill and David Reimondo will be available on-site for interviews.

With works by: Vincenzo Agnetti | Mel Bochner | Alighiero Boetti | Lucio Fontana | Jannis Kounellis | Melissa McGill | Rebecca Moccia | Gastone Novelli | David Reimondo | Mimmo Rotella | Salvo | Mario Schifano | Gianfranco Zappettini

February 25, 2020 – Mazzoleni is pleased to announce its participation in The Armory Show 2020, New York. The presentation will be twofold: one part of the booth will display  photographic renderings of Red Regatta by Melissa McGill, while the main section will focus on MORE THAN WORDS…, a project based on the group show of the same title held at Mazzoleni London in 2018.

The presentation features works created from the 1950s to the present day, underlying the Dadaist and Futurist verbal and visual innovations, of which the latter were of particular relevance to certain Italian Post-War artists. Selected works by Italian and international artists whose practice is linked to the use of the “word” or to the invention of a new “code” or “language” will be highlighted: Vincenzo Agnetti (1926- 1981), Mel Bochner (1940), Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994), Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Jannis Kounellis (1936-2017), Rebecca Moccia (1992), Gastone Novelli (1925- 1968), David Reimondo (b.1973), Mimmo Rotella (1918-2006), Salvo (1947-2015), Mario Schifano (1934-1998), Gianfranco Zappettini (1939).

The artists on display are interconnected by keywords characterizing their own individual practice (concept – light – dictionary – pop – time – philosophy), identifying mutual affinities. Drawing inspiration from life itself and the kaleidoscope of verbal, literary, philosophical and poetic types of communication, each artist has been able to transcend words beyond their meaning – giving the exhibition its title, MORE THAN WORDS.

Similarities can also be found in the techniques and materials used: torn paper and collage characterize the works by young artist Rebecca Moccia (in the wake of her acclaimed exhibition presented at Museo Novecento in Florence, 2019-2020), as well as the significant “décollages” by Mimmo Rotella, and the seminal, multi-material works by Mario Schifano, who was active in Rome concurrently with Jannis Kounellis. Kounellis’s black letters on white backgrounds create a strong iconic and visual impact. These lines of research were developed within the context of the Italian economic boom and the explosion of mass culture and communication.

It is widely acknowledged that Lucio Fontana used to inscribe a variety of notes and phrases on the reverse of the canvas of his Concetti spaziali. Concerned with language and different cultures, Alighiero Boetti’s passionate interest motivated him to travel repeatedly to Afghanistan and Pakistan where he encountered highly skilled artisans whom he commissioned to realize his work. Boetti's “embroidered” verbal-visual compositions combine letters, sentences, colors, and the idea of “time” to achieve a unique form of "depersonalization" of the work; the concept of time is also prominent in his Calendari series.

Vincenzo Agnetti and Salvo share the “lapidary” power of words and sentences engraved on felt, marble, or neon, whereas the practice of David Reimondo represents a novelty on the American art scene. David Reimondo’s Etimografia is a macro-project embracing much of his latest research into “language.” The artist has created a synthesis sui generis (featuring ideograms, pictograms and glyphs among other elements) and produced new “graphemes” and new “phonemes.” Each of these “symbols” is the base element of a broader, more variegated project. This project came into being quite naturally as a perennial “work in progress”. One series of pieces is composed of “sculptures” (each around 40 x 40 x 6 cm) in wood colored with ink for professional printers; a choice of matter and materials that brings together past and present, conjugating different operational practices. Reimondo’s utopia is the development of a new language – in the most absolute sense of the term – that overcomes those predefined barriers.

A separate area of the booth will be dedicated to a series of large-scale hand-painted photographic renderings of Red Regatta by American artist Melissa McGill (born 1969), which Mazzoleni is proud to present at the Armory Show for the first time. This body of work is part of her major public art project Red Regatta, an unprecedented series of four large-scale site-specific performances on Venice’s waterways between May and September 2019: 52 traditional vela al terzo boats sailed in choreographed regattas, each with sails hand-painted by the artist in distinct shades of red. An innovative reflection on environmental issues and historical traditions, Red Regatta was presented in collaboration with Associazione Vela al Terzo Venezia, curated by Chiara Spangaro, with project manager Marcella Ferrari, co-organized by Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, with support from Mazzoleni. This presentation is intended as a prelude to the first exhibition that Mazzoleni London will dedicate to Melissa McGill from 29 April - 29 May 2020. Mazzoleni officially represents Melissa McGill in Europe and Asia.

A selection of press images can be found on the following link.

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NOTES TO EDITORS
Mazzoleni (London | Turin)
Mazzoleni was founded in Turin in 1986 by Giovanni and Anna Pia Mazzoleni, as a natural evolution of their private collection started in the 1950s. The historic Turin space, which occupies three floors of Palazzo Panizza, overlooking the city-center Piazza Solferino, has since 2014 been flanked by the London gallery in Mayfair. Over the past three decades, Mazzoleni has organized solo and group exhibitions of more than 200 prominent Italian and international artists from across the 20th century with an exhibition program focused on museum-caliber Italian art from the post-war period and recently the contemporary panorama, working in close collaboration with artists’ estates and foundations. 
www.mazzoleniart.com

The Armory Show | Booth 820
VIP Preview Day (by invitation only)
Wednesday, March 4, 2020, 11AM—8PM

Public Days
Thursday, March 5, 12—8PM
Friday, March 6, 12—8PM
Saturday, March 7, 12—7PM
Sunday, March 8, 12—6PM

Piers 90 & 94 | Booth 820
711 12th Avenue, New York, US

Upcoming exhibition | Mazzoleni London
In Venice, Melissa McGill
29 April – 29 May 2020 

For additional details, please visit the artist’s page.

Fair Highlights: The Armory Show Returns for its 26th Edition, Featuring Three Curated Sections; Seven Large-scale Projects; Four Days of Talks; and 183 Exhibitors from 32 Countries

Mella Jaarsma, Feeding The Nation, 2019. Archival photo print. Image courtesy of Mella Jaarsma Studio and Baik + Khneysser (Section Presents)

February 24, 2020 – The Armory Show returns to Manhattan’s Piers 90 and 94 on March 5, featuring 183 galleries from 32 countries and with 33 first-time exhibitors. The Armory Show, supported by Lead Partner Athena Art Finance, is pleased to offer a new and expanded curatorial program, with Pier 90 composed entirely of curator-led projects and initiatives that address themes such as revisionist histories, social satire, and the contemporary recontextualization of 20th-century work. Pier 94, meanwhile, is devoted to The Armory Show’s longstanding Galleries section, as well as the Presents section — the latter of which shows presentations of works no more than three years old, from galleries no more than ten years old. This balance of major blue chips and fresh discoveries is what maintains The Armory Show’s steady place in the market, as well as its status as an international meeting place for the art world and an annual destination for museums and collectors to acquire new works.

The 2020 fair’s new and expanded curatorial program features invited curators including Jamillah James (Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles) for The Armory Show’s Focus section, which this year examines revisionist histories; Anne Ellegood (Director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), whose Platform section features seven large-scale works that reflect sociopolitical satire while spatially responding to and activating the fair’s industrial venue; and Nora Burnett Abrams (Mark G. Falcone Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver), who is inaugurating The Armory Show’s Perspectives section, which recontextualizes 20th-century works in a contemporary setting.

Maintaining its status as an essential selling platform for domestic and international galleries, The Armory Show is pleased to welcome back, after a one-to-three year hiatus, 25 historical exhibitors, among which are Gagosian, Kasmin, Barbara Mathes Gallery, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, Ben Brown Fine Arts, Richard Saltoun, R & Company, and Night Gallery. Among the ten galleries returning in 2020 after a five-to-ten year hiatus are Bortolami Gallery, Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Brooke Alexander, Maccarone, and Simon Lee Gallery.

While introducing fresh perspectives through multiple curatorial platforms, The Armory Show is proud to retain its legacy as New York’s original art fair, founded by New York dealers with a New York audience. In addition to Kasmin and Brooke Alexander, 2020 exhibitors who participated in the fair’s earliest editions at the Gramercy Park Hotel are 303 Gallery, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Jeffrey Deitch, Haines Gallery, Galerie Krinzinger, Pierogi, Yancey Richardson Gallery, and Zeno X Gallery.

The 49 exhibitors whose 2020 presentation marks ten or more years returning to The Armory Show include, in addition to many of the above and others: Victoria Miro, Sean Kelly, Ronald Feldman Gallery, Andrew Kreps Gallery, Kohn Gallery, Kavi Gupta, Caroline Nitsch, DC Moore Gallery, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Galerie Crone, Alison Jacques Gallery, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, Hollis Taggart, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Susan Sheehan Gallery, Yossi Milo Gallery, Two Palms, and Peter Blum Gallery.

Building on a strong contingent of domestic and international galleries, the 2020 edition also welcomes 33 first-time exhibitors.

SPECIAL PROJECTS
This year’s Special Projects — collaborative on- and off-site initiatives organized directly by The Armory Show — include a presentation of Dawoud Bey’s Harlem U.S.A., 1975-1979, organized and exhibited by Sean Kelly; an installation by For Freedoms; a live performance from artist Jeffrey Gibson in Times Square; and Mel Kendrick’s Sculpture No. 4 (1991), presented by David Nolan Gallery.

CURATORIAL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
On Thursday, March 5, the third annual Curatorial Leadership Summit (CLS), chaired by José Carlos Diaz (Chief Curator of the Andy Warhol Museum), will assemble prominent national and international curators from leading institutions for a daylong program of closed-door discussions, taking place on-site at The Armory Show. The talks will explore and debate issues such as cultural appropriation, censorship, and identity politics. Confirmed attendees include curators, arts administrators, and leadership from institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Bass Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, to name a few.

ARMORY LIVE
Armory Live celebrates the 26th fair edition with four days of dedicated talks featuring internationally renowned artists, curators, collectors, and art practitioners. Highlights include Jeffrey Gibson, who will speak with Brooklyn Museum curator Eugenie Tsai on the topic of cultural history, collectivism, and censorship. Renuka Sawhney of the Vera Institute of Justice, meanwhile, will lead a conversation addressing representation, body politics, and mass incarceration. Additional Armory Live participants include Hank Willis Thomas (artist and For Freedoms co-founder), Legacy Russell (associate curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem), Dread Scott (artist), Liz Glynn (artist), and Jarl Mohn (collector).

PRIZES
For its 2020 edition, The Armory Show is pleased to award four juried prizes — three in collaboration with key partners—that recognize exceptional presentations in various categories.  

The Gramercy International Prize, established in 2019 to mark the fair’s 25th anniversary, supports the advancement of young and pioneering New York gallerists who have not previously participated in The Armory Show. Kai Matsumiya has been selected as the second annual recipient of the Gramercy International Prize. The gallery will exhibit a solo presentation from Brazilian mixed media artist Pedro Wirz. In alignment with its purpose of elevating emerging talent, recipients of the Gramercy International Prize receive a free-of-charge booth situated among the fair’s core Galleries section. 

While the Gramercy International Prize is awarded in November in order to give its recipient time to prepare their booth presentation, the recipients of The Armory Show’s three partner prizes are selected based on their final booth presentations and are announced on the first public day of the fair, this year on Thursday, March 5.

For The Pommery Prize, now in its second year, Champagne Pommery will recognize an exceptional presentation of large-scale artwork within the Platform section of the fair. Its $20,000 prize will be shared between the artist and presenting gallery. In addition to Champagne Pommery co-owner and CEO Nathalie Vranken, its jury includes Nora Lawrence (Senior Curator, Storm King Art Center) and Emma Lavigne (President, Palais de Tokyo). The 2019 Pommery Prize winner was Lisson Gallery’s presentation of Ryan Gander.

The Presents Booth Prize, supported for its fourth consecutive year by Armory Show Lead Partner Athena Art Finance, recognizes an outstanding and innovative presentation within the Presents section of the fair, and will award $10,000 toward the winning gallery’s fair participation costs. In addition to Naomi Baigell (Managing Director, Athena Art Finance), jurors include Elisabeth Karpidas (Executive Director, Karpidas Family Foundation) and Bernard Lumpkin (collector and philanthropist). Past recipients include Charlie James Gallery, who in 2019 exhibited Sadie Barnette; blank projects, who in 2018 exhibited Igshaan Adams and Cinga Samson; and Mariane Ibrahim, who in 2017 exhibited Zohra Opoku.

The inaugural AWARE Prize is presented by the French not-for-profit organization AWARE (Archive of Women Artists Research & Exhibitions), which seeks to restore the presence of 20th-century women artists in the history of art. In alignment with AWARE’s goal pertaining to the creation, indexation, and distribution of information on 20th-century women artists, the AWARE Prize will award $10,000 to a female artist (or the estate of a female artist) exhibited in the Galleries section of the fair. The jury, in addition to AWARE co-founder Camille Morineau, includes Bloum Cardenas (Trustee, Niki Charitable Art Foundation; President, Giardino dei Tarocchi), Simon Castets (Director, Swiss Institute), and Maura Reilly (Founding Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum).

THE ARMORY SHOW AUDIO GUIDE
The Armory Show will, for the first time ever, offer a free-to-the-public, dial-in audio guide available from any cell phone that will feature more than fifty auditory bytes (each thirty to sixty seconds in length) that offer curatorial insight to works, projects, and booths on view at The Armory Show 2020. Commentary will be provided by a number of prominent curators and tastemakers, including Camille Morineau, Anne Ellegood, Jamillah James, José Carlos Diaz, and Isabella Lauria, among others.  Signage throughout the fair will indicate included exhibitions and artworks.

CURATORIAL SECTIONS (PIER 90)
For the first time ever, The Armory Show is devoting a full pier to presentations chosen by guest curators from leading institutions, including the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. With Pier 90 composed entirely of these curator-led projects and initiatives, visitors are treated to a notably institutional feel as they walk from presentation to presentation. Among the themes of the 2020 fair’s curatorial program are social commentary, paradigms of truth, and unexpected dialogues between 20th-century and contemporary art.

PERSPECTIVES: Perspectives is a new historical section of 20th-century work examined through a contemporary lens. This year, 18 galleries will show works from modern and post-war icons placed in compelling conversations with one another — works from artists such as Josef Albers, Richard Diebenkorn, Max Ernst, Helen Frankenthaler, Hans Hoffmann, Jasper Johns, Franz Kline, Imi Knoebel, Brice Marden, Kenneth Noland, Gerhard Richter, and Ed Ruscha. Other galleries take a distinctly experimental approach, such as a presentation that places works from early-20th-century crime photographer Weegee in thoughtful dialogue with Nan Goldin’s intimate photographs from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Curated by Nora Burnett Abrams (Mark G. Falcone Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver)

FOCUS: The Armory Show’s annual Focus section features solo- and dual-artist presentations of post-2000 art. This year’s theme is revisionist histories; its 31 exhibitors’ projects examine the ways in which artists construct a version of reality or self where the boundaries of fact and fiction are indistinct. Taken as a whole, the 2020 Focus section is an open-ended proposition that asks how history functions when the present is constantly accelerating, and how much agency individuals or communities have in narrating their experiences and making new worlds. Curated by Jamillah James (Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)

PLATFORM: Interspersed throughout the full footprint of the fair, including Pier 90 but extending to Pier 94 as well, are large-scale projects that activate and respond to The Armory Show’s industrial venue. The Platform theme for 2020 asked exhibitors to consider how techniques of satire and caricature have been used historically in art and literature as sharp tools of social critique. How are contemporary visual artists drawing from these centuries-old practices, while also imbuing them with fresh perspectives that examine the particular issues of today’s volatile political and cultural climate? All seven pieces within the Platform section will be included in The Armory Audio Guide. Curated by Anne Ellegood (Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)

NOT-FOR-PROFIT (Pier 90): The Armory Show is pleased to support a variety of important cultural causes by providing affordable booths to a select group of not-for-profit organizations. Participating organizations, ranging from museums to not-for-profit galleries to art foundations and beyond, share The Armory Show’s common desire to promote the visual arts to collectors and the general public alike.

PIER 94
Pier 94 is home to The Armory Show’s longstanding Galleries section. Alongside it is the Presents section, which exhibits works no more than three years old, from galleries no more than ten years old. This balance of fresh discoveries and established galleries, some of which have returned to The Armory Show for over 20 years, is what annually maintains The Armory Show’s stature as a consistently exciting international destination for the art world and general public alike.

GALLERIES: Galleries, the core section of The Armory Show, features outstanding 20th- and 21st-century artworks in a range of media, presented by 109 leading international galleries. Visitors are invited to discover thousands of artworks spanning movements, mediums, and cultures.

PRESENTS: The Armory Show’s Presents section, situated alongside the established names of the Galleries section, features galleries no more than ten years old. It is emblematic of The Armory Show’s longstanding efforts to give smaller galleries visibility — and therefore viability — within the larger market. In alignment with this overall spirit, and to foster The Armory Show’s continued status as a destination for fresh discoveries, this section’s 26 exhibitors are showing solo- and dual-artist presentations of works that were made in the past three years.

PLATFORM: Platform, the curated section that consists of large-scale projects interspersed throughout both Pier 90 and Pier 94, will this year have four of its seven projects on Pier 94. These include a historically important work from Edward and Nancy Kienholz, The Caddy Court (1986-1987), located in the Town Square.

Sheida Soleimani, Iran Heavy, 2019. Archival pigment print. Image courtesy of Edel Assanti Gallery (Section Presents)

For the full exhibitor list (by section), please visit: thearmoryshow.com/exhibitors

High-resolution images pertaining to this announcement may be downloaded via bit.ly/fairhighlights with additional images at thearmoryshow.com/press.

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NOTES TO EDITORS
The Armory Show
The Armory Show is New York City’s essential art fair, and a leading cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th- and 21st-century art. Staged on Manhattan’s Piers 90 and 94, The Armory Show features presentations by leading international galleries, innovative artist commissions, and dynamic public programs. Since its founding in 1994, The Armory Show has served as a nexus for the international art world, inspiring dialogue, discovery, and patronage in the visual arts.

Fair Dates
VIP Preview Day (by invitation only)
Wednesday, March 4, 2020, 11AM-8PM

Public Days
Thursday, March 5–Sunday, March 8, 2020

Hours
Thursday, March 5, 12—8PM
Friday, March 6, 12—8PM
Saturday, March 7, 12—7PM
Sunday, March 8, 12—6PM

The 22nd Biennale of Sydney Announces 2020 Program Highlights

Aziz Hazara, Bow Echo, 2019. Video still, 5-channel digital video, color, sound, 4 min 17. Produced by the Han Nefkens Foundation. Courtesy of the artist

The Biennale of Sydney will feature works by over 100 international artists across six sites in Sydney. The artist-led exhibition, titled NIRIN, will address themes of sovereignty, healing and transformation, with works by artists including Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Tony Albert, Huma Bhaba, Karla Dickens, Arthur Jafa, Zanele Muholi and Laure Prouvost.

February 12, 2020 (Sydney) – The Biennale of Sydney – the third oldest biennial in the world after Venice and São Paulo and largest exhibition of its kind in Australia – has announced the program highlights for its 2020 edition, taking place from 14 March until 8 June 2020. Free and open to the public, the 22nd edition will present a diverse range of contemporary artworks spanning from video and photography to installations and performances, across six different venues in Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Artspace, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Cockatoo Island, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and the National Art School.

Under the artistic direction of acclaimed Indigenous Australian artist Brook Andrew, this expansive exhibition of contemporary art and events will bring together the work of more than 100 international artists, many of which have been specifically commissioned for the occasion. Acting as a plural space to gather and to share, to disrupt and re-imagine, it will engage visitors to challenge dominant narratives and propose new futurisms and paths to healing. Titled NIRIN, or edge – a word of Andrew’s mother’s Nation, the Wiradjuri people of western New South Wales, the exhibition will address themes of sovereignty, healing and transformation.

Throughout the 87 days of the exhibition, these projects and ideas will be activated and explored through an interconnected program of free and ticketed events called NIRIN WIR, spanning from the Blue Mountains to La Perouse. NIRIN, meaning edge, and WIR, meaning sky, is a series of activations and creative partnerships with communities, arts organisations and tertiary institutions such as the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Observatory, Parramatta Female Factory and Sydney University. Please see Notes to Editors for detailed artwork highlights as part of NIRIN and programming highlights of NIRIN WIR.

Brook Andrew, Artistic Director for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney explains, “NIRIN is an opportunity to see first-hand how Sydney and Australia is a world stage for arts and culture. It demonstrates how artists have the power to inspire and lead through difficult global times such as environmental catastrophe, urgent states of conflict and reframing histories. There are many turning points in the world right now: come and be a part of this story and immerse yourself, your family and friends in inspiration, change and imagined futures.”

Reflecting on the 2020 edition, Barbara Moore, Chief Executive Officer, Biennale of Sydney said: “The Biennale of Sydney embraces art and ideas of today, welcoming artists and audiences to collaborate, learn, heal and bond together. Through NIRIN and NIRIN WIR, the Biennale invites diverse and often marginalised voices of the world to converge, creating a safe place where people can think and talk about issues that resonate on a local and international level. Under the artistic direction of Brook Andrew, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney highlights the importance of uniting people, stimulating dialogue, cultivating connections, listening and amplifying the voices of artists, from a First Nations-led and artist-led perspective.”

Emily Karaka, Kingitanga ki Te Ao (They will throw stones), 2020. Acrylic, mixed media on canvas, 199 x 277 cm. Courtesy of the artist

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NOTES TO EDITORS

High-resolution images and the full list of creatives by venue may be downloaded here.

NIRIN Highlights

• At the Art Gallery of NSW, Arthur Jafa, recently awarded the Golden Lion at the 58th Venice Biennale, will present the Southern Hemisphere premiere of his seminal work The White Album. Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens will present an immersive installation in the vestibule of the Gallery that is an observation on the disproportional number of Indigenous women in refuges and correctional centres all around Australia.

• Multi-disciplinary artist Joël Andrianomearisoa will present a suite of large-scale, sheer textile works that will transform spaces in both the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

• Pitjantjatjara artist Kunmanara Mumu Mike Williams (1952–2019), a political activist, cultural leader and ngangkari (traditional healer), was invited to participate in the Biennale of Sydney before his passing in March 2019. His vision for the exhibition was a large-scale political protest piece, working with the young men in his community to show to the world that tjukurpa (law) is still strong. Guided by his widow Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin and his lifelong friend and collaborator Sammy Dodd, Mimili Maku Arts has facilitated the execution of the project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, celebrating the significance of Kunmanara’s words: Kulilaya munuya nintiriwa (Listen and learn from us).

• Gamilaroi/Gomeroi Murri Yinah artist Barbara McGrady delves into her extensive photographic archive to curate her life’s work and re-present it as a kaleidoscopic compendium of Aboriginal contemporary history. Collectively titled Ngiyaningy Maran Yaliwaunga Ngaara-li (Our Ancestors Are Always Watching), a selection of photographs will be presented at Art Gallery of New South Wales and as a major immersive installation at Campbelltown Arts Centre.

• Also at Campbelltown Arts Centre, multi-disciplinary artist and member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation Adrian Stimson will present video and photographs challenging the colonial project through his performance personas Buffalo Boy, Shaman Exterminator and Naked Napi.

• At Artspace, Peruvian artist Fátima Rodrigo Gonzales will present a recreation of an iconic TV set from the 1960s Latin TV show ‘Sabado Gigante’ (Gigantic Saturday). In a defiant and expressive process of healing, eight-artist collective Tennant Creek Brio will show a dynamic series of paintings on discarded western objects that draw inspiration from their experiences of small-town Tennant Creek.

• Ghanaian-born artist Ibrahim Mahama will present ‘A Grain of Wheat’ at Artspace, a display of rolled-up medical stretchers that are a result of Mahama’s interest in labour and collective enterprise, and at Cockatoo Island, Mahama will present a large-scale installation of sewn coal sacks, that speak to his investigation of the conditions of supply and demand in African markets.

• Following his announcement as one of the four winners for the 2019 Turner Prize, on Cockatoo Island artist and audio investigator Lawrence Abu Hamdan will present Once Removed, an audio-visual work that chronicles the testimony of a young historian, Bassel Abi Chahine.

• Egyptian-born artist Anna Boghiguian will present a bold, new immersive sculptural installation exploring the marginalisation of people and their communities. Gina Athena Ulysse, a feminist interdisciplinary artist from Haiti, presents An Equitable Human Assertion: a site-specific rasanblaj (a gathering of ideas, things, people and spirits).

• Australian artist Tony Albert will also create a space for gathering, sharing and healing in the form of a greenhouse where visitors and families will be invited to write memories and messages on paper imbedded with seeds of native plants; and multi-disciplinary artist from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Lisa Reihana will examine the culture and history of Māori and South Pacific Islander peoples in the immersive installation and film Nomads of the Sea.

• Also on Cockatoo Island, Tlingit/Unangax̂ artist Nicholas Galanin will present an excavation of the shadow cast by the Captain Cook statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park to reveal what the land holds beneath the surface. At the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Galanin will also present the video work ‘Tsu Héidei Shugaxtutaan (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care), Part I and II, 2006.

• At the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, interdisciplinary Afghan artist Aziz Hazara will premiere a new video installation Bow Echo investigating the relationship between people and sites of trauma. Turkish artist Erkan Özgen’s video works will deal with the complex questions of war and violence.

• Sudanese artist Ahmed Umar’s deeply personal work What Lasts! (Sarcophagus) – a ceramic sarcophagus sculpted from Umar’s body – was born in the aftermath of opening up about his sexuality and being considered dead by some of his close family members, while USA-based, Pakistani artist Huma Bhabha uses found materials and the detritus of everyday life to create haunting human figures.

• Visual activist and photographer Zanele Muholi will present three bodies of work that look at the politics of race, gender and sexuality, and Ainu artist and musician Mayunkiki will present an ongoing project researching traditional Ainu tattooing practices, sinuye, which are banned by Japanese law.

• At the National Art School in Darlinghurst, multi-instrumentalist artist and DJ Hannah Catherine Jones will present a large-scale, immersive audio-visual work using pop-cultural and archival material, poetic motifs and provocative imagery to tell a story of the African diaspora.

• Transdisciplinary artist Andrew Rewald will present Alchemy Garden at the art school, an outdoor interactive community garden he has built from repurposed materials. It will evolve throughout the exhibition period, growing native and non-native edible plants to examine how ethnobotanicals connect people and their actions to place. In collaboration with Canadian academic and artist Randy Lee Cutler, the pair will present Mineral Garden, an installation exploring the secret life of plants and minerals.

NIRIN WIR Highlights

• The 22nd Biennale of Sydney’s program of events includes aabaakwad 2020 NIRIN. Presented with the Art Gallery of Ontario, aabaakwad (it clears after a storm) is centred on informal, in-depth conversations between international First Nations artists, and other artists, curators and scholars from Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. The featured artists, curators and thinkers taking part include Wanda Nanibush, Adrian Stimson, Vernon Ah Kee, Lisa Reihana, Biung Ismahasan and more. The event will run at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Cockatoo Island and Sydney Opera House (14–17 March).

• Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian present I Prefer Talking to Doctors About Something Else at the Powerhouse Museum (14 March–8 June). This collaborative work is created using objects from the museum’s collection. Incorporating and disorganising unexpected artefacts such as space satellites, anatomical models and furniture design, the artists make a sweeping arc across themes of grief, the human body and healing. Visitors are invited to view the collaborative installation process from 2–6 and 9–13 March.

• From 27–29 March, the 4ESydney HipHop Festival will light up Cockatoo Island with the power of words. The program amplifies important voices like Rhyan Clapham aka DOBBY, who journeys back to Brewarrina in north west New South Wales to connect to his family’s history in River Story.

• The following week (2–5 April), Bankstown’s iconic poetry slam takes residence on Cockatoo Island for three electrifying nights of spoken word from Western Sydney’s best writer-poets.

• On 29 April, First Nations artists will take centre stage in one of Sydney’s most historic buildings – Sydney Town Hall – to flip the flawed history and debate the question: ‘To cook Cook or not?’ On the 250th anniversary of Cook’s landing in Australia, the all-Indigenous cast will challenge the dominant narrative that the arrival of a British sailor who pillaged his way across the Pacific is a more impressive story than the 60,000 years of continuous history of Australia’s Indigenous people. The event features Wesley Enoch, Brook Andrew, Joel Bray, Melanie Mununggurr-Williams, DOBBY and Ripple Effect, and is supported by The Balnaves Foundation.

• Sovereign Ideas, a special event for 300 Indigenous students from schools across Australia, will also take place at Sydney Town Hall on 29 April. Highlighting the careers of iconoclastic young cultural thinkers and leaders from First Nations around the world, Sovereign Ideas – supported by The Balnaves Foundation and Sydney University – presents an encouraging narrative of possibilities that counter stereotypes and stigmas.

• Stories We Never Tell – presented by Parramatta Female Factory Precinct and PYT Fairfield – is a performative walking tour (7–9 May) of the former Parramatta Girls Home; a place where the walls are inscribed with the marks and memories of women. Storytellers will activate the buildings to redefine the space with resilience and celebration. Tours of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct will also be held every second Tuesday during the exhibition.

• Every Friday throughout the exhibition, Information + Cultural Exchange invites visitors to exercise, dance and make art with elderly and dementia-affected residents of Abel Tasman Village in Chester Hill. Led by artists Naomi Oliver, Liam Benson and Victoria Harbutt, DJ Black President and Care Manager Sophia Markwell, the program contemplates and honours existence and oblivion (our own).

• From Monday to Friday each week, Rosman Cruises will transport students from Circular Quay to Cockatoo Island for free on NIRIN HAIVETA. Launched in 1947, NIRIN HAIVETA (previously known as Radar) is the “mother” of the Rosman fleet. She remained in continuous service for more than 60 years and has undergone a complete refurbishment for the Biennale of Sydney with Melbourne arts and cultural collective BE. resulting in a vessel that celebrates women’s mark-making through visual representation and interpretation. Every Saturday, NIRIN HAIVETA will also transport Western Sydney residents from Sydney Olympic Park Wharf to Cockatoo Island free of charge (bookings essential).

• Sundays are a family day on Cockatoo Island with OUR PATH, a learning program that highlights the excellent educational practices of artists and community leaders in regional NSW. From March to May, visitors can join Linda Kennedy, a Yuin woman, in the learning space in Biloela House for a series of creative workshops, STEM education, cultural practice and yarning. In June, Kempsey-based artist and Dunghutti Elder, Uncle John Kelly, and artist Rena Shein will collaborate with young people and families on a participatory work based on Uncle John’s Dreaming.

• Physical theatre performer and access advocate Sarah Houbolt responds to the streets of Sydney through a personal lens as part of the Biennale’s podcast series available on Spotify from March. Funny and experiential, Sarah layers sound and narrative in a poetic account of what life is like, and what it could be, as she traverses the path between Art Gallery of New South Wales, Artspace and the National Art School.

• Visitors to the Biennale can also join Aunty Deidre Martin on a guided bushwalk through beautiful Dharawal National Park near Campbelltown, Dharug artist Chris Tobin opens his Blue Mountains Artist Camp on 23–24 May, and Aboriginal guides and storytellers will take guests on a spiritual journey at La Perouse (Guriwal) to learn about the local Indigenous community’s unbroken connection to Country.

About the Biennale of Sydney
Established in 1973, the Biennale of Sydney is the third oldest biennial in the world after Venice and São Paulo and the largest exhibition of its kind in Australia. The Biennale has commissioned and presented exceptional works of art by more than 1,800 national and international artists from more than 100 countries. One of the leading international contemporary art events in the world, the Biennale of Sydney is committed to free access for all and, in 2018, attracted over 850,000 visitors – local, interstate, international, culturally diverse and intergenerational.

Playing an indispensable role in Australia’s engagement with the world, and a meaningful role in the life of the nation, the Biennale presents the most dynamic contemporary art from around the globe in venues across Sydney with exhibitions that ignite and spark dialogue, cultivating connections and inspiring action through meaningful, shared arts experiences.

The 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020) exhibition NIRIN will be open – free to the public – from 14 March until 8 June 2020. The full events program for NIRIN WIR is available at www.biennaleofsydney.art/events with tickets on sale from now.

Facebook / Instagram / @biennalesydney #NIRIN2020

The Biennale of Sydney is supported by:

The Armory Show Announces Armory Live Talks Program, Curatorial Leadership Summit, and On- and Off-site Special Projects for the 2020 Fair

Jeffrey Gibson, She Never Dances Alone, 2019. Video still. Courtesy of the artist

February 5, 2020 (New York).

SPECIAL PROJECTS
For its 2020 edition, The Armory Show is pleased to announce four Special Projects. These include a presentation of Dawoud Bey’s Harlem U.S.A., 1975-1979, organized and exhibited by Sean Kelly; an installation by For Freedoms; a live performance from artist Jeffrey Gibson in Times Square; and Mel Kendrick’s Sculpture No. 4 (1991), presented by David Nolan Gallery.

Dawoud Bey | A 33-work photography series, Harlem, U.S.A., 1975-1979, presented by Sean Kelly

Adjacent to its presentation in the Galleries section (Booth 501), Sean Kelly, exhibiting at The Armory Show for its 19th consecutive year, will present the entire suite of photographs from Dawoud Bey’s iconic Harlem, U.S.A., 1975-1979. The presentation marks the first time in forty years that this historically important series has been on view in New York. This body of work debuted at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979 as the artist’s first solo exhibition. Growing up in Queens, Bey began photographing Harlem whilst still a teenager. His black and white photographs capture subjects Bey encountered on the street, and depict the variety of Harlem’s street life and its residents: the barber, the patrician, the church ladies, the stylish youth, and the elderly, amongst others. These sensitive compositions convey the dignity and respect Bey brings to the subjects he depicts, an approach that has characterized the artist’s work from the very beginning and continues to inform his ongoing visualization of collective experience and history.

For Freedoms | An installation of banners depicting nationwide initiatives of the not-for-profit organization For Freedoms, created site specifically for The Armory Show

For Freedoms, a national collective for creative citizenship founded in 2016 by artists Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas, presents over 200 feet of wall vinyl featuring images that illustrate three key past projects. This installation, spanning The Armory Show’s Promenade (linking Piers 90 and 94) highlights the impact of these art initiatives — raising awareness of the crucial role their projects have in the art community, and also the importance of the organization to a broader audience.

The first initiative featured in the installation is the collective’s Four Freedoms photographs, a series that transforms Norman Rockwell’s interpretations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’ (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear), and imagines what such liberties might look like in a contemporary context. In their final form, this selection from over 86 photographic compilations attempts to reflect the immeasurable diversity of American identities today.

For Freedoms is also showcasing imagery from four years of its artist-designed billboard projects. These continue the long history of artists using mass media and artistic experimentation to present civically engaged art that sparks conversations and resonates with all Americans. Artists who have participated in For Freedoms’ billboard projects include Marilyn Minter, Theaster Gates, Rashid Johnson, Gran Fury, Felix Gonzales-Torres, and Alfredo Jaar. Since its founding in 2016, For Freedoms has collaborated with over 200 artists on nearly 300 billboards in all 50 States, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

The final component of the installation is the Freedom Quilt, which is comprised of portraits, names, and self-defined freedoms that have been shared by participants at various For Freedoms events. In partnership with organizations and institutions such as the Sundance Institute, the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), For Freedoms asks us to weave our collective freedoms — speaking to our fears, dreams, and desires.

Jeffrey Gibson | A live performance by Jeffrey Gibson, featuring Sarah Ortegon, presented in partnership with Times Square Arts, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Roberts Projects, and the Brooklyn Museum

Building upon The Armory Show’s partnership with Times Square Arts last year, and to fête Jeffrey Gibson’s various projects throughout New York City — including Times Square Arts’ ‘Midnight Moment;’ the Brooklyn Museum’s When Fire Is Applied to a Stone It Cracks; Armory Live’s ‘Jeffrey Gibson in conversation with Eugenie Tsai;’ and Gibson’s work on view at The Armory Show at Kavi Gupta Gallery (Booth 609) and Roberts Projects (Booth 710) — Jeffrey Gibson has conceived of a live dance performance by Sarah Ortegon that brings to life the central figure in his Midnight Moment work, She Never Dances Alone (2019). This one-time performance for Armory VIPs and the public will be followed by a viewing of She Never Dances Alone on Saturday, March 7 from 11:30 to midnight at Duffy Square at 46th and Broadway. A multi-channel video created specifically for the screens of Times Square, She Never Dances Alone is Gibson’s celebration of the Indigenous matriarchy, centering on the jingle dress dance — an intertribal powwow dance traditionally performed by women to call upon ancestors for strength, healing, and protection. As Sarah Ortegon, an acclaimed jingle dress dancer and Miss Native American USA 2013–14, performs in various embellished, handmade dresses, the swaying colors, textures, and patterns pop against a black background and fold into kaleidoscopic abstractions. Ortegon’s image multiplies within each screen and across the plazas, creating the impression that many women have come together to dance over Times Square. The video ends with a close-up of Ortegon’s face after she has stopped dancing, calming her breath as she stares intently ahead — and at the people watching from below.

Mel Kendrick | Sculpture No. 4 (1991), presented by David Nolan Gallery

A preeminent American sculptor, Kendrick’s practice has involved the use of cast bronze, concrete, a variety of woods, rubber, resin, as well as investigations with cast paper. Kendrick addresses philosophical, conceptual, and fundamental questions around sculpture: namely, the relationship between the object as we experience it and the clearly evident means by which it was created.

The work on view, Sculpture No. 4 (1991), is one of the largest and most important from a series of black wood sculptures from the 1990s. As is typical of Kendrick’s wood sculptures, this work is made from a single block of wood, painted in black, and then cut in sections that are subsequently reassembled into a 9-foot-tall, free-standing hybrid form. Guided by the essential properties of his chosen material, the naturally occurring character of wood defines the direction of the artwork; its exploration of negative and positive space; and the relationship to the body and the viewer. The process and playful approach to form and movement unfolds in an obsessive yet direct way that allows the viewer to examine the internal logic, geometric order, and organic aspects of the work.

For Freedoms (Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur in collaboration with Eric Gottesman and Wyatt Gallery of For Freedoms), Four Freedoms, 2018. Photograph installation view. Courtesy of the artists and of the gallery.

CURATORIAL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
On Thursday, March 5, the third annual Curatorial Leadership Summit (CLS), chaired by José Carlos Diaz (Chief Curator of the Andy Warhol Museum), will assemble prominent national and international curators from leading institutions for a daylong program of closed-door discussions, taking place on-site at The Armory Show. The talks will explore and debate issues such as cultural appropriation, censorship, and identity politics. Confirmed attendees include curators, arts administrators, and leadership from institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, the Bass Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Institute for Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, to name a few.

The invitation-only CLS program will culminate with a public talk at 3:30pm that features a conversation between curator Maura Reilly and artist Rhonda Lieberman; it will kick off the acclaimed Armory Live public talks program.

ARMORY LIVE
The 2020 edition of Armory Live will convene a diverse group of prominent individuals—from artists, writers, and curators, to entrepreneurs and creative practitioners — for a four-day program of conversations staged in the Armory Live Theater on Pier 94. The Armory Live program, open to all Armory Show attendees, will host a cast of critical thinkers sharing the stage for a series of panels aimed at investigating the pressing social and political challenges faced by the art world today.

Thursday, March 5
3:30pm | In Conversation: Curatorial Leadership Summit’s Public Talk
Closing the Curatorial Leadership Summit and kicking off the Armory Live programming, curator Maura Reilly (Independent curator; previously: Founding Curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, among other institutional affiliations) will be in conversation with artist Rhonda Lieberman in an open-to-the-public talk.

Friday, March 6
12:30pm | In Conversation: Cultural History, Collectivism, and Censorship
Artist Jeffrey Gibson in conversation with Eugenie Tsai (John and Barbara Vogelstein Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum).

2pm | Panel: Architecture, Institutions, and Climate Change
Moderated by Daniel A. Barber (Associate Professor and Chair of the PhD Program in Architecture, University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design). Participants include Legacy Russell (Associate Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem), Pedro Gadanho (Harvard University Loeb Fellow 2020; previously: founding Director of the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology in Lisbon), and José Esparza Chong Cuy (Executive Director and Chief Curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture).

4pm | Panel: Representation, Body Politics, and Mass Incarceration
Moderated by Renuka Sawhney (Senior Development Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice). Participants include Dread Scott (artist), Helena Huang (Project Director at the Art for Justice Fund), Nicole R. Fleetwood (Professor of American Studies and Art History at Rutgers University), Insha Rahman (Director of Strategy and New Initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice), and Jesse Krimes (artist and Art for Justice Fellow).

Saturday, March 7
12:30pm | In Conversation: The Artist/Collector Relationship
Collector Jarl Mohn in conversation with multidisciplinary artist Liz Glynn.

2pm | In Conversation: Art and Luxury
Artnet News editor-in-chief Andrew Goldstein speaks with fashion designer (and Creative Director of fashion label Sies Marjan) Sander Lak regarding the crossover of two industries that share more than just values.

4pm | Panel: Can Data Help Make the Art World More Equitable?
Moderated by Julia Halperin (Executive Editor of Artnet News). Panelists include Camille Morineau (Curator and Founder of AWARE), Taylor Whitten Brown (PhD candidate in Computational Sociology at Duke University), and Gamynne Guillotte (Director of Interpretation and Public Engagement at the Baltimore Museum of Art).

Sunday, March 8
12:30pm | Panel: Institutional Storytelling and Revisionist Histories
Moderated by Anne Ellegood (Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles). Participants include Rita Gonzalez (Curator and Head of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Tomashi Jackson (artist), Asma Naeem (Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art), and Enrico Riley (artist).

2pm | In Conversation: Truth, Fiction, and Memory
Writer and editor Kimberly Drew in conversation with artist Howardena Pindell.

4pm | Panel: Funding Creative Change: Artists, Neighbors, and Community Transformation
Moderated by Deana Haggag (President and CEO of United States Artists). Participants include Kemi Ilesanmi (Executive Director of the Laundromat Project), Victoria Rogers (Trustee of the Brooklyn Museum and Creative Time), and Hank Willis Thomas (artist and co-founder of For Freedoms).

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NOTES TO EDITORS
The Armory Show
The Armory Show is New York City’s essential art fair, and a leading cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th- and 21st-century art. Staged on Manhattan’s Piers 90 and 94, The Armory Show features presentations by leading international galleries, innovative artist commissions, and dynamic public programs. Since its founding in 1994, The Armory Show has served as a nexus for the international art world, inspiring dialogue, discovery, and patronage in the visual arts.

Fair Dates
VIP Preview Day (by invitation only)
Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Public Days
Thursday, March 5–Sunday, March 8, 2020

Hours
Thursday, March 5, 12—8PM
Friday, March 6, 12—8PM
Saturday, March 7, 12—7PM
Sunday, March 8, 12—6PM

The Armory Show Announces 2020 Platform Presentations, Featuring Large-scale Artworks by Seven Artists, Curated by Anne Ellegood

Tulee Hall, Eves’ Mime Ménage, 2019. Two-channel video (color, sound): oil, acrylic, and collage on board; acrylic, resin, papier-mâché, aquarium pebbles, wood, metal, carpet. Courtesy of the artist and Maccarone West, Los Angeles

January 28, 2020 (New York) – The Armory Show announced today the artists and galleries participating in Platform, the curated section of the fair staging large-scale artworks and installations across Piers 90 and 94. The 2020 edition of Platform is organized by Anne Ellegood, the recently appointed Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Platform features work by Charlie Billingham (presented by Morán Morán), Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg (presented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery), Trulee Hall (presented by Maccarone West), Edward and Nancy Kienholz (presented by L.A. Louver), Christine Wang (presented by Night Gallery), Marnie Weber (presented by Simon Lee Gallery), and Summer Wheat (presented by Shulamit Nazarian).

This year’s Platform section, entitled Brutal Truths, considers how genres of satire, caricature, and the grotesque have endured through time—and are being taken up by contemporary artists as sharp tools of social critique. At a global moment of heightened sociopolitical unrest, artists’ keen observations and sharp wit serve to illuminate the perils of critical social issues and to encourage civic engagement. The 2020 Platform presentations impart a dose of levity while simultaneously underscoring the need for artists to have the ability to interpret recent cultural and political events in their work in a free and unfettered manner. This year’s projects argue for art as a catalyst for public discourse, and offer viewpoints that utilize humor, exaggeration, and the outlandish to emphasize the urgency of the issues they highlight.

“For centuries, artists have acted as incisive social critics, and there seems to be no better time to call attention to contemporary artists who draw upon these traditions with fresh insight and formal ingenuity. Given the current, deeply partisan political climate; the gamesmanship and unpredictability of international relations; an impeachment trial of the president underway; and what will surely be the least civil presidential campaign in American history on the horizon, it seems a perfect moment to focus on this theme,” remarks 2020 Platform curator Anne Ellegood. “I’m excited about the range of projects that will be included in the Platform section, from an important, large-scale sculpture from the 1980s by Ed and Nancy Kienholz called The Caddy Court that asks tough questions about the power of the Supreme Court, to the surreal and humorous social critique offered by works of several young artists.”

Including a range of mediums — painting, sculpture, wall murals, and video — the projects are arranged across both piers, activating diverse spaces throughout the fair with humor and dynamism, and presenting hard truths about the current state of affairs.

Presentation details

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (New York, Los Angeles) will present Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg’s This Is Heaven (2019), a video work by the collaborative duo that explores themes of lust, greed, and personal evolution and regression. The surreal landscapes and visceral characters in Djurberg and Berg’s films at once seduce and disgust the viewer. Their practice explores the shadows of the human subconscious in an effort to challenge perceived moralities. This installation will include sculpture, stop-motion film, and sound to create an immersive experience that speaks to the emotional tension, sexual impulse, and violence inherent in us all. Location: adjacent to Champagne Lounge, Pier 94.

The 2020 Town Square will feature Edward and Nancy Kienholz’s revered installation The Caddy Court (1986-1987), presented by L.A. Louver (Los Angeles). The pair are known for their assemblage installations that comment on sexism, abuse of power, and racial violence in bold and often disturbing ways. In The Caddy Court, the artists utilize a 1978 Cadillac complete with an interior cabinet of curiosities that includes taxidermy, historic books, an American flag, and a gavel. Intended by the artists to travel the country imitating the original function of the US Supreme Court, which traveled from state to state operating as a circuit court, there could not be a more potent time for this work to be experienced and considered widely, as the Supreme Court currently faces one of its most controversial benches and consequential dockets in memory. Location: Town Square, Pier 94.

Morán Morán (Los Angeles) will present a new installation of stenciled wall paintings along with several figurative paintings hung on top by British artist Charlie Billingham. In the tradition of William Hogarth and other great British satirists, Billingham’s work reinterprets satirical prints of the late 18th- and early 19th- century through a contemporary lens. His figures are disassociated from their original context and take on a sublime narrative of their own. Billingham’s specific attention to coloration and texture, paired with the gestural hand apparent in the work, allows the figures to billow and flow across the canvas. Location: East End, Pier 94.

In the works SexyTime Rock Variations and Eves’ Mime Ménage (both 2019), Trulee Hall crafts a multimedia, absurdist installation where claymation, CGI, and live-action film is accompanied by painting and sculpture that repeat and mirror motifs like the hyper sexualization of the female body and the intersection of the fantastical and the grotesque. Presented by Maccarone West (Los Angeles), this installation explores the uncanny and the ludicrous inherent in heteronormative gender roles. Location: West End, Pier 94.

Queens-based artist Summer Wheat will debut a 16-foot-long painting titled Sand Castles designed specifically for The Armory Show 2020. The work depicts a community of women in acts of labor and leisure; a beach scene featuring women bathing, fishing, cracking crabs, swatting flies, sunbathing, and eating strawberries. Wheat allows acrylic paint to ooze through fine wire mesh, causing figures to emerge and dance upon lush, fiber-like surfaces that coalesce into a type of heroic history painting. Presented by Shulamit Nazarian (Los Angeles), Wheat’s mural-like painting critiques the ways in which women’s labor is often unacknowledged or given lesser status, and elevates the quotidian experiences of woman and their ability to collaborate and rely upon one another. Location: Entrance of VIP Lounge, Pier 90.

Marnie Weber has explored the realms of the grotesque, carnivalesque, and absurd in narrative sculptural tableau, paintings, collage, and performance since the 1990s. Creating fantastical landscapes, her work references mythological traditions while simultaneously taking up topical themes, resulting in a mode that has been described as “contemporary grotesque.” Weber will present two sculptures as part of the Platform section, Log Lady & Dirt Bunny (2009) and Pig Host sculpture (2009), both of which feature animal-human hybrids that probe the darker sides of human behavior. Presented by Simon Lee Gallery (London, New York, Hong Kong). Location: Champagne Lounge, Pier 94.

San Francisco-based painter Christine Wang’s bold and raucous “Meme Paintings” will also be included in Platform. Combining often-appropriated images and overlaying with text, Wang takes up a wide range of subjects—from women’s rage to the inexcusable denial of the realities of climate change—in her highly satirical and disturbingly funny paintings. Presented by Night Gallery (Los Angeles). Location: Center, Pier 90.

About Anne Ellegood

Anne Ellegood has been Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), since September 2019. Previously, she was Senior Curator at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, from 2009-2019; Curator of Contemporary Art at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and Associate Curator at the New Museum, New York. Recent exhibitions include the Hammer’s biennial of Los Angeles artists, Made in L.A. 2018, the first North American Jimmie Durham retrospective (2017);  and Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology (2014). Ellegood has organized numerous solo shows, including those on Diana Al-Hadid, Eric Baudelaire, Kevin Beasley, Shannon Ebner, Latifa Echakhch, Charles Gaines, Yunhee Min, John Outterbridge, Tschabalala Self, Frances Upritchard, and many others.

—

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Armory Show
The Armory Show is New York City’s essential art fair, and a leading cultural destination for discovering and collecting the world’s most important 20th- and 21st-century art. Staged on Manhattan’s Piers 90 and 94, The Armory Show features presentations by leading international galleries, innovative artist commissions, and dynamic public programs. Since its founding in 1994, The Armory Show has served as a nexus for the international art world, inspiring dialogue, discovery, and patronage in the visual arts.

Fair Dates
VIP Preview Day (by invitation only)
Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Public Days
Thursday, March 5–Sunday, March 8, 2020

Hours
Thursday, March 5, 12—8PM
Friday, March 6, 12—8PM
Saturday, March 7, 12—7PM
Sunday, March 8, 12—6PM

Art Paris 2020 | A 22nd Edition Dedicated to the New French Art Scene and the Iberian Peninsula

January 14, 2020 (Paris) – Art Paris is pleased to announce its 22nd edition as it returns to the Grand Palais from April 2—5, 2020. In the 20 years since its founding, Art Paris has established itself as Paris’s major spring fair for modern and contemporary art. Bringing together more than 150 galleries from over 20 countries – from the post-war to the contemporary period, Art Paris is a place for discovery, placing special emphasis on the European scene, whilst exploring the new horizons of international creative hubs, whether in Asia, Africa, the Middle East or Latin America. This year, the fair will showcase a two-fold “Focus” – turning to both the French contemporary art scene and the emerging Iberian art hubs, specifically Barcelona, Lisbon, Madrid and Porto. In parallel, the “Solo Show” sector will be dedicated to monographic exhibitions, while “Promises” pursues its support to young and emerging galleries.

New participants make up 31% of the 2020 selection, which is marked by the arrival of Parisian galleries including Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Galerie Sator and Caroline Smulders in association with Karsten Greve. From an international standpoint, five countries will be represented for the first time: Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, the Ivory Coast and Turkey. Contributing to the Iberian Peninsula contingent are 12 galleries from Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and Porto. The Asian scene will affirm its presence, with 5 galleries from South Korea including 313 Art Project, Gallery Simon, Gallery H.A.N., Mo J Gallery and Gallery SoSo. Works by African artists will be on show in the Main Sector, at ARTCO Gallery (Aachen/Le Cap) and Niki Cryan (Lagos), as well as in the “Promises” sector with 31 Project (Paris), Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Paris/Abidjan) and Septieme Gallery (Paris), all of which are participating for the first time. The Middle Eastern scene will also be present with a special focus at Galerie Brigitte Schenk (Cologne), presenting works by Halim al Karim (Iraq), Tarek Al Ghoussein (Kuweit) and Abdulnasser Gharem (Saudi Arabia), whose installation The Safe was one of the highlights of Art Basel 2019’s Unlimited sector.

An Overview of the French Art Scene: Common and Uncommon Stories
Each year, in support of the French scene, Art Paris invites a curator to engage critically and historically with a selection of projects by French artists presented by participating galleries. In Common and Uncommon Stories, director of the Bourse Révélations Emerige and guest curator Gaël Charbau brings together the work of 22 artists, most of which were born in the 1980s, responding to the notion of the narrative and the ambiguous interplay between singularity and universality in storytelling. He has also been invited to write a text presenting each artist and their work.

Selected French artists: Henni Alftan (Galerie Claire Gastaud), Léa Belooussovitch (Galerie Paris-Beijing), Abdelkader Benchamma (Galerie Templon), Jérôme Borel (Galerie Olivier Waltman), Damien Cabanes (Galerie Eric Dupont), Claire Chesnier (Galerie ETC), Rémi Dal Negro (Galerie Eric Mouchet), Elsa & Johanna (Galerie La Forest Divonne), Roland Flexner (Galerie Nathalie Obadia), Laurent Gapaillard (Galerie Daniel Maghen), Jennyfer Grassi (Galerie Eva Hober), Kubra Kadhemi (Galerie Eric Mouchet), Gabriel Leger (Galerie Sator), Caroline Le Méhauté (H Gallery), Anita Molinero (Galerie Thomas Bernard), Anne et Patrick Poirier (Dilecta), Baptiste Rabichon (Galerie Paris-Beijing), Louis-Cyprien Rials (Galerie Eric Mouchet), Kevin Rouillard (Galerie Thomas Bernard), Edgar Sarin (Dilecta), Hervé Télémaque (Galerie Rabouan Moussion), Paul Vergier (H Gallery).

Southern Stars: An Exploration of the Iberian Peninsula
Following its extensive survey of the Latin American scene in 2019, Art Paris turns to the Iberian Peninsula, bringing light to Spanish and Portuguese art from the 1950s to the present day. 25 galleries will be presenting works by a selection of 77 artists – from modern masters to contemporary artists. In parallel, projects including a video programme, site-specific installations, and conferences at the Instituto Cervantes and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Paris will highlight the creative effervescence flourishing in this part of Southern Europe.

A Historical and Contemporary Exploration of the Spanish and Portuguese art scenes
Spread across the various sectors of the fair, the participating galleries will constitute a historical and contemporary journey delving into the various Spanish and Portuguese art scenes.

Representing the Spanish scene, Galeria Marc Domènech (Barcelona) will be paying tribute to historical figures connected with the Surrealist movement, such as Julio González, Óscar Domínguez and Joan Miró, while Galerie Andres Thalmann (Zurich) will be showcasing Joan Hernández Pijuan, one of the major Spanish artists of the last thirty years, known for his uniform colour compositions. Freijo Gallery (Madrid) will be looking back at the generation of artists who lived and worked in Madrid in the 1970s, with conceptual artist Mateo Maté, Ramón Mateos, one of the founders of the El Perro collective, and Darío Villalba, whose hybrid works address questions of identity and marginality. Michel Soskine Inc. (Madrid) will be dedicating a solo show to Antonio Crespo Foix, featuring the artist’s sculptures made of bamboo, horsehair, wool and wire – recreating a surreal natural world tinged with poetry. The analysis of the relationship between history and politics, between art and power and between public space and collective memory acts as a common thread between the works of Cristina Lucas and Fernando Sánchez Castillo, who will be presented side by side at Albarrán Bourdais (Madrid).

As part of the Portuguese showcase, São Mamede (Lisbon) will be celebrating two modern masters: the architect and painter Nadir Afonso (1920—2013), a pioneer of Kinetic Art known for his geometric cityscapes and who worked closely with Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer; and Manuel Cargaleiro (born 1927), a painter and ceramicist close to the École de Paris. Jeanne Bucher Jaeger (Paris/Lisbon) will be dedicating its stand to three major figures of the contemporary Lisbon scene: Michael Biberstein (1948—1978), Rui Moreira (born 1971) and Miguel Branco (born 1963), who borrows from art history to create paintings, drawings and sculptures that explore the animal kingdom and notions of scale.

Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris/Brussels) will be presenting works on paper by Jorge Queiroz, whose unique and teeming personal universe lies midway between figuration and abstraction, while Galería MPA (Madrid) will be presenting the hybrid works of Rui Toscano, whose use of the evocative power of images and sounds examines cultural representations and collective memory. Best known for her numerous exuberant sculptures and installations created by accumulating everyday objects, Joana Vasconcelos will be the focus of La Patinoire Royale – Galerie Valérie Bach (Brussels)’s display.

A Monumental Installation at the Front to the Grand Palais
A site-specific installation presented by Portuguese artist Marisa Ferreira, Lost Future (2020) takes its inspiration from Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin (1925) – an urban development project for Paris comprised of 18 cruciform glass skyscrapers placed on an orthogonal grid of streets interspersed with green spaces. The plan, which was never implemented, envisioned demolishing the Marais neighbourhood as a way of solving issues of dilapidated and unhealthy housing, illness and overpopulation – thereby giving place to what Le Corbusier called the “city of tomorrow”, a symbol of European modernity and of the industrial era. Directly referencing this emblematic project, the cross-shaped column imagined by Marisa Ferreira evokes the gap between the utopian ambitions of the 1970s and the current property boom that pays no heed to the history and identity of cities such as Porto and Lisbon.

“Solo Show”: A Showcase of 20 Monographic Exhibitions
Since 2015, Art Paris has encouraged the presentation of monographic exhibitions – a key moment in artists’ careers – by inciting galleries to present specific single artist-focused projects. The 2020 edition will feature around 20 solo shows distributed throughout the fair. Highlights will include a site-specific project by South African artist Roger Ballen (Caroline Smulders in association with Karsten Greve, Paris); a mini-retrospective of British artist – best known for his colourful “puddle” paintings – Ian Davenport (Luca Tommasi – Arte Contemporanea, Milan); and a rare ensemble of works by major Cuban artist Jesse A. Fernández at Galerie Orbis Pictus (Paris).

“Promises”: A Sector for Young Galleries and Emerging Talents
Purposefully placed at the very heart of the Grand Palais, “Promises” will host 14 young galleries from Abidjan, Brussels, Lima, Lisbon, Rome, Sofia, Marseille and Paris, many of which will be exhibiting at Art Paris for the first time this year. The galleries will explore rarely represented art scenes, from Europe – in particular Bulgaria at Structura Gallery (Sofia); Africa, with 31 Project, Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Paris/Abidjan) and Septieme Gallery (Paris); and Latin America, represented by Galerie Younique (Lima/Paris) and 193 Gallery (Paris). The galleries will each be presenting between one and three emerging artists – and benefit from financial sponsorship from the fair. 2020 Selection: 193 Gallery (Paris), 31 Project (Paris), Galerie Ariane C-Y (Paris), Art Sablon (Brussels), Galerie Bessières (Chatou), Double V Gallery (Marseille), Galeria Foco (Lisbon), H Gallery (Paris), Galleria Anna Marra (Rome), Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Abidjan), Ségolène Brossette Galerie (Paris), Septieme Gallery (Paris), Structura Gallery (Sofia), Galerie Younique (Paris/Lima).

Paris in the Spring
Over the past few years, Paris has been reasserting its place as a capital of the arts. The 2020 VIP programme will invite guest collectors and art professionals to discover the city’s very best spring art events. Highlights will include: Christo et Jeanne-Claude – Paris ! at the Centre Pompidou; Erwin Wurm at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie; Cindy Sherman – A Retrospective (1975-2020) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton; Giorgio de Chirico. La peinture métaphysique at the Musée de l’Orangerie; Ulla von Brandenburg at the Palais de Tokyo; James Tissot (1836-1902), l’ambigu moderne at the Musée d’Orsay; Picasso poète at the Musée national Picasso-Paris; and the much-anticipated opening of La Fab. d’agnès b pour l’art contemporain.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About Art Paris 2020
Grand Palais, Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris
www.artparis.com

Opening Preview (by invitation only)
Wednesday, April 1 | 6 pm – 10 pm

Opening Hours
Thursday, April 2 | 11.30 am — 8 pm
Friday, April 3 | 11.30 am — 9 pm
Saturday, April 4 | 11.30 am — 8 pm
Sunday, April 5 | 11.30 am — 7 pm

Admission fee | 28€/14€ (for students and groups)
Catalogue | 20€

Conferences
Barcelona – Madrid: present – future
Instituto Cervantes
7 rue Quentin Bauchard, 75008 Paris
2 April 2020 | 6 – 7.30 pm | Free admission
Turning to the evolving Barcelona and Madrid art scenes, the panel discussion will be moderated by Carolina Grau, guest curator of Southern Stars: An Exploration of the Iberian Peninsula, with the participation of Sabrina Amrani, gallery owner and president of the Madrid Galleries Association; Nimfa Bisbe, art collections director of La Caixa Foundation, Barcelona; Joana Hurtado Matheu, director of the contemporary art centre Fabra i Coats, Barcelona; Manuela Villa Acosta, in charge of events programming at Matadero – centre for contemporary creation, Madrid; and Alex Nogueras, gallery owner and president of the Barcelona Galleries Association.

Lisbon and Porto: the reasons behind an artistic revival
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris
54 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris
3 April 2020 | 6 – 7.30 pm | Free admission
In recent years, Lisbon and Porto, Portugal’s two largest cities, have undergone a salient artistic and cultural renaissance. In a country where the lack of financial means acts as a catalyst for both the best and the worst, the necessity to come up with new solutions became an essential focus following the country’s economic and social crisis ten years ago. Lisbon and Porto, although deeply immersed in the country’s institutional and financial instability, continuously assert their open and cosmopolitan outlook. The two cities boast a unique creative dynamic with their local artists and art scenes – one that has caught the eye of the international art world.
In partnership with the French delegation of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Art Paris will be presenting a debate addressing the artistic vitality of Lisbon and Porto and seeking to better understand how these two cities have become two of the most interesting cultural destinations today.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Miguel Magalhães, director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, with Guilherme Blanc, deputy mayor of Porto in charge of culture; João Pinharanda, cultural advisor at the Portuguese Embassy, Paris; Catarina Vaz Pinto, deputy mayor of Lisbon in charge of culture; and Penelope Curtis, director of the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon.

List of exhibitors 2020
193 Gallery (Paris) • 31 Project (Paris) • 313 Art Project (Paris/Seoul) • Galerie 8+4 – Paris (Paris) • A Galerie (Paris) • A&R Fleury (Paris) • A2Z Art Gallery (Paris/Hong Kong) • AD Galerie (Montpellier) • Aedaen Gallery (Strasbourg) • Albarrán Bourdais (Madrid) • Alzueta Gallery (Barcelona) • Galerie Andres Thalmann (Zürich) • Ana Mas Projects (Barcelona) • Galerie Ariane C-Y (Paris) • Artco Gallery (Aachen/Cape Town) • Artkelch (Freiburg im Breisgau) • Art Sablon (Brussels) • Arts d’Australie – Stéphane Jacob (Paris) • Art to Be Gallery (Lille) • La Patinoire Royale – Galerie Valérie Bach (Brussels) • Galerie Cédric Bacqueville (Lille) • Galerie Ange Basso (Paris) • Galerie Belem/Albert Benamou, Barbara Lagié, Véronique Maxé (Paris) • Galerie Renate Bender (Munich) • Galerie Berès (Paris) • Galerie Claude Bernard (Paris) • Galerie Thomas Bernard – Cortex Athletico (Paris) • Galerie Bert (Paris) • Galerie Bessières (Chatou) • Galerie Binome (Paris) • Bogéna Galerie (Saint-Paul-de-Vence) • Brisa Galeria (Lisbon) • Ségolène Brossette Galerie (Paris) • Pierre-Yves Caër Gallery (Paris) • Galerie Capazza (Nançay) • Galerie Chauvy (Paris) • Galerie Chevalier (Paris) • Christopher Cutts Gallery (Toronto) • Creative Growth Art Center (Oakland) • David Pluskwa (Marseille) • Galerie Michel Descours (Lyon/Paris) • Dilecta (Paris) • Galeria Marc Domènech (Barcelona) • Galerie Dominique Fiat (Paris) • Double V Gallery (Marseille) • Galerie Dutko (Paris) • Galerie Jacques Elbaz (Paris) • Galerie Eric Dupont (Paris) • Galerie Eric Mouchet (Paris) • Espace Meyer Zafra (Paris) • Galerie ETC (Paris) • Galerie Valérie Eymeric (Lyon) • Feichtner Gallery (Vienna) • Flatland (Amsterdam) • Galeria Foco (Lisbon) • Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea (Rome) • Freijo Gallery (Madrid) • Galerie Pascal Gabert (Paris) • Galerie Claire Gastaud (Clermont-Ferrand/Paris) • Galerie Louis Gendre (Paris/Chamalières) • Gimpel & Müller (Paris) • Galerie Michel Giraud (Paris/Luxembourg) • Gowen Contemporary (Geneva) • Galerie Philippe Gravier (Paris/Saint-Cyr-en-Arthies) • H Gallery (Paris) • Gallery H.A.N. (Seoul) • Galerie Ernst Hilger (Vienna) • Galerie Eva Hober (Paris) • Huberty & Breyne Gallery (Brussels/Paris) • Galerie Hurtebize (Cannes) • Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger (Paris) • Galerie Koralewski (Paris) • Espace L & Brisa Galeria (Geneva) • Galerie La Forest Divonne (Paris/Brussels) • Galerie Lahumière (Paris) • Galerie La Ligne (Zurich) • Lancz Gallery (Brussels) • Alexis Lartigue Fine Art (Paris) • Anna Laudel (Istanbul/Düsseldorf) • Galerie Jean-Marc Lelouch (Paris) • Françoise Livinec (Paris/Huelgoat) • Galerie Loft (Paris) • Víctor Lope Arte Contemporáneo (Barcelona) • Galerie Daniel Maghen (Paris) • Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts (Budapest) • Mark Hachem Gallery (Paris) • Galleria Anna Marra (Rome) • Maurice Verbaet Gallery (Knokke Heist/Berchem) • Galerie Minsky (Paris) • Galerie Modulab (Hagondange/Metz) • Galerie Moisan (Paris) • Mo J Gallery (Seoul/Busan) • Galerie Lélia Mordoch (Paris/Miami) • Galería MPA (Madrid) • Galerie Najuma (Fabrice Miliani) (Marseille) • Galerie Nec – Nilsson et Chiglien (Paris) • Niki Cryan Gallery (Lagos) • Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris/Brussels) • Galerie Oniris (Rennes) • Opera Gallery (Paris) • Galerie Orbis Pictus (Paris) • P gallery sculpture (Athens) • Galerie Paris-Beijing (Paris) • Galerie Perahia (Paris) • The Pigment Gallery (Barcelona) • Galerie Polaris (Paris) • Galerie Provost Hacker (Lille) • Galerie Rabouan Moussion (Paris) • Raibaudi Wang Gallery (Paris) • Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery (London) • Red Zone Arts (Frankfurt am Main) • Galerie Richard (Paris/New York) • Galerie Véronique Rieffel (Paris/Abidjan) • J.-P. Ritsch-Fisch Galerie (Strasbourg) • São Mamede (Lisbon) • Galerie Sator (Paris) • Galerie Brigitte Schenk (Cologne) • School Gallery/Olivier Castaing (Paris) • Septieme Gallery (Paris) • Gallery Simon (Seoul) • SIRIN Copenhagen Gallery (Frederiksberg) • Galerie Slotine (Paris) • Galerie Véronique Smagghe (Paris) • Caroline Smulders & Galerie Karsten Greve (Paris) • Michel Soskine Inc. (Madrid/New York) • Gallery SoSo (Heyri) • Space 776 (Brooklyn) • SPARC* - Spazio Arte Contemporanea (Venice) • Structura Gallery (Sofia) • Galerie Tamenaga (Paris/Tokyo/Osaka) • Templon (Paris/Brussels) • Luca Tommasi Arte Contemporanea (Milan) • Galerie Traits Noirs (Paris) • Galerie Patrice Trigano (Paris) • Galerie Univer/Colette Colla (Paris) • Un-Spaced (Paris) • Galerie Vallois (Paris) • Galerie Sabine Vazieux (Paris) • Viltin Gallery (Budapest) • Galerie Wagner (Le Touquet-Paris-Plage/Paris) • Olivier Waltman Gallery (Paris/Miami) • Galerie Esther Woerdehoff (Paris) • Wunderkammern Gallery (Rome/Milan) • Galerie XII (Paris/Los Angeles/Shanghai) • Galerie Younique (Lima/Paris) • Galerie Géraldine Zberro (Paris) • Galerie Zink Waldkirchen (Waldkirchen).

Image credits:
Image 1. Raphaël Denis, Fahrenheit-Stack #14, 2019. Ink and burnt wood, 43 x 33 x 23 cm. Courtesy of Galerie Sator.
Image 2. Hassan Hajjaj, Afrikan Boy Sittin’, 2013. Photography. 136 x 94 x 6 cm. Courtesy of 193 Gallery.

Archivio Conz Presents "Pause: Broken Sounds/Remote Music. Prepared Pianos From The Archivio Conz Collection" at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

Ann Noël, Untitled, 1989/2001. Piano, color paint, paper labels, 110 x 115 x 50 cm. Courtesy of the Archivio Conz.

From January 15—19, 2020, the Berlin institution will showcase a selection of 24 “prepared pianos” by major avant-garde artists from the 1970s to the early 2000s commissioned by Italian collector and patron Francesco Conz.

January 7, 2020 (Berlin) – The Archivio Conz, in collaboration with the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, has announced Pause: Broken Sounds/Remote Music. Prepared pianos from the Archivio Conz collection – a five-day event and exhibition showcasing avant-garde artists’ “prepared pianos” selected from Italian collector and patron Francesco Conz’s collection. From January 15—19, 2020, the KW main exhibition space will be the stage for performances, tying the artworks to various contemporary approaches and explorations on sound.

Selected from a collection of over 65 “prepared pianos,” the 24 works in the exhibition are deeply tied to the history of the Archivio Conz. Under the direction of Stefania Palumbo and chief curator Gigiotto Del Vecchio, the Archivio Conz is dedicated to presenting and preserving the archive and publishing project of Francesco Conz (Cittadella, 1935 – Verona, 2010) – a significant patron and collector of Fluxus, Viennese Actionism, ZAJ, Concrete Poetry, and Lettrist works. First acquainted with the Viennese Actionism and New York avant-garde movements in the early 1970s, Conz grew personally engaged with the artists and their creative process. Turning his home in Asolo, Italy, into an international meeting place for artists to live and work, he spent the next thirty years working with more than 120 artists, commissioning and producing the over 3,000 works that constitute the Archivio today.

Building on John Cage’s first artistic exploration of the medium at the end of the 1930s, the “prepared pianos” are commonly understood as pianos altered by placing objects between or on the strings. Throughout the years, a wide range of artists have manipulated the instrument – moving beyond the alteration of sound to fully rethink the structure and form of the piano as a privileged place for artistic creativity. The selection of pianos in the exhibition includes works by Robert Watts, Carolee Schneemann, Jack Hirschman, Ay-O, Nam June Paik, Allan Kaprow, Dorothy Iannone, among many others.

The exhibition leans on the piano’s many facets – as a symbol of the virtuosity of Western music, but also as an object deeply rooted in society, culture, and the visual arts. Pursuing Francesco Conz and the artists’ exploration of the boundaries between art and music, the presentation traces the historical roots and motivations that led artists to openly attack an emblem of Western musical tradition, thereby unveiling its social undertones. In doing so, it also examines the ways in which artists sought to extend common understandings of music – deconstructing the traditional bond between music and noise; integrating and amplifying the visual dimension of musical performances; and turning performers and audiences into protagonists of a creative sound happening.

The resulting visual environment – one that is at once architectural and evocative of sound – rethinks the exhibition space as a platform for further explorations into contemporary art and sound. For five days, Pause: Broken Sounds/Remote Music will be activated through a series of performances examining various approaches to sound – extending it through poetry, movement, and musical experimentation. The program will notably include American visual artist and musician Charlemagne Palestine’s minimalist interpretations; a “instrumental conversation” recording session by Sky Walking; German musicians Phillip Sollmann (Efdemin) and Konrad Sprenger’s esoteric approaches to music; a vocal exploration of sound by English poet Angharad Williams; and a choreographed piece by Croatian visual artist and dance maker Nina Kurtela.

Artists include: Ay-O | Robert Ashley | George Brecht | Mark Brusse | Henri Chopin | Philip Corner | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | Esther Ferrer | Bernard Heidsieck | Geoffrey Hendricks | Jack Hirschman | Dorothy Iannone | Allan Kaprow | Arrigo Lora-Totino | Walter Marchetti | Steven McCaffery | Carolee Schneemann | Larry Miller | Joe Jones | Alison Knowles | Ann Noël | Raša Todosijević | Benjamin Patterson | Nam June Paik | Robert Watts
With performances by: Nina Kurtela; Charlemagne Palestine; Phillip Sollmann & Konrad Sprenger; Sky Walking; and Angharad Williams.

Benjamin Patterson, Piano d’oiseaux tropical, 1989. Piano, bamboo stool, artificial plants and fruits, oil paint. 185 x 260 x 115 cm. Courtesy of the Archivio Conz.

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Events Program

Nina Kurtela
24 moments
15 January 2020, 7—9PM
16–19 January 2020, 11AM—7PM
Ongoing performance

Phillip Sollmann & Konrad Sprenger
Modular Organ System VII
16 January 2020, 6–9PM
Performance

Charlemagne Palestine
aaa gggangg gggustationn a Conz archive soundd tastingg
17 January 2020, 8.30PM (doors open at 8PM)
Concert

Angharad Williams
Eraser
18 January 2020, 6PM
Performance

Sky Walking
Free Improvisation
19 January 2020, 4–7PM
Performance

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NOTES TO EDITORS

About the Archivio Conz
First assembled in the Palazzo Baglioni in Asolo and later between Verona and the “Secret Museum,” located in the mountains outside of the city, the Archivio Conz is the collection of Francesco Conz holding more than 2,000 artworks and over 1,000 personal belongings – typically referred to as “fetishes”. With contributions by major international figures – Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Al Hansen, Carolee Schneeman, Emmett Williams, Joe Jones and Allan Kaprow among many others – the works range from relics of performances, ephemera, drawings, painting and photographs, to music machines, poems, sculptural works, and genre crossing creations.
Under the direction of Stefania Palumbo and chief curator Gigiotto Del Vecchio, the Archivio collection houses over sixty so-called “prepared pianos”, including those of Raša Todosijević and Milan Knížák; Joe Jones’s numerous “Music Machines”; a collection of repurposed fridges by Geoffrey Hendricks and Allan Krapow among many others.
www.archivioconz.com

Pause: Broken Sound/Remote Music. Prepared pianos from the Archivio Conz collection.
Opening: Wednesday, January 15 | 7PM
16—19 January 2020
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin