Art Monthly 411: November 2017

Contents

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov The Appearance of the Collage #10 2012

Interview

Telling Stories

Emilia Kabakov interviewed by Lisa Le Feuvre

The Russian-born New York-based artists Ilya & Emilia Kabakov have worked together for nearly 30 years. Here Emilia discusses the failure of utopianism, the importance of memory, and installation as an expanded form of painting.

Installation is a new genre. We have thousands of years of experience with painting, and know exactly how to look at it.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg Stranger Visions 2012-13

Feature

#Algopop

Bob Dickinson on art, life and the algorithm

As algorithms threaten to take over our lives, it is worth comparing the cautionary approach taken by contemporary artists like Heather Dewey-Hagborg with that of pioneers, like Manfred Mohr and self-styled mystic and algorist Roman Verostko, who moved with the 'rithm in the 1960s.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg created a series of life-size 3D-printed colour photographs representing what the people who deposited the detritus might have looked like. The work was intended to point out the dangers of future biological surveillance, a prediction that came true in 2014 when a commercial version of the technology, Parabon Snapshot, was released for police use.

Patrick Staff Weed Killer 2017

Feature

Kill or Cure?

Giulia Smith speculates on the reasons for the upsurge in art about sickness

Judging by the work of artists such as Jenna Bliss, Lucy Beech and Patrick Staff, is the cure sometimes worse than the disease?

The implication is that the medical route out of gender dysphoria comes with its own share of toxicity. Cure and poison appear once again caught in a vicious circle.

Comment

Editorial

Apocalypse Now?

For millennia extraordinary natural phenomena have been interpreted by self-styled visionaries and artists as portents of impending catastrophe for the human race. Today, while advances in scientific knowledge confirm the potential for environmental catastrophe, they also provide evidence of mankind's ability to work together to protect the world and to understand our place in the universe.

The result was 'one of the most powerful explosions of energy we know of in the universe', whose gravitational waves reached earth some 130 million years later, temporarily distorting space and time.

Letters

Bronze Age Fair

Lawrence Leaman takes issue with Hauser & Wirth's appropriationist presentation of Bronze Age artefacts at Frieze art fair.

Artnotes

Occupied

Omer Fast's New York exhibition is occupied by Save Chinatown protesters; LA galleries suffer a boycott by Save Boyle Heights protesters; Guggenheim New York pulls artworks after protests by animal rights campaigners; artists lead a campaign against the recent rise in right-wing attacks on freedom of expression in Brazil; locals raise funds to save a work at Münster Sculpture Project; Art for Grenfell raises almost £2m; ACE launches a consultation on the future of Bristol's visual arts sector; plus the latest news on galleries, appointments, prizes and more.

Obituary

Ed Allington 1951-2017

Erkan Özgen Wonderland 2016
at the 15th Istanbul Biennial

Exhibitions

New North and South

various venues, Manchester

Virginia Whiles

15th Istanbul Biennial: A Good Neighbour

various venues

Jamie Sutcliffe

Zach Blas: Contra-Internet

Gasworks, London

Colin Perry

Miranda July: Interfaith Charity Shop

Artangel, London

Mark Wilsher

Sofia Hultén: Here's the Answer, What's the Question?

Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Mark Prince

We The People Are The Work

various venues, Plymouth

Martin Holman

Everything we see could also be otherwise (My sweet little lamb)

The Showroom, London

Sophie J Williamson

Poor Art | Arte Povera

Estorick Collection, London

Gianfranco Baruchello: Incidents of Lesser Account

Raven Row, London

Peter Suchin

Hilary Lloyd: Theatre

Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea

Richard Whitby: The Jump Room

The Old Waterworks, Southend-on-Sea

Lauren Houlton

London Round-up

Parafin • DomoBaal • CGP London

Paul Carey-Kent

Nottingham Round-up

Primary • TG • New Art Exchange

Tom Emery

Berlin Round-up

Martin-Gropius-Bau • KW Institute of Contemporary • Art Neue Berliner Kunstverein

Martin Herbert

Reviews

Books

Hito Steyerl: Duty Free Art

Lizzie Homersham

Throughout the book, uncommon, uncomfortable focus is placed on the imbrication of art and war.

Reviews

Film

Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival

Shama Khanna

The Festival was characterised by a stealthy overthrow of the coolly academic theme – 'Ultramarine: the sea' – by a 'bloody hot takeover' by queer, female and non-white identifying artists, hailing mainly from Glasgow.

Reports

Nida Sinnokrot KA (Oslo) 2009/17

Letter from the West Bank

KA

Emily Riddle

One hundred years later, Theresa May declares that the UK government is to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration 'with pride'. Please, prime minister, not in my name.

Raluca Croitoru To Cast a Shadow 2017

Letter from Timisoara

Why Salt?

Kristian Vistrup Madsen

As is the case in many countries of the former Eastern Bloc, the more inventive efforts of Romania's artistic community during the 1960s and 1970s were profound yet remain unsurveyed.

Reports

Abandon Normal Devices

Digital Dark Ages

Rob La Frenais

Described variously as 'artists' skunkworks' and 'cultural fracking', many of these artists deliberately subvert what have now become art-science conventions.

Artlaw

Ways of Working

Fair Deals

Henry Lydiate

Numbers of contemporary art fairs have expanded from three in 1970 to over 250 today, located in major cultural destinations far beyond their origins in Europe and the US.

Listings

Events

Calendar

The updated events and exhibitions calendar can be viewed online.

Exhibitions

Exhibition Listings

Art Monthly's exhibition listings can be viewed online.