Art Monthly 395: April 2016

Contents

Tanja Ostojic Misplaced Women? 2009-16 performance

Feature

A Bridge Too Far

Can artists do anything to address the escalating migrant catastrophe in Europe asks Bob Dickinson

What are the ethical and biopolitical issues raised by the interventions of artists such as the Pod Collective in the UK, Yugoslav-born performance artist Tanja Ostojic and high-profile international artists like Ai Weiwei?

The image of Ai Weiwei foregrounds the contradiction between photos of anonymous bodies washed up like flotsam with one possessing a particular, identifiable face. But the artist's recognisability – the kick that makes the viewer think again – at the same time washes away Aylan Kurdi's infancy, vulnerability and, above all, his identity.

Frances Stark My Best Thing 2011 video

Feature

Hot Babe

Isobel Harbison reconsiders the issue of objectification in the era of social media

Does the work of artists like Hannah Black, Cheryl Donegan, Frances Stark and Yvonne Rainer answer the question posed by Nancy Spector 20 years ago as to whether sex appeal can ever be considered a sign of female agency?

Why, when image-maker or subject, object and spectator are no longer distinct, structured or guarded positions (in our lives online we frequently play out two or more of these roles at any one time), have gendered roles of photographic or cinematic capture not also dissolved?

Comment

Editorial

Cause Celeb

Why is it so irritating when celebrities, including celebrity artists, lend their auratic glow to worthy causes – is this because of the suspicion that this sharing of media attention tends to work both ways?

Titled Sweeping It Under the Carpet, the work, according to the blurb, 'can be seen as a metaphor for the West's reluctance to tackle issues such as Aids in Africa' or, as Charlie Brooker remarks acidly, 'as another example of Banksy's tireless self-promotion'.

Artnotes

Ringing Endorsement

ACE responds to George Osborne's budget; BP calls time on its sponsorship of Tate; the independent Tate Members charity is absorbed by Tate; ACE outlines changes to its funding from 2018; Cardiff Council backs away from arts budget reductions while Edinburgh implements 10% cuts; an initiative is launched to provide more artists' studios in London; the latest news on galleries, appointments, prizes and more.

Obituary

Jon Thompson 1936-2016
Peter Suchin

Rachel Pimm Garden City 2014

Profile

Rachel Pimm

Chris Fite-Wassilak on a British eco artist who explores the politics and hidden hierarchies that determine our ethical choices.

Perhaps crucially among those artists exploring our current ecological paradoxes, Rachel Pimm's work retains an awareness of the limits of our circumscribed perspective.

Nathaniel Mellors Ourhouse, Ep.-1: Time 2016 video
'Nothing Happens, Twice', Harris Museum and Art Gallery

Exhibitions

James Coleman

Marian Goodman Gallery, London

Sophia Phoca

Barthes/Burgin

John Hansard Gallery, Southampton

Peter Suchin

Nothing Happens, Twice: Artists Explore the Absurdity of Life

Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston

Beth Bramich

The Imitation Game

Manchester Art Gallery

Tom Emery

The Green Ray

Wilkinson Gallery, London

Jamie Sutcliffe

Susan Philipsz: Night and Fog

Kunsthaus Bregenz, Germany

Axel Lapp

Das Institut

Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London

Cherry Smyth

Brian O'Connell: Palomar

Laure Genillard, London

Marcus Verhagen

Mark Wallinger: ID

Hauser & Wirth, London

Lynton Talbot

Becky Beasley: Lake Erie from the Northwest

Laura Bartlett Gallery, London

Mark Prince

Joachim Koester: The Other Side of the Sky

Turner Contemporary, Margate

Tim Dixon

Amie Siegel: Imitation of Life

Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin

Joanne Laws

Edinburgh and Dundee Round-up

Collective • Fruitmarket Gallery • The Hannah Maclure Centre

Catherine Spencer

London Round-up

Cell Project Space • Carlos/ Ishikawa • Limoncello

Kathryn Lloyd

Reviews

Film

AV Festival: Meanwhile, what about socialism?

Erika Balsom visits the north-east's art, film and music festival.

Rebecca Shatwell's programming is a much-needed critical rejoinder to the deep melancholia that marks much of the recent surge of interest in the legacies of the 1970s' left.

Reviews

Artists' Books

Mo-Leeza Roberts: Head

Saim Demircan on a fictional artist's account of a future gallery.

By hijacking the format of the press release, one could fantasise that the language in Head is the outcome of what would have happened if Bank's 1999 press release project had actually worked, liberating PR from its redundant, traditional, de-authored language and instead producing mutated, bastardised texts.

Reviews

Books

Twenty Years of Make magazine: Back to the Future of Women's Art

George Vasey examines the evolution of the women's art magazine.

Many of these figures' relative invisibility to the market and institutional programmes would bear witness to the oft-repeated claims in the book of marginalisation.

Reports

Art Education

The Value of the Alternative

Sara Jaspan asks whether alternative art education is valuable as a project in its own right.

Inflated tuition fees have commoditised education to the extent that there is now not only a sense of buying a degree (perpetuating what Gareth Jones calls an 'acquisitive but not inquisitive' society), but even of a certain expected level of 'customer service' from tutors, reversing the traditional power balance.

From the Back Catalogue
Education: a mirror or a lamp? by Gareth Jones

Artlaw

Artist's Resale Right

Ten Years Later

Henry Lydiate looks back at the UK's introduction of droit de suite.

Since 2006, over £52m has been distributed in ARR royalties: £46.9m by DACS to 3,900 artists and estates; and £6m by ACS representing a further 1,000.

Listings

Events

London Art Calendar

The updated events and exhibitions calendar can also be viewed online.

Exhibitions

Exhibition Listings

Art Monthly's exhibition listings can be viewed online.