Art Monthly 413: February 2018

Contents

Rasheed Araeen Shamiyaana – Food for Thought: Thought for Change 2017

Interview

Shamiyaana

Rasheed Araeen interviewed by Virginia Whiles

The Karachi-born, London-based artist talks about six decades of art and activism and the importance of people gathering together to effect change.

The violence today, particularly in the Middle East, is the direct result of the UK's imperial worldview and its continuing ambition to maintain its world power, and this cannot be detached from the endemic institutional racism of the British art world, by which it continues to maintain the hegemonic white exclusivity of modern art history.

'Contemporary Arab Representations: Beirut/Lebanon', 2002
Witte de With, Rotterdam

Feature

Arab Summer

What is Arab art asks Omar Kholeif

There have been many major exhibitions featuring artists of Arabic origin at prestigious galleries, including the newly opened mega museum, Louvre Abu Dhabi, but who gets to define Arab art?

What is Arab art? Does it hold a particular set of formal aesthetics? A set of concepts? Can one tie the early 20th-century Arab art to the work of contemporary Arab artists who have been exposed to a different kind of arts education, or is the entire construct of Arab art a fabrication by the West?

Dan Graham Two adjacent pavilions 1978/2001

Feature

Stillness

Brian Hatton muses on modes of attention and the fate of the figure

Taking in the work of writers, architects and artists including Andy Warhol, Mies van der Rohe, Alberto Giacometti and Antony Gormley, he looks at how they have created an 'augmented stillness'.

Perhaps, though, the screens for which Andy Warhol's stars were really being tested were his silkscreens, where Marilyns and Jackies were not so much immortalised as amortised, each print scanning iconic value by slow degrees back to zero.

Comment

Editorial

What a Carillion

The collapse of Carillion shows the dangers of corporations becoming giant black holes which absorb smaller suppliers and authorities that are unable to challenge them. Is this model at work in the art world too, with the dominance of mega galleries and monster art fairs threatening the ecosystem's diversity?

Cynics might say that rising art fair fees are precisely designed to break the smaller galleries, like neophyte gamblers offered a few free spins of the wheel before being sucked in and bled dry.

Artnotes

Accused

Anthony D'Offay, Chuck Close and Jens Hoffmann all face accusations of sexual harassment; ministers at the DCMS are shuffled, with Kate Bradley giving up the role of culture secretary after only 18 months and Matt Hancock taking over the hot seat; ACE publishes its annual diversity report; Artists Union England protest against Elizabeth Murdoch's appointment to ACE's National Council; artists protest against German politicians' power grab of Documenta; the EU cancels the UK's right to host the European City of Culture; Exhibitions Tax Relief finally makes it into law; artist Nan Goldin sets up a protest group against art philanthropists the Sackler family; Towner gallery is at risk from council budget cuts; plus the latest news on galleries, appointments, prizes and more.

Obituary

Tim Rollins 1955-2017

Terre Thaemlitz Lovebomb/Ai No Bakudan 2003-05

Profile

Sophie Jung

Kathryn Lloyd on the Luxembourg-born, London-based performance artist who focuses on the interconnectedness of things.

Despite reading from her own pre-written 'scripts', Sophie Jung constantly interrupts herself, introduces doubt, awkwardly reinforces her points, asks the audiences questions that are impossible to answer, reads things incorrectly and ad-libs.

Jacqueline Martins gallery hosted by König London as part of Condo

Exhibitions

From Ear to Ear to Eye: Sounds and Stories from Across the Arab World

Nottingham Contemporary

Amy Budd

Turbulence

The Model, Sligo

Joanne Laws

Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting

MoMA, New York

Karen Di Franco

Ulay: so you see me

Cooper Gallery, Dundee

Dominic Johnson

Wu Tsang: Under Cinema

FACT, Liverpool

Ellen Mara De Wachter

Idea Home Show

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

Lara Eggleton

Scott King: Welcome to Saxnot

Studio Voltaire, London

Claire Louise Staunton

Jacqueline Donachie: Right Here Among Them

The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

Adam Benmakhlouf

Steven Pippin: Engineered Equanimity

Edge Gallery, Bath

Lizzie Lloyd

A Synchronology: The Contemporaryand Other Times

Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow

Catherine Spencer

Andrew Lacon: Fragments

Kate V Robinson: This Mess is Kept Afloat

Dundee Contemporary Arts

Tom Emery

Otobong Nkanga: The Breath from Fertile Grounds

Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin

Chris Clarke

Condo

various venues, London

Paul Carey-Kent

Reviews

Books

TJ Demos: Against the Anthropocene – Visual Culture and Environment Today

Ashiya Eastwood

TJ Demos accepts that the use of the term 'Anthropocene' helps to create unity in climate science and environmental studies with the arts and humanities against fossil fuel-funded climate change denial, yet he argues that the very name itself promotes the blurring of culpability.

Reviews

Sound

Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

David Briers

The qualities that differentiate 'radio art' specifically from 'sound art' in general are subtle but distinguishable ones.

Reports

Javier Bernascon, Omar Estela, Marcelo Montanari, Marcela Oliva, Luciana Parodi and Margarita Rocha Ideologicos 2009

Letter from Buenos Aires

Cacerolazos

Bob Dickinson

Like most global cities, Buenos Aires places money and urban regeneration near the top of its concerns, and where regeneration leads, contemporary art and its white spaces have inevitably followed.

Reports

Maha Maamoun Dear Animal 2017

Letter from Cairo

The Way Back

Maxa Zoller

We don’t like to think too much about the revolution these days, let alone commemorate it. It is too painful.

Artlaw

Copyright

Fair Image Use Fees

Henry Lydiate

Does a photograph of (say) Salvator Mundi (c1500 and recently attributed to Leonardo da Vinci) create a new copyright in the photograph? There is no simple answer.

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.