Art Monthly 468: Jul-Aug 2023

Contents

Onyeka Igwe, Her Name in My Mouth, 2017

Interview

Critical Proximity

Onyeka Igwe interviewed by Maria Walsh

Film is an organic material, it continues to degrade and corrode, so all of those elements spoke to a certain relationship to history that I felt in Nigeria. You don’t need to see the films to understand it; you can see it from what’s left of the films.

a group of tenants in Langley, Oldbury, highlighting the problems with damp in council properties, 1981, made with Jubilee Arts

Feature

The People’s Media

Bob Dickinson finds many parallels in the politics and grassroots filmmaking practices of today with those of the troubled 1970s

In some ways, the 1970s and 1980s – divisive years leading to Margaret Thatcher’s ascent to power, when industries were deliberately wound down and trades unions mercilessly confronted by the government and the police while racism and poverty rose – have become a disturbing forebear of present-day British society.

Holli Armstrong, Liverpool Students Support the Strikes, 2023, Liverpool John Moores University

Feature

The Crisis in Art Education

Sarah E James accuses university executives of being responsible for the current crisis in education

The neoliberal and expansionist agendas of senior university management teams have been directed by an aggressive and often poorly planned drive to transform their once-public institutions, fuelled by short-term vision coupled with a phenomenal amount of accumulated debt, that has resulted in the staggeringly unsuccessful privatisation of the whole sector.

Wang Tuo, The Second Interrogation, 2023

Profile

Wang Tuo

Stephanie Bailey

After Wang Tuo opened ‘The Second Interrogation’ at Hong Kong’s Blindspot Gallery in March this year, people reached out to see if the artist was in danger.

Editorial

ACE in the Corner

The recently reignited row over ACE’s decisions regarding its flagship National Portfolio funding scheme is focused on the wrong target: it was the government which instructed ACE to shift £24m of funding away from London-based organisations while expecting it to plug a multi-billion-pound hole in arts education despite ACE receiving only £359m in state funds.

The real issue is that ACE is required to do too much with too little, not least making up for the lack of arts teaching in schools which, pace Nicholas Serota’s game defence of its role in his reply to Nicholas Hytner, was never part of ACE’s remit.

Artnotes

Clusterfund

The government has published its myopic ‘Vision’ for the creative industries sector; two sets of ACE funds allow organisations to ‘transform’ and ‘transition’ – possibly out of existence; cuts to the arts are planned in both Northern Ireland and Glasgow; the National History Museum belatedly apologises for hosting the ‘hateful rhetoric’ of the NatCon conference; the British Museum finally cuts ties with BP; hundreds of volunteers restore an artwork that had been attacked by a racist vandal; plus the latest on galleries, people, awards and more.

Obituary

Kenneth Anger 1927–2023
Dominic Johnson

Sarah Pierce, Lost Illusions/Illusions perdues, 2014, on show at IMMA, Dublin

Exhibitions

Avis Newman: Watching the Map

Maureen Paley, London

Cherry Smyth

Lotus Laurie Kang: In Cascades

Chisenhale Gallery, London

Ellen Mara De Wachter

Sarah Pierce: Scene of the Myth

IMMA, Dublin

Juliet Jacques

Lee Lozano: Strike

Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin

Laura McLean-Ferris

Tom of Finland: Bold Journey

Kiasma, Helsinki

Adam Heardman

Chryssa & New York

Dia Chelsea, New York

Anthony Huffman

Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Jenny Wu

Artists in a Time of War

Castello di Rivoli, Turin

Max L Feldman

London Gallery Weekend

various venues

Paul Carey-Kent

Paris Round-up

Musée Picasso Paris • Palais de Tokyo • Giacometti Foundation

Virginia Whiles

José García Oliva, How May I Serve You?

Artists’ Books

José García Oliva: How May I Serve You?

Laura Bivolaru

Malik and Saadia are trained to adapt their accent depending on the location of the customer, but they cannot disclose where they are based. Mirrors are installed in their cubicles as a reminder to keep on smiling.

Heri Dono, Blooming in Arms, Modern Art Oxford, 1996

Books

David Elliot: Art & Trousers – Tradition and Modernity in Contemporary Asian Art

Melanie Pocock

David Elliot highlights the responsibility of curators towards artists upon their return to home countries, where – in the case of Indonesian artist Heri Dono – the fallout from an ‘incendiary’ presentation abroad can threaten their career and safety.

Marcel Broodthaers, La Pluie, 1969

Film

2023 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen

Adam Pugh

As the tenor of Maria Gilissen Broodthaers’ spirited commentary suggested, to look to the past is not to consult a closed book, but rather the opportunity to repopulate the present.

Lindsay Seers, No Money is Included, 2022, produced for ‘Frank – Fair Pay for Artists’

Reports

Artists’ Exploitation

Susan Jones

The root cause of artists’ poor social and economic status in the UK is the inherent friction between, on the one hand, the economic rationale and curatorial preferences of arts organisations and, on the other, artists’ guiding motivations for their practices.

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Venus of the Rags, 1967

Reports

Letter from Milan

Martin Holman

New ‘London money’ has helped double rental prices in Milan with the consequent widening gap between the rich in exclusive west-end districts and least affluent residents.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Endodrome, 2019

Reports

Letter from Luxembourg

Agnieszka Gratza

The economic, political and social stability which makes Luxembourg an attractive option for City of London firms looking to relocate somewhere in the EU post-Brexit, also, perhaps, makes the place seem a little boring and staid.

Andy Warhol’s Orange Prince portrait of the musician over Lynn Goldsmith’s original photograph, as reproduced in court documents

Artlaw

Warholisation

Henry Lydiate

In Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion, whether a work is transformative does not turn merely on the stated or perceived intent of the artist, nor on the meaning or impression that a critic or a judge draws from the work; otherwise, copyright law might recognise any alteration as transformative.