Art Monthly 424: March 2019

Contents

Carey Young Palais de Justice 2017

Interview

Lawwoman

Carey Young interviewed by Maria Walsh

The London-based artist talks about law as an artistic medium, asks who has the power to define others, and gives tips on how to avoid security guards.

Could art expose the edges of law or a point where law seems to break down? I’m not a lawbreaker necessarily, but I’m interested in its margins and gaps.

Bas Jan Ader In search of the miraculous (One night in Los Angeles) 1973

Feature

In Between

Mark Prince explores ideas of space and place in art

Citing works by Lawrence Weiner, Bas Jan Ader and Marcel Broodthaers, and by painters Rene Daniëls and Raoul de Keyser, Prince maps the distances between history and geography, language and image, the real and the virtual.

Given the old antagonism between painting and Conceptual Art, it still needs pointing out that – unlike photography, film and the digital arts – they are the two ‘media’ best equipped to hold signs, visual and linguistic, at a critical remove, while keeping them in play.

Tom James and Alex Hartley The Clearing 2017

Feature

DIY • DIWO • DIA

Louise Ashcroft celebrates artists taking back control in precarious times

Recent political and economic turmoil has left the art sector straitened, but some artists see this as an opportunity to develop original approaches based on collaboration and support, forming new organisations from alternative art schools to community interest companies – it’s time to do it yourself, do it with others, do it anyway.

Many of today’s artist projects go a step further than the Occupy movement’s deconstruction of traditional politics with achievable, localised goals that respect artists’ responsibility to ‘keep it complex’.

Comment

Editorial

Enough!

Issues around access, representation and authority are to the fore today across old, new and social media, as illustrated by Carey Young’s focus on female judges in her recent film Palais de Justice. But while progress on such issues may be more visible in today’s networked world, this same hyperconnectivity also makes it painfully clear just how much further there is to go.

‘And the best thing about Alexa is that unlike my wife she doesn’t answer back.’ A slave bot that echoes her master’s voice, what’s not to like?

Artnotes

Jerwood Impasse

Jerwood Gallery in Hastings has been ordered to return 300 artworks to the Jerwood Foundation after a row over funding; Arnolfini in Bristol is to be a subsidiary of the University of the West of England; Lincoln’s Usher Gallery could lose its artworks and become a wedding venue; Hertfordshire County Council is auctioning 160 paintings from its collection; new research shows that only 3% of artists earn enough from their art to live comfortably and a third earn less than £1,000 per year; plus the latest news on galleries, appointments, prizes and more.

Obituaries

Susan Hiller 1940-2019

Richard Grayson

Jonas Mekas 1922-2019

Gilda Williams

Robert Ryman 1930-2019

John Slyce

Daria Martin Tonight the World 2019
on show at Barbican

Exhibitions

We are the people. Who are you?

Edel Assanti, London

David Barrett

Patricia L Boyd: Inter-

Reading International

Jack Smurthwaite

Ghislaine Leung: CONSTITUTION

Chisenhale Gallery, London

Joseph Constable

Christopher Kulendran Thomas: New Eelam – Bristol

Spike Island, Bristol

Lizzie Lloyd

Mark Fell: The Concept of Time is Intrinsically Incoherent

Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea

Matthew Bowman

Jack West: Last Man Standing

Castor, London

Martin Holman

Daria Martin: Tonight the World

Barbican, London

Amy Budd

The Range

Eastside Projects, Birmingham

Tom Emery

Snow Crash

IMT Gallery, London

Henry Broome

Ravioli Me Away: View from Behind the Futuristic Rose Trellis

Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge

Niki Russell

Morag Keil: Moarg Kiel

Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

Larne Abse Gogarty

Condo

various venues, London

Paul Carey-Kent

Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Possibilities for a Non-AlienatedLife

various venues

Virginia Whiles

Reviews

Books

Josephine Berry: Art and (Bare) Life – A Biopolitical Inquiry

Daniel Neofetou

Josephine berry ends her book on a resolute, if not quite optimistic, note. She insists that, in the face of its seeming total subsumption, autonomous art’s ‘wish for what is not willed, for errancy’ must still push forward.

Books

Jared Pappas-Kelley: Solvent Form – Art and Destruction

Michael Hampton

Jared pappas-kelley enlists destruction – through fire, theft, disappearance or design – as a critical reagent showing up previously hard-to- discern, internal or ‘solvent’ characteristics of all artworks.

Reviews

Film

Circa Projects & Giles Bailey: Festival of the Not

Adam Pugh

Truly an exemplar for equable, non-hierarchical models of organising and programming, the star and shadow is proof of the viability of those models in the face of the ‘no alternative’ imposed by dominant structures; the ‘not’ here rather an ‘or’.

Reports

Suzanne Lacy Code 33: Emergency, Clear the Air! 1999

Letter from Houston

Extra-Terrestial Investments

Astrid Korporaal

Houston doesn’t exactly have the contemporary arts pilgrimage kudos of New York or LA, but the pioneer space cowboy metaphor of discovery is a powerful one, if it can be directed towards open and ethical curiosity.

Conference

Transmediale

Lauren Velvick

These two instances of bringing the past to bear on current issues emphasised the idea that while technology advances, it is the ways that people relate to and behave towards each other that dominate its application.

Artlaw

Copyright

Digital Regulation

Henry Lydiate

The new rules will correct longstanding weaknesses and flaws in EU copyright laws and their enforcement – across borders – by ‘content creators’ (including visual artists, film directors, musicians, composers and writers) whose works have been economically exploited by global online platforms without appropriate permission from, or fair payment to, originators.

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.