Art Monthly 429: September 2019

Contents

Kathrin Bohm, I don’t want to make another project, 2019

Interview

Arteconomies

Kathrin Bohm interviewed by Ellen Mara De Wachter

The German-born, London-based artist who founded her own drinks company discusses developing a practice independent of institutions and the market, and the art of subverting the everyday.

I often choose formats that are recognisable as everyday structures, whether that is a drinks company or a school or a shop. That has to do with placing my work as a cultural practitioner on the same level as everybody else’s cultural production, but it also means that by practising those everyday models it becomes obvious, through practice, how you can subvert and change them.

Vipin Dhanurdharan’s community kitchen project, Kochi-Muziris Biennial, 2019

Feature

Decolonising the Canon

Virginia Whiles advocates an interdisciplinary approach to deconstructing the racist canon underlying western art-historical curricula

The evidence for the prosecution of a colonialist mindset lies in two charges: first, ‘attainment gaps affecting international students and students of colour’ and, second, ‘the under recruitment of students and staff of colour and the discrimination faced by those who enter the institution’.

Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Haus, 1987

Feature

Home Truths

Mark Prince explores the fictive nature of nationalist concepts about home and the sense of place

If critical distance is geographical, it may correspond to that between an individual’s sense of home – a viewpoint shaped by a past to which the individual has only memory’s partial access – and the nativist myth of a ‘homeland’, a transferable ideal. Both are fictions, whether of subjectivity transcending culture or vice-versa.

Carolyn Lazard, Support System (for Park, Tina and Bob), 2016

Profile

Carolyn Lazard

Giulia Smith discusses the Philadelphia-based artist’s political agenda, which centres on changing the institutional treatment of disability rather than merely representing it.

Traditionally, the art world understands illness through a romantic lens, with the struggling mind-body often seen as the ideal host for the tortured spirit of the genius. Lazard seeks to replace this tired mystique with a more politicised approach.

Comment

Editorial

1976 and All That

The September issue unveils a redesign for the magazine, the logo and layout bringing new ideas about readability and flow to the pages while nodding to the history of the magazine.

With the rise of the right and the erosion of freedoms, including freedom of speech, it is even more important to preserve such a space. The new layout provides an appropriate template, literally removing rules and opening up the spaces of the magazine to allow for the free flow of ideas.

Karsten Schubert Remembered

Karsten Schubert worked closely with Art Monthly, his Ridinghouse press publishing both volumes of Talking Art: Interviews with Artists.

What was so striking about working with Karsten was that once he had committed to a project, he saw it through. Such commitment is rare. He will be much missed.

Artnotes

Creativity! Culture!

ACE has published its draft strategy for 2020-30, dropping the word ‘art’ and focusing instead on creativity and culture; chancellor Sajid Javid has triggered a Spending Review examining government departmental spending this month, raising the spectre of cuts to ACE’s budget; the DCMS has a new culture secretary, Nicky Morgan; Birmingham City Council is implementing yet more cuts to its arts budget; artists withdraw from the Aichi Triennale in Japan in a row over censorship; arms manufacturer Warren Kanders finally resigns from the Whitney Museum board after months of protests; the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum come under more pressure over their links with BP; accessibility campaigners condemn projects by Jeremy Deller and Olafur Eliasson; plus the latest news on galleries, appointments, prizes and more.

Obituary

Ian Gardner 1944–2019

Peter Hujar, John Heys with Orange Breasts, 1983
on show at the Whitney Biennial

Exhibitions

Ljubljana Biennial: Crack Up – Crack Down

Various venues

Jamie Sutcliffe

Kiss My Genders

Hayward Gallery, London

Kathryn Lloyd

The Aerodrome

Ikon, Birmingham

Neil Zakiewicz

Monika Sosnowska

Modern Institute, Glasgow

Adam Heardman

Image Bank

KW, Berlin

Martin Herbert

New Order: Art, Product, Image 1976–1995

Sprüth Magers, London

BANK: Summa

Piper Keys, London

Jonathan P Watts

All His Ghosts Must Do My Bidding

Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge

Henry Broome

Aaron Williamson

Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester

Eleanor Roberts

Liam Fallon: Supersymmetry

Turnpike Gallery, Leigh

Tom Emery

Nicky Hirst: Algorithms

Exeter Phoenix

Martin Holman

Patrick Staff: The Prince of Homburg

DCA, Dundee

Conal McStravick

Jef Cornelis: TV Works 1960–80s

Goldsmiths CCA, London

Louisa Lee

Yorkshire Sculpture International

Henry Moore Institute, Leeds Art Gallery, The Hepworth Wakefield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Paul Carey-Kent

Reviews

Books

Nicholas Brown: Anatomy – The Social Ontology of Art Under Capitalism

Alexandra Hull

The most compelling and convincing argument is in his final chapter, ‘Modernism on TV’, in which Brown explores how the aestheticisation of genre is another strategy necessary for close interpretive analysis of the work of art.

Reports

‘Bicycle Thieves’ installation view at Para Site, Hong Kong

Letter from Hong Kong

Be A Free Radical

Stephanie Bailey

A neon light installed in one room of ‘Bicycle Thieves’ by Yunyu ‘Ayo’ Shih, in which the phrase ‘I’ll take care of you’ is written in English on one side and Chinese on the other, is fitting. Each script is based on the handwriting of Deng Xiaopeng and Margaret Thatcher – architects of the Basic Law, designed to safeguard Hong Kong’s ‘capitalist system and way of life’ in the 50 years following the 1997 handover.

Reports

Surveys

Art + Museum Transparency

Laura Harris

While union-busting is endemic to management in general, the tactic sits particularly uncomfortably in institutions that reap cultural capital from front-facing progressive politics.

Artlaw

Artist’s Resale Right

Sale or Resale?

Henry Lydiate

When is a sale a resale? The distinction and difference can be significant, because artists are not legally entitled to receive resale royalty payments when their works are sold for the first time in the professional art market.

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.