What’s on this month – Art Monthly newsletter

May 2021 art events and opportunities

Magazine Calendar Maps Podcasts Opportunities

Art Monthly Magazine

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Contents

Issue 446, May 2021

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Imran Perretta, the destructors, 2019

Feature

Against the Tide

Imran Perretta in conversation with Morgan Quaintance

I think this gets us back to a cultural shift that started under Margaret Thatcher and continued under austerity, that if you defund the public sector and erode the power of the unions, you push society into the hands of private interests and this seems to be where so many of the problems in the art world arise.


Art Monthly cover  

From the Back Catalogue
To Boycott or Not to Boycott?
Dave Beech asks the question
First published 2014 – now free online



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Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, No Need of Speech, 2018, installation view, ‘Fly In League With The Night’, Tate Britain

Feature

Contained: Exhibiting Blackness

Tom Denman argues that further colonial and racial violences are at play in the institutional framing of so-called post-race and post-black discourses in the US and the UK

There is, however, a deliberate reason for this strange insistence that Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s subjects materialise on the canvas by some kind of unmediated leap. As long as Yiadom-Boakye’s works are understood as having been produced in a vacuum, they can be contained as such, and the exigency of socio-political contextualisation can be ignored.

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Adrian Stimson, Shaman Exterminator Playing on the Playa, 2004

Feature

Local and Vocal

Ned McConnell considers how First Nation and other artists have revitalised the local as a site for global activism

Protest movements, such as NoDAPL and Idle No More, have the ability to alert a diverse range of people to the need to act. Their potency, however, lies in their focus on specific local issues.

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Yishay Garbasz, Footsteps (25), from ‘In My Mother’s Footsteps’, 2004–09

Profile

Yishay Garbasz

Juliet Jacques shows that the artist’s engagement with displacement, trauma and memory has particular resonance in the pandemic

Yishay Garbasz’s most recent projects partly spring from her personal experience of being rendered stateless while living in Berlin when Israel, the country of her birth, did not recognise her gender identity on her expired passport.

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Editorial

It’s alright, it’s OK

Never in the field of national government have so many moved so quickly to distance themselves from a document, in this case the Sewell Report into structural racism.

Against the background of the BLM movement, this latest report is intended to remove the grounds for anti-racism protests, while the draconian proposals to further clamp down on the right to demonstrate are intended to remove the means.

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Letters

Shooting Time?

Paul Carey-Kent questions Adam Heardman’s use of the term ‘radical’ in last month’s feature article

Adam Heardman designates a number of statements as ‘radical’. I’m not sure that any of them are, in fact, ‘radical’, and to categorise them thus is to give succour to the minority who would like them to be considered extreme positions.

Adam Heardman replies

I do not ‘designate’ the statements at the end of my article as ‘radical’, rather I point out that they have been designated ‘radical’ by a right-wing mainstream.

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Artnotes

Still Surviving

ACE announces its second tranche of grants from the government Culture Recovery Fund; recovery loans programmes show slow take-up; museums in England reopen this month; the pandemic’s impact on global museum audiences is revealed; the Serpentine Galleries quietly drop the disgraced Sackler name; the move for institutions to return looted Benin Bronzes picks up pace; Nicolas Bourriaud is forced out from MoCo by the new mayor; plus the latest on galleries, people, prizes and more.

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Ufuoma Essi, Bodies in Dissent, 2021
‘An Infinity of Traces’, Lisson Gallery

Exhibitions

Georges Adéagbo: La lumière qui fait le bonheur...

Mark Prince

An Infinity of Traces

Chloe Carroll

A Consideration of All Bodies

Gwen Burlington

Lorraine O’Grady: Both/And

Saim Demircan

Sue Williamson: Testimony

Hettie Judah

Lucy Gunning: In Passing

Cherry Smyth

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spread from Praneet Soi’s Anamorphosis

Artists’ Books

Praneet Soi: Anamorphosis

Kamayani Sharma

Anamorphosis’s conceit lies in drawing attention to visibility as a physical and political condition in the colonised lands of Palestine and Kashmir, as well as drawing attention to their people’s shared suffering.

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Ray Johnson collage from Frog Pond Splash

Books

Ray Johnson and William S Wilson: Frog Pond Splash

Greg Thomas

Trying to interpret Ray Johnson’s collage-works can feel a bit like sketching on the surface of water. It might respond for a moment to the pattern you’ve imposed, but soon that feeling of order gives way to a sense of impervious organic forces playing beneath.

Conversations on Violence: An Anthology

Jack Smurthwaite

To ask if the contemporary moment is an age of violence is to ask the wrong question. The correct questions, which this book does incredibly well to illustrate and strives towards, are: how can we view the scaffold that allows this violence to occur? Are there meaningful ways we can affect, resist and counter violence?

Nicolas Whybrow: Contemporary Art Biennials in Europe – The Work of Art in the Complex City

Chris Clarke

Nicolas Whybrow makes a strong claim for the ways in which local contexts – geographical, political, financial, architectural – have shaped the realisation and reception of his five selected case studies.

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intervention during Benjamin Patterson’s performance Paper Piece, 1960

Natilee Harren: Fluxus Forms

Marcia Reed: Fluxus Means Change

David Briers

Natilee Harren concludes that ‘the Fluxus artists’ most important contribution to the history of contemporary art lies in their adaptation of the score format as a model for all kinds of artistic production beyond musical performance’. It is this essentially musicological aspect of Harren’s book that sets it apart from any other analysis of the essence of Fluxus in recent years.

Excavate! The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall

Beth Bramich

Is the world of The Fall worth excavating? Yes. Can it be separated from its central protagonist? No. The editors use the fantastic analogy of The Fall as a hole punched through the world and move Mark E Smith out of the limelight to zoom out to the chaotic world around him.

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Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, Spit on Broom, 2019

Film

Essay Film Festival

Florence Woolley

These films, which arrive at the meeting point between experimental and documentary, construct meta-images that build upon discourses both in the world of cinema and the world in which cinema exists.

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Hardeep Sahota, Bhangra Lexicon, 2020

Online

Hardeep Sahota: Bhangra Lexicon

Virginia Whiles

Bhangra Lexicon is the world’s first ‘visual dictionary’ of movements found within this exuberant dance-drama, carefully compiled by World Bhangra Day founder and Huddersfield-based artist Hardeep Sahota.

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Heart of Glass, Running on Fumes, 2021, part of the High Street Heritage Programme

Reports

Future of the High Street

Denise Courcoux

The films, commissioned by Historic England with regional arts organisations, have been made by young people working with contemporary filmmakers, giving an insight into how this generation views their neighbourhood high streets.

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empty shop unit, Croydon, April 2021, photo by Matthew Noel-Tod

Reports

High Streets for All?

Matthew Noel-Tod

The success of property guardianships – essentially financialised squatting – in the toolkit of developers is rapidly expanding to temporary workspace use, as well as live-in guardianships. Witness here a rise in the opportunistic instrumentalisation of artists for the benefit of commercial property owners.

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Michael Craig-Martin, With Red Shoes, 2000, estimated at £60,000–£80,000, sold for £325,000

Salerooms

Lambs to the Slaughter

Colin Gleadell

The majority of works, though, sold below estimate, and some, best forgotten, for around the £100 mark. Charles Saatchi then sent another 20-plus works to the slaughter at Sotheby’s in early March, half of which were sold below estimates for as little as £500.

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Alvaro Barrington, Been around the world -2, 2018

Artlaw

Don’t You Trust Me?

Henry Lydiate

Artists and dealers rarely if ever discuss in public their professional business relationships. Much praise, therefore, is due to London-based artist Alvaro Barrington and his gallery dealer Sadie Coles for recently speaking publicly about the workings of their business relationship.

Art Monthly delivers hard copy to your door

May Day special offer

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Free Digital Subscription

Take out a print subscription before 14 May 2021 and you will also receive free online access to the entire Art Monthly back catalogue going back to 1976.

Two Minutes!


Whether you read the magazine, listen to the radio show, find opportunities in the newsletter or scan the exhibition and event listings, please take two minutes to help Art Monthly with a reader survey.

All responses are appreciated – and 100% anonymous!

Art Monthly Events

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Art Criticism and the Pandemic II: Safer Spaces

Thursday 5 May 1pm

Panel discussion devised by Chris McCormack for Art Monthly and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Stella Nyanzi (Scholar and Human Rights Activist)
Sria Chatterjee (Contributing Editor, British Art Studies)
Ariane Sutthavong (Independent Curator)
Isobel Harbison (Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London)

How might the tension between individual body control and collective health security during this current ‘disruption’ of the pandemic be constructed through a timeline of conflicting modernities and vaccination? Further, considering the global as one continually remade by colonial forces and extraction, how might histories of pandemics chart our understanding of the way state-craft narratives have made visible the infected, the sick or dangerous body through border control. How might these broader forces be manifested at a cultural and art institutional level, and how might art confront these forces of ‘progression’ or continue to trade in these values?

Price: Free
Venue: Online
Book tickets: Eventbrite

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Art Criticism and the Pandemic II: Wearing Out

Friday 6 May 1pm

Panel discussion devised by Chris McCormack for Art Monthly and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Leigh Claire Le Berge (Associate Professor of English, City University of New York)
Marc Aziz Michael (American University, Beirut)
Dante Micheaux (Poet)
Monica Narula and Jeebesh Bagchi (Raqs Media Collective)
Oreet Ashery (Associate Professor of Fine Art, Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford)
Jackson Davidow (Independent Researcher)

Under the violent normalisation of austerity, the pandemic has exacerbated conditions of increased work surveillance and precarity, deepening an awareness of the consequences of chronic exhaustion. The now commonplace discussion of contemporary fatigue, anxiety, and depression points us, as Lauren Berlant states, ‘to the way living also becomes a scene of the wearing out of life’. From caregivers to lives more at risk of infection through socioeconomic consequences of structural racism and underpayment, how might kinships ‘wear out’ together and apart, how might artworks play a part in redefining the public sphere or enable us to consider the interrelations of equity and collective care.

Price: Free
Venue: Online
Book tickets: Eventbrite

Art Monthly Calendar

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Guerrilla Girls, Wealth & Power, 2016
Art at a Time Like This

Selected Digital Resources

Many venues are focusing on digital programming during the Covid-19 pandemic. So instead of the usual list of events, here are links to some of these online artworks and resources.

Beacon_Transitions online from 9 July 2020

Responding to the uncertain future of exhibition culture, Beaconsfield invites artists to hold the space between physical and virtual sites in a new series of experimental commissions. With: Shahin Entezami, Andrew Pierre Hart, Monika Oechsler, Simon Tyszko & A.D. Crawforth
Beaconsfield
beaconsfield.ltd.uk

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Gallery Maps

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London and UK Gallery maps

Find the reopened shows with the Art Monthly gallery maps!


Podcasts

Art Monthly Talk Show

 

Art Monthly on the Radio

Art Monthly hosts a show to discuss the current issue at 8pm on the second Monday every month on Resonance 104.4 FM

On iTunes

The Art Monthly Talk Show is available as a podcast on iTunes – subscribe for free automatic downloads

Online

Audio recordings are available in the Events section of the Art Monthly website: www.artmonthly.co.uk/events

Opportunities

Jobs

Head of Communications and Marketing

ACAVA, London | 2 May
acava.org

Senior Registrar

Marlborough, London | 2 May
langeluddecke@marlboroughgallery.com

Sales Art Fair Coordinator

White Cube, London | 6 May
jobs@whitecube.com

Assistant Curator (Public Programming Lead)

Towner, Eastbourne | 7 May
townereastbourne.org.uk

Development Manager

Dulwich Picture Gallery, London | 7 May
dpg.art

Communications Manager

Invisible Dust, London | 8 May
invisibledust.com

Head of Operations

Conway Hall, London | 16 May
conwayhall.org.uk

Head of Programming

Battersea Arts Centre, London | 17 May
bac.org.uk

Trustees

Artsadmin, London | Rolling
artsadmin.co.uk


Competitions/Commissions

Freelands Award 2021

The sixth annual Freelands Award invites proposals from UK visual arts organisations outside of London for a £100,000 award to realise a forthcoming exhibition by a mid-career female artist who may not yet have received the acclaim or public recognition that her work deserves. This award includes a fee of £25,000 for the artist, who should produce significant new work for the show.
Freelands Foundation, London | 31 May
freelandsfoundation.co.uk

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Beyond 2

Film & Video Umbrella | 10 May
fvu.co.uk

Jerwood/Photoworks Award

Jerwood Arts | 12 May
jerwoodarts.org

Engagement and Activation Programme for Thamesmead

Thamesmead Now, London | 17 May
thamesmeadnow.org.uk

The Hopper Prize

The Hopper Prize | 18 May
hopperprize.org

Commission Opportunity

Artsdepot, London | 21 May
artsdepot.co.uk

Wells Art Contemporary

Wells Art Contemporary | 25 May
wac.artopps.co.uk

Lumen Prize

The Lumen Prize | 4 June
lumenprize.com


Residencies/Fellowships

Stanley Picker Fellowships in Design & Fine Art 2021

2 x £16,000 plus access to workshops & resources at Kingston School of Art to support a practice-based, innovative research project.
Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University | 21 Jun, 12 noon
stanleypickergallery.org

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The FLAMIN Fellowship

Film London | 4 May
filmlondon.org.uk

Producer Fellowship

Arts Admin, London | 7 May
artsadmin.co.uk

MA Live Art Forms

Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg | 15 Jun
www.adbk-nuernberg.de

Inverlonan Artists’ Retreats

Inverlonan | Rolling
www.inverlonan.com

ARC Getaways

Stockton Arts Centre | Rolling
arconline.co.uk


Studios

ACS Studio Prize 2021

Artists‘ Collecting Society, London | 30 June
acsstudioprize.com


Scholarships/Grants

Art Business Accelerator Grant

Artwork Archive | 14 May
artworkarchive.com

The Elephant Trust

The Elephant Trust | 27 Jun
elephanttrust.org.uk

Cement Fields: Development Support for Visual Artists

Cement Fields, University of Kent | 1 Oct
cementfields.org

The Weston Jerwood Creative Bursaries Programme

Jerwood Arts | 1 Mar 2022
jerwoodarts.org

Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants

Pollock-Krasner Foundation | Rolling
www.pkf.org

Black Artists Grant

Creative Debuts | Rolling
creativedebuts.co.uk


Exhibiting

Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2021

Trinity Buoy Wharf | 15 June
tbwdrawingprize.artopps.co.uk


Submissions: Send opportunities to opportunities@artmonthly.co.uk

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