B of Bruegel in Vienna and W of Warhol in Stockholm. Exhibitions which are worth travelling for in the next months.
B of Bruegel in Vienna and W of Warhol in Stockholm. Exhibitions which are worth travelling for in the next months.
A trip begins long before packing the suitcase. If you are thinking of visiting Europe in the next months, the autumn-winter season in museums is presenting a wide variety of exhibitions for the enjoyment of connoisseurs and amateurs alike.
This is my top 10 selection.
From 2nd October 2018 until 13th January 2019.
Curator: Sabine Pénot
Pieter Bruegel the Old, one of the greatest masters of the XVI century and the most important Dutch painter of this century, can be seen as never before – including special tickets for Friday evenings, with a guided tour and a glass of champagne-.
On the 450th anniversary of Bruegel’s death next year, the Museum of Art History of Vienna is presenting the first great world monographic exhibition of this artist. More than 75% of the renowned artworks of the Flemish painter will be exhibited, a really huge challenge taking into account that due to its fragility, most of the pieces travel on rare and few occasions. It is a great opportunity to see them all together. Two works stand out which have been restored for the occasion (a process which took 6 years): Dulle Griet (Crazy Meg) (circa 1562) which belongs to the Mayer van den Bergh Museum of Amberes and The Triumph of Death (1562-3) at “Museo Nacional del Prado” in Madrid.
An exhibition which deserves to be seen with time and in detail, Bruegel is the painter of details.
From 17th October 2018 until 6th January 2019
Curator: Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel
The Palais of Tokyo gave carte blanche to Tomás Saraceno, enough space to fully exhibit his artworks, which is always too little. If we think about pieces that are between architecture and installation, the art of this Argentinian goes a bit beyond. His work team comprises architects, philosophers, astrophysicists and spiders: Saraceno works crossing the disciplinary limits and finds in the air the perfect means for his projects. There he makes balloons float, he makes spiders work, he makes the audience participate as we walk and create a sound, music, which releases infinite dust particles that interact with the spider webs creating a whimsical design. The air becomes the protagonist and creates utopias, this is not smoke, gentlemen. I can assure you it is worth the experience.
From 29th September 2018 until 3rd February 2019
Curator: Kate Lowle and Katya Inozemtseva with Marie-Puck Broodthaers
The Belgian artist, poet and filmmaker Marcel Broodthaers is having his first individual exhibition in Russia, 42 years after his death, which is something that would make the artist himself, with his art and poetry laden with black humour, savour the irony of the situation at that time. He joined the Communist Party during the Second World War (he was expelled in 1951) and he negotiated between officers and a group of artists that were taking the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels by force in May 1968. Months later, Broodthaers created a fiction museum, an invention between culture and institutions. The Garage Museum (founded by Sasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich, the mega collector and Putin´s ally, and 11 other million Russians) gathered 80 artworks of the Belgian artist. These artworks have a strong surrealistic influence always winking at Marcel Duchamps and René Magritte, and they include objects from the 60’s, installations, films, poems and pieces from the fiction museum, which ironically opens 50 years later.
From 3rd October 2018 until 7th January, 2019
Curator: Alyce Mahon
This retrospective exhibit of Dorothea Tanning, takes us along seventy years of work in 150 artworks (all of them on loan as the “Reina Sofía” does not have any works by Tanning in its permanent collection). A surrealist that loved gothic novels, and Lewis Carroll’s stories, married the artist Marx Ernst and played chess with Marcel Duchamps.
The exhibition includes drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations (among which stands out Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 from 1970-73). She was brilliant among the surrealists, and she added a female touch to the movement and became a great influence on young generations of artists who continue discovering her ideas and written pieces of work.
Although she was considered one of the most important and versatile women artists in the XX century, she is the first to disagree with this statement: “Women artists: there is no such thing – or person. It is a contradiction in itself, just like “male artist” or “elephant artist” You can be a woman and you can be an artist; but the first is given by nature and the other is chosen by you”.
Museo Reina Sofía, Edifico Sabatini, Santa Isabel, 52, Madrid
From 1st October 2018 until 31st December 2019
Curator: Giorgio de Finis
The museum becomes a living organism, which hosts and connects. The idea is that art becomes an integral part of the city and its daily life. During more than a year, 250 artists will interact directly with the visitors (which will not pay an entrance fee), in a city where contemporary art has not permeated its inhabitants, who live (sometimes enjoying and sometimes suffering) surrounded by antiques and the master pieces of the Renaissance. Among the participating artists, you cannot miss Michelangelo Pistoletto, Daniel Buren and Wim Wenders.
You have to go feeling open to experiment, without the traditional exhibition schedule; every day there are surprise events, installations, performances and all kinds of art practice carried out in front of the visitors.
From 15th September 2018 until 17th February 2019
Curator: John Peter Nilsson
Andy Warhol would turn 90 this year, but the “Moderna Musset” celebrates an event which is specifically Swedish: the 50th anniversary of the first individual exhibition in Europe of the Pop art genius, which took place in this institution in Stockholm.
1968 was a turbulent year, in the world and in Warhol’s personal life, when somebody attempted to murder him, which would change his life and work. The political atmosphere was moving towards the left and it was foreseen that Warhol’s exhibition would raise strong criticism of the American propaganda. However, the opinions of the Swedish art critics were varied. “Warhol 1968” is an exhibition about an exhibition. This new exhibit includes iconic works of the artist, such as “Cajas Brillo” (1964) and “Mao” (1973).
From 11th October 2018 until 27th January 2019
Curator: Briony Fer
Key figure in the development of modern and contemporary textile art, through her artistic practice Anni Albers (1899-1994), modified the view people had of this discipline, reshaping the boundaries between art and design.
Her art work opened an alternative to conventional narratives of the history of textile art, offering a view of texture as a meeting point with pictorial, technological and architectural abstraction.
Hence her well known contributions to modern architects such as Walter Gropius and Phillip Johnson. The Tate exploits her anniversary – the artist would turn 100 years old in 2019 – and devotes 11 exhibition rooms to this German educated at Bauhaus.
It is a great opportunity to see her artwork at a small and at a large scale, and her influence on modern art and design.
From 9th September 2018 until 6th January 2019.
Curator: Devrim Bayar
The Flemish painter René Daniëls held a relevant position in the 70’s and 80’s when at the age of 37, his career is interrupted abruptly – because of a stroke – which disables him and stops him from working.
Inspired by one of the strange texts written by Daniëls, the exhibition “Fragment of an unfinished novel”, explores the phenomenon of déjà vu and the relation between perception and memory, topics on which his artistic practice is based on. His recurring patterns change shape according to a dream logic, just like a musician, developing variations on the topic. It turns out to be very interesting to observe his artworks together and how his own visual language was developed exploring these apparently opposed effects, of repetition and variation.
From 3rd October 2018 until 4th January 2019
Curator: Suzanne Pagé, Dieter Buchhart, Olivier Michelon
He died at the age of 27 and he was a painter for 7 years. A nameless piece – an oil painting showing the silhouette of a black skull with red and yellow hues, with enormous teeth that protrude between a blue background and graffiti – was auctioned at Sotheby’s last year for 110,5 million dollars. Basquiat embodies a story of talent, success and tragedy. 120 artworks can be seen at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, which cover his whole career.
The striking series “Cabezas” (from 1981-82) are exhibited together for the first time and some works made in collaboration with his friend and mentor, the Pop giant, Andy Warhol (never shown in Europe). The paintings are full of symbols against racism and inequality. One example is the word SOAP which appears on several works in reference to “whitening”, as well as COTTON which refers to slavery.
Basquiat’s artworks are related to the Expressionism, a modernist movement, but his keen sight, his sense of the culture of the times and his direct and painful way of showing the absence of artists belonging to the black race, quickly turned him into the “American Van Gogh”.
Do not miss the building of the Foundation, designed by Frank Gehry.
From 5th October 2018 until 6th January 2019.
Curator: Michael Kwakkelstein
Last but not least.
For the first time in Holland, a great exhibition of drawings from one of the greatest of the Renaissance. One more anniversary: in 2019 the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonard. Bearing in mind what we will see next year, this is a great beginning. Leonardo Da Vinci was the first Renaissance artist who “used” real people to represent biblical characters. The exhibition focuses on the expressiveness of the faces, by means of sketches which represent a wide range of human emotions. Among them, we find the most famous and dramatic version of The Last Supper and the Studies for the face of a young woman, known as Mona Lisa.
It is interesting to see how in many of his drawings, his genius captures the strongest and most grotesque features, unlike the typical angelic figures of his paintings.
By: Mercedes Sader
Mercedes studied curatorial studies and art criticism at Node Center for Curatorial Practices in Berlin and in Sotheby’s Institute of Art. She is a member of ICI (Independent Curators International), Film Producer and Director of Black Gallery, a contemporary art gallery, Pueblo Garzón, Uruguay
