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A trifecta of shows on Felix Gonzalez-Torres to open in London, New York and Milan

by ANNY SHAW  |  28 January 2016
(via The Art Newspaper)

As the traditional role of the art dealer continues to be redefined, collaborations and joint exhibitions are becoming more commonplace. But three galleries are taking it a step further this spring when Hauser & Wirth in London will present a show of works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in conjunction with Andrea Rosen in New York and Massimo de Carlo in Milan.

The artists Roni Horn and Julie Ault are organising the three exhibitions; each will focus on an aspect of the Cuban-born American artist’s practice. The London leg (27 May-30 July 2016) will feature all of Gonzalez-Torres’s photographic puzzle works from 1991 as well as three other works created the same year. Four textual portraits will go on show at Andrea Rosen gallery, while three beaded curtains are among the works due to go on display at Massimo de Carlo gallery.

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epodium founder Andreas Backoefer on Jan Fabre

Andreas Backoefer:

Jan Fabre’s Insects:
on real Presence

Jan Fabre was born in the Belgian city of Antwerp in 1958 where he also later studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In the late seventies, while still very young, he created a furore with his solo performances, whose nature lay somewhere between theatre and art. For example, in his ‘money’ performances he set light to bundles of money collected from the audience and did drawings with the ashes. In 1984 he performed with De Macht der Theaterlijke Dwaasheden at the invitation of the Venice Biennale. This performance, which subsequently toured the world, is chronicled in every book on the history of contemporary theatre . In 1979 Fabre was invited to the documenta IX in Kassel (Germany).

Fabre integrates different animals with mythological connotations – like rabbits and owls – in his performances and many other art-projects such as films and sculptures. His ancestor was the famous entomologist Jean-Henry Fabre (1823-1915) and this explains Fabre’s obsessively interest in insectology. He has long pursued the idea of adding ‘a few pages to the history of insects’ without owing anything to scientific training. In his collages Fantasie – insecten – sculpturen (1979) he combines insect corpses with modern utensils as a plethora of surreal creatures: a winged spider, a beetle-pen, and a beetle-beer bottle opener. Another example is Metamorphoses (1993), a “mythological poem”, in which he draws the transformation process of all kinds of existing and imaginary insects. Since the early nineties Fabre ‘designs’ exhibitions with angels, for example Mur de la montée des anges (Wall of the Ascending Angels, 1993). The used materials are jewel beetles and iron wire. Fabre explains his preoccupation with beetles in an interview:

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Anselm Kiefer: ‚Art is difficult, it’s not entertainment‘

Celebrated German artist reflects on his work before opening of his biggest UK show, at White Cube gallery in London
(via the guardian)

Anselm Kiefer works on a grand scale. On Friday the artist will sign a contract to buy the Mülheim-Kärlich reactor, a decommissioned nuclear power station near Koblenz, Germany. And on the same day Kiefer, one of Germany’s most celebrated postwar artists, will attend the opening night of his biggest show ever in Britain, spread over 11,000 sq ft of the newly opened White Cube gallery in south London.

Kiefer’s art is deeply serious, dense with both esoteric symbolism and political meaning. The show, Il Mistero delle Cattedrali, takes its title from a 1926 book by Fulcanelli, a mysterious figure who practised alchemy, and contains monumental paintings and sculptures alluding to ideas from the philosopher’s stone to the second world war.

„Art is difficult,“ says the 66-year-old firmly. „It’s not entertainment. There are only a few people who can say something about art – it’s very restricted. When I see a new artist I give myself a lot of time to reflect and decide whether it’s art or not. Buying art is not understanding art.“

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